Happy Birthday Communist China!

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, Buglers, and welcome to Bugle 91 for the week beginning Monday, the 5th of October, 2009, with me, Andy Zaltzmann, here in the city that hasn't burnt down for over 343 years, and counting London and fresh from smashing Pittsburgh to pieces last week.

Now back in the altogether more peaceful city of New York.

It's the Doctor of Drollery, the Surgeon of Satire, the Homeopathic Hilarifilarity, the Physician of Fun, the Quack of Quips, John Oliver MD.

F ⁇ the police, Andy!

Protested it's contagious.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, buglers.

How are you doing?

How was your week, Andy?

It was okay, John.

It was okay.

I'm in the midst of preparing to see if President Obama can bring the games to Chicago.

Is he the president that he says he is?

Or is this going to be the biggest crushing defeat?

He'll be dead as a president after this if this doesn't work Andy.

Lame duck status.

If he can't bring the games to Chicago, how does he think he's going to get healthcare to Americans?

It was great to be back from Pittsburgh, Andy.

It's always great to be back from Pittsburgh at whatever time, but this particular time, even more so than most.

When the tear gas went down, Andy the journalists many journalists there really should be ashamed of themselves because it wasn't a lot of tear gas and there was definitely a few journalists walking towards the tear gas so they could get tear gassed and then filmed themselves with some slightly sore eyes pouring water on it it was unbelievable just pointing the cameras at themselves Your cameras the wrong way around.

They're not reporters anymore.

They're high-budget diarists.

When I got back, I started looking at the old footage of CNN and sure enough, they were saying, CNN reporter gets tear gas.

I saw him.

He made it happen.

That's not news, it's jackass.

Did he slap himself in the ball to the plank at the same time?

Well, I guess if he was worried about making the edit or not, he'd definitely have done that.

Oh, my eyes hurt.

And ooh, fud.

So this is Bugle 91, meaning that we have now done as many bugles as the following totals combined.

So keep count.

The number of times Elvis Presley beat Tiger Woods at golf.

The number of of babies former UN Secretary Dag Hammerskjold used to eat on a daily basis to keep him feeling young.

The number of working volcanoes that have been specially built in Snoop Dogginog's backyard as conversation starters for awkward barbecues.

Okay, we're up to seven, I think.

The number of times a serving British Prime Minister has sung the classic blues song Wang Dang Doodle during the state opening of parliament in an effort to seduce the reigning monarch.

The number of officially recognised nations that have as their national anthem the Leanne Rhimes hit, How Can I Live Without You?

14.

The number of times ex-US President Lyndon Johnson did a strip tease as part of the Super Bowl halftime show.

15.

Have you kept count so far?

15.

15.

I'm making it naught so far.

Plus, the number of minutes in an hour and a half.

And the number of times in 1912 Franz, the flying tainer Reichelt, attempted to jump off the Eiffel Tower using a homemade overcoat parachute with inevitably fatal consequences.

And also, as always, a section of the Bugle is going straight to the Min this week.

Your pets problem pages.

Our resident Bugle Animal Shrink Dr.

Brendeline Wabbitt answers the questions you've sent in in about your pets and their problems, including, I love my crocodile, but my wife won't let it sleep in our bed.

Which one should go?

My hamster hates himself, and he's got a point.

He's a prick, pissing all over his wheel all day, eating seeds.

What a cock.

So what do you advise?

Send him on a personality remodelling course or feed him to the cat.

And also, I think my dog is Jewish.

He won't eat sausages and barks on our cat, who's called Palestine.

Where can I find a rabbi vet to circumcise him?

Top story this week and happy birthday Communist China Many happy returns to the People's Republic of China.

It is 60 years since the communists came to power there and it seems like only yesterday Andy that they had cultural, religious and personal freedom.

But it wasn't yesterday.

It was 60 years ago that they had any of those things.

But what a special day.

Now I'm going to need 60 candles on all of the 1.3 billion birthday cakes that I've bought for the Chinese people.

That might sound extravagant, but obviously I've outsourced the making of those cakes, as the Chinese provide much cheaper labour than workers do in the West.

So without knowing it, they've been pounding out their own cakes over the last year for a human rights-abusingly low price.

And they can now enjoy them.

Happy birthday.

China!

It's a communist cake.

Nothing flashy, no icing, but it has all the basic ingredients of a cake.

Now just make sure that everyone has exactly the same sized slice.

Exactly the same.

