The Bugle finally returns

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello buglers and welcome back to the world's leading audio journal for structural engineers.

We've had a bit of a makeover while we've been away for the last three weeks.

Later on we'll be discussing the implications of the new 800 800-meter-plus burge building in Dubai and telling you how to build a suspension bridge into your neighbour's bedroom window, plus elevators or catapults, how to get to the top of a skyscraper in the most efficient way possible.

I'm Andy Saltzman here in London, still the capital of the UK, no matter what the skeptics might try to tell you.

And in the city that would have drifted off into space if it hadn't been for its old friend Gravity, New York, it's the Erwin Rommel of Comedy himself, John Oliver.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, buglers.

We're back and we're more powerful powerful than ever.

We're as powerful as before.

It's not incredibly powerful, but we've not lost any power.

That's what I'm saying.

No power loss.

I've been working out.

Yeah,

I know.

I know Andy.

I saw a picture of you online.

You're jacked.

You are jacked, Andy.

You are jacked.

You're juicing level jacked.

I don't think anyone's ever said that to me before, John.

I'm touched.

And I met some quite interesting people over the break, all over this self-styled greatest country in the world.

One particular woman sticks out.

She was a mid-40s woman in Atlanta who I walked past in the street and she turned around, stared at me and shouted, come back, you, come back!

At this point, I felt like I might have just stolen her handbag.

Then she said, come back to me.

And at this point, I felt like I might have received a blow to the head in the 60s and that this was my long-lost wife.

And then finally, she said, the bugle, come back to me.

There are so many ways to express that entirely pleasant thought without instilling that level of confusion, panic and fear.

So to all the other buglers that I've met over the last three weeks, lovely to meet you.

And thank you for not making me feel that I might have been married to you 40 years ago before I thought I was born.

As we recorded, it's the 18th of September.

This is the Bugle 89 for the week beginning Monday the 21st of September, of course.

But we're recording on the Friday, the 18th of September, which means, John, that it is 200 years since the opening of the second Royal Opera House in London, replacing the one that burnt down the year before, before itself burnt down in 1857, before tragically being rebuilt again in 1858.

And sadly, it still stands to this day.

John, I'm not a fan of opera.

For me, you settle down for a nice bit of orchestral music and then some woman starts singing as if she's swallowed a warhead.

Right.

And then a guy joins in.

Right.

Sounding a bit like he's trying to dig a mine shaft.

It's just not my bag, John.

That's a pretty blanket dismissal of one of the world's major art forms.

And

I just don't like the noise of the centuries.

I don't like the noise of it.

You don't like the noise of it.

What an elegant opera criticism that was.

I don't like the noise, babe.

An opera in full swing sounds like a poorly managed zoo during a mild earthquake.

And I hold the opera solely responsible for the existence of musicals.

So anyway,

that's a fair point.

18th of September means that as we record, it is five years to the day since a momentous event in both of our lives, John.

Oh, yeah.

I don't remember five years ago.

I got married.

Oh, yeah.

And you busted that fat move on the dance floor.

I think my arm hasn't fully recovered.

I felt something go as I projected that towards the sky.

It was a momentous turning point in both of our lives.

I've ended up with two delightful little children.

You've ended up with a TV and movie career in the States purely on the strength of the pure funk that you exuded all over that dance floor.

I'd steady on about that career description, Andy.

As always, a section of the bugle is going straight in the bin.

This week, a taxidermy section, including how to stuff a favorite family pet for posterity using a knitting needle, some yarn, a spare cushion from the sofa, and a couple of bottles of cheap vinegar.

Plus, we tell you the best animals to taxidermize if you want to be able to climb inside them and walk around frightening people.

Number one, a bear, number two, a lion, number three, a moose.

And also, we'll give you some advice from the Safe Taxidermy campaign.

In particular, ensure your animal is either dead or very nearly dead before stuffing it and always get permission before you kill and stuff an animal, particularly if you're doing so in a zoo.

Top story this week, Obama Healthcare Soap Opera.

