Bugle 181 – A Knight’s Fail

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The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, Buglers, and welcome to issue 181 of the Bugle Audio Newspaper for a Visual World, now independent, but still basically the same bit like egypt after mubarak in a way with me andy zoltzmann in the olympic city of london we've heard a lot about these olympics now i want to see some action it's just all talk at the moment and in the city that never sleeps very well new york it's jackie joketime himself john oliver hello andy hello buglers and the human beings come in all shapes and sizes testify there isn't there is no one way that a person should look i think everyone with half a brain would agree to that however that said I met Brad Pitt on Wednesday night.

And I'm just not so sure about that anymore.

I do think that as a species, we may want to consider, at some point, later in his life, putting Brad Pitt out to stud.

Now, once he's done whatever he wants to do with his acting career, and it doesn't even have to be sexual, Andy, we can just put him on a farm somewhere with large open spaces so he can run around.

And each day we should try to extract as much sperm from him as possible.

Basically, milk Brad Pitt on an hourly basis and try to build a...

You know, I don't want to say super race, Andy, because that sounds bad, but you know what I mean.

I'm just saying, I don't think there is a gene pool in the world that would not benefit from having a liberal sprinkling of Brad Pitt in it.

Let me tell you just how attractive he is in person, Andy.

We have a lot of dogs in our office.

I think I've mentioned that before.

And after we finished his interview and started walking down the corridor, two of the dogs just automatically followed him.

It's like even the animal kingdom respects that level of handsome.

Well, I realise that I technically have someone who feeds and shelters me but i feel like i had to go live with that guy now are you sure are you sure that's because of what he looked like rather than the fact that he smelt like a rotting bone well and he absolutely did not smell like that handy i'll tell you what he smelt like he smelt like sweet salt handy

like a light sea breeze washing over you you don't feel wet you just feel refreshed and revitalized

he shook my hand and once he'd left and i'm not ashamed to say this andy i wiped my hand all over my face

It had to be worth a go.

There is a possibility that his handsomeness is so strong, it's contagious through contact.

Did you go in for a little peck on the cheek as well?

I did, but he leaned back.

British tradition.

You can't say no to that.

Maybe this is where all, you know, when you do set, you are starting to sound

dangerously right-wing with this talk of Brad Pitt-based eugenics.

Well, maybe this is where...

Hitler went wrong, you know, if only he'd used celebrities.

Right.

I mean, I think that would probably win the modern vote.

I think that could be depressingly true.

So this is for the week beginning Monday, the 6th of February, 2012.

It's an historic day, Buglers, not only because it marks the beginning on Monday of my six-night run at London's Soho Theatre.

Tickets still available, especially on Wednesday, but also because 234, yeah, it's Monday to Saturday, 9.30 start.

Probably be done by 10.45 if you're worried about getting the trade.

Anyway,

234 years ago, to the minute, John, France and America signed not one but two treaties together, providing America with crucial support during the war of flouncing off in a distinctly American huff, or as it's known in America, the War of Independence.

Crucial French supports from France and from French people speaking French words.

So, Newt Gingrich, just remember next time you put out an attack advert slagging off an opponent for being able to speak a bit of French, remember what France did for America.

If it wasn't for France, you'd all still be speaking English properly.

And it's also the 6th of every 60 years to the day since Queen Elizabeth, the Q unit,

Queen Elizabeth the hang on, was it one second, became Queen of the world, or at least queen of the important bits of the world, when her father, the professional monarch George VI, popped his unbelievably royal clogs.

And the queen was staying in a treehouse at the time, John.

Is that true?

Yeah, she was on Safari in Kenya, I think.

She was staying in a treehouse, and when she was told that she had become queen, her response was, I want to stay in my treehouse.

Sorry, ma'am, you can't.

You need to go home to Buckingham Palace.

But I like my treehouse.

Palace.

Treehouse.

Palace.

I'm queen.

I can do what I want.

Technically, you're not queen until you've belched in a palace.

What's a belch?

Doesn't matter, ma'am.

Goes back to William the Conqueror.

Come down from the treehouse.

Shan't.

You're not getting your crown until you come down.

Oh, alright, I'll come down.

Good luck waiting for your knighthood loser.

Will you help Philip get down?

He's scared of caterpillars.

And Bugle 181, of course, 181, by coincidence, what the Queen said on that very self-same day 60 years ago and asked whether or not she'd had any endangered rhinoceroses for lunch.

