Berlusconi takes a cathedral to the face

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, Buglers, and welcome to Bugle issue 99 for the week beginning Monday, the 21st of December, 2009, the shortest day of the year.

But we will bring light into that darkness.

Unless you're in the southern hemisphere, in which case, it's the longest day of the year, in which case we'll just exacerbate the light that's already there.

I'm Andy Zoltzmann in the snow-submerged city of London, buried under literally two centimeters of snow and ground to its characteristically shit British halt.

And in the tropical paradise of New York City, John the Hat Man, Oliver.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, buglers.

Well, you say that, Andy, but apparently there's two feet of snow coming here this weekend.

Really?

So, suck on that.

Today in London, I mean, there was, I mean, literally, it is the kind of blizzard that humanity's never really seen.

It was like an ice age, leaving two centimetres of snow on the ground.

Well, judge by...

There were about the same number of trains running today in London as there were during the last ice age.

So I can only equate it to that.

That's what it must have been like, those two centimetres of snow.

Well, the big news for me and for the world world this week Andy is that I may soon be able to play football again.

The show may be entering a team into a casual local league which would play early next year.

Obviously this is great news for me, even better news for football.

The problem is Andy that to be honest, hand on heart I've been talking a pretty big game here since I arrived.

And, you know, being European, there is also a certain assumption that I'm incredible.

Now, obviously, I'm excellent, but I wouldn't go so far as to call myself incredible.

Outstanding, yes.

Sublime, sure, occasionally, but incredible, that's for others to say.

Limited, I'd say.

No, I'll say that.

You should say, you shirk a challenge.

You know, you're usually knocked out of the game with a big early, big early hit.

Absolutely not true.

And when you add the spice of the US-England new founded World Cup rivalry, I think you're adding a whole extra dimension of pressure to this whole affair.

So this is the 99th full edition of the Bugle the World's longest running audio newspaper of a virtual world.

So long running in fact that I can no longer say those words without slightly slurring like Boris Yeltsin.

Who would have thought John 20 years ago that we'd be sitting here now recording the 99th Bugle?

Yeah, it definitely wouldn't be.

We wouldn't have been able to process having the capacity to do that technologically.

That's right.

Also,

I was 12.

Yep.

At the time, anyway, I didn't know you.

No, we never met, wouldn't we, for eight or ten years, I guess.

Also, at that point in my life, I was definitely considering a career as a footballer not a comedian right when I say considering I mean fantasizing about

sounds like you still are okay that is technically true you're just using the daily show as a stepping stone to become just whatever it takes

whatever it takes Andy so this is a historic bugle for a number of reasons of course.

It's the last ever two digit bugle.

The last bugle to take place in a year containing consecutive zeros for at least the next 90 years and two weeks.

The only ever bugle that will be recorded in the week of the 218th anniversary of the Bill of Rights becoming part of US law

on the 45th birthday of wrestling legend Stone Cold Steve Austin.

Also, the first ever bugle whose number sounds like a conversation in a Berlin cafe in which an English-speaking tourist tries to order a round of hot beverages for an Oxford boat race crew in their cocks, but is refused.

99!

Also, the first.

Oh, that's no way to say goodbye to double digits.

Also, the first bugle to contain either the word Zamponga,

or indeed any reference to any form of Italian bagpipe variants.

That's what the Zamponga is.

I like to think this is an educational podcast.

I keep thinking that.

Or to contain reference to the chemical element hafnium, the cheeky little tetravalent transition metal with an atomic number of 72, used in the production of control rods for nuclear reactors, which was, of course, named after the Cleveland Indians baseball player Travis Hafner.

Sorry, I've drifted away again.

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

This week, the first in a series of free Bugle Christmas threats.

Intimidate friend and foe alike with our seasonal provocation, scientifically proven to be 50% more disquieting than the average threat.

And here is a number one threat.

I will summon the vengeful furies of the underworld to pursue you during your every waking moment until the prospect of death seems a blessed relief from the abominable strafing of those unconquerable beasts, who will stop at naught until they taste your warm blood on their cornflakes of hatred, whose very existence is concerned with nothing but your total destruction, who will not rest their vengeful limbs until you have been cast into a chasm of nothingness, if you don't stop singing those carols.

Come on, shoe, clear off, and you're not getting a finger's pie.

Also in the bin, does Britain have a future?

In the week in which Londoners grounds to a halt, two to two centimetres of snow, and in which 19 million people watch the final of the amateur karaoke competition, the X-Factor, we ask, was the sacrifice our forefathers made in two world wars really worth the effort?

Top story this week?

Well, Andy, there's only one story we can go with.

Yes, Copenhagen seems to have stalled.

Yes, the war in Afghanistan rages on.

Yes, healthcare in America seems to be taking steps backwards rather than forwards, but all that pales into insignificance when placed next to this.

Silvio Berlusconi being punched in the face news now!

Did I dream this, Andy?