Will he, won't he, can he?

Can't he?

Ooh, I can't wait to find out.

You may recall that when we last bugled way back in mid-August, that America was in the midst of a valiant civil war to win its health from itself.

Well, that war has by no means been resolved, Andy, in the last few weeks that we've been away.

If anything, it is raging even harder.

In fact, the battle for healthcare has started to resemble the war in Afghanistan.

History would suggest that it's politically disastrous to attempt to intervene in it, but at some point someone is going to have to do something about it.

And you just can't help but want to be the first one to succeed.

So it does seem that America is still tearing itself apart john over exactly how much pain the state should allow poor people to die in yeah it's it's tearing itself apart with still no way of managing to putting itself back together as well well it seems to come down to a debate between loads of pain on the republican side and quite a lot of pain on the democratic side it's one of those great ideological debates john it's like communism against capitalism all over again for me you know i guess you've got to ask the question is it more important to heal the sick or save some money for the rich?

And I don't know.

I mean, I can't answer that question.

But let's consult America's number one ranked most popular messiah, Jesus Christ.

Now, I'll just check my internet Bible here.

But it looks pretty close, John.

I mean, he really loved the poor and said the rich should give all their money away.

But then there is that little-known parable of the trickle-down economist and also the recently unearthed manuscript of the Gospel of St.

Lionel, in which after he brings Lazarus back from the dead, he presents him with an invoice for 400 shekels.

But Lord Jesus, said Lazarus, dusting himself off and and spitting the maggots out of his mouth, I thought you were saving me as an inspirational sign of your divine goodness and power.

Well, yeah, kind of, mate, said Big Jay.

But I've got to eat, and I've got to put my kid through school.

Sorry, did I say kid?

I have no kid.

Let me make that abundantly clear.

It's a very striking new gospel, Andy, but it was in Warren Buffett's handwriting.

So President Obama addressed Congress to insist for the 17th different time that the time for healthcare reform is now.

No, now.

Definitely now.

Okay, started it now.

And also to refute some of the scaremongering which has been going on since Congress went on break.

And it was in the middle of this address when Republican Congressman Joe Wilson heckled the Commander-in-Chief, shouting out, you lie!

First of all, as a heckle, that is both tame and hugely unimaginative.

Both Andy and I are stand-up comedians, so frankly, we've had worse things shouted at us by audiences than war criminals get shouted at them from the Hague's public gallery.

And you lie is the equivalent of get off your shit.

at the very least you should have gone with say something fiscally responsible or you're stealing President Clinton's material

but a nice detail in this story was revealed by Joe Wilson's wife who said in an interview afterwards that when she initially spoke to him on the phone immediately after their speech she asked him what nut shouted out you lie at the president

and he was forced to say oh I did

Tricky moment in a marriage darling I am that nut of which you speak

It was I.

Congressman Wilson is from Guess Where?

That's right, South Carolina.

And let's be fair, you've got to hand it to South Carolina, Andy,

with him, Governor Mark Sanford, and Senator Lindsey Graham.

They really are taking douchebaggery to world record levels.

And even more impressively, they continue pushing the bar with no one else helping them by providing them competition.

There's no pace setter for them now.

They must know that they're number one at producing assholes at the moment, but yet they're still able to push themselves to see how just how good they can be.

They're like a competitive hot dog eater who becomes world champion, makes it into the history books, but who then can't stop eating more hot dogs anyway, just to make sure the record is never broken.

But contrary to significant evidence, the Republican leadership aren't actually stupid.

They know when someone's crossed the line and they made sure that Joe Wilson apologised quickly.

And just hours later, he released a statement saying, I'm very grateful that the White House have indicated that they appreciated

me apologising through my phone call.

And oh boy, you know, that must have been an awkward phone call to make.

Even more awkward when you find out that apparently Wilson had tried to call Obama to apologise personally, but ended up talking with the White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel instead, a man famous for having one of the most brutal tempers in the whole of DC.

