The 100th Episode

This is a podcast from the Times.

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, Buglers, and welcome to Bugle C.

Sorry, 100s.

My old classical roots coming out there went with a Roman numeral.

Yes, it's the ton-up for the big B unit, three figures on the boards.

It's the number that most closely replicates a tabloid newspaper headline reporting on the concerns held by the Count of Barcelona and father of the current Spanish king in the late 1930s about German military expansionism.

100.

Is that a bad way to start the year?

Wow.

100 bugles to get to that?

100.

100.

Oh.

Is this on?

I'm Andy Zaltom here in London, Britain, a country that appropriately enough for this historic centenary bugle occupies one of the top 100 places in the list of the world's greatest nations.

And with me for this 100th bugle, live in the city which, appropriately enough for this centenary bugle, has more than 100 inhabitants, New York.

It's John Oliver.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, Buglers.

We're back.

This is it, Andy.

Bugle 100.

They said it would never happen.

And when I say they, I mean statistics.

Statistics said this was hugely unlikely, Andy.

This has run longer than everything else we've ever done, added together and multiplied more times than I think either of us are comfortable with.

100 bugles.

Now, I think back to what I was like at Bugle 1, Andy, and I was a completely different person back then.

Crazy as it seems now, I was someone who had not only never been in a Hollywood motion picture, but was someone who hadn't even dreamt of maybe one day being in the worst movie of an entire 12-month period that would have been beyond the dreams of that man at Bugle 1 and I just don't recognize that person anymore and you're the same Andy at the first bugle you were someone who had never delivered a child onto this world let alone a child of your own now you're a self-taught midwife with on-the-job experience

Some learn midwifery from attending college Andy you do it by simply not getting into a car in time.

I've got a bug now.

Whenever I see a woman, I say, Can I deliver a baby for you?

Yeah.

What do you got in there?

And the world's changed too, Andy.

Yep.

When the bugle began, America had never had an African-American president.

Now it has 100% more African-American presidents than it had back then.

Also, before the bugle, or BB as it will become to known in history, Hussein Bolt was yet to run so fast that even the Pope under his breath would whisper, Wow, that guy is fast as

before frantically checking to see if anyone had heard him and then whispering to himself, well, you got lucky that time, Benny.

Let's substitute the word fudge in next time.

It's basically the same effect with significantly less risky trouble.

Now, B unit, let's get out there and let's bless the fudge out of that crowd.

But Tori, he gets away with these things because he says it all in Latin.

This is Bugle 100s.

It's been a while since last Bugle.

How's your Christmas and New Year, John?

Let's get formalities out of the way.

It was great, Andy.

It was very pleasant.

Thanks very much.

How about you?

Well, I made eight different jellies at New Year.

What?

Yep.

So hold on, let me guess.

Orange, lemon.

No, no.

Another orange.

Another lemon.

Nope.

Another lemon.

No.

What was it?

Well, John,

it was part of our annual New Year feast, which sadly you couldn't come to.

I made a range of jellies, including a bloody Mary jelly, roast beef and horseradish jelly.

What?

A pottage shrimps and nutmeg jelly.

Oh my god.

A couple of tea jellies, some espresso coffee jellies.

Were they nice?

They were sensational John.

Did you have a scoop of ice cream on the side?

No tooty fruity?

No way.

Well that was a missed opportunity wasn't it?

Did you make the jellies in the shape of a penis in a penis mold?

No I didn't John.

Oh that's

opportunity number two.

This is Bugle 100.

It's marvellous century by the Bugle with punching the air waving our bat at the crowd.

Sorry, that's a cricket reference.

Kissing the badge on our helmets.

That is definitely, definitely a cricket reference.

For the week beginning Monday, the 18th of January, 2010.

It's a new year.

It's a new decade.

I know what you're all thinking.

Holy living shit, it's 50 years since the 60s began.

It's also 125 years since the roller coaster was patented, paving the way for people to slake their elemental animalistic thirst for high-speed cornering without having to drive trains recklessly along mountain tracks.

So let's all accept the insatiable conveyor trudge of time and get on with it before it's too late.

But I know what you're also thinking, 100 bugles, that means there's now one bugle for each US senator, one bugle for each separate degree of Celsius you have to use if you want to turn a block of ice into a nice hot cup of tea, one bugle for each dollar you have to pay John if you see him in the street and want him to sing you a classic 80s rock ballad.

And enough bugles that as of next week, you will be able to keep an official list of your top 100 ever foolishes of the bugle without it being an entirely futile exercise.

And how many bugles have there actually been?

Because after all, the Hundred Years' War, that spanned 116 years, and the 100 days Napoleon's comeback gig in 1815, in reality, that lasted 111 days.

