Bugle 179 – Playas gon play

This is a podcast from thebuglepodcast.com.

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, Buglers, and the toastiest of all possible welcomes to the new era of the Bugle.

We are still here, Buglers, in the post-Times Online era.

I am still Andy's ultimate.

I'm still in London, the city chosen to host both the 2012 Olympics and the grumbling about the 2012 Olympics.

And in New York City, USA, it's the Santa Claus of Satar himself, in that he gives you exactly what you ask for once a year.

It's John Oliver.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, buglers.

Andy, in the words of Braveheart, Freedom!

His cry of liberty shortly before being cut into pieces by the British and dying.

That is what this bugle is, Andy.

We're free.

No one can take our freedom from us.

And unless buglers help, we're going to die in pieces very soon.

The point is, we're in a brave new world.

The bugle has been raised in captivity, and this week, we're carrying it into the jungle in a special crate, lifting the front of the crate, and releasing the bugle into the wild, where it will either thrive or be dead by sundown and have vultures tearing its carcass to pieces by morning.

That's the law of the internet, Andy.

Only the fittest survive, the fittest and the cutest.

But I don't think either of us can bank on that last one working out for us.

Oh yeah, I'm afraid I've come up snake-eyes on that one.

Yeah, and we'll have more details on how you can help keep the bugle going later on in the show.

Andy, I've got a quick story for you.

On Wednesday night, I went to a Knicks game with my friend Wyatt, who happens to be African-American, and I'm entirely supportive of that choice.

And that is a detail that's going to become important later.

Anyway, we got offered changed in a lot of ways since you left this company.

We got offered tickets to the Knicks game where we could sit right up close and it was incredible.

We ended up sitting next to Biz Marquis who, as you know, Andy, is a famous old school hip-hop artist.

Oh, yeah.

With Spike Lee on the other side of us and right behind Cuba Gooding Jr.

And it was incidentally great to be sitting behind someone who's made even worse movies than I have.

Anyway, at one point, Wyatt got a little thoughtful.

I said, oh, what's up?

What's up, Wyatt?

And he turned to me and he said, said, I just realized that, present company included, every black person sitting down here has come with a white person wearing glasses.

And he was right, Andy.

I don't know what that spoke to, but the more you looked around, the truer that was.

And I laughed so hard, I nearly spit some hot dog onto Biz Marquis.

And you don't want to do that.

It's like he says in his song, Andy, oh, baby, you

spit hot dog on me.

And you've got some, on my friend.

Yes, you've got some on my friend.

Oh, baby, you.

Well, John, you've just launched the independent bugle era with some fat chops there, mate.

Biz Marquis, is he, I mean, has he sort of branched out from mostly doing stuff about Second World War German battleships?

Or is that pretty much all he raps about these days?

I just wish you were sitting next to him, Andy, and could have brought that up.

Yeah, it's a a shame.

Another time, another time.

So, this is Bugle 179.

We could have called it Bugle 2.1,

but if you think I'm doing myself out of the dance-themed intro to Bugle 180 next week, then you are more of a fool than you can possibly imagine.

Bugle 179 now means we've done the same number of bugles as demands issued by Bobby Fisher before agreeing to a rematch against little Boris Spassky.

Big chess showdown in the 70s.

Of course, the International Chess Federation agreed to, all apart from two of those 179 demands, at which point Fischer picked up his bishops and flounced off into total reclusivity.

Not the world's greatest negotiator, to be fair to the lad.

And we will be issuing our own list of demands to you, the buglers, later on in the show.

Keep it alive.

Keep it alive.

Top story this week: Wikipedia goes on strike.

What do we want?

Let me just check.

Let me just look that up.

Ah shit, I forgot Wikipedia's gone down.

I think it has something to do with the internet.

When do we want it?

I don't know.

Let me let me just check.

Ah, for f ⁇ sake.

I think it was soon, but I'm not sure.

Shit!

Andy, Wednesday must have been a very difficult day for you because Wikipedia went on strike and blacked out the entire site.

What did you do, Andy?

Had you prepared, had you printed out some pages of completely useless information to use like methadone to ease yourself through the withdrawal withdrawal symptoms?

Or did you just strap yourself into a chair and then stare into a fire and hope that you could somehow make out trivial facts in the patterns of the flames?

What's that one?

Oh, I think the flames say that Chris Akabusi had four middle names.

That's interesting.

What's that one?

Oh, I think those flames say that Almonds are actually a member of the peach family.

That's interesting too.

What's this one?

Oh, Deborah Winger was the voice of E.T.