Did this really happen?

Did someone really punch Silvio Berlusconi in the face with a ceramic ornamental cathedral?

Am I in a coma, Andy?

Was I hit on the head and have I been hallucinating the last few days?

Or did someone really hit Silvio Berlusconi in in the face with a small pottery cathedral?

I don't think he punched him in the face with it.

I think they threw it at him.

But it was definitely hanging.

Yeah,

it only just left contact with the guy's hand though.

The extraordinary thing about this story, John, is that when you first heard the words Silvio Berlusconi has been smashed in the face with a small reptila of Milan Cathedral, you just weren't that surprised.

I mean, any other world leader, any other person in the world being smashed in the face with a small reptilian of Milan Cathedral, you'd have thought, well, that's crazy.

What on earth happened?

How did that come to pass?

But with Berlusconi you thought, I bet they did.

In fact the surprising thing for me John is it's taken 73 years for someone to smash Silvio Berlusconi in the face with a replica of Milan Cathedral.

And

some say they see God in a rainbow

or in a child's smile or that they look at the Grand Canyon and think a higher power must have done this.

For me I see it in this story and I tell you what would have been really weird and that's if anyone at the exact moment that that happened was experiencing a moment of religious doubt, a crisis of faith, and who looked to the heavens like George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life whispering, give me a sign, Lord.

Just give me a sign.

And who then turned on the news to hear, Silvio Berlusconi was hit in the face by a ceramic cathedral.

They must have dropped to their knees and said, Thank you, Lord.

I have seen your face.

Now I am a believer.

But what I want to know, John, and what hasn't been reported in the press, is at that exact moment, what was happening in the real Milan Cathedral?

Was everyone there just enveloped by a glorious rapture?

As it turned out, this was in fact a voodoo Milan Cathedral.

A great light shined upon it.

Obviously, Andy, you cannot condone an action like this happening.

There's no excuse for violence.

But the problem is, this is very funny.

Now, for instance, I broke my nose while filming something for the Daily Show when I first got here.

I was the first to say it was funny.

We used it on the show because it was funny.

Silvio has a responsibility now, a human responsibility to sack up and do the same of it.

That yes, while it hurt, it was undeniably, irrefutably hilarious.

I broke my wrist playing football.

You know what I remember?

Funny injury.

When our friend and comedic colleague Daniel Kitson melted a ball at me from about four yards away, I stuck my hand.

I was in gold to save it and it broke my wrist and he followed up by shouting the words, take that, you f you.

It was a hate crime.

It was a slapstick hate crime.

You know, it was all meant in good spirit and taken as such whilst I went to hospital.

I mean, to an objective observer, that could have looked bad.

Anyway,

another surprising thing, John, was Berlusconi's reaction, which was basically to say, how could people do this?

Which suggests was, as you say for a start, he doesn't have a sense of humour, but also that he doesn't read the papers, is also fully amnesiac, and has also never thought that tourist souvenirs of major churches would be used as close combat missiles.

Of which only the last one is acceptable.

Lots of the reactions in Italy seem to be mixed feelings, along the lines of, of course, this is absolutely terrible,

but it is Silvio Berlusconi being hit by a miniature cathedral.

What one Italian responded by saying, I don't like to say he deserved it, but he had to expect it.

That is semantics, isn't it?

If I can just slightly jump to Silvio's defence here, I don't know if he, as a busy man, you know, with a full day of running a country and committing fraud, I don't know how he can be constantly on the lookout for flying cathedrals.

I think you ask too much of him there.

His initial reaction, Berlusconi, was to stand on the floor of his car above the crowd to show everyone that he was alright.

The problem was that there was quite a lot of blood, which meant that his gesture was not having the effect that he aimed for.

Instead, everyone was looking at him thinking, no, you're not alright.

It looks from here like some of your face is coming off.

He also said that he hoped that this attack would prompt a calmer, more honest language in Italian politics.

That's a bit rich, seeing as he's very much neither of those things.

He's not calm, he's crazy, and he's not honest, he's a career criminal, not just a liar, an old-fashioned crook.

Also, no one wants Italian politics to be calm or honest.

Just like they don't want Italian politics to be not sexist.

You'd be ripping the heart out of it.

It'd be like saying that boxing should stop having anyone getting punched in the face.

It'd just be two people in the middle of a ring standing looking awkwardly at each other.

There is more chance, as you say, of them stopping riding mopeds and honking their horns at attractive women.

So we have to ask, John, was this the first in a new wave of tourist souvenir-based assassination attempts?

Well, obviously not the first.

William McKinley, the U.S.

President, of course, famously shot with a bullet in the shape of the Niagara Falls.

Whilst Julius Caesar was, in fact, stabbed with a miniature rifle tower.

Bert Luscone's full quote was, if, after it happened, there's a better awareness of the need for calmer and more honest language in Italian politics, this pain will not have been in vain.

These last days, I have felt that even some political opposition leaders have come closer.