So I guess it's impossible to know how many bugles we've actually done.

This week saw my re-emergence as a force on the football field.

First football game, Andy, this Tuesday.

Great to get the first game under my belt.

Some solid touches, including a silky slide rule through ball that was spectacularly ballsed up by someone on my team.

I'll give myself a 6 out of 10 because I know there's lots more to come.

How many crucial tackles did you put in?

Two.

Really?

I'm going to give myself two out.

I'm just going to guess you're exaggerating that by two.

No, you're wrong about that.

Also, Andy, it excited you.

I met Ringo Starr this week.

Oh, did he?

You know, my family are from Liverpool, so it was quite an exciting moment, made strange by the fact that he was very worried for some reason about catching swine flu, so would say hello to people only by bumping elbows with them.

Now, personally, I think the next stage down from shaking hands is simply not shaking hands.

Maybe bumping fists at the outside.

But bumping elbows is not the next option.

That feels less like a greeting and more like a touchdown celebration.

It certainly wasn't how I ever expected meeting a Beatle.

In all the years of listening to their music, I never found myself speculating, oh, I wonder if one day I'll have the opportunity to bang my elbow into the elbow of one of these men.

It just goes to show how surprising life can be.

A while ago on the bugle, you had this thing with Ringo Starr's autograph.

Oh shit!

I forgot about that.

I believe I forgot about that.

He retired from autograph signing.

That's right.

And I didn't see him signing any autographs.

As always, some sections of the bugle going straight in the bin.

In the bin this week, the official bugle preview of the new decade.

Now, the 2000s, John, were not only the decade in which the human race finally had the courage to conceive, produce, and publish a song called Honky Tonk Badonka Donk.

Only took 3,000 odd years of civilization before.

But we were Atkins had courage to pluck up the balls and do that.

It's as much Trace being ready to record it as civilisation being ready to hear it.

Are you familiar with it, John?

I am, because you emailed it to me, Andy, and I have to ask my girlfriend, is this a joke?

She went, no, no, no.

That's a song, Honky-Donk, Badonka Donk.

What?

What?

Hold on.

You cannot be so flippant about it.

Shown to me by our friends Daniel and Gav.

And, you know, I think we should spread the word that a song like that exists.

Because, you know, in times of darkness, you have to think to yourself, you know, were all those wars for freedom worth fighting and now you hear honky-donk, badonka-donk.

Well, the Nazis would not have allowed that.

They would not have allowed it, you know, it was worth defending.

But also, more importantly, the 2000s were the deck in which the mobile phone at last replaced the fist fight as the most popular form of human communication.

But what's going to succeed that?

Today's mobile phones now control so much of our daily routines as to have rendered obsolete older second millennium lifestyle technologies such as the diary, the face-to-face conversation and the mother.

But what is going to re-revolutionise our already revolutionised lives in the next 10 years?

We will look at the wireless bath.

If you're stuck at work or on a train, no matter, the wireless bath with its GPS capability can detect where you are, link up wirelessly to the nearest source of water and drench you anywhere in the world.

May not work in desert regions, do not use if sensitive to extremes of heat or cold.

Also we'll look at the life worth assessment microchip.

Simply stitch the Betruth enabled LWAM chip into your skull for three days, then whack it into your PDA and wait for the reading which will determine if your life is worth living.

The LWAM can compute your intellect, social skills, natural luck and general prospects and conclude whether you will lead a happy life and realize your full human potential or whether you're likely to be generally miserable and unfulfilled.

Then it's up to you whether or not you act on its advice.

And also we look at the denialoid, a powerful mental steroid that enables your brain to deny that anything bad is looming.

Works for the environment, the economy, global population, sustainable food production and wolves in dark forests when your car has broken down on an isolated road and your boyfriend's gone to to look for help.

I think we now know that the answer to the question: Do you think the bugle will have matured

after 100 episodes?

is an emphatic nah.

For our 100th episode, we have a very special all-star bugle soundproof safe here in London featuring

all 47 vice presidents of the USA.

Oh, boy.

That's not a safe, honey.

That's a crypt.

A crypt with some very angry people demanding to be let out.

Top story this week: let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

And now let it stop snowing as the entire UK infrastructure is on the brink of collapse.

It's a little-known fact to anyone not from Britain that we do not get much snow in the UK.

We don't get it often, and when we do, we don't get it in large quantities.

In fact, there's a very thin line in Britain between one inch inch of snow and national state of emergency.

That's why our Christmas cards, for instance, have such shallow layers of snow on them because any thicker and that reindeer you're looking at would be getting winched off a roof by a rescue helicopter.

So how has it been over there, Andy, in the snow-drenched UK?