And then let a few people eat most of it anyway.

So on this, as the bugle goes out the 5th of October, Monday the 5th of October, that's the 40th anniversary of the first broadcasts of Monty Python.

So I guess we can say and mow for something completely different.

I mean you shouldn't say that.

I mean it'll be tempting to say that Andy.

The temptation is there, but I would certainly never, never consider saying saying that out loud.

Okay, okay, consider that joke retracted.

That is your first official retraction, Andy.

I can't believe you backed down.

Never backed down.

Considering the kind of shit you've stood by.

That's the first thing they teach you at comedy school.

Don't back down.

Has it really been 60 years since one man's dream of selling affordable suits to the mass market got slightly out of hand?

Mao Z Tongue was nothing more than a tailor with ideas above his station.

He made a lovely suit, Andy, he was a big fan of the hard sell.

And would you be interested in wearing this suit here?

Actually, Mao, that's not my kind of style.

I think I'll give it a miss.

Really?

Interesting.

Well, let me put it this way.

If you don't wear this suit, I'll torture your family and exile you to a work camp.

Okay, Mao, do you have one in a men's medium?

China's been staging mass celebrations for Mark 60 years since the Communist Party came to power.

It was a two-hour parade of...

Well, can you guess?

Can you guess what was in the parade?

Oh, hold on.

It probably wasn't inflatable balloons or clowns.

Was it a mass demonstration of force on it?

It was, yeah.

A lot of soldiers, a lot of tanks, a lot of missiles.

Majored very much on the militaristic side of things.

Wasn't a rot in it in that parade for people who aren't really into military grandstanding, which, you know, I found a bit disappointing.

Not the most spontaneous and exuberant.

I guess what it showed, if nothing else, is that China and Brazil are very different nations.

That's right.

There was no real sense of a woman in a spangly bikini with a snake around her neck and painted in glitter.

No, I'm not sure.

Shaking her hips.

There was a subsequent parade.

I switched off because I got a bit bored of the tanks and the missiles.

I want to see a float with some people dressed as a giant duck, some bits of cucumber and a spring onion and a pancake.

Doing a dance representing how to put a duck pancake together.

I wanted to see that.

As soon as they can find out a costume for some Hoisin sauce, Andy.

Thing is, though, it's just like my birthdays as a boy, Andy.

I always used to like to celebrate with an ostentatious display of power.

I would parade my weaponry down the road my family lived on.

Pea shooters, catapults, spud guns, water bombs and whoopie cushions, all proudly displayed in a procession by my little brothers and sisters to act as a deterrent to any bullies who might get the wrong idea.

What I would say to the world was, yes, I'm nine years old today, but I'm armed to the f ⁇ ing teeth, and I will unleash hell on any

who wants to have a taste.

For me, that's what birthdays have always been for, Andy.

Weapons parades.

I can only hope you'll provide your children with the same opportunities.

And I think, you know, without seeing the subtitles of Who's Yint Tao speech, I think that's pretty much what he was saying the other day.

Any

have a taste!

Come get some!

Who wants a piece of who?

So there were massive portraits, as you might expect on occasion touch.

There's huge, great portraits of Mao, other Chinese communist leaders, and also actress Zoo Deshanel.

I think there was a bit of a communication

way.

I like her.

I think she's very pretty, Zooi Deschanel.

That would be great if they did that.

To be honest, I like her so much.

I didn't really engage in the premise of that joke.

I was just thinking about what a nice thing that would be.

Oh, that would have been great.

Can you not do a film with her, John?

I would love to do a film with her, Andy, but she would have to be willing to do a film which would lose a historic amount of money.

The ball's in her court.

If she's willing to jeopardise her career, I would be honoured to be the person to bring it down.

Well, I believe that she starred in a film called The Happening.

That was supposed to be a very bad thing.

Well, yeah, but that, I think we mentioned it before, actually, a while ago on the bugle.

That was actually trumped at the Razzies by your film.

You're right!

So you could have met her at the Razzies Awards.

Had you touched balls to go.

So she's actually the only person who I can do a film with.

Yeah.

Well, that's great.

Oh, Zoo.

I mean, your name's Zoe.

I will call you Zoe.

Zoo's a silly name.

We'll talk about it, Zoe.

But there was a massive, great 60-meter-high portrait of her at the parade.

There was a communication breakdown in the massive portrait painting departments in Beijing.