That's true, Silvio.

They have all come together in gathering around their computers, watching it time and time time again, laughing their faces off.

Also, I do like the idea that he sees his suffering as being for the greater good.

He's like Jesus, Andy.

He sacrificed his face so that we all may benefit.

And I wonder if he'd be willing to keep doing this if he felt it would actually help humanity.

If someone said to him, the world will be a better place if you are regularly smashed in the face by a replica house of worship, would he step up to the plate?

Take a synagogue in the eye, Berlusconi.

First out of the blocks were the Prime Minister's critics in terms of reaction around the world.

By the following morning more than 20,000 had signed up to a Facebook page giving hero status to the alleged attacker Massimo.

I can't believe they're still, I can't believe they're still saying alleged attacker when he's on video throwing a cathedral at him.

Massimo Tartaglia was his name and he's now has more than 70,000 fans.

He has become like the Iraq shoe thrower.

The problem was that reactions quickly got out of hand.

One enemy of the Prime Minister left a note saying death to Berlusconi.

Obviously that is over the top.

You don't want death for him.

You want him to be hit by more cathedrals in the face.

And from one of his defenders there was the reaction, I'd like to wash my feet in the blood of communists.

Where to begin?

First, that's a terrible way to wash your feet.

Terrible.

Well, some people say it's good for corns and bunions.

It's not good, Andy.

Darling needs to swear by it.

That explains everything.

That much is true.

You're going to find that that when you finish, your feet are the opposite of clean.

In fact, they are stained with communist blood.

And you've just walked the blood of communists all across your brand new carpet, which is just what those commies would have wanted.

The point is, this story is inspirational, Andy.

For John Keats, his muse was a Grecian urn.

For us, it is Silvio Berlusconi's face being caved in by a cathedral.

Well, it's the last bugle of the year, and you can tell from the tone in my voice what is about to be unleashed.

Open the gates of hell.

Let the smoke clear.

Put out the flames.

The American is here.

Good boom, baby.

What's up, everybody?

There you go.

Well, wow.

Good ding.

Ticked a lot of boxes there.

Good ding.

Let's do it.

Good ding.

Stop saying good ding.

Hey, World, good ding.

Get ready.

I explicitly said don't say that again.

I'm going to just want real quick before I respect what you just said.

But good thing, everybody.

Happy holidays, American.

I don't say that.

I say Merry Christmas.

I don't go for that generic crap.

I mean, do you not think it's more inclusive just to say happy holidays?

Not really.

Well, it is.

I mean, it is more inclusive to say that.

Well, not for Christians, it's not.

You're right, it isn't for Christians.

It's actually less inclusive to Christians.

I'd rather say happy every holiday to each person so they all feel special.

I'll lump everybody into one group of Christians.

Oh, right.

So you'll just take a guess based on appearance, going, well, I'm guessing happy Hanukkah.

You can buy the two tips.

Yeah,

you can spot a Jew.

You know what I mean?

I mean, let's be honest.

Look, I live in the northeast.

I can spot a Jew.

It's my left eye, really, that doesn't.

My right eye doesn't pay much attention.

That is interesting that your left eye has Judah, your right eye doesn't.

Judah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's because of the way they had to

hold the hammers when they were working in Egypt.

That's right.

That's very much a

left-eye stance.

Is that right?

It goes way back.

I think you become a worst Jew every week, Andy.

Here's an interesting thing about Andy.

I never get to really see Andy because he's over wherever you guys are from.

I mean, it's England.

It's England.

Yeah, France, wherever.

No, I mean, it's not France.

That's a different country.

Now, by ears, I don't have an ear to spot a Jew.

To me, Andy, he sounds like he could be going to church every Sunday.

If I saw him, I go, oh, yeah, it's Jewish.

Not even your left ear.

You know, the truth is, with all the rock and roll music I listen to, my ears ain't what they're doing.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

When you walk into a room with your oversized headphones on, what is spilling out of that?

Well, it depends on my mood.

I mean, generally, I'm going to open up my morning, like anytime my alarm goes off, it's going to be someone from the rap pack singing a good song.

Okay.

If I don't hear Dean Martin before I get in the shower, it's not a good day.

And then, you know, later in the day, I'll listen to something a little bit more tame, maybe some Sinatra.

I mean, it's basically classic standards by Krooners.

Good music, I like to say.

So, American, it's end of a year, end of a decade.

How's this year been for America?

I've got to be honest with you, it hasn't been our best year.

Wait, I mean, it hasn't.

It has not been.

That was what I was trying to couch in the question.

You've had a bad,

bad year this year.

Let's just put it in perspective.

A bad year for us is still a great year for any other country.

Well, for Burundi, yes.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Across the board, any country in the world, we have a bad year.

Their year is definitely worse.

In other words, it's a pretty simple equation.

When you're number one

and you slip down to number three, everybody else slips down below three.

So three becomes one.