That's it.

Oh, who am I kidding?

I've got to get back online now.

Well, John, I'm not not going to deny it was

a dark day it was a it was a difficult day it was a day when the search for truth and the search for falsehood alike both seemed destined to end in mutually assured destruction but I got through it and to help myself get through it I launched briefly on the Bugle Twitter feed Wifeipedia

in which I asked the Bugle's Twitter followers on the at hello buglers feed for questions for my wife to answer.

Now my wife at the moment was trying to do some work

and so Wikipedia very nearly destroyed my marriage.

And might have

seemed a well-meaning strike to you, Jimmy Wales.

But it brought havoc to the Zoltzmann household.

So what happened was Wikipedia and a host of other sites, including Reddit, Mozilla websites, Boing Boing, and I quote, the entire cheeseburger network,

which I believe is mainly pictures of cats, went dark, and that's not a joke, that's actually a fact.

Went dark on Wednesday to protest against proposed legislation in the US called called SOPA or the Stop Online Piracy Act as well as its counterpart the Protect IP Act or PIPA for short.

Oh

PIPA.

What have you done Pippa?

Or to be more accurate what are you proposing Pippa?

Naughty Pippa.

Naughty naughty PIPA.

SOPA is a complicated and deeply flawed bill in the long tradition of so many bills in DC, which in essence is designed to stop online piracy.

So stopping movie studios and music labels losing money by sites illegally streaming pirated copies.

But the problem is that that's very difficult to do and these bills are definitely not the way to try.

It's like trying to stop actual piracy by saying that no one is allowed to look at parrots anymore and arresting any online company that thinks about selling eye patches.

It's not going to solve the problem and it's going to be expensive and impossible to enforce.

It means that, basically, in a downloadable podcast like this, this, were I to sing unlicensed music, which I think we can agree and have already seen, I can occasionally do, like, for instance, if I were to burst into an impromptu blast of Bon Jovi, shut to the heart and you're to blame.

You give love.

What, Andy?

What does Bon Jovi give love?

A bad name!

A bad name.

I was also accused of giving my son a bad name.

Now, were that to happen, which obviously it didn't, then my mouth would have committed a crime and your ears would have committed a crime by hearing it and not just musically, but legally too.

Does that mean that your mouth and Bugler's ears could have been put on trial?

Well, I think so.

It's not entirely clear, but I think so.

In the broadest possible strokes, if the legislation passes, sites would be unable to link to any website suspected of copyright infringement, including sites like Wikipedia, Facebook, and Twitter.

The problem is that it's one of those situations that is both incredibly important and incredibly boring.

And

that can be tricky for people to get appropriately worked up about.

Proponents say that it protects copyrights and thus the incomes of those who produce copyrighted material.

And as an added benefit, John.

I mean, if it is passed, it could prevent films, for example, being illegally streamed around the world.

It could

actually save the world from

some of the worst excesses of the American movie industry.

I don't suppose you have any examples of that, do you, Andy?

Well, I don't know.

I would just refer buglers to your C V.

Ironically, you could look on John's Wikipedia page to see what this bill

could save the world from.

Supporters say that the target is actually illegal foreign sites, but the concept of what is foreign in an internet internet that doesn't actually physically exist is complicated the internet instead seems to live in the air or to quote the late senator Ted Stevens in a series of tubes and the consequences of the legislation would seriously harm a free and open internet as well as ushering in quite frightening new tools of censorship for international websites inside the US.

Now, opponents of the bill here in America say that the internet was built on the same principles as freedom that America was and it should be afforded the same rights, only presumably this time including black people as well.

They weren't clear about that last part.

A Harvard professor said that SOPA would, quote, undermine the openness and free exchange of information at the heart of the internet, and it would violate the First Amendment, to which Sopa's supporters replied, ooh.

And

the critics of

the bills have suggested that it could pretty much cripple the entire internet.

And we have to the internet is flawed, clearly, but it has proved both popular and useful, very much like horses used to be, but more so.

And this the internet has only helped popularize things like social networking, anti-social networking, because the internet has given more people more opportunities to tell each other that their mother's a horse than any other development since the invention of human speech.

Well, since Caxton and the printing press, and I know that's what he largely used it

for early on.

It's

popularized the sharing of knowledge and information and expertise across previously insurmountable geographical and political barriers.

It's also popularized the sharing of mindless drivel and breasts and penises and videos of cats unicycling into ponds.

So it's been a great advance and we have to protect it, John.

We have to protect the internet.

Otherwise, we might have to confront real life.