Although on the flip side, there is now a billboard for the movie 500 Days of Summer at the end of my road with a massive picture of Deng Xiaoping on it.

I always thought he was made for rom-coms.

I'll tell you why the people of China are putting on these mass celebrations though, Andy.

Because they have to.

Because if they want to hold something that isn't a celebration, the birthday communists will put them in birthday jail.

And even the weather cooperated with the celebrations.

Apparently, cloud seeding the day before brought overnight showers to disperse the smog and bring in clear skies see even the weather is frightened of the chinese andy do you have any idea how terrifying that is apparently the wind is learning to speak conversational mandarin just to be on the safe side in the future

Yeah, ordinary people actually discouraged from going to see the celebrations.

There were 30,000 people invited to watch it.

Everyone else was advised by officials to watch it on TV, quotes, to avoid complications.

it's a sinister word isn't it I mean in some countries all complications might signal some irritating paperwork or maybe an annoying delay in getting something installed or in a worst case scenario maybe a medical thing an operation to re-angle your toenail it's gone slightly wrong resulted in you being fitted with a prosthetic foot modelled on Hitler's foot which emotional was that sort of complication in other countries it just kind of conjures up the image of massive tanks big sticks and people disappearing for good something just gets lost in translation somewhere there were other ways of celebrating.

Apparently couples in China were not allowed to divorce during the eight days of celebration.

And what a happy time that's going to be for those people only.

Couples stuck in unsustainable marriages and now forced to endure one another for another week, courtesy of the benevolent state.

I bet they're celebrating harder than anyone as they sit in a tense silence in their front room.

That's right.

In Chongqing, no weddings during this eight-day holiday in Chongqing.

Other parts of China went further and issued bans on couples squabbling about who gets to watch what on tele, on wives making bitchy comments about their husbands leaving clothes on the floor, and husbands muttering about their wives looking at pictures of Italian footballers when they quite clearly don't actually follow Italian football.

It's understandable in a way, John, because these celebrations surely show to the Chinese people and Chinese couples that no matter how things really are, if you put on a brave show, you can make it look like everything's okay and just like it used to be.

And that's the message of the Chinese state.

We can make this work.

And arguing couples will look at their TV sets, put the crockery they're about to throw at each other down, and say, hey, look, those are 8,000 soldiers marching through the streets with rocket launchers and a big picture of Mao.

If the government can paper over cracks with hollow and creepy, nostalgic public displays of unity, why can't we?

But you know, where will China be 60 years from now, Andy?

That's the question that really begs being asked here.

And I'll tell you where they'll be.

They'll be controlling every aspect of our lives.

And this little segment could come back to bite us in the hoo-ha.

I think you and me might be celebrating the 120th anniversary of Chinese communism somewhere in a labour camp in Cornwall.

British politics news now, and well, the Chinese leadership is not the only leadership that's been desperately pretending that everything's fine.

It's been the Labour Party Conference, the last Labour Party conference in government, we assume, unless they manage to overturn what appears to be insurmountable opinion poll odds, John.

And Gordon Brown came out fighting fighting this week, by which I mean he came out rehashing existing policies in a determined way.

The extent of the Prime Minister's plight in the opinion polls was shown by the fact that he took the unusual step of getting his wife out.

For the occasion, Sarah Brown gave a speech at the conference, and she's not a woman who seeks the limelight.

She's always come across as being quite smart and intelligent.

And the thinking seems to be that the Labour Party is trying to persuade the public if the PM had managed to find himself a wife like that, he can't be all bad.

I think they need more than that, John.

She said some fantastic things in the speech.

She described Gordon Brown as her hero and she also said these words.

But I know that he wakes up every morning and goes to bed every evening.

So there you go.

A little bit of insight into the kind of man our Prime Minister is.

There you go.

I mean maybe he's not as incompetent as he appears, Andy.

He's just like us.

He goes to bed and he gets up.

Do you really want that in a leader, Andy?

Because Obama never sleeps.

He just hangs upside down for 45 minutes from his ankles.

Well, maybe, I get there must be some.

Churchill, I bet he never got up in the morning, I bet he used to do most of his work in bed.

He'd get Clement Attlee to bring him breakfast in bed and then say, right, what are we doing?

Africa?

Okay.

So, Brown gave himself big raps for saving the economic world from the precipice.

He was a little bit quieter on having been one of the drivers who drove the world to that precipice in a taxi, dropped it off, and said, There you go, world.

It's just there, the precipice.