Well, John, it's been, I would probably think, like, the Blitz three times over.

Right.

Except with frozen water instead of German bombs.

Yeah, it's just been incredible scenes, John.

I mean, it's probably the toughest time this nation's ever been through.

But

we're starting to come out the other side.

Apparently, the near total shutdown across the UK over the last week or so has been costing it apparently £600 million a day.

Well, you know, on one hand, at least Britain can afford that.

But on the other hand, oh no, it very much can't afford that.

It's on the brink of financial meltdown.

You say that, John.

Well, that is only 10 quid ahead for the whole population.

And I think most people would chip in for that.

Okay.

Another day off work toboggoning down a hill on Granny's old World War II metal bloomers.

Set me up a standing order.

I now have a purpose in life.

The thing is, it's not really worth local governments investing in snowplows or any substantial snow clearing equipment as they're extremely expensive and it snows so infrequently.

So instead, we British people basically fight ice and snow by throwing salt at it.

We arm ourselves to the teeth with buckets of salt and take on one of the world's most idiosyncratic elements.

We've not evolved our snow war technique since medieval times and this snowstorm has been so bad that apparently Britain is running out of salt now.

We need salt back up.

Buglers, if you have any salt lying around your house, please send it to Andy as fast as you can to prevent him from having to live in an impromptu igloo.

This is impressive, John, for Britain, a nation entirely surrounded by the sea, to have run out of salt.

That shows quite how much we fail to give a shit about the prospect of bad weather.

There's some controversy though.

Apparently 30 councils spurned an offer last year of thousands of tons of de-icing salt at a very reduced price that they could have used on the roads this winter.

And British salt director David Stephen made this offer in April but had no takers.

Well you reap what you salt England because now he's a salt baron.

David Stephen is a salt warlord who if temperatures stay this low will probably be running the UK as a military leader this time next week.

The British salt director is to become the British salt dictator.

There's money to be made, John, in this, and not just in salt magnates, but also the company that specialises in replacement hips and other medical equipment has seen its share price go up

during the cold.

So people are just betting on old people falling over.

So the British response has been to sit at home going, there's going to be some grannies toppling.

And I don't want to miss out on this gravy trade.

So because most football matches were called off due to weather, people had to work out to bet on something.

So they bet on pensioners slipping.

That's right.

Well, there's nothing wrong with that.

And I think that's part of the reason why we have supposedly run out of salt.

I think it's probably some kind of cartel trying to artificially boost the share price of replacement hip manufacturing.

Has anyone checked, Andy, whether the employees of that company haven't been going out roaming the streets of England in the middle of the night just hosing down the pavements?

There's no way that the roads outside their offices are safe.

I bet they're a skid pam.

Britain has been accused of having an inadequate response to bad weather.

In fact, I've got an email from a comedian colleague of ours, Al Pitch, who now lives in Sweden, saying that in Sweden they've been struggling with the weather there.

It's been minus 38 degrees centigrade in places there.

And he said, one train has been delayed.

It's been a disaster.

So.

In Britain, a couple of inches of snow.

As you say, the entire nation stops.

And in certain places, it has been pretty bad, and people haven't been able to move.

But there have been various journalists and various newspapers saying, Well, I've managed to get myself to work, so why can't people who live in different parts of the country with different weather conditions get themselves to work?

We're a lazy country.

But not only has our response been inadequate, John, it's been massively juvenile, as you would expect.

And I would like to praise our bugle listeners for being in the forefront of this.

We have had no fewer than three pictures of gigantic snow penises emailed into us showing that even in times of crisis the British public will build a massive cock

Commission news now and the UK's Iraq war inquiry is up and running again like an athlete who fell over knows they're not going to win anything by finishing and so is seriously considering not bothering anymore and giving up and Tony Blair's ex-spokesman Alistair Campbell says he defends every single word of the 2002 dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

And if only he could have given British soldiers who served for him the same kind of fierce, unquestioning support that he gave the brave British words that served in that bullshit document.

There is a natural tendency when watching and or listening to Aleister Campbell to instinctively think, I'll tell you what, I'll just assume that the diametric opposite of what he just said is true.

And if you think this is unfair, Mary in mind this is a man who was described by economists in the Daily Telegraph as being an 18-carat shyster, which I think is a classic British understatement, if anything.

But anyway, if you think it's unfair to think that of Alastair Campbell, here's an excerpt from his recently published cookbook.

And this recipe is for toast with marmalade.

And the instructions are: take two slices of bread and soak them in a puddle of water.

Swap the jar of marmalade for a dead fox, then put the soggy bread in the fox's dead mouth.

Shoot it, then grate it straight into your mouth.