What?

Hold on.

That's not what you're saying?

That's just words with some numbers thrown in.

Nah, it's math.

No, no.

There's a math principle.

I think it's Zellig's principle or something.

I forget what the guy's name.

But yeah, basically, it's like...

It's actually getting voted.

Whatever the top is becomes

lower than the top, but the top...

overall just lowers, so everyone's still below the top.

Yeah, that literally makes less sense than when you were just arbitrarily throwing numbers in there.

All right, let me clarify this.

Yeah.

Okay.

Say there's 10 countries in the world.

Okay, now I'm with you.

I know there's like 9,000, but say there's 10.

We're saying there's 10.

Good.

Yeah.

So we're number one, obviously, on the 10.

Let's say number two.

For the sake of the exercise, yeah.

Let's say number two on that list is, ah, geez, I don't even know who'd be two.

Germany, I guess?

They did it right.

No, you

know, what the 1900s.

China.

China.

All right.

Yeah, I guess it's Chinese.

Okay.

So just for argument's sake, I'll say China, because I don't want to to get into why they're not, yeah.

Why they're not really two.

Okay.

Canada.

We don't need.

Okay.

They were lucky to make the ten.

Yeah.

I mean,

that was nice.

I did that to be nice because it's Christmas time.

So now we slide down.

We slide down to three.

Yes.

China, which used to be two, now becomes four.

And there is no longer a one and a two.

It's just it starts at three.

Here's where off.

It starts at three.

Right.

Yeah, and then the Canada now is off the top ten because everything else had to slide down.

I see.

You understand?

Now, Copenhagen Summit is taking place at the moment.

Oh, the summit for a minute.

I thought you meant the chewing tobacco.

I was like, yeah, I love it.

No,

I meant the summit.

It's that nice over there.

What's up?

One time, quick story.

I'm spitting Copenhagen juice out of my mouth with a snapple bottle, right?

But it looks brown.

My brother-in-law gets on my boat after water skiing.

He gets on my boat.

He's thirsty.

Please know.

And he's like, oh, Snapple.

And before I can say, hey, Tommy, don't do it.

He's boom.

He's taking a swig on my spit.

It was hysterical.

How did that?

Hysterical.

Won't let him live it down.

What did Tommy say?

Hysterical.

Oh, he yaksed.

Obviously, he yaked over the side of the boat.

But he's a yaker anyway.

He's one of those guys.

He yaks.

We hit a wave.

He yaks.

He's always yakging.

Who knows?

Anyway, go ahead.

Global summit or something.

What are you saying?

The global climate change summit is taking place in Copenhagen.

It's been taking place for the last week.

Obama is over there.

Yeah.

It's funny.

I mean, we got so much crap going on here.

He's over there talking about global summits.

If he was here, he would know how cold it is outside.

What are you doing?

It's global what?

Warming my ass.

Oh, boy.

My ass.

Okay.

I got 14 layers.

I'm going to black.

Okay, so let's try and deal with this now.

Global warming, just because it's colder in the winter, it's winter now, so it will be colder.

I had to get one of my fur coats out of my cedar closet.

One of your fur coats.

One of my many fur coats.

Oh, boy.

Please tell me it's not a polar bear coat.

No, that's disgusting.

It's a seal coat.

Oh, come on.

Don't get Carried, it was before it was bad to kill seals.

When was that?

Ah, like two, three years ago, before it was a big deal.

And it's not like we clubbed them or anything.

It's not like we used a crowbar.

What did you do?

It was a sword.

But it was a very sharp sword.

A sword.

One, two swings, the thing's dead.

It's an Eskimo tradition.

I used to date an Eskimo.

I thought actually she was Mexican.

She looked like an Eskimo.

I really would like to confront on behalf of the future of the planet this idea that there is no global warming because it's cold outside in December here, Ray.

Look, I'm not going to get into the reality of the conspiracy, but I could tell you this.

Let's say Tip Agore, what's that guy's name?

Tip Agore.

Yeah, the chubby guy.

Let's say he's right about all his stuff.

And I didn't see that movie just because, you know, I don't know.

I think 300 was on or something.

Why would I watch a guy who's out of shape when I could watch 300 guys in shape?

Incredible shape.

Incredible shape.

Yeah.

Have you seen that, Andy?

300.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, those guys are pumped.

Look, one of those guys shows up.

What are you going to do?

Yeah.

Not blow them?

Yeah.

Let's say Al Gore is right.

Yeah.

Okay.

People are scared.

They say, oh, you know, we're going to die because the world's going to heat up.

Yes.

And this is what they always say in the apocalypse.

The only thing that's going to be left are rats and cockroaches.

Humans are the third thing.

We're like rats and cockroaches.

We're not like the snow leopard.

We're not like the elephant.

We don't need special environments to live.

We can live underwater.

We can live on land.

We can live in the air.

We can live on the moon.

We can't do anything.

