Does the EU really want El Presidente Blair?

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world

Hello Buglers and welcome to bugle number 94.

That is the 94th official version of the world's greatest and only audio newspaper for a visual world with me Andy Zoltzmann here in London and in New York City.

The one.

Is there only one of you still?

I don't know, do I think?

Currently.

The one and only John Oliver.

Hello, Andy!

Hello, Buglers!

So, Andy, it's Halloween tomorrow here.

It's Halloween tomorrow everywhere, but people tend to care more about it here.

I don't recognise it.

I'm Jewish.

Yeah, I understand that.

It's a painful time for you, people.

We have Yom Kippur instead.

That's right.

The opposite of Halloween.

Less costumes and sweets.

On the way here this morning, I walked past a kid in full Spider-Man costume and mask, and he looked up at me with a look in his eyes that seemed to say, you look ridiculous.

And I looked back at him as if to say, I know, you're right.

I should be dressed like Spider-Man too.

But you don't understand.

I'm scared.

Help me.

Show me the way.

What I'm looking forward to though is in three weeks time, Andy, because is there anything more confidence in this world than a kid in a Spider-Man outfit three weeks after Halloween looking up at his mum saying no lady the game has changed now you shouldn't have started this why would I go back but the big news for me this week Andy is I finally got approved for my green card and all

without having to marry Gerard Depardieu

which is a bit of a shame because to be honest that was going to be my next step.

I'd even planned out how to seduce the old French dog.

I don't want to reveal my battle plan, but it involved an autographed Michelle Platini night dress and half a brie.

You'd have me for that.

Put my blue jeans on and

sing along to the Bruce Springsteen classic hit, Legal Permanent Resident in the USA.

What this essentially means is that I can now get arrested here during field pieces for the daily show.

And that's an odd response to have, being grateful that you can now break the laws of the land you live in without being ejected from that land.

In fact, I plan to keep on wildly misinterpreting its powers even further.

I'm going to use it like diplomatic immunity, Andy, flashing it at policemen wherever I go.

If this isn't a license to kill, I don't fundamentally understand what one is.

So, have you also had your British citizenship revoked?

No, I don't think the traitor that you are.

No, no, I haven't, Andy.

That is something it's in my blood.

Right.

I'm blood-tested British.

Well, on the subject's a blood test, I was blood tested last week.

Oh, yeah, how'd you?

Well, it was a testosterone test for.

And it brings me no pride to say this, for a recording of

a game show about sports.

It turned out of the four of us that were tested, including footballer Jamie Rednapp, I had the lowest testosterone.

Despite having...

the most testosterone-fuelled hairline.

It was a real blow to my masculine pride, John.

I was a bit surprised because, you know, pretty fertile, you know, two kids, first one and lead-off home run.

You know, it was a bit of a blow.

It made me think a lot, John, about

my

equipment, so to speak, John, because

you've already made it overly clear what you're referring to.

That's not an oblique reference.

What has struck me, John, is that my sperms are phenomenally efficient.

And feel slightly nauseous.

Oh, please.

And

determined.

And

those are three characteristics that they do not share with their owner.

I have someone else's sperms emerging from my testicles.

Andy, in 94 bugles, and you've painted some grotesque images.

That for me is like a Goya painting.

So this is Bugle 94, which means that at some point in this bugle, there will be something...

Needlessly loud!

That's a a little Joseph Haydn tribute joke there 94 of course the number of the surprise symphony and it's bonfire night it's not only just Halloween John but it's British Halloween which is bonfire night

next Thursday the 5th of November commemorating

the occasion in 1605 when Guy Fawkes and his conspiratorial chums little Bobby Catesby Tommy Winty Winter Everard the Everhard Digby aka the Digmeister plotted to blow at least 25 different kinds of shit out of the houses of parliament taking the king and most of the british aristocracy with them i just can't believe that homegrown terrorists were responsible for that john really makes you think about what our country has become but the plots was luckily discovered and foiled thank god given what we now know about the deadly effects of carbon emissions on the environment and that fire could have burnt for days and as a result the conspirators were hung drawn and quartered which um is a punishment that's uh fallen out of use they were hanged uh until they were nearly dead then had their balls and bowels chopped off and out respectively and burnt before their still not quite dead eyes.