And having not really confronted that for a good decade now, I just don't think humanity can risk it.

That's too dangerous.

Now, during the blackout, Wikipedia was still technically accessible on mobile phones and smartphones.

And they then made it clear, Wikipedia, that their purpose wasn't to make it impossible to read Wikipedia, saying, It's okay for you to circumvent the blackout.

We just want to make sure that you see our message.

And that's a pretty polite way to go about protesting, isn't it?

Not screaming scab at people, merely saying, I completely understand your scab-like behavior, and I hope that you in turn can see the point that I'm trying to make here.

But with the 24-hour blackouts and then later the attacks on websites by anonymous after the mega-upload site was shut down by the feds,

are non-physical protests, Andy, going to be a new wave of the future?

Nerds, or to call them by another name, clever potential millionaires, sitting at home

wreaking havoc and withholding services without once having to get tear gassed by police.

I mean, unless Microsoft, somehow, that is, find a way of having a tear gas hole in the corner of your computer screen that can fire off a blast if it senses you're up to no good.

Well, they seem to have struggled to make the menus on Microsoft Word work efficiently, so I think that might be beyond their technological expertise.

Take that, Microsoft.

Zing.

What was wrong with how it was before?

The anti-piracy legislation has a number of high-profile supporters, including the chairman of News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch.

And I mean, the timing of this is highly suspicious, John.

This is it's starting to look very much like an anti-bugle measure.

Murdoch clearly sees us as the one that got away, or the one that he's probably never heard of and that he had to let go because he had to divert funding to more important core parts of his business, such as paying Jude Law, paying Jude Law's wife, paying John Prescott, paying the families of murder victims, paying,

I think I've made my point.

What are you going to do, Murdoch?

Fire us

presidential campaign update now, And sadly, we must all bid a fond farewell to the Rick Perry presidential campaign.

Rarely has a candidate flamed out so spectacularly after coming in so strong.

He truly looked more comfortable in a cowboy hat than out of one, which is a great quality in a cowboy and a slightly frightening one in a potential president.

He certainly looked more comfortable in a cowboy hat than in a televised debate, for example.

And he has uh withdrawn from the nominations race.

Perhaps I mean let's let's try and be generous here, perhaps because he realised that the whole process is a massive waste of time and money, a travesty of democracy and and an insult to the intelligence of all Americans, uh-huh, but also because things hadn't really been going too well for him since he forgot his own policies in the T V debate.

Perry said uh yesterday, uh I'm pulling out of the race and I would like instead to endorse um ah what what's his name?

Ah n n uh no you know the guy with the suspicious looking hair.

It doesn't look real, does it?

Ah, no, it's on the tip of my tongue.

You know, the chap who always does the funny Mexican accent in the green room before debates on bench 350 and has the increasingly stroppy collection of ex-wives?

Ah, no, no, no, it's gone.

Anyway, I'm supporting him.

It does seem more and more likely that the Republicans are going to get the candidate that almost none of them want, Mitt Romney.

And as you say, in a final desperate attempt to not have him, Rick Perry endorsed Newt Gingrich, who may have the only chance of beating Romney, despite the fact that Newt Gingrich has a lifetime of inexplicably successful horn doggery that keeps coming back to bite him.

Let me take you on a little stroll through his strangely high-profile sexual history.

Gingrich met his first wife at high school when she was one of his teachers.

So even at that age, he was living out the plot of a bad porn film.

He left her while she was getting treatment for cancer to be with his second wife, who he later left when she had multiple sclerosis, to be with his third wife, who could hardly complain if the cycle continues one day.

It's not clear exactly how he does this, and his only response to this history seems to basically be, players gone play.

Players gone play, people.

Now, the only solution to this sequence of events is that power must be an intense aphrodisiac, because the only other answer is that Newt Gingrich has a 14-inch penis.

And

I cannot believe in a god that would let something like that happen in the world.

Now, Gingrich has turned on the media after the various allegations concerning his marital life were published.

And he's accused the media of being vicious and has railed against the gratuitous negativity of the media coverage.

Meanwhile, in other American election news, last week, Newt Gingrich launched an attack advert against Mitt Romney, slamming his rival for the heinous crime of being able to speak a little bit of basic French.

Now, as the old saying goes, do not tease a tiger for being stripey if you're wearing a zebra print dressing gown.

It's absolutely amazing, this ad.

It's called The French Connection, and it features a clip of Romney talking in French from when he ran the Winter Olympics.

It's accompanied with a French accordion soundtrack.

And the ad says that Mr.