Voila, marmalade on toast.

He said that he provided presentational support on the Key Dossier, but at no stage did they try to beef up or override the judgments of the intelligence agencies.

Hold on.

Presentational support?

What the f does that mean?

Did he suggest a more aggressive font, or did he perhaps play Metallica's Enter the Sandman under the Foul Point presentation to pump the audience up a bit?

Exilate!

and tonight.

It would be effective.

Off to never, never learn.

That's how it goes.

100 quid.

Campbell was in charge of players' public relations, or as we like to call it when it's being done by someone we don't like, propaganda.

And he's been like a one-hit wonder trying to milk every last drop of success from that only decent song.

He has not been willing to change his tune.

In fact, he just played his tune louder and louder, and that tune was Je Jeune Regret Rienne.

Regret, of course, being a human condition of which Alastair Campbell is, by definition, incapable.

Now, to the untrained eye, it might have seemed that the unquestionable Balthazar of bullshit just sat there and bullshapped like an overeating minotaur simply by bullshitting that he had never bullshitted.

And that all the bullshit used to bullshit the public before the Iraq war was not bullshit, but merely horse piss.

And apparently Blair did say to Bush that Britain and America should try to take the non-military route, but that if it didn't work Britain would be there ready to strap on its Union Jack holster and ride into battle next to America.

So basically Blair encouraged Bush not to go straight in with military action but said that the option was always there, which is a bit like saying to a hungry lion, Right, you can eat that zebra steak, but I really think you sh should see if you can see down some salad first.

PR, of course, was invented, in fact, by Alastair Campbell's great-grandfather.

He was the press officer on the Titanic, and he sent out two telegrams in quick succession, one heralding the special relationship between oversized chips and icebergs, and the second shortly afterwards trumpeting the successful maiden voyage of the world's largest ever submarine.

Campbell's always been a divisive figure.

He published his diaries back in 2007, and there was a lot of interest, very long diaries, but there was a lot that he didn't include.

So I think that that theme has continued with his testimony to the Iraq inquiry.

And at the time, there was much more interest in what did not appear in the published version than what did.

In particular, I was very surprised by the omission of this entry from his diary.

I woke up this morning and realised that I'm a total.

Now, Now, he simply must have written it at some point, John.

He must have at least thought it.

I mean, I've thought it about myself, and I'm much less of a than that for Campbell.

Campbell also said that during the David Kelly affair, when the government scientist David Kelly committed suicide, that Campbell himself, he said that he had contemplated suicide as well, but as with so many of the best ideas of the Blair era, didn't quite see it through.

And if you think that's the only soul-crushing inquiry going on at the moment, then you are a naive little princess who is up long past her bedtime.

Because in the US, an independent commission similar to the 9-11 inquiry there you are.

That is that is your number one ranking chat-up line, isn't it?

Yeah, over two.

This independent commission is investigating the run-up to the banking crisis.

And that is another commission that I'm glad I'm not on because they must be fluctuating between deep boredom and pure undiluted rage.

They heard testimony this week that the banks and Fannie Mae recklessly took on as much as 95 times more risk than they could cover.

Those were some bold, high-rolling stakes they were playing with, Andy.

I guess it helps steady your nerves when you know you're not paying for the chips with your own money.

I hope at the very least that when they were making those deals, they were wearing tuxedos, smoking cigars, and flanked by beautiful women in cocktail dresses, sitting across the table from a man with a long scar across his face, holding a machine gun under the table.

But I fear that they actually did those deals typing numbers into a computer that had Dorito crumbs across the keyboard.

The Commission also heard that apparently Wall Street, and I quote, excels at pulling the wool over the eyes of the American people.

And the frustrating thing was, they didn't even need to do that.

Those eyes were already closed.

No wool was needed.

Nobody was watching.

That was a total waste of wool.

One of the most odious practices were the credit default swaps.

During the hearing, it was likened to selling a car with knowledge it had faulty brakes and then taking out an insurance policy on the buyer.

That is a definition of a win-win as far as they were concerned.

In fact the problem with that analogy is that immediately after it people were taking notes and I think the banks just thought oh that's a great idea.

I'm going to look into that as soon as I get back to the hotel.

The level of debt that has been incurred John is quite mind-boggling for us ordinary civilians.

You know the standard civilian rationale might think when you're in a hole you stop digging but the economic rationale has been to respond that's exactly what you don't do.

What you actually do is you keep on digging.

Because if a man is stuck in a two-foot hole, he looks like an incompetent lunatic.

If a man is stuck in a 500-foot hole, he's got the world's media gathered around him and Richard Branson sponsoring a special ladder to get him out.

So it is with debt.