And then just in case there was any slim chance that they might recover or escape, they had their heads lopped off and their body cut into four bits and put on public display.

Now that is a pretty serious injury in anyone's, but we can't do that anymore, John.

British justice is not entitled to do that anymore.

Thank you, Brussels.

Health and safety in the workplace.

Bullshit and bullshit in the bullshit more like.

Prisons are like hotels now.

They are.

Ever since then, Britain has celebrated narrowly missing out on what would have been the new story of the 17th century, without question, by lighting bonfires, setting off fireworks, and generally risking their own and other people's safety by quite literally playing with fire.

So, in the bin this week is the Bugles bonfire section, including how to build a bonfire.

Well, don't.

Just recycle your waste.

How to set off fireworks safely?

Don't.

You'll scare a bird and upset a delicate local ecosystem or blow half of your own face off.

And you've seen fireworks before.

They'll look the same as last time and they'll make my parents' dog bark.

That's that covered.

top story this week and European el Presidente

Andy the continent of Europe is about to appoint its first president and what a job that is going to be to preside over a continent which has twice attempted to completely tear itself apart in the last hundred years The idea of the new EU constitution is that Europe becomes more powerful than the sum of its parts, much like Optimus Prime was more than just the various components of a truck.

He was the leader of the autobots, no less.

What the hell are you talking about?

Well, and

the aim for Europe is to become very much like the movie Transformers 2.

Oh, I'm right.

There's no real demand for it.

It lacks any real substance.

But even if it's terrible, as a business decision, it makes a kind of cynical, depressing sense.

Now, the job doesn't actually exist yet.

It will only come into effect when all 27 member states sign the EU treaty.

And the Czech Republic is the only EU state which has not yet signed up.

What is the Czechs' problem, Andy?

This is the problem with the EU.

You have to do things like pretend to care what the Czechs have to say.

All right, Adolf, calm down.

The impetus behind this stems from the fear that the world may be about to become a G2 nation, with America and China holding all the power, and that Europe Europe as a group rather than a series of increasingly powerless and irrelevant nations may be able to prevent that.

So who is the best person to lead this merry band of self-loathing and mutual loathing nation states who share no common language and who generally can't stand each other?

The frontrunner so far seems to be Tony Blair, ex-Prime Minister of Great Britain, who it seems after being Middle East peace envoy, is moving on.

Presumably, I guess, having brought peace to the Middle East.

Yep, it's all fine.

He just touched them on the forehead and it was all fine.

There's no way he'd leave a job unfinished.

He only stopped being Prime Minister of England when he finished Britain.

It was done.

He basically got to the kill screen at the end of Britain and the credits of who made us started scrolling in front of his eyes.

Well, he was front runner, John, but it does appear that it's becoming increasingly unlikely that he will become King of Europe and President of the European Council because his hopes have taken a potentially fatal blow, John.

And this happened when his successor as Prime Minister Gordon Brown endorsed his candidacy.

Bang!

Up in smoke.

There's no way back from that for Blair.

That is the ultimate backstabbing by Brown.

You say that because his other high-profile endorsement was from none other than Silvio Berlusconi.

Wow.

That is, to put it mildly, a double-edged sword.

Especially when you consider the list of other things that Berlusconi has publicly endorsed.

Infidelity, tax evasion, and fraud.

You really don't want to find yourself on that that list.

The problem for Blair, John, he's not been the most divisive figure in European history.

No way.

Probably not even in the top two, I would say.

Certainly not the top one.

But he's not European enough for many on the continent.

And he's too European for many of those who swim in the Eurosceptic tank.

A few too many dodgy wars on his CV for some as well.

Probably a few too few dodgy wars on his CV for others.

But the problem is politicians can't be all things to all men, John.

And recent developments suggest that Blair can't be anything to any man.

When he became Prime Minister, he was full of talk about Britain joining the Euro and fulfilling our destiny as a continental power.

And he never quite had the balls to put this to the British public because the British public and much of the British media were always in the no camp, generally in a very reactionary teepee.