And it didn't stop there.

Joe Wilson clearly knows that in case a phone call apology isn't enough, it's time to hit YouTube and stare awkwardly into a camera.

His apology was this: he said, Last evening, I let my emotions get the best of me on the critical issue of healthcare.

I was wrong and I apologised to the president shortly afterwards and he has acknowledged my sincerity.

Not bad as follow-up apologies go.

I've heard better but I've also heard worse.

Just walk away from the camera now, let people get back to watching hamsters on a piano eating popcorn.

But no, he went on to say, on these issues, I will not be muzzled.

I will speak up and speak loudly against this risky plan.

I need your help now.

If you agree with me that the government-run health plan is bad for America, then then I ask for your support.

Please go to joewilsonforCongress.com and contribute to my effort to defeat the proponents of government-run health care.

Wow,

you've got to hand it to him.

You don't often see someone apologize and then immediately ask for money.

That takes real balls, Andy.

Huge leathery balls.

Oh, sorry I drove into the back of your car there.

How about giving me fifty pounds?

And it it turns out that gross breaches of etiquette are actually now a potential gold mine, because you can also buy t-shirts now that say I'm with Joe Wilson along with mugs, baseball caps and bumper stickers, all of which has helped add $1 million.

$1 million in the last week to his re-election campaign.

Who knew that a lack of basic manners would be so profitable?

But that's capitalism, love it or leave it.

The point is, listen, buglers, America is in serious economic trouble.

In fact, the whole world is.

And together, we need to explore every profitable revenue we can find.

And I think Joe Wilson just found found a new one.

And that is why I'm instructing you to go to work tomorrow, walk straight in there, and tell your boss that they're a dick.

Ask yourself this: can the world afford for you not to do it?

And all this circus culminated in Nancy Pelosi demanding that Congress publicly rebuke Joe Wilson on the floor of the House.

They basically made him stand there like a naughty boy, writing, I will never shout at the president again a hundred times while thinking about what he's done.

Wilson was understandably not keen on this idea, not because it was a complete waste of valuable house time, but because, and I quote, in my view, by apologising to the president, the most important person in the history of the world, that applied to everyone.

What?

The most important person in the history of the world?

Steady on.

No minds and apology, but an ass kissing is really unforgivable.

The only thing that made this whole debacle worthwhile was when Chris Wallace on MSNBC asked Joe Wilson in an interview, how will you feel when they make you stand

in the well of the House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi disciplines you?

And there was just something in that congressman's eyes in that moment that made me think that what he actually wanted to say was, how will I feel when she disciplines me?

A little turned on, Chris.

I'm not going to lie to you, I've been a bad, bad boy and I need to be punished.

I think I'm going to feel humiliated, angry and full of unexpected tingly sensations.

I think the real question here is, Chris, how are you going to feel when she disciplines me?

Do you like to watch that kind of thing?

Because I like to be watched.

Oh yeah!

I might have been reading too much into the pause.

I don't know.

I don't know.

You know.

You know what politicians are like, John?

Yeah.

Perverts to a man.

I guess for Obama, John, trying to do politics with the Republican right must be like trying to do a guided tour of an art gallery with a group of disruptive four-year-olds.

They just don't know when to shut up and behave, and there is absolutely nothing he can say that can possibly stalm them down.

Well after all this the proposed bill has finally been revealed by Senator Max Borkas and to be honest it wasn't revealed with much razmataz considering the build-up it's had no lasers no t-shirt cannons no bursting through a paper American flag just a middle-aged white man reading out a pre-prepared statement Borkas claims that the bill would cost $856 billion over 10 years and mandate insurance coverage for every American.

And he has absolutely no Republican support whatsoever.

Hold on, that can't be wrong.

Maybe I've got that number upside down.

No, it is still zero.

After all that, Andy, months and months of negotiations and concessions, and this is the result.

He technically could have drafted a bill that was nothing but a flipbook of every elected Republican graphically urinating on the Constitution, and it would have got exactly the same amount of bipartisan support as this did.