I couldn't have taken you any closer.

Do you want a receipt?

Interesting speech.

He claimed the Conservatives called the economic crisis of the century and called it wrong.

And all their decisions have been wrong, he said, to which the Conservatives will presumably replied, Yeah, whatever, big stuff, you're still Gordon Brown, and we're still not Gordon Brown, so we're probably okay.

It really was party week in the world, Andy, with the Chinese birthday parties and the Labour

Party conference.

Although, you know, that was less a party and more awake, awake for the corpse that is the Labour Party's political future.

My favourite moment was Lord Peter Mandelson, the divisive figure.

He said that the next election would be about choice and change and that the Labour Party had to be the change makers, the insurgents.

So they're going to provide change, Andy, from themselves.

That is a very interesting strategy.

They're going to bring down their own 12-year government and replace it with a completely different version of each other.

It is slightly odd.

Gordon Brown also said staying with the status quo is not an option, which doesn't seem to be a rallying call for people not to vote for him.

Did he turn around and just put a fake moustache on and say, hello, my name's Barry Mendoza.

But it is very odd when they've been ruling the country for 12 years to market themselves as the party for change.

And a kind of admission that New Labour have been too conservative and basically by electing the Conservatives, we would be keeping the government in power.

It's completely baffling.

Incredibly, Annie, I hadn't realised this.

The UK government has apparently abandoned their drive for ID cards in a populist move.

Is that true?

Apparently, yes.

Because apparently it now costs too much.

But they claimed ID cards and that massive intrusion of personal privacy was vital for national security and now it's not worth it.

The thing they've been banging on about for nearly a decade has gone and it leaves two possible interpretations for what has happened.

One, ID cards were an absolutely terrible idea all along.

Or two, our lives don't turn out to be worth quite as much as the government thought they were.

Either way, it is a pathetic and borderline offensive climb down.

But it will be interesting to see now, because the opposition parties have been saying all along, we don't want ID cards, we don't need ID cards.

I've been thinking of the nature of politics, whether they now swing against the government and say, We must have ID cards.

It's a real tactical political system.

They realise people hate them so much now.

It's like telling a child, No, you can't have those carrots.

Go, I want them now.

We're going to demand ID cards to have every moment of our life under surveillance just to spite them.

But it didn't sway everyone.

John the Sun newspaper, which of course is a cousin by marriage of the Bugle,

necessarily get on with all our family.

They came out strongly against Labour.

They said Labour has lost it.

The son has a bit of a history of being a kingmaker, so it's going to be difficult for Brown.

And he's basically cleverly tried to take the personality out of politics.

It's not about me, he said.

Which is a bit like a man trying to pin the blame for a breakup on his girlfriend.

It's not me, it's you.

A couple of final things.

He said, never stop believing in the good sense of the British people.

Oh, boy.

Well, there is a man who has never been in a British town centre on a Friday evening.

But I think at this stage, John, whatever Brown does, it's going to make no difference.

I think he could have made a speech, fully costed, with demonstrable feasibility, promising to do all of the following.

£100,000 in cash for every person in the country, magic dogs for pensioners, guaranteed freedom from all illness on the NHS for life, Britain to become sole head of the United Nations, a World Cup win for each of the four home countries within the next five years, all restaurants and pubs to serve free food and drink on demand, a compulsory maximum two-hour working day, I know that sounds a bit full-on, but business will complain if it's any lower, a complimentary go in a tank for all voters, curtsy to the army, or a go in a helicopter instead for chopper fans, and the Queen Mother back from the dead.

He could promise all that, and still people wouldn't want to vote for him.

Terrorism development news now, and brace yourselves.

Just

brace yourselves for this story.

A suicide bomber recently put himself next to a member of the Saudi royal family, having outwitted bomb detection machines in the palace to set off an explosion using explosives and a detonator that had been hidden in his rectum.

You did not just mishear what I said there.

This has panicked security experts who say that standard screening procedures may need much more intrusive types of x-ray machines now that can actually see inside body cavities.

But really, this makes me think only one thing.

These people are never actually going to come to their senses.

Because if you don't realize what you're doing is insane as you are preparing to have explosives, a charger and a detonator forcibly pushed up your anus,

then I think you are probably too far gone.

Because they must be standing in a small windowless room gripping a table saying, I hate the West, I hate the West.

Not yet, not yet, not yet, not yet.

Let me get ready.

I hate the West, I hate the West, I hate the West, yes, I do.