Romney is a, I quote, Massachusetts moderate who ran away from Ronald Reagan and the voiceover says Massachusetts moderate Mitt Romney he'll say anything to win anything and just like John Kerry he speaks French too

it's then later has a clip of Mitt Romney saying bonjour je mappel Mitt Romney which is not speaking French that is reading anything out of a basic phrase book.

Is that seriously a point of attack now?

I think it is, John.

We've talked talked about the mystifying shame that ex-candidate John Huntsman seemed to be forced to demonstrate in his very useful ability to speak Chinese.

And now this, it's bullshit, Andy.

Or as Mitt Romney would say, conerry.

It's electoral kryptonite.

The ability not to be entirely monolingual is, frankly, enough to destroy anyone.

And rightly so, John.

You know, when your country, America, bought Louisiana off the French, should also bought the right to completely ignore its language and everything it stands for.

When did people start getting mixed up between weaknesses and skills, Andy?

It's still early days in the 10-month festival of extravagantly funded mudslinging, grandstanding, and misinformation that is a presidential election.

And this is the second one I've really followed closely after we sort of covered

the last election on the bugle in its early days.

And to the uninitiated, it does look rather like a parade of wealthy lunatics, half-wits, and chances.

But it turns out it is, in fact, the greatest democracy in the world just doing democracy.

That's right.

And it does seem also that the Republican nomination battle seems to be a battle to convince voters that

you are the candidate who is most likely to legislate the USA back to the 19th century.

And it cannot be long before one of them advocates reintroducing smallpox.

Andy, to re-quote Newt Gingrich, players gone play.

And to redress the balance of this extremely anti-Gingrich piece, here are some facts about Mitt Romney to be used on a swift boat style attack advert.

Mitt Romney fought for the Viet Cong, although he says he only did so by accident on a single weekend in the early 1990s.

In his career as a vulture capitalist, Mitt Romney used to start every board meeting by saying, I love the smell of bankruptcy in the morning.

Mitt Romney wants to ban unicycling, custard pies, and all other forms of non-Republican clowning.

And Mitt Romney thinks that gay marriage should be compulsory.

At the recent rally in Wisconsin, he was filmed looking like he was thinking to himself, everyone should marry a gay at least once.

Other news now and the queen wants a boat.

She wants a boat.

Take a good hard look at her mother boat.

See, I've done it again, Andy.

We have no cover to sing that song under the sofa laws.

Everyone's ears are now fugitives.

Here's the story.

You are really running very dangerously close to losing your passport.

UK Education Secretary Michael Gove expressed his support last week for a new royal yacht to be presented to the Queen from the entire nation to mark her Diamond Jubilee.

It's estimated that a new 600-foot yacht would cost around £60 million.

So for an Education Secretary, Michael Gove might want to go back to school to learn a little more about basic numbers or at least the meaning of the word recession.

Gove has suggested the Happy Jubilee yacht,

although

doing so has slightly pissed people off at a time when the government are cutting their financial testicles off.

But also, I think more than this, John, it has spoiled the surprise.

Because if you're going to give a monarch a yacht, at least make it a surprise yacht.

And she's going to know all about it.

It's been in the papers now.

And also,

he kind of defended himself saying wouldn't it be entirely for the Queen it would be used as a as a for public functions and as a training yacht as well and not exclusively for the Queen's private use.

I guess that's fair enough because she's 85 now John and at her age when you're giving her a big present you want to give her something that's worth inheriting.

That's why I always used to give my granny a cricket bat for Christmas.

I think most people were planning to give the Queen, what we give her every year, Andy, our taxes and our feelings ranging all the way from disinterest to contempt.

Maybe gift-wrapped, probably not.

But as you say, Go said that the Queen's highly significant contribution to Britain and the Commonwealth should be recognised with a lasting legacy.

And

I think it has been, hasn't it?

Has it not been recognised in a lasting manner through the gigantic palace she lives in, a number of country estates, and the fact that her gradually aging face is on our coins and that she has a pointy gold hat?

What more does she need?

If we were to fund this boat with taxpayer money, it seems that the only fitting way to christen it symbolically would be for the Queen to take a bottle of very expensive, also taxpayer-funded champagne, walk up to the edge of the boat, then drink the champagne, then bend over and piss it all the way up the side of the hull.

I promise you, Andy, she would then shut up anyone complaining about how much it had cost.

They'd be forced to say, to be honest, I was against it, but after seeing that, it kind of feels like it was worth it at least she's being honest about how she feels about the nation I can't help but respect that that'll be the first time that had happened since the launch of uh HMS Knucklehead in 1843

certainly queen victoria's most controversial actors monarch

go said my suggestion would be a gift from the nation to her majesty but as you said the gift from the nation to her majesty is the nation of which she is queen.