181.

Bit leathery TBH.

And as always, a section of the bugle, this great audio newspaper is going straight in the bin.

This week, a celebrity DIY section.

We tell you how good the celebrities would be at helping you plumb in a basin, rewire a broken lamp, or be a shelf.

Turns out Sylvester Stallone and Annette Benning both came out very well as shelves in our psychosymmetric tests.

Stallone, particularly for kitchen utensils, Benning for toiletries and first aid materials.

We tell you why Carrie Grant was known as the human spirit level, how to use Justin Bieber's head to put grout between bathroom tiles, and whether tennis player Monica Sellers or rock star Axel Rose would be better as wallpaper on a feature wall in your living room.

Plus, actress and humanitarian Rhys Witherspoon tearfully admits that she is so afraid of screwdrivers that whenever something needs repairing with a screwdriver, she just buys a new house.

All that's in the bin this week.

Top story this week, Syria story time.

Are you shifting uncomfortably?

Then I'll begin.

Now, you may not have heard much from Syria in the news over the last few weeks, but don't be mistaken, that's not because there's nothing happening there.

It's just that it's too f ⁇ ing dangerous for journalists to be there at the moment.

It's basically the opposite of nothing happening.

Everything seems to be happening there as the international community desperately tries to look the other way and turns up some music to try and drown out any of the bangs coming from Damascus.

But there may not be enough sand in the world for us to put our heads in for much longer.

The story so far is this.

Last March, when the Arab Spring started boinging around the region excitedly, people in Syria started looking around and saying to each other, hey, um...

This Assad guy that we've been living under for over a decade, does anyone else think he might be a bit of of a dick?

Then diving for cover as bullets started whizzing past their ears.

The UN estimates that more than 5,400 people have been killed since the unrest began with more than 100 this last Monday and 37 more last Tuesday alone.

Human rights groups say that more than 7,000 people have actually been killed and the UN replied by saying they actually stopped counting in January, explaining it was too difficult to confirm.

They might be confusing the word difficult with the word depressing there, Andy, but they'd be right either way.

And that is a bad sign.

When the UN stop counting the number of people being killed in your country, you, at the very least, are going to have a house price problem.

That is the best of your many substantial and immediate problems.

A lot of problems in terms of the international community's response to the Syrian problem, the fact that Russia

does not want to annoy Assad.

They don't want to force Assad to do the decent thing and take a bit of a break from treating his own country like an unwanted Christmas gerbil.

And the reason for this, John, is perhaps slightly influenced by having $4 billion worth of arms contracts on the go with Syria.

Now, John, as any good businessman will tell you, when you have a valued customer like that, you have to treat them with respect.

If they're having a little bit of trouble, you cut them some slack, whether that trouble is in their personal life, or financial trouble, or having a mass rebellion to deal with, and 7,000 civilian deaths to explain.

The customer is always right, John, particularly when that customer buys 10% of your global arms exports.

Yeah, that is basically the Russians' response.

The customer is always right.

And with the rate at which Syria is using weapons against itself, it's literally become a boom industry for the Ruskies.

Now, you might think, well, hold on, hold on.

Are the Russians not directly in contravention of the arms embargo to Syria?

To which the Russians would say two things.

One, shut the f ⁇ up.

Who asked you to open your f ⁇ ing face?

And two, they would argue, as they are, that they're simply fulfilling existing contracts, not signing any new ones.

See, Andy, they're just respecting contractual law.

They're just protecting their eBay seller rating.

They don't want Syria to give them a bag review and mess up their blemishless five-star average.

They don't want to read Syria writing online.

Very disappointing service.

We had an agreement for $550 million of fighter jets, but at the last minute, they refused to deliver them, citing some bullshit about what I might use them for.

Not recommended.

Avoid at all costs.

Thus far, the international community's response to Syria has been as decisive and dogmatic as a dog's response when asked to play snooker.

Confused, not fully understanding what it's supposed to be doing, held back by logistical concerns, unprepared to pose for pictures to make it look like it's actually doing something.

On Saturday, the Arab League announced that it was suspending its month-old monitoring mission inside Syria because it was getting too dangerous.

And again, Andy, that's not good.

When an organisation whose only job is to monitor violence violence flees the country because it got too violent, you may want to consider calling it the f ⁇ down a bit.

The UN, thankfully, as you mentioned, has stepped up with its normal speed and has leapt straight into action a mere 10 months after the trouble started and has decided to act decisively by talking about what they might do hypothetically if their talking proves successful.