If you're £2,000 in debt, big whoop.

If you're two trillion pounds in debt, the world is listening.

Heartbreaking disaster news now, and obviously, the earthquake in Haiti is a humanitarian crisis the likes of which it can be hard for the Western world to comprehend especially when it isn't trying particularly hard but the most reprehensible response so far came from Pat Robertson the famous American televangelist who said he believed that Haiti had been cursed due to their entering into a pact with the devil I'm just going to pause for a moment to allow those words to sink in and I'm now going to pause for another moment to allow you to slam your head into a table throw a cup across a wall, or put a saucepan on your head and scream, what the f ⁇ at the top of your voice.

What the f?

Okay, with that out of the way, let's try to continue.

Robertson went on to say, Haitians need to have a great turning to God, and out of this tragedy, I'm optimistic that something good may come.

Oh, that's good.

So this is actually a good thing, this earthquake.

I've been watching the news in horror when I should have been jealous of the Haitians at the good fortune that Pat Robertson guarantees is on its way to them.

If that is, they find Christ.

F you, Robertson, you unbelievable.

Now, John, I don't like plate tectonics.

I think they're total dicks.

But I like Pat Robertson even less.

As you said, he said some incredible things.

He said something happened a long time ago in Haiti.

People might not want to talk about it.

Sadly, Pat Robertson wasn't one of those people not wanting to talk about it.

Yes.

He said they were under the heel of the French.

You know, Napoleon III or whatever.

Now, Haitian independence was, I believe, in 1804.

Napoleon III of France at that point would have been aged.

Can you guess anyone?

Can you guess Pat Robertson?

He'd have been minus four.

Because he was born in 1808 and only came to power in 1852.

So, if you're going to spew this prejudice, at least let it be well informed.

He said, They got together and swore a pact to the devil, you say.

They said, we will serve you if you get us free from the French.

True story, says Robertson.

And he said it on a Christian TV station: Christianity, the religion of truth.

So it must be true.

And then he said, so the devil said, okay, it's a deal.

Now, were those the devil's exact words?

Because that would be unusually colloquial for early 19th-century dialects.

This theory that Haiti is a nation built on the back of a pact with the devil is based on what I believe the technical term is a steaming mound of bullshit.

Namely, that some Haitian voodoo priests sacrificed a pig and drank its blood in 1791 in order to secure Satan's aid in expelling the French occupation.

In return, the priests are said to have promised Haiti to Satan for the next 200 years.

The French were soon beaten back and in 1804, as you said, Haiti became an independent nation.

But even if this story is true, which it absolutely isn't, Satan's contract on Haiti would have expired in 1991.

So even if you do believe that story, which you fing shouldn't, Satan at the very least is in violation of the lease he signed.

But this is a fascinating thing.

So they got together together and swore a pact to the devil.

Now, I think another interpretation of this is that they got together and they happened to live on a tectonic fault.

Now, this is a fine line, John, and it's amazing how God and the devil seem to predict where evil people would live all those thousands and or millions of years ago when they sliced up the earth's crust with a jigsaw.

And they clearly thought Britain was a safe bet for everyone being good.

There's not a fault line in sight here, John.

As we know, a bit of snow is as bad as it gets.

So we have pretty much got carte blanche to do whatever the fk we want as a nation because God is going to struggle to whack back at us.

And we've accepted this blessing with humility and dignity and only ever done good for the world.

But what about another country without major fault lines?

Germany.

How many f volcanoes and tornadoes and other natural catastrophes do you see there?

Boy, did the big man call that one wrong.

As this transcript from 1943 proves, God, I really think we should call it an earthquake on Germany.

Germany?

Uh just remind me, uh, used to be Prussia.

Yep, got it.

Pointy hats, big sausages, and harpsichords.

Near enough, boss.

So what have they been up to?

Well, what haven't they been up to, boss?

I mean, it's really bad.

Really, really bad.

So if you could sign off on at least a seven-rating EQ, that would be grand.

No can do, Gabriel, me old mucker.

I didn't legislate for this one, I'm afraid.

I thought the sausages would keep them in line, so I didn't think of chucking much in the way of tectonics in, too.

Silly me.

Alright, any chance of a tidal wave?

Not really.

I haven't really got the geography for it.

Hurricane, fresh out, I'm afraid.

Ah, shucks.

Oh, well, I could just stick another one to the Bangladeshis or something, shall I?

If you must.

Yay!

So, back in Bugle 3, I think, from memory, John, every single word of every bugle is, of course, tattooed on the very core of my soul.

I suggested that when people claim that God is punishing humanity with natural disasters, and looking at where he sends these disasters, it suggests that God is racist, because he hates Africa clearly.