In which case, he should at the very least have done that.

Armageddon news now and the Obama administration has announced plans to bring Armageddon closer by not building the very necessary anti-ballistic missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.

They've shelved the anti-ballistic missile system.

When you say they've shelved it Andy, are they literally, are they going to still build it, construct it, but then just put it all on a big shelf, a big rickety shelf and hope hope for the best.

That is exactly what they're going to do.

In fact, they're going to use a big shelf as a missile defense system.

Oh, really?

That's not a bad idea.

Yeah.

A great big wooden shelf.

Just

kind of vertically placed halfway across the Atlantic.

Yeah, well, take that, Iran.

Yeah.

You can't get past a shelf.

No, as my forehead can testify.

Some people have said this is an effort to placate.

Russia, John, and the Bush policy of building a great big missile defense system right next door door to Russia did seem to be kind of trying to placate the sleeping Russian bear by poking that bear with a sharp and snooker cue and then grinding an electric toothbrush in its eyes.

But Russia's responded quite positively, and of course some people have basically said that Obama is there for a massive commie.

They were saying that before, but this is just some more evidence that isn't actually evidence for them.

The White House spokesguy, Slake Perforius, commented, yep, the missile defense system just seemed like a f ⁇ of a lot of money for something that would have been in practical terms fing useless.

Might as well have built a f off great bouncy castle in Washington and hope the missiles bounce the f off it back to Iran.

Mr.

Perforius had a point but is now unemployed.

But the missile defense agency John costs on average $8 billion a year.

Apparently, I ran them and said, could I have some of it?

They said no.

Right, but you don't get a lot of bang for your buck for those $8 million, John.

I mean, I guess that is the idea, to have no bang as a result of those bucks.

But it's still...

It's a deterrent.

It's like a burger alarm.

It's still a lot of money for not a lot of missiles defended.

And it must be kind of frustrating to work there, don't you think?

Because you've got nothing much.

People shot nuclear missiles at us.

Well, I'm just saying, if you work in a missile defense agency, John, you want to know if your work is working.

I guess there's got to be.

You don't want to then find out that it isn't.

That was not the sense of closure that I was anticipating.

Well, you just imagine some guy getting home from a day's work at the missile defense agency, his wife saying, oh how was work today dear?

I'm saying oh well you know did some paperwork, rang the Russians to see what they're up to.

Did you stop any missile attacks dear?

No, no I didn't.

Oh that's a shame dear.

Better luck tomorrow.

Can we talk about something else?

I'm not you don't respect my work.

Well as long as it makes you happy love.

It doesn't make me happy.

Oh no it doesn't dear.

I might as well be on Crocodile Watch at Buckingham Shitting Palace or working for the National Society for the Prevention of Building Full Scale Working Replicas of George Washington's Washington's nuts.

Just tough.

It must be tough to keep yourself motivated.

That's a tragic vignette.

Massive pollution compensation settlements news now.

And here's a joke, John.

Why is the major oil trading company Traffigura like a badly trained puppy on a pavement?

I don't know, Andy.

Why is it?

Because it doesn't care where it dumps or who it affects by doing so.

Is this on?

Is this on?

It is on, I'm afraid.

And it will then carry on bouncing around and wagging its tail as if it's done nothing wrong.

Of course, the difference being that Trafagura, the company involved as one of the world's leading oil trading companies, should know better than a puppy by now, and it isn't as cute.

And we can't just take it to a home for stray oil companies if we decide we don't want it after all.

That is only a joke, of course, John.

No necessary truth in that, possibly.

And Trafagura, the company involved, is supposed to have dumped a load of toxic oil slops in Abidjan, the capital of the Côte d'Ivoire, or as the French call it, the Avori Couste.

And

basically, they've stopped just short of claiming that the entire executive board used these slops as a facial rub most mornings.

But they are at odds with some toxicologists who say, hang on, fellows, that stuff can literally have your eye out.

So this is basically the story.