We're an adaptable species, just like rats and cockroaches.

No.

We will eat whatever it takes to survive.

We will live wherever it takes to survive.

Personally, my guess is Bayonne, New Jersey is going to be fine.

I won't have to move.

If other places go on the water, move Midwest.

Big deal.

So we'll put some olive gardens in the Midwest.

Everybody will be fine.

Does wherever Jersey moves, does that become Jersey?

Is that like your theory of maps from before?

I mean, if Jersey goes on the water, you know, the next state over, Pennsylvania, boom, New Jersey.

American, thank you, I guess is the right phrase.

Thank you for joining us.

Fellas, I have to say, Happy New Year.

God bless to you and your family.

Thank you.

Salute.

Salute.

And salute to you.

Salute.

Have a very American Christmas.

And remember, yeah, and listen, guys, Andy, I know you're a Jew, but anything you need for Christmas or something, you just give me

a ring.

You have my direct number.

Yeah.

Okay.

Don't give that out, by the way, but that'll get you, things.

Thank you, American.

Civilization taking a significant step backwards, news now.

David Bahati, the MP for Nadora West in the Ugandan Parliament, has, and you know I don't make this statement lightly, Andy, acted like a of Nick Griffin proportions.

He has sponsored Uganda's anti-homosexuality bill, which is so horrific, you find yourself re-reading it to check that it's not a spectacular piece of Swifty and level satire.

Does it criminalise homosexuality?

Oh yes, but it does so much more.

Does it propose executing gay people?

Indeed it does, but that's just the tip of this reactionary iceberg.

This sour, sour iceberg.

Merely proposing executing gay people would be far too tolerant.

This bill also retains provisions which require that if someone knows that someone is engaging in homosexuality, that person is to report them to the police within 24 hours or face fines and/or up to a three-year prison sentence themselves.

In other words, it wants to set up a system of gay whistleblowers, which is, when you think about it, a very gay-sounding phrase.

I want some ethical consistency from this guy, John, because he's basically saying that homosexuality is unnatural, therefore punishable by death.

Yeah.

But if he thinks that's basically what is natural is heterosexual procreation, any carnal act that is not specifically aimed at sperm fertilizing an egg should be punishable by death.

I want to see compulsory hanging for anyone who plarmentiates their goober on

their partner's crag getters.

I want the same justice for everyone.

God did not give that the green light in the Bible.

Wait, it gets stupider.

The bill also extends jurisdiction to acts committed outside Uganda by Ugandan citizens.

In other words, if a Ugandan citizen is known to be in a gay relationship outside the country, he will risk lifetime imprisonment or death upon his return.

So he can't even leave to be gay.

A Ugandan can't just not be gay in Uganda.

They can't be gay anywhere.

Surely that's as stupid as it gets, right?

Oh wrong!

It also provides for compensation for victims of homosexuality.

That is tailor-made to have gay couples who've broken up running to the police to see who is going to get immunity from prosecution and the cash bonus reward and who's going to get executed.

That takes the terms tough breakup to a whole new level.

Now the BBC ran an online debate on this topic and their big banner headline was simply the words, should homosexuals face execution?

Which, out of context on the BBC website, caused a bit of a stir, as you can imagine.

A terrible, terrible piece of germline.

Well they they would try to be provocative and illustrate quite how extreme the debate in Uganda is.

You succeeded in the first part of that.

It makes a bit of a change from the usual questions on the BBC website, such as which celebrity should Wing Strictly come dancing, or do you like oranges?

Incidentally, the correct answer to the question, should homosexuals face execution, is of course no.

And the only reason it would be acceptable to answer yes is if you misheard the question as what band was formed in 1968 by John Anderson and Chris Squire and became well known in the 70s for their symphonic rock style, led by the keyboard plague of Rick Wakeman.

That is the only up time you can answer yes.

As well as bullshit legality, this bill also features some bullshit science saying at one point that same-sex attraction is not an innate and immutable characteristic.

Have they never seen George Clooney, Andy?

Or Colin Farrell as Mr.

Darcy getting out of the lake after a swim?

I challenge them to sit sit through that scene without thinking, chaps, I think this bill may have been a mistake.

Colin Firth, I think you're meaning Colin Farrell.

Oh, yeah, actually, Colin Farrell getting out of a lake would have been horrible.

I do mean Colin Firth.

Colin Farrell getting overlike would have just been obnoxious.

He'd be tried to get out in a cool way.

Wouldn't have had that effortless sexuality of Firth.

Mr.

Bahati, incidentally, who received a master's degree from Cardiff University, there's a stat about him.

Apparently he attended a conference in Uganda held by anti-gay US Christian evangelists who have promised to wipe out homosexuality.

I don't know what God would think about that given that he clearly put it on the planet.

He also maintains Mr.

Pahoti that he won't be swayed by pressure from the international community.

And he said the potential of homosexuality to destroy our family is so huge that if you don't act now in the coming years, our society will be finished.