Asia, well down as God's favourite

continents list, and now it turns out he hates Haiti as well, and added that his supporters would then have to defend him by saying, Well, he's from a different generation, doesn't understand the issues.

And I think we can now add to that that Pat Robertson is not just from a different generation, he's probably from a different species.

And it also turns out that God is a vindictive racist as well, because Haiti is not only one of the world's poorest nations, but also suffered for decades under one of the 20th century's least pleasant regimes.

And there were some absolute hurricanes of in the 20th century.

All in all, Haiti has pulled a short straw in the lottery of life more often than most places.

So, when Robertson says that they made a pact with the devil, what he he means is that they overthrew slavery and white imperialist oppression by throwing out the French.

So, according to Robertson, God is very much pro-slavery and oppression, and the devil, somewhat out of character for the Lord of all evil, remains quite sceptical about them both.

Bugle feature now, and well, Andy, it's bugle hundreds.

It's celebration time, so I hope you don't mind.

But I rented a disco ball.

Fire up the tunes, Tom.

There we go, Andy.

It's a party.

I mean yes, it's awkward.

It's just us there, but you know, it's a party nonetheless.

It's but it's not really a party without a bit of this.

Holy shit, Andy!

I just love firing machine guns in the air.

Right, okay, let's let's stop the music.

Let's stop the you can't be trusted with the celebration, Andy.

Guess I've just got a bit of the Colombian in me.

It's a Pavlovian response.

When he hears disco music, he just starts unloading weapons into the air.

That's why Boney M don't tour anymore.

We've had some messages of congratulations and support from some fantastic people and we had a message congratulating us from Plasco Beresse who said congratulations chaps on getting to the big hundred.

I like to think that I played some role in getting you to that point.

You did Plasco.

You absolutely did.

And he goes on to say, I have to go now as the warden is calling for me.

I think he wants me to explain again how I threw away a promising football career by shooting myself in the leg in a nightclub while wearing sweatpants.

I don't know how many times I've tried to explain it to him, but he never seems fully able to absorb what I'm saying through his hysterical laughter.

Anyway, congratulations again, boys, your friend, Plax.

So, thanks very much, Plax and Cole, and hopefully you'll be out soon.

Now, this one, of course, we've reached 100, and in this country, John, when you reach 100, you get a telegram from the Queen.

Yes.

And we've got just that just arrived today from the Queen.

It says, Dear John and Andy, hard luck, Tom, but she's Queen of England, not Scotland.

Many congratulations on reaching your 100th episode.

Can't believe you've done it.

Of course, if you've been doing this show 500 years ago, I'd have chopped both your heads off if I'm so shaky.

I have put on the blog that we, at 100 in Britain, you get given a telegram, but I said the Queen's not going to be doing that considering all the randy comments you've made about her.

No, she's a stickler for tradition, hence those stupid gold hats she wears.

And she's all woman.

P.S., she writes, bear in mind that my mother popped her cloglets at 101, so enjoy this while you can.

Well, it's uh, I'm sorry that she brought her mother's death into that, Andy.

Very threatening, actually.

Yeah,

what a dark sense of humour Her Majesty has.

That's right.

This one came from Che Chaney, a novelty cabaret act from Leamington Spa, who simultaneously impersonates both Dick Cheney and Che Guevara.

Oh, really?

Anyway, he writes, Dear Bugle, well done on reaching your hundredth episode.

I have over the years found your opposition to the use of torture to squeeze a sweet confession out of a nice duty terror suspect to be quite irritating.

And I am appalled that you, John, choose to resign and work in the porky's belly of the great capitalist pig, you may say.

Nevertheless, well done.

Buenas noches, try not to shoot anyone and try not to get shot yourselves.

Love from Che Che.

Now, also, we have a couple of interviews as well coming up.

We spoke earlier with the American.

American Happy Hundredth episode.

We did it, everybody.

We did it.

Well, Andy, we did it.

And you know, I did it in you, you contributed.

I'm going to tell you this.

It's weird being, you know, that show Family Ties was a hit years ago.

Okay.

And they thought it was going to be about Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter Bernie.

That would be you and Andy, John.

Okay.

And then a guy,

then a guy came along named Michael J.

Fox.

He was just going to be a kid on the show.

They thought he'd be a side player.

And next thing you know, he kind of stole it.

And I'm not saying I stole this show, but I would say if this show was family ties, I would be Michael J.

Fox.

It's a direct implication.

And ironically enough, not only are you guys not Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter Bernie, you guys are more like, let's say, Justine Bateman and Tina Yothers.

An even more obscure reference.

So does that mean if the bugle turns into a film about a teenage werewolf basketball player, that's going to be you, American, not us?