How much more of a gift does she need?

And also, you know, when I look at the 85-year-old Queen John, what I think, what I think to myself is, what what she needs, what that lady needs is a 60 million pound yacht.

Because it's so hard getting presents for people who seem to have everything already.

I mean you'd think maybe I could get her a bicycle, but then she's probably already got a bicycle, you know, a teapot.

I imagine she's got lots of teapots.

We could give her a crown, but you know, she's got one crown and it's always best you try these things on first.

It's always very difficult buying clothes for women and you don't want to give her a crown and then her not to like it but feel obliged to wear it whenever she was out in public in front of the British people who'd given it to her and maybe we could give her some some underwear not not trashy stuff John classy classy lingerie made of gold and diamonds and sapphires of course and that's comfortable yeah I mean something to make her feel even more special than having been queen for 60 years and having her face on coins and banknotes already makes her feel it's difficult John does she need to be told how grateful the British public is for her her having the decency not to ever die for 60 years And my other concern with this, by making too much of a fuss about this, we're basically celebrating the fact that her father died young and enabled her to get on the throne before she was supposed to.

I just think that might

go down very badly.

The amazing thing is that when criticised by this, Michael Gove doubled down, saying, in spite and perhaps because of the austere times, the celebration should go beyond those of previous Jubilees and mark the greater achievement that the Diamond anniversary represents.

Events such as proms and the party at the palace organized for the diamond jubilee and street parties, although excellent, are transient.

It would be appropriate to do something that will mark the significance of this occasion with fitting ceremony.

So parties, crowns and ceremonies are not enough for her, Andy.

How ungrateful is this woman?

She started to come across like one of those spoilt teenage brats on MTV's My Sweet 16.

Oh, I hate it.

I wanted a Maybach, not a Ferrari.

I wish I'd never been born.

Thankfully, though, the British government seemed to have recognised this as a potential let-the-meat cake moment and have backed away from publicly funding the plan.

Prime Minister David Cameron's spokesman said that it would not be appropriate for public funds to be spent on a new yacht during times of economic hardship.

But the government would be supportive of private efforts to provide a new ship for the Queen.

So she can have a new yacht, Andy, as long as the money comes from private donors.

And that seems fair.

It is Greenwich high time for the queen to get sponsored i can't believe that we've ignored that revenue stream for so long right now she's a parasite on the state when with just a sprinkling of capitalism she she could become a highly profitable parasite instead all that commercial space on the side of her crown it's a canvas waiting to be painted with the logo of an international pharmaceuticals company You just need to look at her to see the revenue potential.

She should be walking around with your advert here embroidered across her arse.

Again.

This is how Britain becomes fiscally great once more, Andy.

We've stumbled upon the solution.

Queen Elizabeth I led Britain into battle.

Queen Elizabeth II should lead us into economic recovery.

Mr.

Gove said another thing.

He said the Diamond Jubilee must not be overshadowed by the Olympic Games.

Incorrect, Mr.

Gove.

It must be overshadowed by the Olympic Games.

Sport beats monarchy.

That does.

That is a fact.

It's like scissors, paper, stone.

That is an absolute rule.

Boris Johnson, London's Mayor, described the Jubilee as potentially more exciting than the Olympics.

Well, that's...

I mean,

that is not true, John.

Particularly, he was talking specifically, I think, about the flotilla of boats, a £10 million,

1,000-boat celebratory flotilla that will plink its way down the Thames to celebrate the Jubilee.

I mean, we have to be sure she definitely likes flotillas before we spend all that money on that.

I know Prince Philip doesn't really go for Mexican food, but maybe the Queen does.

But anyway, I'll digress.

But

if this flotilla is going to be more exciting than the Olympics, John.

then it is going to be worth watching because that is a flotilla that is going to be armed.

It's going to be one no-holes-barred battle of the boats in which there can only be one winner.

And I would happily pay double my current rate of taxes to see 1,000 boats trying to blow the shit out of each other on the Thames for public entertainment.

It's what this country wants.

It's what this country needs.

and more importantly, it's what this country wants.

You're right, that thousand boat flotilla does sound pretty good.

It's going to be on Sunday the 3rd of June and it will feature a seven mile long procession of Dunkirk little ships, historic vessels, steamboats and tugs and at its centre will be a royal barge decorated in red and gold carrying the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh.