Oh,

you.

Is he worried that homosexuality is a dominant dominant gene?

And as the homosexuals rampantly breed, they will wipe out the heterosexual gene entirely.

Slight flaw in his logic.

The more you try to find a rational argument in this, the more ludicrous it gets.

Uganda's president, Yowi Museveni, like President Mugabe in Zimbabwe, regularly likes to claim that homosexuality is a decadent import to Africa from the West.

That is simply not true.

If anything, it's the opposite.

Because if anyone started homosexuality, it was Africa because Africa started humanity humans all came from Africa and so the first gaze would have been right there two early men looking at each other and saying you look nice thank you you look nice too let's do this thing

but it's interesting John this this theory that homosexuality is threatening Ugandan society I think we should investigate this further so let's find out if it's true with our what's to blame for the state of Uganda multiple choice quiz question And the question is, Uganda is a nation which has ample natural resources, a propitious climate for agriculture and fertile land and massive mineral deposits including gold and copper, as well as my brother's camera that was stolen when he went there on a holiday off the university.

And yet despite all these things in its favour, it remains one of the world's poorest nations.

More than three-quarters of the population live on less than $2 a day.

So what is the main reason for Uganda's ongoing social problems and poverty?

Is it A, the ongoing civil war between the government and the Lord's Resistance Army that's been rumbling and bumbling along since 1987?

B.

Pisspoor economic mismanagement going back decades.

C.

Massive endemic corruption at all levels of government and government getting involved in other wars in Central Africa, including the devastating war in the Congo.

Or D gays.

B!

When you put it like that, it becomes clear.

It seems like a slightly unnecessary piece of legislation because already in place there is a maximum sentence of life imprisonment for being gay anyway.

God, is death really going to be any more of a discouragement?

Bugle Christmas section now, and well, happy Christmas from a lapsed Jew, if that means anything.

I mean, technically, it means nothing.

Basically, what I mean is, you know, just have you know, have a nice time.

I just hope you're generally happy on all days, whether they be Christmas or not.

Yeah, and we'll start this with a special Christmas arts review.

With a a special review of the hit Christmas production of this period.

The Twelve Days of Christmas production at my daughter Matilda's Nursery, which I went to yesterday.

And how was it, And?

Two stars.

Oh, come on.

It was really

a disappointingly unadventurous production, John, which failed to fully engage its willing audience and doubly failed to coax a convincing performance from its young cast.

In fact, the reliance on two to three-year-olds as the main chorus always a risk in the theatre backfired spectacularly.

Several of the children failed to join in the singing or burst into tears or spent most of the time excavating their noses or simply appeared baffled by the stodgy static staging which required them to be sat on their little chairs throughout, intermittently making hand signals, six geese salaying being particularly unrepresentative, matched only for inaccuracy and meaningless obtuseness by the ten lords of leaping effort.

And the three French hens manoeuvre was borderline racist.

No wonder the cast seemed to rebel against the strictures of the overweening direction and and amuse themselves by waving at their parents or pointing at stuff.

The chosen feature number itself is a Terpsicherian concoction of little merit, musically derivative, repetitive to the point of anesthesia, with scant thematic development or character interest.

Moreover, it stands as a pee into the kind of rampant commercialism and bare-bald consumerism that many feel has desecrated the famous old Christian festival and also destroyed the foundations of British childhood.

Is this really the kind of message we want to be sending to our youngsters?

And more specifically with this production, is this the kind of message we want them to be discordantly sending to us.

The lighting consisted of the standard daily illumination in the nursery, bright and harsh and failed to create any sense of atmosphere or establish a context to lend meaning and emotional weight to the song.

However, tacked on to the end, as felt as little more than a distinctly unrequested encore, was the surprising highlight of the production.

A starkly cursory rendition of We Wish You a Merry Christmas.

This fully redeemed the show.

The only musical accompaniment were sparse and chaotic tambourines,

randomly battered and thwacked by the children in a withering satire on the failure of humanity to communicate with itself in the high-pitched, strident political age of today.

In fact, a number of the children were, it seems, deliberately not joining in, refusing to wish the audience a Merry Christmas, highlighting how selfish it is of our affluent societies to even attempt merriment at a time of global unrest, poverty, and pain.

This was a tremendous blast at the emptiness of modern life and the unfathomability of human existence.

Wow.

How was Matilda's performance, Andrew?

Well, John, I'd say it was not a patch on my Shoba's debut as Mrs.

Noah.

Played Had to wear a purple dress.

Yep.

At the age of five, it was a bit embarrassing.

It was in all boys' school, you see.

It's interesting.

My opening performance, five-year-old John Oliver in Birmingham, was a Shepherd number three in the nativity, abiding on a gymnasium crash map.

Only one line for me that afternoon.

Low a star.

But what a line.

Someone had to spot that star, Andy, and then low it.

And it wasn't going to be Shepherds one, two, or four, I can tell you that.