Trafficura, one of the world's biggest oil trading companies, has now agreed to pay damages, apparently, to 31,000 people from the Côte d'Ivoire, who claim to have been injured after one of the firm's subcontractors illegally dumped contaminated toxic oil sludge in 15 or more locations in Abidjan.

You say they claim to be injured, Andy.

It's a pretty strong claim seeing as they have been injured.

Well, yeah, it is a strong claim that

the UN and the courts in the Ivory Coast.

Do strongly back up.

I think there are some key lessons to learn from this, Andy.

For a start, Traffigura, well, incidentally, never trust a British company which sounds like an experimental pasta sauce.

Traffigura needed to be watched closely.

We had a chance to stop them.

As you say, the company originally hoped to offload the cargo in Amsterdam, but samples were taken, and Traffigura was told the waste was toxic and would cost hundreds of thousands of euros to treat safely.

So, obviously, in their defence, in their weak, weak defence, Traffigura didn't want to do that because the word safely in that sentence had been polluted by the word cost.

So,

they opted for the much cheaper option of reloading the waste and dumping it elsewhere.

Now, some of the trafficker emails, which are really incredible, say that the head, Mr.

Dolphin, was urging his team to be creative in how they dealt with the hazardous waste.

Creative?

Just how creative were their ideas though, Andy, if the best one was sailing it to Africa and dumping it?

There must have been...

I'll give you a few better ones now.

How about sailing it up to South Africa, ring on their Coast Guard's doorbell and then run away?

Or maybe sail it around the Sudanese coast and hope it gets taken by pirates or disguise it as a dolphin and hope that someone adopts it.

You can be even more creative John that could you know turn it into melting watches Salvador Dali style.

There you go.

Who knows?

But you might well be thinking all this and we have to see it from both sides both from the sides of the symptoms reported in the immediate aftermath by around 100,000 people in Abidjan, the deaths of 15 or more people, the 20-year jail sentence for the subcontractor, the resignation of the entire government of the Cote d'Ivoire, the £100 million compensation paid by Traffigura to the Ivorian government, Trafagura's press officer apparently trying on three occasions to change the Wikipedia entry about the incident to portray his company as being merely innocent bystanders.

Or the globe.

It's so desperate.

Someone get on Wikipedia fast.

That's the corporate world these days, John.

God.

It's all about PR.

Or even the global settlement that Trafeura said on Wednesday, it's considering for victims who suffered lesser injuries than, for example, death.

these injuries included permanent disfigurement and ignore also the UN report finding strong prima facie evidence that the reported deaths and adverse health consequences are related to the dumping ignore all that because Trafigura issued a statement saying the settlement involved no admission of liability Trafigura believed the settlement was the best way for the people of Abidjan the Ivorian government and Trafigura to move forward So really it's just a lovely gesture

from an entirely innocent company just to help everyone get over it.

It's like sending sending a bunch of flowers to someone who's just lost their favourite grandparent during a trip to the zoo.

It's kind of hard to see how this happened.

John, without the company having written in its mission statements, we are committed to high-end operations in the oil industry, providing professional operations for all of our customers and trying to poison the people of the Ivory Coast.

Hugo feature section now and France.

Ah, bonjour and de bonjour.

This today, as you listen on Monday, as you rightfully should, is

the 21st of September, 217 years as the crow flies

since France proclaimed that it had abolished its monarchy.

Monsieur said Tropshire, Tropshire.

That is outstanding, John.

Il fedu boy ar

so we did that and then shortly afterwards lopped the bonses off its king and queen.

That's I guess another way to properly abolish your monarchy.

That's it.

It's to abolish their physical heads.

Yeah.

That's right.

Not just the concept.

Maybe there's a misunderstanding with the French monarchs.

Yeah, it's all okay.

Fair enough.

We've heard all your arguments.

It seems like you just don't want us.

You don't want the concept of monarchy around.

That's fine.

What are you doing?

You have no idea.

No, it's okay.

You don't need to do that.