Okay, go now.

Oh, I hate the West.

I hate them so much.

Slowly, please, take it easy back there.

I hate the West.

Oh, although, you know, to be honest, the West has given us a lot when you stop to think about it.

No one loves pizza more than me.

Maybe they're not all bad.

Ow!

No!

I've never cared enough about any single thing in my life to do that.

It isn't clear from the reports I've read whether this guy Abdullah Asiri, who, as you say, whacked a pound of explosives and a detonator up as Jaxi.

I don't know if he called this play himself or was coerced into it by his line manager at Al-Kaid.

It must have been.

It's what Ala would want you to do, really.

Could I not just eat it and wait a few hours?

It is concrete proof, if proof were needed, that terrorists are idiots.

But what if you'd had last-minute doubts, John?

I mean, would the security guards who failed to pick him up have picked up on a nervous-looking youth frantically wolfing down six packets of dried apricots and shuffling off to the gents with a cryptic crossword tucked under his arm?

Right, this might be a tricky one, and I'm going to have to flush fast.

It's not often suicide bombing can qualify as a good news story.

A little humorous.

And finally, at the end of the news, luckily, he succeeded only in blowing up his own ass and as collateral damage himself.

And no doubt the Saudi prince who was aiming for turned to what was left of him and said, Bloody hell, what did you have for dinner last night?

Still better out than in, eh?

No, you pull my finger.

Oh no,

I'm an adult male.

I'm 32.

I guess when you hear a story like this, you do start to sincerely hope that there is an afterlife.

Oh, yeah.

You can picture the angry-looking Allah with his clipboard saying, so, Abdullah Asiri, butt bomber.

Now, how was it you died again?

Oh, yes, shoving explosives up your ass and blowing your guts to pieces.

Right.

Well, just remind me, can you just pinpoint exactly where, in one of my many religious tracts, exactly where I said, blessed will be they who shove bombs up their asses.

For he who painfully suppositorizes lethal qualities of explosive right out where the sun don't shine clearly understands my message of divine peace and love.

Abdullah Asiri, you are a fail stamp.

Take the down escalator, kid.

You've earned it.

Libya news now.

And you know what, Andy, I don't think I got across properly last week just how phenomenal Gaddafi's speech at the UN was.

He did a pretty good job of it.

I loved that speech so much.

I watched it again this week.

And it's something special.

Don't cheat yourself out of one of the most entertaining, unbelievable speeches you will ever witness.

This was the I Have a Dream speech for crazy people.

And I was particularly impressed last week by the fact that he went through two translators.

And we talked about this briefly, but some more details have come out.

Apparently, the first translator eventually said, I just can't take it anymore into the live microphone in Arabic and then collapsed.

You had Interpreter said, This is the first time I've seen this in 25 years.

Another interpreter said, Gaddafi's not exactly the most lucid speaker.

It's not just that what he's saying is illogical, but the way he's saying it is bizarre.

What a job, though, John, being Gaddafi's interpreter on occasional.

Phenomenal.

You can pretty much just riff, surely, on the general theme of Western conspiracies.

Yeah, and know that you basically won't be that far wrong.

If I was a Colonel Gaddafi translator at the UN, what I would say is something like this.

Hello everyone, I'm valuable trade partner Colonel Gaddafi.

You might remember me as one of the top baddies of the 1980s.

So you'll never guess who I had breakfast with this morning.

That's right, actress Scarlett Johansson.

As we both chowed down on a rabbit and carrot omelette, washed down with the traditional Libyan breakfast drink of rabbit blood mixed with carrot juice,

I told Scarlett that the Kennedy assassination was a conspiracy.

She said, yeah, whatever, Colonel, show me the money and I'll do your film.

I said, No, Scarlett, I'm not making a film.

She said, What the f, mate?

I thought you were a film director.

I said, No, no, don't be confused by the chair, the artificial hair, and the plastic surgery.

I'm Colonel Gaddafi, King of Libya, and I'm telling you that Kennedy was killed by, wait for it, Scarlett interrupted.

Oh, was it the CIA?

Uh, yeah, how did you guess?

Oh, shut up and give me the catch-up, Colonel.

This is disgusting.

Trump, Trump, Trump.

Why don't you make a film, Colonel Gaddafi?

I'll play you.

Two million bucks, take it or leave it, but no nudie bits, and I want Mickey Rourke to play Reagan.

Do we have a deal?

We have a deal.