So don't worry, Syria, help is on its way.

Because when the UN starts talking, they can get things done at the speed of light.

The speed of very slow, painfully dim light.

The Russian ambassador has described the United Nations negotiations as a roller coaster.

In other words, it ended up exactly where it started after lots of high-pitched shouting, at the end of which everyone felt a bit sick.

The sticking point was whether the Council should fully support the Arab plan

to basically encourage Assad to step aside, or whether they should simply note it.

And Western states wanted to fully support it.

Russia wanted to just note it.

So good one Russia.

Noting stuff has a fing illustrious history of stopping mass violence as Churchill would testify.

We will note them on the beaches.

We will note them in the hills.

We will note them on the notepads and the noteboards.

And we will never ever stop noting stuff.

We may start doodling if our mind gets distracted a bit.

The Security Council has been negotiating a resolution all week and has been unable to come to an agreement.

The wording of the statement has already been heavily watered down

in an attempt to overcome these Russian objections.

Russia does not like the resolution's proposed threat of, and I quote, further measures if Syria does not comply with demands.

I guess further measures just wasn't vague enough for the Russians, Andy.

They somehow wanted even less semantic specifics.

Maybe they need to come up with a brand new word in the English language that is completely devoid of any meaning whatsoever.

The Russian UN envoy said, we hope that the Council will come to consensus on the Syria issue as it is not only possible but also necessary.

Except the problem was that China then objected to that statement saying that possible and necessary were far too strong to use as words and that plausible and nice would be better.

A consensus would be plausible and nice.

Something watered down so much that at that point you're literally just drinking water.

In fact, the new proposed text that still has no agreement drops any explicit calls for President Assad to yield powers whatsoever.

In fact the wording that they've agreed on so far is this.

People of Syria, we want to help you, but we can't.

Except we can, but we won't.

But we'd like to, but not really.

We just need to reach an agreement, which we will, except we won't, because we can't.

Except we could, but we don't want to.

Except part of us does.

It's complicated, apart from the fact that it isn't.

But don't worry, except do, because things are terrible, except they'll be fine, apart from the fact that they won't be.

But it's okay, because it's not too bad.

Except it is.

The previous wording of the proposed resolution supported a transition to, and I quote, a democracy, a plural political system in which citizens are equal regardless of their affiliations or ethnicities or beliefs.

And amongst the co-sponsors of this proposed resolution were Saudi Arabia, where the word citizen means not a woman, and where citizens are equal provided that their affiliations do not include being affiliated to ovaries, their ethnicity does not involve coming from ladyland, and their beliefs do not involve believing that it is perfectly acceptable to have two X chromosomes.

So, ah, that's the wonderful world of international politics.

The British ambassador to the United Nations said, it is glaringly obvious that transferring weapons into a volatile and violent situation is irresponsible and will only fuel the bloodshed.

Before turning to his research assistants and saying, now are you absolutely sure that we, Britain, have never done anything like that?

Never?

Good, because the last thing I'd want to be called is a hypocrite.

Hang on, what are those people shouting at me?

Do I have a chucking hippo kit?

Well, I've got a big catapult.

Will that do?

US presidential campaign update now and the Florida primary took place on Tuesday.

And although Florida has a history of awkwardly close elections, there was absolutely no doubt about the winner this time.

It was the Storm and Moorman, Andy, Willard Mitt Romney.

The race had been close up to a week ago, but the only real debate afterwards was about how you would describe the crushing victory that he delivered.

I heard the result variously referred to on TV as a thumping, a roasting, a Dresden bombing.

That was a direct quote.

And CNN alone used the word shellacking five times.

And they were right to wear out their thesauruses, Andy, because it was a thrashing a pasting a pounding a spanking a flogging it was basically a dominatrix's entire service menu what I'm saying is Mitt Romney dripped hot wax onto Newt Gingrich's balls

in fact in fact Andy words alone do not get across the scale of this defeat images might demonstrate it better You may have seen the very popular YouTube video of a little girl at a zoo waving at a lion as the lion mauled the glass in front of her.

Well imagine if that glass wasn't there.

That little girl is Newt Gingrich's campaign.

Newt Gingrich's campaign is now a dead little girl inside a lion.

Does that help?

What I'm trying to say is Mitt Romney won Florida by 15 points.