The Queen is going to be strapped to the front of the barge with her arms spread wide like Cape Windslitting Titanic screaming, I'm King of the World!

Or at least I'm Queen of the Commonwealth Nations!

The flotilla will feature apparently 20,000 people on the water, travel under 14 bridges and take 90 minutes to pass any given point.

I tell you what Andy, this sounds a lot like an army because a procession can very quickly turn into an invasion and perhaps the Queen will suddenly bank left and lead the entire procession towards France.

This could be good, this.

I think that's how the Spanish Armada began.

Do you know what, Andy?

The more we talk about this, the more I'm actually starting to think this is a good thing.

Because think about the upsides.

Now that the yacht is private, she doesn't need to tone it down at all.

Now she can have the yacht that she wants deep down, rather than a yacht that deliberately doesn't look too flashy.

She can have a yacht with disco lights on the bottom, a caviar cannon that you can fire straight into your own face, something you can sail up alongside a Russian oil tycoon's yacht and make them feel embarrassed.

Now, it's worth noting as well that it is by no means clear if the Queen even wants a new yacht.

After all, she is, as you mentioned, in her mid-80s.

Her husband is 90 and was recently in hospital for heart disease.

But that's not the point, is it?

It's not up to her, Andy.

It's up to us.

And Britain needs this.

It's like that rule of dress for the job that you want, not the job that you have.

That's, for instance, why I always walk around dressed like a giant hot dog.

But that's not the point.

The same is true here, Andy.

Dress for the economy that you want, not the economy that you have.

We need a new yacht, something to project an image of ostentatious wealth to the rest of the world.

It's like the Queen is behaving like she's in a rap video.

Essentially, the Queen is our jar rule.

Italian arsehole news now!

And there was of course a terrible disaster this week when a cruise ship sank off the coast of Italy, but it is worth us pausing for a moment to acknowledge not just the tragedy, but the emergence of a new unmitigated dick bag in the form of the Italian captain of the ship.

Because it seems that Captain Schettino, the Berlusconi of the Seas, ran the ship aground after going off course to salute and wave at a friend of his that lived on a nearby island.

And if that wasn't enough to provide proof of his dick baggery, then he got into a lifeboat ahead of his passengers and there then emerged a spectacular phone conversation between him and a local official where they shouted at each other in the Italian manner, loudly and presumably with wild arm gesticulations.

I can only imagine from listening to the phone call that they were both wearing Bluetooth earpieces as they talked, because they both needed both of their hands to wave around to punctuate each point.

Well, you have to say that the invention of the hands-free kit is probably the single most important technological development in Italian history.

It really is an incredible piece of tape.

It's worth listening to.

The only way that the conversation could have been any more Italian was if Captain Schettino had been in the lifeboat and then paused their conversation to shout at an attractive woman swimming by.

Ciao,

hey, beautiful lady, where you go?

Where do you go?

Well, that is one of the other accusations against him that he was essentially doing that at the time that he was seen chatting to a beautiful lady on the bridge of the ship.

But I think, as you say, you mentioned he's the Berluscone of the season.

I think this is the thing, John.

This is, I mean, he has certainly done his bits for national stereotypes.

Let's give him that.

But this is learnt behaviour.

He has spent the last 10 years having a prime minister who has spent his time doing idiotically ludicrous things just to get attention and kicking about with hot chicks instead of doing his very important job properly.

So is it that surprising that the ship captains of Italy have started doing the same?

This is yet another thing that Berluscone has to answer for, John.

But there was another man who stepped up, Andy, because one of the things shouted by the heroes of this story, the official on the other end of that phone call, Gregorio DeFalco, has become so popular that t-shirts are now being sold across the country to celebrate it.

At one point, this Coast Guard shouted, Vada abordo catso, which loosely translated means get back on the boat for f ⁇ k's sake.

Come on.

That's good stuff, Andy.

One man questions your faith in Italian men and one man instantly restores it.

The conversation goes on with Captain Shittino saying that he can't get back on the boats because it's dark and he can't see anything.

To which Coast Guard DeFalco responds, so what do you want to do?

Go home, Shattino?

It's dark and you want to go home?

Go to the bow of the ship where the ladder is and tell me what needs to be done.

Listen, Shittino, perhaps you've saved yourself from the sea, but I will make you look very bad.

I will make you pay for this.

Damn it, go back on board for f's sake.

You might think, well, surely Shattino's behaviour can't get any worse, please.

Give this man some credit for deserving no credit whatsoever.

Because he told investigating magistrates in Graceto, on the Italian mainland, that he ended up in the lifeboat by accident because he fell into the lifeboat after tripping.