Listen, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing properly.

But they introduced a French Republican calendar, John.

And were we to be still living under that French Republican calendar, this would be the fifth leap day of the year 217, tagged on to the end of the month fructidor, at the end of the 36th Descartes or 10-day week of the year.

So tomorrow would be the Primide of Vendomer

on the 22nd of September.

They got it wrong, did they?

Crazy best.

They got it wrong, the French.

They might have chopped some people's heads off, but when it came to calendars, they were barking at the wrong bird.

I guess they got so excited with all that head chopping.

They kind of lost the plot a bit when it came to dates.

You don't worry about dates dates when you're thinking about whose head you're next going to lop off.

And a really complicated way of doing it as well.

I guess you want each week to be longer, that's the point.

When you've got so many heads to chop off, you think, I don't have time this week, so let's just make the week longer, that'll be easier.

Then we'll hit all the targets.

Life's always been about targets, Andy.

That's nothing new.

There's also an escalating row in France at the moment over the lengths to which Nicola Sarkozy is going to conceal his height, or more importantly, his complete lack of it.

This flared up after a Belgian woman claimed that she was selected to stand behind him during a TV report because she was shorter than him.

Now, in reality, Sarkozy is 5'5, which is smaller than Napoleon, who wore big hats and platform heels to seem bigger.

So, you know, for a start, where are Sarkozy's massive flamboyant hats?

That's the least he can do.

I know he's wearing the platform shoes.

You're halfway there.

You've half Napoleoned up.

Platform shoes.

I hope he goes the full 70s look.

Now that he's got the platform shoes, let's have the big flares, the massive hair, the dark glasses.

Sarkozy often gives speeches on hidden platforms, and his wife usually wears flat shoes when standing next to him.

But these techniques for making himself seem taller are nothing new with world leaders.

Gaddafi, he currently wears stilts underneath his trousers.

You don't see many long shots, but his stilts are enormous.

He keeps them in his silly tent that he sleeps in.

And Medvedev has helium balloons tied to his shoulders, meaning that he actually hovers three inches off the ground permanently.

You'll never see his feet.

You'll never see his feet because they're dangling.

Well, Peter the Great, of course, notoriously massive, hence the name Peter the Great,

was actually two little guys on each other's shoulders in a big overcoat.

Also, Henry VIII was only five foot one, but he used a stunt double of himself whenever he went out in public.

Very wise.

Very wise, even then.

Security first.

And Abe Lincoln wore three pairs of stilettos on each foot.

Hey, no, and he didn't.

He didn't do that.

That was the greatest president in American history.

Pick another one to mock.

I'm not saying he wasn't a great president, John.

I'm just saying he had a thing for women's shoes.

In other French news, authorities in France are responding to the outbreak of swine flu by asking people to stop kissing.

They're concerned that this is contributing to the spread of the disease.

Good luck!

Because the French will kiss anything that moves.

They kiss each other just to say hello.

They call it labise, the tradition of greeting each other with a peck on the cheek and apparently handshaking and caressing are also suggested to be off limits how did those two get into the same group handshaking and caressing that's it those are completely different things

well not if you're french john yeah that's true

la la

Depends what you're shaking with your hand, I guess.

But trying to stop the French kissing, John, you might as well try to stop the Italians trying to look cool on mopeds or the Canadians wondering whether America will let them join.

Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, Andy.

Italians gotta do wheelies on mopeds at 15 years old with no helmet.

I think, have you ever been to France, John?

Yeah.

My little sister works in a bakery in France.

How did you get on with the...

Because I know you like a

bit of personal space.

Yeah, do you know what?

It doesn't feel.

It was definitely a concern when I went there, thinking, you know, you don't want to just...

You don't want to bob and weave.

They don't like that.

You can't kiss me when I dance.

You can't kiss me.

I'm not there no more.

I think I did okay.

I think I did okay.

I was quite passive in it because I think

what I think I tried it once, in fact, I do remember.

You know, you're supposed to just kind of kiss the air with the side of the mouth.