It was going to be Shepherd number three.

The catalyst for the greatest story ever told a huge role and one that required a big performance and it got it that afternoon and little do they know that just 30 years later those words have proved to be prophetic lo a star a star of the big screen

no

no no no

an award-winning film

Technically yes

also part of the Christmas section it's a Christmas quiz question now quiz questions have been all the rage at Christmas ever since God boomed down to the manger.

Is it a boy or a girl?

Oh, phew.

So,

the Christmas question is, what are the following all got in common?

Pope Adrian I, Suraj Moll, the Sinsewar Jat ruler of Baratpur, Emperor Taisho of Japan, W.C.

Fields, the singer Johnny Ace, Charlie Chaplin, Spanish painter Juan Miró, and soul legend James Brown.

Do you know the answer?

Are they all dead?

Well, fractionally correct.

The answer is they all ruined Christmas

by dying on Christmas Day.

Oh, there you go.

A Pope, honestly, a Pope dying on Christmas Day.

Yeah, that's it.

How inappropriate.

Cork until Easter next time.

And well, Johnny Ace, I think he's the man who most ruined Christmas.

He died in 1954.

He was a rock and roll star.

And he ruined Christmas not just for himself and his family by dying, but for his fellow band members too, by shooting himself dead in the dressing room during a break between sets on a Christmas Day gig.

Legend has it that he died in a game of Russian roulette, which he lost and lost quite convincingly by all accounts.

But the truth apparently is that he was just digging around with his gun, as he liked to do, and said, Don't worry, it's not loaded, and then attempted to confirm that by firing it at his own head.

Unfortunately, he deconfirmed it.

It was loaded, then it wasn't loaded.

That was a bad Christmas for Johnny Ace.

Your emails now and this very moving email comes from Tim in Newfoundland.

God damn it John and Andy, I've become a social outcast in my college library and it's hands down your fault.

Well if there's any place you don't want to be a social outcast it's the library which is already a place of social outcastery.

You square for even being there.

I was doing my usual routine listening to a random episode of the bugle whilst doing physics homework when the unthinkable happened.

I was in a semi-quiet part of the library reserve for reading books and studying, listening to episode 89 when my headphones were accidentally removed from the jack.

The following sentence was broadcast across the highly populated study area of the library through my speakers at a high volume.

You saying, that takes huge balls, Andy, huge, leathery balls.

I scramble to get the headphone jack into its rightful position, but the damage was already done.

My question to you is this, says Tim.

Where do I go from here?

How do I regain the illusion of intelligence I once held among my college peers?

You can't.

It's got to accept.

I'm afraid there's no good.

It was.

Just act like it was never there because it is a memory.

It's an echo in a long distant past.

I'm afraid your career in physics is over.

You don't come back from that.

All but name.

And you don't deserve to.

Well, physics doesn't really work anyway, so I mean, you're better off out of it.

I get a proper job.

Unlucky, Tim.

Unlucky.

I'd apologise, but it wasn't my f ⁇ ing fault.

I'm sorry, Tim.

I'm sorry.

Good luck in whatever new career you're forced to go into.

We had a series of emails coming from a bugler who has been in the Copenhagen conference.

Will they just sign his emails?

We're not sure.

We want to give his name out just in case he gets in trouble.

Thank you for the emails, though.

A bit mystery bugler.

It's good to have a bugler on the inside, like a Trojan horse as well.

Let's call him Mr.

X.

And Mr.

X writes, Dear John and Andy, I will be briefing members of the European Parliament when they are here in the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference.

But I haven't yet met this Nick Griffin you referred to last podcast.

Could you perhaps provide some helpful information on how to recognise him?

Well, yeah, there's just a general kind of fog of hatred around him.

It's like a kind of a cloud.

There's got a lot of people in his vicinity acting like there was a particularly unpleasant sulphurous smell around.

And also tell me what line of argument I might pursue in discussing global warming with him.

But I found your preview so wildly accurate and scandalously informed.

Well, that must have been accidental.

I'm sorry about that.

Anyway, we then got a follow-up email from the same Mr.

X.

Dear Andy and John, another unasked for update from Copenhagen.

Nick Griffin showed up to my briefing for MEPs, much to my surprise.

Came in late, never opened his mouth.

How disappointing.

I even had my iPhone recording it just in case.

We've got a little picture of Nick Griffin being less offensive than usual by virtue of not opening his mouth.

So as a degree of separation, the bugle is only through Mr.

X is one degree of separation from the biggest in the world.

I can't steady on John.

No, you're right.

He's not the biggest in the world, but he is a f.

You know, at the Olympics, he is carrying our national flag.

But that doesn't necessarily mean he's going to win gold in his channel event.

You're right.

That's beautifully put.

This is the third email.

Dear John and Andy, Hugo Chavez just finished a couple of minutes ago.

That's phenomenal.

Oh, my God.