And when you'd ask them whether Britain should join the Euro, they would generally respond by saying, Well, what you're really asking me when you ask me whether Britain should join the Euro is whether Britain should join the Deutschmark.

The answer was no in 1941.

It's still no now.

Now get your bag out of my face and leave me to eat my potato in peace.

It's a strong point.

But Blair supporters such as David Miliband argue that the EU needs someone with star power who could, and I quote, stop traffic in Beijing.

Well, for a start, it's not hard to stop traffic in Beijing due to the fact that traffic in Beijing is pretty much permanently stationary.

It'd actually be more impressive if the EU president could get it moving.

And also, star power, really, Andy, really.

Is this how far democracy has come?

You need to have been on the cover of Time magazine at least once.

Being the president of a continent is not enough now.

You need to have at least had a cookbook on the New York Times bestseller list too.

And if you could sing and dance a bit as well, that would help.

You're a triple threat.

Elections are fast becoming closer to auditions.

Hey, I'm Tony, and I'm auditioning for the part of President of the European Union.

And I'd like to sing for you Bed of Roses by Bon Jovi.

Oh, God, I just assumed you were about to sing that for us, John.

I'm gonna lay me down in a bed of roses.

Huge song, Andy.

I mean, it is huge, isn't it?

It is.

It's huge.

I know I'm speaking to someone with knowledge of this because you got a Bon Jovi box set.

Yeah, well, I've given it, John.

I didn't go up and purchase it.

But why were you giving it, Andy?

Because the two bands you liked when you were growing up were Bon Jovi and Boney Anne.

Is there anything wrong with that, John?

I guess it's you obviously like some alphabetically similar bands.

Well, I started at the beginning.

I didn't like Aeroswin.

You've got to start with Bond.

Just got stuck in the BONs.

Never quite made it to Caravan.

But what is in this for Blair?

Attention, mainly, and he loves attention.

And it is said that his body uses a unique form of photosynthesis to actually turn attention into oxygen to power his body better.

That's why he can breathe for 24 hours underwater, but only if over 100,000 people are watching him do it.

I think Britain has, over the course of this decade, John, and largely under Blair's leadership, become more sceptical about Europe and, in particular, the Euro.

In the early part of this decade, there was even an anti-Euro campaign video featuring the comedian Rick Mayle as Hitler.

We did seem to be slightly missing the point that the Euro was pretty much specifically designed to stop Hitler making a comeback or someone like Hitler.

Maybe actually Hitler, we just don't know.

He is probably still alive and well in Buenos Aires as we speak, managing the Boca Juniors football team or something.

Either way, it's probably fair to say, judging by his behaviour in the 30s, early part of the 40s, keeping the pound was not massively high on Hitler's list of priorities.

The whole Blitz, planned invasion of Britain, blah, blah, blah, that wasn't really symptomatic of a man who wanted the pound to have a rosy future.

And although Hitler was, I guess, in way of a certain kind of European unification, He didn't really major on the progress by cooperation and compromise stick that the EU holds so dear.

And in fact, using Hitler in an anti-Euro campaign was roughly the equivalent of Help the Ageds getting Harold Shipman to record a fundraising novelty Christmas single for them.

Or getting Donald Rumsfeld to support a truth at all costs campaign.

I did a gig some years ago, John, in a place called Yatton in Somerset.

Several years ago now, small town just south west of Bristol, kind of place that puts the f right off into parochial.

And I asked them what they thought about Britain joining the Euro.

And not only were they thoroughly antagonistic towards the Euro, but most most of them were still making their minds up about the pound, hoping we might get some kind of pig-based economy.

That was so much easier to understand in those days.

You'd leave your front door unlocked and no one would come in and steal your baby.

Unless, of course, they were a wolf.

It's also been said that Blair has Napoleonic ambitions, but that's more real than you can possibly know, Andy.

The Middle East peace ambassador position has been a front.

He's actually spent the last few years assembling a vast navy of warships that he's planning to attack Russia with.

Which is strange because he'll have to use those ships over land.