Yes, this is his defense.

He tripped and fell into the lifeboat.

His exact quote was, suddenly, since the ship was a 60 to 70 degree angle, I tripped and I ended up in one of the boats.

That's how I found myself there.

I mean, are we absolutely sure, Andy, that this captain isn't Silvio Berlusconi wearing a very elaborate captain costume?

Well, Silver, it's the kind of excuse that a man would come up with when he's turned up at A ⁇ E with his penis in a pineapple.

I slipped and fell.

And one final detail.

Andy, to formally induct this man into the Bugle Dick Baggery Hall of Fame.

A taxi driver who took him to a hotel on Saturday morning after the ship had crashed told a news agency that Captain Schittino had asked only where he could buy some socks.

Let's be clear, this man, Francesco Schittino, is now the standard by which other dick bags should be judged.

Another recording has suggested the ship's crew downplayed the emergency.

and said that they were investigating a blackout rather than that they had just smashed a f ⁇ ing great boat into a f ⁇ ing rock, which many believe would have been a more salient message to convey to the emergency services.

But I guess we're British, we can sympathise.

We're brought up not to make too much of a fuss about these things.

The same on the Titanic.

Don't worry about rescuing us.

We will just drown in peace.

Please don't go out of your way.

The Titanic, of course, went down in a similar fashion after Captain Smith was goaded by his buddies into a traditional scissors, paper, stone, nautical variant, ship volcano, iceberg.

Which iceberg since ship, volcano melts iceberg, and ship bungs up volcano

bugle feature section now and future of the bugle now as we said at the start of the show the bugle is now independent which means we can stick it to the man big time and the man we're sticking it to this week is 46 year old mike stray from nampwich cheshire

mike you loser what are you doing with your life pull yourself together your wife won't hang around forever while you restore that priceless 1985 ford Cortina.

Confront your issues, move on.

Now, we have not asked for much from you until now, Buglers, apart from a little corner of your MP3 players and your souls.

Although that, of course, was never made fully explicit.

And you're in the clear until episode 200, at which point you're ours for all eternity.

But we are asking for something from you now, and you can give us that something via the relaunched Bugle websites, thebuglepodcast.com, which is being relaunched imminently as we record.

should be up by Friday evening.

Krish, is that right?

I'm hoping so, yeah.

If the

technical team who did such a spectacularly successful job on the switchover maintain that form, the new website will be up.

And you will be able to donate to keep the bugle going on the new websites.

Times Online, of course, funded us until now.

And we need to find an alternative source of funding.

And that source of funding, Buglers, currently is you.

Now, we're not going to charge you for the bugle, but we're going to ask you to help keep going by donating via thebuglepodcast.com.

Think of it as a voluntary subscription, whatever you think the bugle is worth.

It might be nothing.

It might be £10 billion an episode.

Hopefully somewhere in between.

Maybe at the lower end rather than the higher end.

But if it works out, the Bugle will be here for all eternity.

subject to confirmation of the end dates of eternity and logistical issues.

And if you can chuck in your own personal phone hacking shimodle as well, so much the better.

It's the way we like to do things.

So, save the bugle, buglers, at thebuglepodcast.com.

Your emails now, and thank you very much for all the emails that you've continued to send into.

Info at thebuglepodcast.com, which is our new email address,

alerting us to the fact that the switchover had worked and with various offers of help and suggestions for how to keep it going.

And also for your regular room, as this came in on the subject, How I Save the Bugle from Joe in Rexburg, Idaho.

Dear Chris, Andy and John, in order of drawing power at the box office.

Is that ascending or descending?

I don't know.

I'll have to check my figures from my run at the Soho Theatre, 6th of February to the 11th of February, in London's leading comedic theatre spots.

I believe I saved the bugle, writes Joe.

Allow me to explain, I'm currently working as a professor of English.

I'm married.

I have one young daughter and another child on the way.

As I sat at the table to blow out the candles which adorned my birthday cake on Friday the 13th of January I pondered my birthday wish.

I could wish for job security.

I could wish for the health of my wife and unborn child.

I could wish for my children to grow up in a world where fewer nut jobs are in charge of entire countries.

These are all the sorts of wishes a mature adult might make.

But in a moment of inspiration, just before I blew out the candles, I thought, I sure would like the bugle to continue.

And lo, the next day when I listened to the January 13th episode of the bugle, my wish had come to pass.

Some might say that I wasted my birthday wish, but none of those people are listening to this right now, so their opinions opinions don't matter.