So tell us, Buglers, if you were translating a Colonel Gaddafi speech at the UN,

what would you tell the world?

Very good.

Very, very good.

Email us at thebugle at timesonline.co.uk and do mark your emails.

Nut job.

Gaddafi continued his PR blitz this weekend, Andy, by sitting down for interviews with the US media.

And he was interviewed by Larry Larry King.

Indeed, Gaddafi may be the only person on this planet who can make Larry King look young.

And they just look like two old men sitting in rocking chairs, wittering about nothing and struggling to understand each other.

He kept expecting a nurse to come in, put blankets over their legs and wheel them to a window so they could just stare at some trees while the nurse tried to spoon some jelly cups into their faces.

Gaddafi was dressed in weird black robes, looking like a retired ninja.

And he came up with some classic stuff.

He argued al-Qaeda was alive and living in New York before chuckling to himself.

And it wasn't clear why, whether that was because he found the idea of them being present in the US amusing, or that he just could not believe the bullshit that was coming out of his own mouth.

Problem was, Larry King kept throwing to commercial breaks whenever Gaddafi said something contentious rather than challenging him.

At one point, Gaddafi argued that Bin Laden was not responsible for 9-11 because he wasn't piloting any of the planes that day.

And Larry King said, Okay, we'll be right back after this.

And you think, no, he just said something fing insane.

You might want to ask him about that.

Now is not the time to throw to a Romano's macaroni grill commercial.

I was pretty lucky Larry King wasn't the presiding judge at the Nuremberg trials.

Here's my suspicion, Andy.

I think Gaddafi speaks English just fine.

He just loves screwing with people and making translators collapse.

Well, it's been some other Libyan news, John.

Gaddafi and Chavez have called on Africa and South American nations to create a new alliance in an effort to stand up to Western dominance.

So here's a joke for you.

Here's a joke for you then, John.

What do South America and Africa have in common?

I don't know, Andy.

What do they have in common?

Well, both were totally shafted by European imperialism.

Is this on?

Was it too edgy for you?

You want the stuff about the women in the shoes or the aeroplane peanuts?

You're not ready for this kind of comedy.

I'm out of here.

Watching.

Chavez and Gaddafi stand together together side by side, you just thought this could be one of the great international double acts.

So often, international nutcases like to work alone.

It is going to be interesting to see what they can do together.

Because if they are better than some of their parts, we are about to go through one of the funniest times in human history.

This could be the Peter Cook and Dudley Moore of international politics.

Especially as other people attending this summit included Argentina's president, Christina Fernandez, and Robert Mugave

of Zimbabwe.

They threw Mugari into that mix too.

Chavez called on the two continents to secure prosperity for future generations through an alliance whereas Gaddafi said he was in favour of a military-style pact.

There it is, back on form.

This new alliance was described as being a NATO for the South, which I guess would be a Sato, which is good news for people who like writing limericks about potatoes with a global political angle.

Who might go with something along the lines of

there once was a little potato who did not think much of old NATO, so he went to have coffee with Colonel Goddoffy and told him and Chavez to start Sato.

Your emails now, and well, as you might very well expect, the subject of Derek Wibley, the lead singer of Sum 41, still funny, has caught your imagination.

Mr.

Wibley has not been in touch himself.

No doubt he's

probably working out numbers that add up to 41.

But a number of you have.

Stuart Wilson in Nottingham writes: I'm delighted to hear in the Bugle that Sun 41 are now the official band of the Bugle.

They absolutely are.

As Andy said, In Too Deep is one of Sun 41's better-known songs, along with the likes of Motivation and Fat Lip, all of which come from their first album, All Killer, No Filler.

I know.

But the band's first offering was, in fact, an EP called Half Hour of Power.

Ah, which quite possibly under the Trade Subscriptions Act should be disregarded, as it is, in fact, only 29 minutes and 53 seconds long brackets according to itunes you've you've clearly got it stuart you know own it and be proud and also it includes a large amount of silence at the end of the last track what seven seconds

well no i think i think within that 20 that 29 53 is including the silence right so well i mean having done this is a case of obvious deception of the paying public john and i'm not sure that really some 41 can remain as our official bugle band if they're prepared to dupe ordinary people like you and me out of our hard-earned rock ordinary Sum 41 fans.

Well, before you do anything rash Andy, there's another email here from Spencer Adams from Toronto who said, Dear Andy Brackett and John, I'm not an afterthought, Spencer, but I'll move on.