He's clearly Blair the outright favourite, although he'll apparently have to defeat the other candidate who's registered so far, Jean-Claude Juncker, the Prime Minister of Luxembourg.

Really would be fantastic, Andy, if Blair lost to him.

What a gigantic upset that would be.

It'd be like Usain Bolt losing to Luxembourg at anything.

Apparently, Jean-Claude Juncker is campaigning for the voice of small countries to be heard in the EU, to which the larger state said, Oh yeah, that's terrific.

You should definitely um

uh I'm sorry, what was that?

He said, What was that?

It's just I think a truck went past while you were speaking.

So the Lisbon Treaty is uh almost completed, John.

That is another another step towards the creation of the official single European body language.

This continent's got a melting pot of magnificent bodily gestures, and soon they'll all be merged into one, the Gallic shrug, the Italian Italian preen the Lithuanian point the German hand chop the Danish twitch and the British bird flip

more British political nutcase news now and John in our week off last week the big story over here was the appearance of Nick Griffin the leader of the laugh renamed British National Party on Question Time the BBC's flagship political discussion show just again for uh for viewers that may not know who he is, we've talked about him in the past.

He is the leader of the BMP and he's also a fully qualified.

Again, that bleep you just heard being the biggest bleep available in the English language.

I'm sorry, Andy, please continue.

Anyway, Griffin was on that show.

It didn't go too well for him, John.

He was like a fillet of cod in a busy chip shop.

He took a total battering.

But the whole process was rather unedifying.

The studio audience and the others on the panel already got stuck into him from the start.

He squirmed awkwardly throughout and revealed himself to be the political knucklehead everyone had suspected him of being.

And it didn't really look great, everyone ganging up on one man, albeit that that man is, as you so accurately said, a medically and legally certifiable.

But the lowlight of his thoroughly snivelling performance was when he was pressed on his previous Holocaust denials in the late 1990s.

Now he claimed that he had changed his mind, but wasn't allowed to tell us why.

And these were his words.

I can't tell you why I used to say those things any more than I can tell you why I've changed my mind.

I can't tell you the extent to which I've changed my mind because European law prevents me doing so.

What?

What does that mean?

Well, he was saying that the courts in Germany and France would prosecute him for Holocaust denial were to make these comments.

Then Jack Straw, who is the justice minister and therefore, one hopes knows a little bit about the law, basically replied, No, it doesn't.

It doesn't prevent you doing so.

It really, really doesn't.

I'm the justice minister.

Go ahead and explain.

So then Griffin was asked by the host, David Dimbleby, whether he'd actually changed his mind or just pretended to, to look cool.

And Griffin responded, and Tom, I think we should give this the musical backing it deserves.

I have changed my mind, a lot of it is about figures, and one of the key things that makes me change my mind is British radio intercepts of German transmissions about the brutal mass murder of innocent Jews on the Eastern Front during anti-partisan warfare, which changed the figures very greatly.

I'm all all in favour of the legal presumption of innocence, John, but

I think if you're really waiting for radio transcript evidence before you tick that guilty box,

you're waiting too long.

Griffin then continued, I also refuse to believe that Tiger Woods is a professional golfer because I've never actually seen him play in the flesh.

Sure, there's a fair amount of TV footage of the guy allegedly using a funny stick to hit some little pimply balls, which is ironically Nick Griffin's nickname nickname at school.

But they can do anything with TV now, he continued, like that programme with the dinosaurs.

Fake, total fake.

So until Tiger Woods has personally beaten me at 36-hole Max Play Golf, I'm reserving judgment on his claims to have won so many golf tournaments.

Admittedly, I have now heard a radio intercept of commentary on him playing the 16th at Augusta in 2005, but he might well have been doing it for fun or under duress.

Griffin complained after the programme that he was the subject of, and I quote, an angry lynch mob.

Typically insensitive use of words.

That is not a lynch mob, Griffin, you total.

That is people shouting at you.

But what was all the reception to this, Andy?

It turned out it was a huge ratings hit for the BBC.

8.2 million viewers.

That is ratings gold, quadrupling its normal audience.

Nick Griffin is going to end up now being a walk-on star in struggling sitcoms.