Yeah, then no offense, but obviously, if it's a basketball player, it's going to be the American.

You know what I mean?

If it's a werewolf cricket player, God bless, have fun doing it.

But

as long as it's hoops,

that's my responsibility.

Oh, this historic Hundred Bugle.

Now that John has his green card, do you consider him to be an American?

No.

Oh, you were serious about that?

I mean, that was a serious question.

Yeah, here's the thing about the green card.

It's nice to have.

I respect it.

I think it's fantastic.

I think he's welcome to stay as long as they say he can.

Which is, I mean, with the green card, technically, as long as I wish.

Yeah, I'm not quite.

I have to look up the rules, but I'm pretty sure if like two or three real Americans vote you out.

In other words, you know, like if Jeff Propes doesn't give you a rose at the end of this rose ceremony, you have to to leave.

I'm pretty sure America isn't operating on the country club lines.

I think it's like kind of the rule of reality show.

It's basically the rules of the reality.

Like you and there's I think 25 other people with green cards and every week we check in and one of you gets voted off.

I mean by the way, that's not the rule.

It should be.

I'm going to check in.

I got a buddy of mine who's

a he works for the Parks Department, but I'm sure he's got some pull-up at the federal level.

Do you see me as more American though with a green card?

Yeah, a little bit more American.

You know, I mean, I've noticed just even in sitting here talking to you that when I first started, you were drinking tea.

Yes.

And now you're drinking coffee, which I think is a good sign.

I'm drinking coffee now.

Yeah, coffee.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, coffee.

Do you have grits in your coffee?

Yeah, John.

Is that right or wrong?

I sprinkled some grits in.

Yeah, you're not supposed to put grits in, but I'll tell you what does go good in coffee.

Heavy cream and a lot of sugar.

Oh, no.

Otherwise, it tastes a lot like coffee.

Well, American, thank you so much for commemorating this 100th episode with us.

And guys, thanks.

I mean, I really appreciate it.

Without you guys, I probably wouldn't have gotten that second jet ski.

Anytime you guys want to come out to my place and zip around the lake a little bit and have some fun, you're all invited.

All right.

I'll get you all green cards on me, right, guys?

All right.

God bless.

God bless.

100.

God bless.

Well, it's great to have him back on the show.

Well, it's lovely that he was involved in this celebration, Andy.

You wouldn't want it any other way.

And another very special interview with two people that you're all tangentially familiar with.

My own children.

So I'm joined on this very special occasion by my two children, Matilda and Horace.

Thank you for joining us.

It's a pleasure to have you on.

Matilda, you've just turned three now, so the bugle's been in the world nearly as long as you have.

As Daddy's special podcast reaches its 100th birthday, what impact would you say it's had?

A smoother world and better play.

That's some claim you've made.

What makes you say that as someone coming from a new generation?

Stephen, my variation,

hope before the future.

Oh, thanks, love.

That's really sweet of you to say so.

Have another slice of Serrano.

Yeah!

Now, looking at it in a historical perspective, Matilda, where would you say the bugle stands in the pantheon of human achievements?

It's the best thing anyhow

has ever done.

You really think so?

Most significant cultural achievement since Mozart!

The most significant cultural achievement since Mozart.

Yeah, that's a good point, too, Horace.

Now, speaking in Russian, Horace, would you agree with what Matilda said?

Well, we all seem to be colouring in the same page here, kids.

Now, Matilda, coming back to you.

Mummy for sandwiches.

Alright, Peaches, cork it.

The bugle has, as you you say, revolutionised the very way the world looks at itself.

But how has it changed everyday life, Shayz Oltzmann?

I was the Pavarati.

Would that some say our lives in peace?

Okay, okay, enough with the bad daddy guilt trip.

Now what about the future of the bugle?

I expect the bugle

to bring about

turn around to peace.

Well, I think we're all both expecting and assuming uh that will happen.

Yeah, now moving forward uh is there anything you think uh I should be doing to try to improve the bugle?

Yeah!

Use that bad beat,

Don Oliver.

Lose John!

Well, if you say so, the customer is always right.

But he has been uh in a movie, uh doesn't that count for something?

No.

It's taken by this.

Yeah, I think a lot of people thought that.

Okay, Horace, now, you've just had your first birthday.

If there was one noise in your increasing repertoire that could express what the bugle means to you, what would it be?

Well, that is typical of you in the one-year-old community, always oversimplifying things.

No, that's too little, too late.

Matilda, Horace, thank you very much for coming on the show.

Mummies were sandwiches.

Well, bully for you.

Ah!

What have I brought into the world?

Well, thank you, Matilda.

Thank you, Horace.