That's amazing.

I took more or less verbatim notes for you, knowing your appreciation of all things, Hugo.

So he's highlighted some bits of Chavez's speech from the 16th of December, including I promise I won't talk more than the others this afternoon.

That's clearly going to be a lie.

I do hope, Mr.

X, that you are playing Chavez Bingo here, because he pretty much filled it out straight away.

There's an imperial dictatorship, down with them, long live people of equality.

Bing, bing, bing!

There is no democracy in the world!

Here we once again see the World Imperial Dictatorship!

There's a ghost lurking, and Karl Marx said.

A ghost running through the streets of Copenhagen, and that ghost is silent in this room, coming through the corridors underneath.

And that ghost is terrible.

No one wants to name it.

Can you guess what it is, John?

Can you guess what it is?

No, it's capitalism.

Ah, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.

Then, wait, the rich, who's destroying the planet, John?

The rich are destroying the planet.

Yeah, yeah.

Perhaps they think they'll go to another one when they destroy this, but I can't see anyone on the horizon of the galaxy for the time being.

So it was a classic, classic Chavez.

Mr.

X that he basically saw a real-life bugle unfold in front of him.

He had Griffin, he had Chavez.

If he had Berlusconi and Armadinijad there, he would have literally been like watching the bugle happen in front of his eyes.

At the end of Chavez's speech, he said, Let us ensure this birth is not the tomb of mankind, but peace and light and fraternity for all the human race.

Thank you and enjoy your lunch.

Oh,

that is wonderful.

So, thank you very much, Mr.

X.

Outstanding series of emails.

Thank you so much.

Well done for being there as history avoided being made.

Bugle sport now.

No time time for sport.

We've crapped on a twelve too much length about other stuff.

I can't believe we're finishing the decade with no sport, John.

That is amazing, isn't it?

Well, big surprise.

But I guess.

It's in our hearts.

I consider life to be a sport.

I will do this on air.

Pick your favourite sporting moment from the last 99 Bugles.

Oh, well, I mean, there's a lot of shit.

One shot has lost his lost to choose from.

Plax Gobrest getting shot in the leg.

Boom.

He didn't get shot in the leg, he shot himself.

Shoot it yourself, that's right.

It's got to be.

It's just got to be.

I know technically it wasn't sport, it was self-harm, but and slapstick self-harm like that.

But still, I think he really contributed to the world of sport.

Andy, there has been some phenomenal cricket since the Bugle's been around.

Yeah, I think I'll still go with Palachi Hobore shooting himself in the leg.

Good choice!

I will too.

There we go.

There you go.

It's that Drick Plaxico.

He's the Bugle Sportsman of the Decade.

I hope that takes the edge off Christmas in jail.

So that's it for the Bugle the...

Decade?

Well yeah, some people technically say the decade doesn't end until the end of next year.

They can all f off.

I mean

I know they're technically correct, but they can still off.

It's when the number changes.

It's a psychological thing, not a factual thing.

Be reasonable.

The millennium wasn't in 2001, it was when it became started beginning with two, you losers.

Leave your maths at the door and put some real shoes on.

We'll just leave you with the final prediction of the decade.

And this prediction, John, for for this week's uh 99th bugle is um because we're not doing one next week obviously because that would be christmas day and that would be um well sacrilege yeah for all our uh jewish listeners

um who just want to spend the day thinking ah we ballsed up there

and the prediction is at new year new year's day john what is my first thought going to be on waking up in the year 2010 is it going to be oh great it's a general election year or is it going to be oh great it's a world cup year.

World Cup, Andy.

I'm so excited.

You know me too well.

So that's it for 2009 and the first decade of the year.

At the start of next year, we're taking a couple of weeks off.

But on the 4th of January, in the build-up to the 100th episode, there will be a best of the first 99 Bugles special episode.

You can only imagine how good that will be.

That is going to be potentially fatally good.

We mentioned this a long time ago on the bugle.

If you listen to all the bugles back to back now, it would take around about 60 hours.

That's chilling.

And that, I think, would definitely be...

Two and a half days.

That would finish you off.

That would finish you off physically and psychologically.

More importantly, psychologically.

And then the week after that, on the 11th, there is a bugle music special.

And that's...

That's not actually a joke.

There's going to be...

All the greatest musical hits of the bugle mixed together for you to dance to.

All the remixes you've sent in.

And John's random bits of singing in an effort to get cast in a Disney film.

To resurrect his flagging career.

And then the big one.

Well, on the 18th, Monday, the 18th of January, the big one.

100!

100th Bugle.

The Centenary.

The showbiz event of the millennium so far, without question.

Happy Christmas, Buglers.

If you give a shit about Christmas.

If not, you know, just have a nice week.

Yeah.

And a nice new year if you go with the Christian calendar.

Have a lovely holiday season, Buglers.

Thank you, Mr.

X.

Safe trip back.

Farewell.

Cheerio!

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.