He could be the wacky racist neighbour pushing poisonous pamphlets through their letterbox.

8.2 million viewers indeed, although if certain members of the BNP are being consistent with their views on the Holocaust, they presumably have been insisting that it was in fact only between nought and a couple of thousand people who tuned in.

But I guess the problems for the BNP, John, as an electoral force, are, firstly, that their entire philosophical basis for existence is based on total verifiable historical bullshit.

Yes.

Appropriate then in that context that their leader, Nick Griffin, should take his surname from an entirely mythical creature, which ironically was the result of interbreeding of species, and his forename from a word meaning to steal or wrongly appropriate.

Second problem for them, that the kind of people attracted to join the BNP and work for them can have a tendency to come across a bit, how shall I put this, a bit like Nazis, or a lot like Nazis.

The third problem is that history, the doddery old bitch that she is, does point rather strongly to the idea that right-wing nationalism generally ends in tears and quite a lot of tears and hopefully most people will still not vote for that and the fourth problem they got is that most people in Britain disagree and or disapprove of everything that they stand for say and do so a few obstacles for Griffin and his mates to overcome before they march into Downing Street and start booking lots of one-way ferry trips to Africa

Bugle feature section now and well it's about time that we address this subject John it's cheerleading finally did you have to do any cheerleading as part of your green card application process I sure did and I had to stand at the top of a human pyramid and fire a t-shirt cannon into the air did you did you show the judges what they wanted to see I showed more than 50% of them what they wanted to see that's why it got passed the others seemed pretty angry

Well, the reason for this section is, John, that today, Monday, the 2nd of November, as this is being broadcast, is 111 years to the minute since the first ever piece of cheerleading.

And this happened, it was a Minnesota student called Johnny Campbell, and he led the crowd in a chance that apparently went, rah-rah, rah, sk-oo-ma, ho-rah, ho-rah, varsity, varsity, varsity, Minnesota.

But despite the early beginning, it caught on.

It's basically revolutionised the entire world of North American sports.

The most significant event since then, probably in the history of cheerleading, you'd have to say, is the invention in 1965 of the vinyl pom-pom.

It was invented by Fred Gastoff, the Thomas Edison of dancing accessories, and was originally based based on the medieval mirkin.

Some historians claim that the origin of modern-day cheerleading wasn't found when Henry VIII used to make his wives dance around Hampton Court Palace Gardens, jiggling two mirkins above their heads and chanting his name and number in an effort to improve his fertility.

The vinyl pom-pom was also voted the most significant scientific development of the second millennium by New Scientist magazine, ahead of the car, the remote control, the stethoscope, always fun, and the rocket.

In its award citation, Professor Imbrolio Scinchetta from the Milan Institute of Stadium Dance Science explained, Before the vinyl pom-pom, life was a dull, grey affair, most involving ticking off the days before the merciful annihilation of death.

But the pom-pom changed all that.

It made watching girls show their underpants to crowds of sports fans much more interesting for those sat at the back of the stadium, out of maximum efficacious underpant ogling range.

There have been, of course, some notable cheerleading world records.

The biggest simultaneous cheerlead record was set in May 1937 when Hitler made every single voting-age woman in Germany simultaneously put on a needlessly revealing costume and do some high kicks whilst he was playing table tennis against Neville Chamberlain.

And the biggest cheerleading blooper record, that's held by the Cincinnati Bengals, so-called due to the fact, the fact, John, that they play with the classic Bengal-y chicken biryani smeared all over the inside of their kits to make them play more aggressively.

That's a fact.

That's why they call the Bengals.

It's nothing to do with the tigers,

it's the curry.

That is fascinating.

They are also renowned for their tiger print helmets.

Originally, the franchise actually used actual tiger heads as helmets, hollowed out on the inside, with the skull providing the protection and the stripy facial pelt giving the team its distinctive branding.

But after pressure from the animal rights lobby, the Bengals agreed to stop killing 2,000 tigers a season and use artificial tiger skulls instead, and the modern-day helmet thus came into being.

But to mark the transition, and by way of an apology to the tiger community, the Bengals invited a group of 30 tigers to act as cheerleaders in their 1971 season opener against the Philadelphia Eagles.