And he seems to have cut loose as a result and started saying some pretty exciting things including I'm not concerned about the very poor.

Yes.

Which is a wonderful thing for a politician, so I guess, you know, from his point of view, they don't vote much, they don't pay much, and he's not allowed to shoot them anymore.

So um, you can understand that he's just not that fussed about them.

They don't really impinge on his personal space.

The result in Florida.

Just look at him, John.

Look at his hair.

He is a man who dreams about hunting and shooting poor people.

You cannot have hair like that and not have dreams like that.

The result in Florida was not really the shock, it was the tone.

92% of the ads in Florida were negative.

0.1% of the ads run by Romney in the last week were positive.

$16 million was spent in that state alone on ads.

And one particularly nasty ad ran more than 1700 times.

Holy shit, Andy.

Is it even safe for human beings to be exposed to that level of toxic campaigning?

Shouldn't all Florida voters have been provided with hazmat suits?

They should have been sitting at home watching the TV looking like those men that turned up to take E.T.

away.

It's extraordinary.

Romney spent, was it $6 million

and bought 13,000 ads targeting Gingrich?

Isn't democracy fun, John?

I think this is what the ancient Greeks had in mind when they kicked it all off.

It just shows that politics has moved on now.

It's not about who you know anymore.

It's about who you're prepared to call a and how expensively.

The journalist question mark Neil Cavuto said

the blood is so bad between Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, it will take five truckloads of flowers and then five truckloads of money to get them to even look at each other.

And that's all very well, Andy.

But what would it take for them to get them to make out with each other?

Six truckloads of flowers, nine truckloads of money, three bottles of wine, and a Fiona Apple C D

I can and will make all three of those things happen, Andy.

And if you do keep voluntarily subscribing to the Bugle on the Bugle webpage, thebuglepodcast.com, we will fund those nine truckloads of money, six truckloads of flowers.

I believe Gingrich already has the Fiona Apple C D.

So never never mind the candidates Andy, let's just spare a thought, all of us together now, for the people that really suffer during that campaign, the people of Florida.

It's hard to have sympathy for them, but let's try.

They've been seen over the last couple of days sitting naked, shivering at the bottom of a shower, scrubbing and scrubbling at themselves and unable to get clean.

Now, the upshot is that it looks like Mitt Romney is going to be the Republican nominee that no one, including the Republicans, seems to want.

But no one told that to Gingrich himself, whose speech after after the results were announced, was even by his standards completely delusional.

He was so confident afterwards, it was like someone had mistakenly told him that he'd won by 15 points rather than lost by it.

He never at one point

acknowledged losing during the speech and instead talked about what he'd do on his first day in power, saying, and I quote, there are a series of executive orders I can issue that Congress can't stop as long as they're within the law.

The very first executive order will abolish all the White House czars as of that moment.

We will issue immediately an executive order on the same day.

All of this is going to happen about two hours after the inaugural address, okay?

No point in hanging out and having fun.

Before we get to the various balls that night, we're going to have a work period.

This is going to be a working presidency.

And it suddenly hit me, Andy, he was talking like a 14-year-old girl who was planning her wedding.

There's going to be a big cake, but I'm not going to dance all the time because I need to say hello to people and then do photos afterwards.

So I'm going to dance for 15 minutes and then we'll have some speeches and then we'll cut the cake.

That sounds pretty much exactly like your wedding.

Well, what went wrong for Gingrich other than the fact that he looks like the kind of president who would definitely get invaded by aliens in a sci-fi film?

Maybe it was the fact that America realized that if he treats his country like he treats his wives, then halfway through 2014, he'd ask America if it minds him being president of Cuba as well.

Well, the biggest problem that Gingrich might face in making a comeback, though, isn't just numbers and facts, although neither of those are his friend at the moment, but it could be music, because he is currently being sued by Frank Sullivan of the band's Survivor Fame for using Eye of the Tiger as his entrance music.

Now, it's not clear why anyone on the Gingrich campaign thought that the Rocky theme was a suitable choice for him, as Rocky was not a particularly skilled boxer.

His main skill was the ability to get punched repeatedly in the face without passing out.

And I'm just not sure if that's a skill you want to project as a potential president.

Romney was criticised for being insensitive and clueless by the Democrats.

And it shows that maybe he's starting to work on things that could connect him with the core Republican voters.

That's really what they're looking for in their candidate.

But a final saviour may just have emerged for Newt Gingrich Andy because yesterday Donald Trump called a press conference to announce that he's endorsing Mitt Romney.