Oh, right, yeah.

I think I met someone and just like turned my head around to actually just kiss them on the cheek.

All right.

I think, even for the French, that was too much.

Right, you didn't go in with you know, full British tongues.

That's right.

With the British tongue

conquering the French peck.

It was like a heavy petting Agincourt.

So here now is a bugle list of France's four greatest contributions to the world.

Uh-oh.

Number four, the smooch.

Before the French invented the kiss, men and women just head-butt each other as a sign of affection.

Number three, the baguette, the world's first edible walking stick, the world's first munchable personal defense weapon, the world's yummiest golf club.

Enough said.

Number two, the scoff.

Before the French developed a high-tech range of means of expressing scorn for other people, humankind had no way of expressing displeasure with others than going to war.

So you might think the French are being rude to you.

In fact, they're saving millions of lives.

And number one, using animal cruelty to make food even tastier.

If I didn't know geese really loved overeating, well, I'd have to eat my foie gras with my eyes shut.

Your emails now and well, thank you buglers.

You've sent us an absolute welter of fantastic emails while we've been away.

Unfortunately, we've overrun this week.

So we're only going to do a couple of them and then we'll have a bumper your email section next week.

The first email here reads, Dear John and Andy, I'm one of your few listeners from Hong Kong, but on September the 1st, I decided to tell the girl of my dreams that I've got a crush on her.

That's always a big moment.

At first I told her she looked unbelievably hot and she started to blush.

Sounds good.

Sounds like it's going well.

Seeing that as a good sign, I told her that she looked like the hottie from history Florence Nightingale.

Oh boy.

After hearing that, she slapped me across the face and is now refusing to talk to me.

What the hell did I do wrong?

Can you give me some advice?

Yours, Dylan.

That's all I can say, Dylan.

It clearly wasn't meant to be.

If a girl can't take a compliment, you don't want to know her.

Yeah.

Particularly not the greatest compliment a girl can be paid.

The only response to saying you look like Florence Nightingale is to just

literally her knees to collapse.

Drop on the floor, say thank you, thank you.

I guess I do.

I will be your bride.

It probably just seems so outlandish.

She's probably thought, well, no one's as hot as Nightingale.

He's taking the piss.

Well, this,

good luck.

Good luck, Dylan.

I mean, it could have been worse.

That's the thing to focus on the positives, because you could have said, you look like the second in the Hottie from History Bowl, Joanna the Mad.

And, you know, although, you know, obviously, as far as I'm concerned, that is an incredible compliment.

The mad thing can

confuse people who haven't seen a picture of her hotness.

This email comes from Felicia in Scarborough in Canada.

I think you find Scarborough's in Yorkshire, England, Felicia.

But anyway, she writes, Dear sirs, does Tom look like that dude in that music video for Natalie and Brugia's Torn?

I don't like Natalie and Brugia, but for some reason, I always picture him as that dude.

I don't know.

Well, Tom isn't here this week.

Tom's

had to have the week off.

He's gone to a wedding somewhere or something.

I think he's just avoiding us.

But I mean, I certainly, you know, we can wildly speculate about it, even though we both know what he looks like.

I don't know.

The problem is,

I don't know what the dude in the video for Torn looks like.

I'm guessing he doesn't, because what he looks like, he looks like Natalie and Bruglia.

Absolute spitting image, only

quite a lot bigger and more Scottish.

Yeah, basically, that should be the mental image.

Natalie and Brugia, circa the Torn video.

I don't know what she looks like now.

Probably similar, but older.

Such is life.

So thanks again for your emails and do keep them flooding in to thebugle at timesonline.co.uk or regret it for the rest of your living days.

Bugle sport now and well we left you with a cheating in sports section three weeks ago and there's been some even more fantastic cheating than the Harlequins Bloodgate scandal.

And that's saying something.

They set the bar high the Queens.