Spurred on by the Tigers' vigorous dancing, play fighting, roaring, and mating, the 55,880 fans fans at the Riverfront Stadium went mad, inspiring the Bengals to a 37-14 victory.

However, as the clock wound down in the final quarter, the Tigers pulled out a real showstopper and ate the entire Eagles' coaching staff in a five-minute orgy of carnivorous mayhem before charging into the crowd to celebrate with the now hysterical home fans.

So that was the big blooper eating the Philadelphia Eagles coaching staff.

Well, what a fascinating page of history that was, isn't it, that you've inserted into a book of history.

I hope no one noticed.

There were some facts in there.

That was actually the score in that game.

I like to splice my...

It would have been better if you'd made up the score, Andy.

Cheerleading, incidentally, John, was voted number three in the world's top activities by Gender Stereotyping Monthly magazine.

Oh, that's good.

Behind childbirth and committing genocide.

And there are some very famous former cheerleaders, including a number of ex-presidents.

Dwight D.

Eisenhower, John.

This is a fact.

Oh, hold on, hold hold on.

When you say that,

is this an actual fact?

Or is this one of your facts?

Have you got the internet there, John?

Yep.

Type Dwight Eisenhower and cheerleading into the internet.

And be prepared to have everything you thought about the world reassessed on your own behalf.

Anyway, the story goes, as John looks this up.

Knee injuries cut short Eisenhower's promising sporting career.

And in desperation, he turned to cheerleading.

Shit.

He became a head cheerleader at West Point Military Academy.

That really sounds like a lie.

Yeah, it does, doesn't it?

But, you know, you don't look that good in a bra without a finger knowing what you're doing.

So was George W.

Bush.

Yes.

And

Franklin D.

Roosevelt.

And Ronald Reagan.

Let's have a look at this, John.

What have those guys got in common?

And Sally Field.

Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Reagan, George W.

Bush, minimum two-term presidencies.

Apart from Bill Clinton, who, as we all know, made his own rules, there hasn't been a single president who has managed two full terms in office without having previously been a cheerleader since Woodrow Wilson?

Wow.

And Trent Lott, the Senate majority leader, apparently was a cheerleader.

So it looks like either he or Meryl Stripp

is going to be the next president.

Well, that's what I was thinking.

Well, I went to the NFL game at Wembley, John, and as I watched the girls from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers desperately dance as if they thought their team wasn't a massive pile of shit, I thought to myself, I'm watching the future of American politics showing me its ass at a range of 80 meters.

Your emails now, and this comes from John McCord in Chicago, Illinois.

Have they put the S on Illinois yet?

Illinois?

Why not?

What is wrong with those people?

Although, interestingly, in the name box at the top of his email, it comes as J.

Frederick McCord, which I think is a much more American name than John McCord.

Yeah.

So let's call him J.

Fred.

And he writes on the subject, you are bad fathers.

Dear Paul, Tom, John, and Andy, because it's time the engineers got some credit.

Sure.

You know, without them, we are just two men sitting in small rooms talking.

I write to inform you that you are the worst parents in the history of audio newspapers for a visual world.

You may have remembered the bugle's first birthday on October 15th, 2008, all the while going out for walks and strollers and playing games with the bugle in the local park, with the occasional game of peekaboo at the dinner table.

This sounds like quality parenting.

However, it seems that you all had a falling out with your baby when you realise that year two is actually worse and the bugle is a toddler in pure chaos.

You all became became absent fathers who don't even come home before bedtime and are probably seeking a divorce, taking you into the final step of the terribad parent, barely paying your child support and looking for any and all means necessary to get away from your seed.

How else do you explain John's feeble, shallow defence for not recording on the 23rd of October?

I've got shit to do.

I will be lighting candles and praying to any and all saints and deities who might be able to restore this relationship.

I pray for your souls, you child-neglecting bastards.

I have forgotten, Andy.

We forgot our own second birthday.

Oh, how do you know?

We got a cake last year.

The guys in the old studio used to record and gave us a cake.

Yeah, so.

Where's my cake, Tom?

Yeah, Tom.