You're welcome, buglers.

You're welcome.

So thanks, Joe.

You've kept it going.

We also got a great email from Simon, who

under the subject line, loud and clear in Yemen.

He said, dear John and Andy, you requested feedback on the getting throughness of the new podcast.

I can confirm that it is being received loud and clear in Yemen.

It is indeed rattling the rampart of Ali Saleh's increasingly fragile tower as we speak or email and probably not when you're reading this if you read it at all, which we are.

So there you go Simon he says the times bugle is dead but the bugle is sound clouding once more hip hip and yeehaw cheers Simon who says PS I spent three years in Gaza followed by three years in Afghanistan two years in Yemen and I'm now off to Indonesia suggest you brush up on your Indonesian crisis info as my track record is not good

that's true PPS just because you're on a new site do not think that Chris is any less f you'd and I think that's an important point to make yeah

that just as the bugle has transferred transferred over, so has the fake animosity to Chris.

F ⁇ you, Chris, and thank you and f ⁇ k you.

Soundcloud, as mentioned in that email, they are hosting us now.

Thank you to them for that.

Their website is soundcloud.com and the bugle page is soundcloud.com slash the hyphen bugle.

And they also have an app that you can get and do stuff with.

Chris, have you got anything to add to that?

No, I haven't got anything to add to that, Andy.

All right.

You look like you were on the, you had an I've got something to add to that kind of face on.

Oh, really?

No, I've got nothing to say this week, really.

I'm just kind of preoccupied with getting everything done tonight.

Yeah.

All right.

That's very much better than the tone and voice of a man

behind whose eyes are the words, wrap this up.

So do keep your own mind

coming in to the info at thebuglepodcast.com.

Do follow the Bugle Twitter feed at Hello Buglers with updates on what's happening.

And don't forget thebuglepodcast.com websites where you can donate to save the bugle

sport now and well last year John England did not lose a single test match in cricket and they have begun this year by being utterly humiliated and it's got a kind of nostalgia value for a child of the 80s when I grew up you know and My childhood is basically measured by humiliating defeats for the England cricket team.

And for the last year when England have risen to world number one, I just haven't known who I am anymore.

Yeah.

So a lot of cricket pundits have slammed England for this, but I say, well done.

They've given this nation its identity back.

Yeah, that's right.

Return to that stability, that emotional anchor of disappointment in the cricket team that we can all pin our hopes on.

Due to security reasons, they've been playing Pakistan in Dubai.

And I think this is another reason for England's defeat, that they were just distracted by all the finging stupid buildings going on.

When it's very hard to focus on your cricket when in the background are billions and billions of pounds worth of completely empty skyscrapers and a vortex of the human soul.

You should move there.

American football and the Packers.

A bit of a choke by the Green Bay Packers, John, and that was

sad to see, particularly on the 75th anniversary of the legendary chicken play by the Green Bay Packers in their match against the San Francisco Knuckleheads, who later, of course, became the Oregon Lunatics.

Packers' quarterback, Stoof Paddaclaine, stood behind the line of scrimmage and clucked like a chicken before flapping around whilst his guards lay on the ground to form a nest around him.

The ball was then flipped back to him by Packer's centre Cootsy Van Schnauz, formerly of the Texas Vomiteers.

Paddocklane clucked extra loudly before, quotes, laying the egg

by sitting on the ball in his nest, whilst his offensive tackles blocked the defensive linemen before they could get into the nest and sack the brooding quarterback.

Pataclane then would give one final cluck as he hatched the egg before running back Jarvis Flink, who had been curled up underneath him in the nest, burst upwards like a newborn hatchling, staggering off in a decoy move to the left whilst Pataclain himself tucked the football under his arm and scuttled right, clucking.

The opposition were by this time so distracted by Flink's cute newborn chick routine that Pataclain could run in unopposed for the touchdown.

Flink, of course, went on to play with distinctions for the Denver Chuck Buckets, the Portland Porks, the Boston Flobs.

Whilst Pataclain, whose wife Muriel, of course, was the tight end for the Denver Dinner Ladies and later the Boston Barbaras and the New York Easterjets, He later became the GM of the Cincinnati Stupids.

Well, and I think what we can take away from that is that whilst the bugle has moved on, it has most emphatically not grown up.

I love support, John.

I know you do.

I know you do.

And that bit can be blamed on Jimmy Wells of Wikipedia.

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

Don't forget the new website imminently launched, thebuglepodcast.com.

Save the bugle, buglers.

And if you do, we'll be back next week.

Goodbye.

Save the bugle.

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.