We've had the Formula One cheating scandal in which the head of Reno, Salvatore Briatore, has resigned after it emerged emerged that one of their drivers Nelson Piquet Jr.

deliberately crashed in a Grand Prix in order to get the safety car out to aid his teammate Fernando Alonso to win the race.

Deliberately crashing a Formula One car.

Now that really is so dangerous.

It's really so f ⁇ ing dangerous.

Now I'm telling to your boss isn't it?

At that point, I think if

your boss, Andy, ever says to you, right, today I would like you to crash a car at 100 miles an hour into a wall.

It's time to get a different job.

Even if that job is a 4.01 driver, it's still, that is irretrievable for your boss.

Hey, Nelson, how you doing?

Actually, I did have something for you to do today.

Oh, please, boss, it's not smash my car into a wall at an absolutely inhuman speed, is it?

Also, we had a spectacular piece of strop throwing, John, at the US Open.

Phenomenal.

Serena Williams absolutely blowing a cracker tower at a line judge over a foot fault.

Now, I mean it did look slightly like this was a footfall she was at 1530 serving to stay in the match in the semi-final against Clysters.

And she hadn't had a footfall called I think in the whole tournament and it did look like that line judge thought I could really have a moment in the sun here.

You know it must be tempting.

It must because it must get a bit boring being a line judge in tennis.

You must think I could get on telly.

Yeah.

No one notices a line judge.

If I call a footfall now.

She was just interested in our entertainment as well.

She's sitting there thinking, wow, Serena's starting to look angry with herself.

I'll tell you what I could do to push her over the edge.

Tennis needs characters, Andy.

It needs some spectacular characters.

And that line judge, she's interested in keeping a job.

So, you know, she needs to up the audience of tennis, and she did us all a favour.

What Serena, if you didn't see it, what Serena William said to this line judge was

that she wanted to shove this tennis ball up your f ⁇ ing ass.

And there was some confusion that she was later heard shouting at the line judge.

I didn't say I was gonna kill you.

Are you serious?

But perhaps the Lion Joes just believed that having a tennis ball shoved powerfully up her ass by Serena Williams would actually be potentially fatal.

Now can you die from having a tennis ball shoved up your ass?

I presume, I presume you can.

I don't know.

If there are any buglers who attended Eton College, please do let us know.

Andy, Duck.

I mean, personally, on a personal level, I would love to go and see one of her games now, and I will be disappointed if she doesn't basically verbally assault someone.

Now, Makaro made a rod for his own back.

People loved him.

Serena,

she's too good at it.

She's a great swearer.

She needs to be supported in continuing to do this.

Amazing story Kim Kleister's coming back and winning the US Open as a mother in her third tournament back after retirement, John.

That must have been pretty big news in New York.

Yeah, it was.

It was, but not as big a news as Serena Williams saying she was going to shove a tennis ball up the line judge's ass.

And there we have a little lesson about life.

Yeah.

Time for the bugle forecast now and in fact an update on the last forecast from three weeks ago which was basically whether or not I would survive my comeback to the cricket field.

I did more than survive it buglers.

I hit a six a massive six.

Okay, that's not the whole story Zan.

How many did you score?

17 John.

That's not bad.

Do you know what that is?

Not bad, is it?

Yeah.

But the forecast for this week is: by next week's bugle, will America have healthcare?

Well,

I mean,

the time for healthcare is now, Andy.

It's now.

Time of change is now.

It's now, but it was now.

I mean, it was now

earlier in the bugle.

Maybe next week.

Will next week be now?

Will it be the new now next week?

No, no, no, no.

Now overcomes, John.

You know, I think it's unlikely, to be honest.

You know, don't want to be too pessimistic, but there's

way.

Still, could be.

Good luck to all uninsured ill people in America.

Death's not as bad as people make out.

No accounts.

The blissful release of eternal void.

Well, that's a happy note to end up.

There you go.

There you go, buglers.

Lovely to have you back, buglers.

Have a nice week.

Bye.

Bye.

This is a Times Online podcast.

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Hi, Buglers, it's producer Chris here.

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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.