The money that I was supposed to put to cake has gone on the 345 at Newmarket last Friday.

Oh, right.

How did we do?

I'm afraid the horse had to be shot.

Are we having horse cake then?

Yeah, surely.

We're not French, study on.

It slipped my mind.

A cake is due, yeah.

So many happy returns to the bugle, two years old.

Yeah, and I guess to the buglers.

Well, happy birthday, everyone.

happy second birthday yeah i think we were neglecting the birthday of the bugle because me and andy have got real children uh oh ouch ouch but the bugle's my actual child

there's an email here from sam bobbly great name from brisbane australia that sounds like an adverb yeah i did it sam bobbly uh he says dear andy and john ranked according to number of children hold on this is now getting out of hand

uh i know what you're up to says sam you can't hide it from me anymore because last night I had a dream.

In this dream, we, for I was in it too, were seated around a large table.

On this table was the board game Risk.

We didn't have any dice to play, so you two sent me to retrieve them from the fireplace.

What?

I should have known it was a trap, but I was naive.

When I came back, the entire board was covered in union jacks and you were both singing, Hail Britannia.

What?

Is that like a...

A fusion of Hail Hitler and Rule Britannia.

And God save the Queen.

Andy had mutated into a Winston Churchill lookalike.

Don't need to mutate to do that.

And John was wearing a pith helmet.

I woke up in a cold sweat knowing all too well what it meant.

You guys are planning to reinstate the British Empire.

This is a warning for all buglers.

We need to keep a close eye on Andy and John or soon we'll be all prancing about with handlebar moustaches drinking tea and worshiping the Queen.

Tom, as our man undercover, I'm relying on you especially.

Keep these bastards in check.

Yours with watchful eyes, Sam Bobley, OBE, Brisbane, Australia.

There's no way you've got an OBE, Sam.

No way.

It's interesting that they're so pith helmets, John, because the pith helmet is an odd-shaped hat and can, in certain lights, look a bit like part of a part of the male anatomy.

And it does suggest that Britain is an honest nation of turning up to the world as we've built our empire wearing pith helmets, just giving our future imperial subjects a warning that we were going to behave like massive dicks.

And this one comes in from Maurizio Aldecasia, Professor dellitoratura, is how he signs his emails, and rightly so.

I mean, if you're a professor de literatura, why wouldn't you boast about it?

Yeah.

Anyway, on the subject, I guess I had it coming.

He writes, Last week I sent you an email regarding the bugle curse.

In jest, I said that John should break up.

I guess he took it a bit too personally.

I must have angered the bugle gods.

Since this week, my own five-year relationship ended.

Oh, no.

That's terrible.

I'll be more careful in future.

Oh, God.

This curse is getting out of hand, Dan.

Don't play with fire, kids.

Don't play with fire.

I think we owe it to him to maybe try and introduce him to any other bugle listeners because

we've essentially ended this relationship.

He's a professor de literatura.

He's a huge catch.

Come on.

If there are any other bugle listeners who have brought about the devastation of their own personal happiness,

that might be something to get the conversation started.

Yeah, the bugle could start to be a dating service.

God would be great to have a bugle marriage.

That would be good.

That would be good.

Well, if you go to the bugle blog, that's timesonline.co.uk/slash the bugle.

Is that still going?

It's still going, yes.

I've taken your attitude to it.

I haven't updated it for ages.

We will put Maurizio's details and hopefully

via me.

Via me.

Don't worry.

And run it through the literature faculty as well.

They're not even being distracted.

But who wouldn't want a professor de literatura in their life?

Oh, yeah.

Sport now.

And well, as we mentioned, there, the World World Series is technically happening at the moment.

It's one-all

between the

I can't bring my name to say and the oh god not them.

I don't really recognise this as a World Series Andy.

As far as I'm concerned it's not happening this year.

It's just too painful.

It's just too obnoxious this World Series to actually stand.

Are you watching any of it?

Well I don't have access to it.

That's probably for the best Andy.

But I have been sitting up late at night writing following the score.

I have no positive allegiance, but you have active negative allegiances.

Well, yeah, but I want New York to win.

That's how much I hate the Phillies.