And that could be disastrous news for Romney because according to a Pew poll taken a few weeks ago, only 13% of Republican voters would be more inclined to support a candidate endorsed by Trump, while 20% would be less inclined.

So Trump is the inverse Midas, Andy.

Everything he touches turns to shit.

Spectacular, tacky, golden shit.

Of course, the history of attack advertising began in the Bible when Judas and Peter both slammed Jesus.

He slammed them back.

They ended up splitting the Jewish vote and losing the election to Barabbas.

Is that what happened?

I'm a little bit rough.

Romney fact box now.

And well, Andy, perhaps it's time for the world to take a quick look at the man who's likely to be the Republican nominee.

If feeling entitled to be president was all that counted, Mitt Romney would already be Commander-in-Chief, and he would have been so from about 12 years old.

He's a grotesquely wealthy man, having made up to $300 million as a venture capitalist, or to use that occupation's other name, a professional

potato potato he's dashingly handsome emotionally sterile and seems to possess a Dickensian contempt for the poor you really get the sense that he'd be truly happy walking through the streets of Victorian London wearing a top hat hitting street children with a stick and singing at the top of his voice

And his stump speeches over the coming year should be very interesting to watch.

If you don't know what a stump speech is, it's the backbone of American democracy.

If American democracy had suffered a massive spinal injury.

Stump speeches are like what you would get if you put the Gettysburg address through a sewage plant.

A series of well-meaning messages mangled beyond comprehension and covered in shit.

It's the process of condensing the complexities of an entire political campaign into 15 minutes of button-pushing sound bites that you can shout at people.

And an interesting side note is that if you put any candidate on a heart monitor, you'll see that during stump speeches, most candidates have no pulse.

They are literally dead inside.

And if Romney's campaign so far is anything to go by, this is the kind of thing that we can expect from his campaign commercials.

In terms of music, we're going to get something that you'd commonly hear in the background of a supermarket.

In terms of visuals, think of the soft focus and warm tones of very soft core pornography.

And know that at some point, Mitt Romney is going to be standing inexplicably in a field, wearing what else but a light blue button-down shirt, Andy, the most trusting shirt there is

and as for the most important thing that you're gonna see his entire campaign well I've got a helpful acronym to help you remember Andy F-L-A-G-S

F for flags they are the most important thing in a Romney commercial L is for listen I'm not kidding about the flags there are going to be a lot of them a is for American flags Chinese flags can go f themselves Andy they can go back to Russia where they came from G is for God

in flag form.

God loves flags, Andy, and he loves American flags.

Why else would he have made Chinese children to make them?

And S, seriously, there is going to be an almost sarcastic amount of flags.

Think about a number of flags that would actually be offensive and then remove one flag.

That's how many flags there's going to be.

You see, there's been quite a lot of

swearing in

this week's episode and quite a lively debate on the Bugle Twitter feed and the Facebook page over whether or not we should be bleeping out.

Swear was one of the great philosophical quandaries of the modern age.

Yeah,

I think the bleeping at the moment is there to save us from ourselves, Andy.

Some people are quite militantly against bleeping, whereas

others believe that it's actually an enhancer rather than a...

You know, it's like

quality lingerie.

It's it's more about

makes you more interested in what it's hiding

whatever they say the bleeps are staying

British morality news now and it's been another bad week for British morality today Chris Hume the government's energy minister has resigned to fight criminal charges for perverting the course of justice where of course politicians are supposed to perv over the course of justice oh justice

Oh, yeah.

And the England football captain John Terry has been stripped of the captaincy and will later in here face criminal charges for being a total and utter

for racially abusing another player.

And also, following prolonged public and media outcry about the knighthood he was given in 2004,

Fred Goodwin has been stripped of that knighthood.

It was originally awarded for, as far as I can make out, playing roulette unusually aggressively on a very big table with other people's money, or as was widely reported at the time, services to banking.

He's been stripped of this and instead awarded an MB for services to the British bandwagon industry.

And

it's a kind of depressing story.

It's three years since he was forced to step down as head of RBS, in which time

the media outcry has not really been that intense against him.

He's the man, for those of you don't know much about him, Fred the Shred Goodwin, single-handedly, without anyone at all helping him in the industry or in politics.

And in contradiction of the honourable spirit of an industry renowned for its its hyperscrupulous morality, he humped an entire bank off a cliff into a disused quarry.