Totally unscripted, that.

You could tell.

So there you go.

This telegram, in fact, just has just come in, just this minute, as we record from Winston Churchill.

Wow.

Yeah.

That is a surprise on a number of levels.

He writes, Dear O'Dog and Zoltor, good raps for the big ton from Big WC with the big-fingered V.

Didn't think that was in his vocabulary.

I think his PA might have written it for him.

Right.

Anyway, he carries on.

Hearing you lampoon, debase, and trivialise the nation of Britain and by insinuation the rest of the world too makes me glow with pride that I bothered to fight that war with the naughty Germans.

So losers like you could have the freedom to divert yourselves with hogwash like this

instead of doing the kind of stuff I did when I was was a youngish man, such as disastrously ballsing up the Gallipoli campaign.

Still, you've got to be in it to win it or lose it.

And anyway, as my great auntie Terminata used to say, if you give people prime pavlova for pudding, they'll soon forget you gave them shark shit for starters.

So, despite being dead, I'd like to wish you the best of luck for the next hundred.

Sincerely, the winch.

Well, well, Winch, you were a bad peacetime Prime Minister.

Your emails now, and thank you very much for all the suggestions you've sent in for how we should celebrate the Bugle 100th.

In fact, what we've done to celebrate it is crap on even greater length than usual.

So we don't have time to do those emails now.

So there will be a special bugle email section next week.

In the meantime, do keep them flooding into thebugle at timesonline.co.uk.

Sport news now, and in the least surprising sport news of I'm going to go ahead and say the last 2,000 years Mark Maguire the unfeasibly enormous armed baseball player admitted to taking steroids and the strange thing about this was that I think people had assumed he was on steroids so much that when he finally admitted it it did come as some kind of surprise because I thought I thought we'd all agreed that you were cheating.

I hadn't realized that you were holding anything back.

He eventually said that he felt sorry that he had to play during the steroid era.

As if it's the era's fault and the as if the era injected it into his leg

on a weekly basis.

What a terrible, terrible attempt at an apology that was.

I'm the victim here.

I'm the victim.

I just got swept away in the era of doctors shooting steroids into my face.

This is, as confessions go, I guess, on a par with Rocky Marciano admitting having hit people in the face to gain an advantage during his boxing career.

Yeah, an unfair advantage as well, because he often hit opponents in the face far more than they hit him in the face.

It's cheat.

That whole era of boxing is now just covered in a cloud.

And in other sports, welcome addition to the catalogue of utter moronity emerging that seems to me on an almost daily basis from the world of professional American sports.

Yeah, that's because they're good.

They're good at it, Andy.

They put on a show.

This is the story of Gilbert Arenas that is brought to our attention by numerous bugle listeners.

I'm sure some of you are already aware of it.

This email came from Kerry Ahern in Temple Terrace, Florida, who writes, In the grand bugle tradition of highlighting athletes and guns, I'd like to nominate Gilbert Arenas to join the trifecta, nice word, of Delante West and Plaxico Beres, because I presume he only becomes a trifecta if he joins.

So is it already a bifector?

I don't know anyway.

Mr.

Arenas, a basketball player with the Washington Wizards, admitted to moving unloaded handguns from his house.

He said he was moving them because he didn't want them in his house with his children.

Admirable thought.

Good parenting.

That is good good parenting, Gilbert.

That is the kind of parenting I would expect from an NBA star.

That is the only thing he's guilty of here, Andy.

Good.

Good parenting and a firearms felony.

So he then moved them to the team locker room.

The story then changed to the guns being moved to the locker room as a prank on a fellow athlete after a contentious poker game.

Oh, that wacky Gilbert.

What a funny prank it was, pointing a gun at another human being.

As of this writing, Arenas has been suspended indefinitely from the Wizards.

The straw that broke the the Commissioner's back appeared to be a photo of Mr.

Arenas shooting finger guns at his teammates during a game.

What a way to show contrition.

And as an added irony, Kerry concludes the former name of the Washington Wizards, the Washington Bullets.

That's right.

One of the least sensitive names for a team in American history, that the Washington Bullets, representing Washington, D.C.

at a point when it was the murder capital of the world.

There were definitely other names it could have been called.

So that's it for the historic 100th Bugle.

So historic, in fact, that not only have the 100th birthday emails been held over till next week, but also the 100th birthday presents that we've all got for each other.

And for you, the bugle listeners, they've been held over till next week.

So our timekeeping is bang on the clock as ever.

Tom shaking his head like a man wishing he'd chosen a different career.

Thanks very much for listening, Buglers.

Have a lovely week.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

For the best in sport, comedy, science, and books, go to timesonline.co.uk/slash podcasts.

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.