I want the Yankees to win.

I'm actually finding myself with Johnny Damon at back going, come on, Johnny.

And that just makes me want to throw myself out the window.

Johnny Judas Damon.

So Tom and I went to the NFL game at Wembley last Sunday in which the, as I believe they're now known, totally useless Tampa Bay Bucks

lost to the phoning it in New England Patriots.

How did you find it?

Well, quite like it.

What was kind of interesting is the number of American football fans in Britain is quite astonishing, and there were people with shirts of all 32 NFL teams.

I did kind of think if this had been a real football match rather than American football, and you'd had fans of 32 different clubs, it would have raised an intriguing prospect of there being crowd trouble between fans of two teams, neither of whom was playing in the match.

And I thought it was a bit of a shame they didn't segregate Wembley, you know, according to where the fans or what teams the fans are supporting.

I was going to say, you want to say, have we talked about Nick Griffin, Andy?

That's you want to be very quick with what you're pointing out there.

32 different blocks of fans with massive fences in between.

But there is talk of an NFL franchise being set up in London at some points.

Some of the names suggest include the London Lollipops, the British Bulgar Slayers, that's not that PC,

or the London Wembley Ludwig Wittgensteins on the grounds that they're probably a very philosophical team, I would think, very thoughtful football they'd play, A London-based NFL friendship.

God, okay, you'd be getting less smash-mouth football.

So, there's no bugle next week because we're kind of gone on a bit fortnightly at the moment.

John was doing some shit last week.

I'm doing some shit next week.

Then we're back in two weeks and then off again for Thanksgiving for you in America to sit around on your asses eating turkeys or whatever it is you know.

That's the spirit, Andy.

We have Rosh Hashanah for that.

Hell, you don't!

God, you are terrible at being Jewish.

You're awful.

So, that's it for this week, Buglers.

Thank you very much for listening.

Do tune in.

We will have a best of the bugle next week.

By which I mean bits that weren't good enough to get in.

But there'll be something up next week, including more of your emails.

No forecast this week, because we're not here next week to tell you what happens with it.

So it seems futile.

Although, if that becomes a criterion for judging whether or not it's going to start becoming a very short podcast.

Instead, we're playing you out with another one of you, the Bugle Listeners, fantastic remixes.

This comes in from Lucy Cockhill or Cogill in Wellington, New Zealand, who writes on the subject, Happy Birthday!

Congratulations on two years of buglarity.

Many happy returns the Bugle and I share a birthday, and this year I was lucky enough to get a new laptop as well as fiddling around with it, trying out all the new programs.

I thought I'd have a go at creating what may be the first Libyan gangster rap.

I thought my birthday gift to you could be one minute, 48 seconds of pure Libyan entertainment.

Hope you enjoy yours in bugledarity, Lucy Cockhill.

So here it is.

Happy birthday to you too, Lucy.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Now drop it like it's hot.

Look out, mo foes, cause G-Daffy in the hisle

here to spit it for risle to the unizzle.

Whoa, whoa.

A brain full of crazy and a mouthful of stupid.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Shooting rant off in your face like arrows from Cupid

A brand new lyric for 2009,

2009 Bush in 70, but hey man, I feel fine

Made man of the Libyan sands in 69 Now listen close to my rhymes As I waste time across the line Making you whine

And translators collapse into silly syllables like bear traps When I clap or applause when I pause Just stump quiet If there's a messed up claim in your brain Son I'll totally buy it

Ratifies to add it to my fist pumping list.

What?

What?

The theories and queries about assassination.

I'm a conspiracy sensation.

Just ask Kennedy, son.

Cause that gun was the CIA.

And look at Lincoln, eh?

Shot dead by a mossad, the boss of Libya said.

Cause that's me, dappy to the G in the easy.

Ladies squeeze me.

Six punches on rhyme.

Eight strong royal bloodline.

And now I've got to stop.

G-Dappy dropped some lyrical bums on the system.

Flickr of this deep I got wisdom.

Oh, and your mummas, I kissed them.

Probably

a man drash drops of my homey huggy seats.

Come join me in my ten for a hooker party.

What?

What?

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.