He'd received his knighthood, John, in 2003 for his services to financial irresponsibility, which at the time was viewed as a sensible, patriotic, and responsible thing to do, but it turns out it was tragically none of these things.

And he joins a list of people who've had knighthoods removed, including honorary knights, Robert Mugabe, Nicolai Ceaușescu, and Benito Mussolini.

Which does does slightly raise a question, do our monarchs get f ⁇ ing hammered before doling out honorary knighthoods?

That's right.

The Queen annulled President Robert Mugabe's knighthood in 2008.

2008.

What did that man have to do to get his knighthood taken away, Andy?

Did Buckingham Palace want to be absolutely 100% sure that he was a platinum-grade arsehole?

Because they really gave him the benefit of the doubt for 14 years.

Mugabe got his knighthood in 94.

If the palace is guilty of anything, Andy, they're guilty of seeing the good in people too much.

Because as you mentioned, Ceaușescu and Mussolini were also stripped of honorary knighthoods.

Now, you might well ask, oh, hold on.

How in the name of the living f ⁇ did Ceausescu and Mussolini get given knighthoods in the first place?

Well, that's not the point.

The point is that we eventually did the right thing, albeit at the last possible moment.

Because Ceaușescu, who was given the knighthood, apparently in an attempt to improve relations within Europe during the Cold War had his knighthood pulled the day before his execution by a revolutionary firing squad the day before we really hung in there with that one Andy and as for Mussolini he lost his knighthood when Italy joined Nazi Germany in 1940 and declared war on the UK we waited until he physically declared war on us Andy when you put it in that context this banking power douche seems to have been quite hard done by

yeah

So what do we know about Fred Goodwin other than the fact that he is as evil as Benito Mussolini and Ceaușescu and Mugabe put together?

Well, his story begins way back in the mists of history when he and his brother were abandoned in the woods outside Rome and raised by a she-wolf.

Oh, hang on, no, that wasn't him.

That was footballer Francesco Totti.

But how did Goodwin turn from the son of a Scottish electrician who was the first person in his family to go to university and began his working life as a humble chartered accountant?

How did he turn into the British Robert Mugabe?

After moving into banking, he became known as Fred the Shred, partly because he couldn't say the word shed properly, which would have been cute if he'd been a child, but was less so as a senior financial executive, partly because he would duly end a cucumber with his bare hands at the start of board meetings just to show everyone who was boss, and partly because of his ruthlessness in imposing swingeing job losses.

Now, in Britain, this added to his unpopularity.

In America, well, he'd probably be the Republican presidential candidate.

He was known as a corporate Attila the Hun, which oddly is actually a compliment in high-level banking, if not as a doctor, husband, care home worker, golfer or lover.

And he soon became head of the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Unfortunately, on his first day at RBS, he was bitten by a radioactive greyhound and became addicted to gambling.

He started buying up all kinds of stuff, insurance companies, mortgage providers, bits of other banks, commemorative figurines of tennis champion Virginia Wade, Virginia Wade herself, literally anything at any price.

And Fred Goodwin drove RBS like a financial evil Knievel, trying to make it jump over an unprecedented row of other banks and over grand canyons of mathematical reality.

For a while, it worked.

The share price rose like Knievel's motorbike off the end of a ramp.

Profits and assets shot upwards.

Fred was unstoppable now.

He tried to buy the moon, Nancy Reagan's one remaining buttock, and most fatefully of all, the Dutch bank ABN Ambro, which turned out to be worth absolutely jack shit.

In technical terms, shit started to go down on the financial markets, and all of a sudden, it turned out that pretty much everything in the entire financial world was pretend.

Fred was left halfway across that grand canyon of maths, grimacing at the camera like the wily coyote of banking he'd always dreamed of being.

RBS made a record £24 billion loss.

The bank had to be bailed out by the UK taxpayer, and the share price, which had been bumped up from £4 to £17 whilst he was swinging his dick around in the good times, had plummeted back to £65 by the time that dick had finished shrivelling back up again.

Now, I'm not an economist, John, but I think those are the most appropriate terms.

But

it wasn't just the knighthood that he got, John.

He was voted Scotland's most powerful man four years in a row.

He won Businessman of the Year from Forbes magazine and European Banker of the Year in 2003, suggesting that quite a lot of people thought what he was doing was big and clever.