You should know that when you knighted Derek Wibley of the Canadian rock band Sum 41, the official band of the bugle, you inadvertently assumed lordship over his far more renowned and fetching wife, Avril Levine.

This belleville ball bell turned your old Queen's English on its ear with such instant classics as skater boy and complicated.

Clearly someone must be pulling the strings if Derek Wibley can land this future hottie from history.

Just know that, Andy, that you throw away Sum 41, you throw away Avril Levine.

And also we know neither of us knew that Derek Wibley was married to Avril Levine before today.

And I guess that's just one of those things in life that you didn't think you'd ever learn, but you have and now you can't unlearn it.

Now I have this useful piece of information.

I'm going to be obsessive about somehow using it.

So whenever anyone mentions Avril Levine, I will interrupt and say, who is of course married to Derek Wibley from Summ41?

But I'm already doing it.

Just yesterday,

old mate of mine said, I'm getting married.

I said, oh, what?

Like Derek Wibley and Avril Levine?

I don't call it marriage anymore.

I call it Wibley-Levinianism.

So do keep your emails coming into thebugle at timesonline.co.uk.

Sport now, a momentous week for sports, John, particularly sports and massive amounts of money, because Tiger Woods is now reckoned to have become the world's first ever billion-dollar sportsman.

Couldn't happen to a more dour individual.

After 13 years as a pro golfer, he's earned a billion dollars from prize money, endorsements, profits from his touring stage show in which he makes live tigers play tricky bunker shots.

Busking between rounds outside the clubhouse at major tournaments and a 20 quid note he borrowed off Colin Montgomery and refuses to pay back just to see how angry the big Scotsman will get.

All totals up now with his 10 million for winning the FedEx Cup to $1 billion, John.

$1 billion.

That's more than you, I, and Tom between us have earned put together.

Oh, that is a sobering thought, isn't it?

Although if the guru goes to a sequel, that could change.

That's right.

Let's never say never.

Rumour has it that Woods, with his billion dollars, is going to invest $996 million of those billion dollars building the world's first 18-hole space station golf course to be in a low orbit around Mars.

The course will be the first championship standard golf course in space and could indeed host the 2024 Ryder Cup.

It's going to be a testing course in space.

It's going to suit those who are long off the tee but also rewards a good short game and also players who are goods in zero gravity.

That's Tiger all over for you and he's spending the remaining $4 million on caravans.

Just loves caravans.

And now it's time for an audio cryptic crossword replacement.

So we haven't had one of these for quite a while.

Still miss the audio cryptic crosswords.

And

this week it's chess.

One of those little chess testers you get in newspapers sometimes.

Well this is the bugle chess problem.

Your opponent has you pinned back with an aggressive shlogoshloski manoeuvre.

Your queen is surrounded by the civious looking bishops and your only escape route is a risky counter-attack.

You move your knight towards his castle.

At this point your opponent starts growling.

Then he mutters what appears to be a threat implying that if you take his castle your immediate family will die.

He moves the pawn, you respond by moving as if to push your queen forward trapping his queen in an inescapable position.

He rips his shirt open, smears paint on his face, starts incanting ritualistic chants, and then moves as if to rip your heart out with his bare hands.

What is your next move?

What would you do in that situation, John?

Well, I've absolutely no idea.

I guess I'll be stunt.

I'll probably just be frozen.

And, you know, I'd wait too long and I'll be doomed.

Right, I'll go Bishop to King Four myself.

Oh, okay, right.

Forecast now, and this week's forecast is: will President Obama manage to bring the Olympic Games to Chicago, or will he go down in history as the worst president who ever lived?

Well, I don't think he can be entitled to him.

George Bush failed to bring the games to Chicago, so he never tried.

He never tried.

I'm sure that if he'd done it, he would have been successful.

That's the story of his entire presidency.

He never tried.

I don't know if he will, John, but I'm saying if he doesn't, he should put on his own Olympics.

He should just spend two weeks in Chicago swimming, running, riding a horse, and firing stuff at stuff.

Pretending like it was there

and injecting himself with performance enhancing trots.

Well, that's it buglers.

Have a great week.

Bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Hi, Buglers, it's producer Chris here.

I just wanted to very quickly tell you about my new podcast, Mildly Informed, which is in podcast feeds and YouTube right now.

Quite simply, it's a show where me and my friend Richie review literally anything.

So please come join us wherever you get your podcasts right now.