And since then, besides the ongoing squabbles about the size of his massive pension and his extramarital affairs, there has generally been an overwhelming sense that he has not said, whoops, sorry, quite as loudly or as often as he should have done.

And people increasingly felt that Fred Goodwin having a knighthood was something of an unwanted penis to the soul of Britain.

And I guess what it shows, John, is it highlights the folly of awarding knighthoods to people before you've allowed history to have any say on

whether or not what they've been doing is actually very clever or is clinically fing insane.

Incidentally, for those of you concerned about the denighting ceremony, what it involves is a disgraced knight being forced to attend Buckingham Palace dressed in a full suit of armour, which he's then forced to take off bit by bit in a shame-faced strip tease in front of the Queen's entire court, to the accompaniment of the Henry VIII pen song, I've I've Been a Very Naughty Boy, perhaps the B-side to Henry's early 16th century Smash Hit number one hit greensleeves.

When the knight has removed his armour, he's then forced to humiliate himself by standing in his wife runts and string vest in front of the Queen, saying a ceremonial whoops, I'm very sorry, ma'am, before the Queen reverses the knighting process by tapping him on both shoulders with a stale baguette, whilst the Lord Chancellor says in Latin, Hok pane longo, nagiro sex gidere potest, meaning she could cut your plums off with this long bit of bread.

Before the monarch hands the holy scepter to the Duke of Northumberland to administer the parting sceptre thwack in the nuts, a traditional as old as history itself.

Your emails now, and this one comes in from John the Emasculator Woodsman.

That is a tremendous wrestling name.

It sure is.

I would definitely pay to watch him wrestle.

On the subject, Orange Balls of Glory.

Now, what a film that would be.

To John, Andy, and Chris, in order of likelihood to invade Canada Canada again.

As a frequent follower of the bugle and a former member of the Canadian Department of National Defence, I just thought you should know a few things.

First, those stress balls you mentioned in last week's bugle are fing amazing.

This is especially true when you're a civilian working around a group of people that have the skills necessary to kill you with their bare hands.

Second, the Minister of National Defence that cancelled that shipment of orange stress balls also happened to be involved in a scandal that involved him ordering a military search and rescue helicopter to come and pick him up after a fishing trip.

It seems as though he was in too much of a hurry to take his chartered boat and instead decided that the option of taking a military helicopter was much more fing awesome.

The overall time you saved by taking the helicopter, two hours.

Total cost of the taxpayers, $16,000.

Lastly, I'd like to take another moment to lament the loss in those orange stress balls.

Seriously, those orange stress balls are the best thing to have on hand when your boss is taking fing stupid $16,000 joyrides.

Best regards, John the Emasculator woodsman.

John the Emasculator, wasn't he a kind of early fifth-century saint?

Saint John the Emasculator.

I think he was John the Baptist's dad, wasn't he?

You don't want to find out how he got that title.

That's all the emails we've got time for this week.

But do keep them coming in to info at thebuglepodcast.com or else and don't forget to have a look at the website thebuglepodcast.com.

Sport now, and well, John, it's the Super Bowl this weekend.

Yes.

The most American event known to mankind.

It doesn't get more yankified than that.

In fact, it's probably the most American event possible without digging up George Washington and Marilyn Monroe and making them take each other to a prom while drinking a ribs milkshake.

Both dressed as apple pies.

And of course there's a rematch of the 2008 final when the Giants shocked the Patriots in an ironic David V.

Goliath reversal.

What's going to happen this time?

Well, Andy, I think it's up to Tom Brady.

You know, if he decides he wants to throw a whole load of touchdowns, it's going to be hard to stop him.

But if he can't really be bothered to do that, then I think the Giants are going to win.

Right.

That's good.

It's like listening to ESPN radio, isn't it, Andy?

And have you got a stare steer on whether or not

he's going to be bothered?

Well, it'll just be how he feels when he wakes up in the morning.

It feels like it's one of those touchdown days.

So if you see him going out for

the first play, like checking his emails or something, then go big on the Giants.

Go big, yeah.

So that's it for this week's bugle.

Thank you for listening.

Don't forget to check out our page on SoundCloud, SoundCloud slash the hyphen bugle.

That's almost right.

Nearly right.

Soundcloud.com slash the

bugle.

Well, I just missed out the dot.

You've got to chuck a dot com in there, aren't you?

Andy Bottom.

I don't need to say that anymore.

By the time you've learnt it, SoundCloud will have fired us again.

We'll be back next week with Bugle 182.

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.