Burma triumphs at made-up crime prevention

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, Buglers, and welcome to Bugle 86 for the week beginning Monday, the 17th of August, 2009, with me, Andy, the Hot Truth Zoltzmann.

And in the spiritual home of the archetypal New York Jew and the actual home of the archetypal New York Jew as well, New York, it's John the raging bullshit, Oliver, the hot truth.

Wow, you sound like a stripper.

Well, you talk about Jews, Andy.

Andy was prevented from getting into the studio this morning by security at the studio.

It's hard not to see an anti-Semitic angle to that prevention.

But as a positive side of Judaism, Andy, I went to to a Jewish wedding last night.

Phenomenal.

You people really know how to put on a show.

Do we?

My favourite bit,

the bit where they hold people, people sit on chairs and then they just hold them up and bounce them up and down in the air near the light fixes and fans.

That has got to be the best idea for a wedding I've yet seen.

Simultaneously, the most joyous and dangerous way for a young couple to start their life.

The groom had a look in his eyes which suggested he knew exactly how drunk his friends who were holding the chair were.

And it was like everyone knew including him just how funny it would look if he fell

added a real frisson to the wedding

makes me regret we went for the registry office job big mistake anyway this is bugle 86 86 of course an american slang term to 86 something meaning to throw out discard cancel or refuse to serve a customer i understand john i not uh come across this before did you use that you know most days or every day i mean i use it probably every other day.

Because it's mostly in the restaurant trade.

Some sample uses would be: hey, the guy at table 12 has just been eaten by an escaped crocodile.

Really?

You better 86 a pastrame on rife for table 12 then.

Enrico, clean up the floor.

I'm going to 86 your ass.

Are you ready to order, sir?

Yeah, I'd like the crocodile carpeccio.

I'm afraid the crocodile has been 86, sir.

But if you run after it with a big knife, you might still catch up with it.

How's that?

That's my accent's coming along.

Pretty good.

Yeah, but it's the vocabulary of a 1920s cop.

So what are the origins of this strange expression 86?

Well, there are various schools of thought.

Most popularly, that it's a prohibition term after Chumley's, the famous New York speakeasy, which was at 86 Bedford Street in Greenwich Village.

Other options are that it was a reference to Article 86 of the New York State Liquor Code, or after London's first ever Donna Kebab takeaway at 86 Scratcher Street in Earls Court, where a spate of fatal poisonings in the first year of opening in 1795 led to the term 86 coming into being.

How's Derek?

Not good, he had a big night out down the Ratten Parrot and then got 86 at the kebab shop.

Gripes.

Well he'd probably have died of typhoid sooner or later anyway, so it's probably for the best.

Another alternative is that it was in fact the age at which old people become completely pointless and realistically should be humanely put down.

In ancient Greece of course 86 year olds used to be drugged, dressed up in pantomime cow outfits and sacrificed to Zeus to try to ensure nice weather for a picnic or an especially pretty selection of youths at the gymnasium that week.

How's old Raphanides?

Oh, he's not too good.

We 86'd him last week, but still Zeus seem to like it.

So, we've got a lovely plague-free weekend out of him.

Well, that's nice work from the Hot Truth.

Yeah,

struggling to live up to that name.

A couple of anniversaries being marked in this week's Bugle, John.

Happy eighth anniversary to Roger and Wendy and Hemel Hemstead.

Here's Whitney Houston with an all-time classic tonight.

We'll have a good day.

So, I'm getting my shows mixed up.

I've been doing the drive-time show on Fluids FM.

Yeah, Ree.

Is that your drive-time show or is that late-night love with Hot Truth?

So, the 17th of August, John, 101 years of cartoon animations.

In 1908, Emile Cole released Phantasmagori, the forerunner of cartoon classics such as 101 Dalmatians, The Simpsons, Burt Lancaster and the Oven of Death, D-Day Doggy, that's a cartoon version of the Normandy Landings.

Oh my gosh.

And Reggie Register, the crocodile sex offender.

Snap Snap.

So therefore, this week's bugle, rather than being filmed in 3D for posterity like all previous bugles, has been animated.

Oops, just fell off my chair.

And we're recording this this on Friday the 14th of August, John.

That's the 73rd anniversary of the last ever public hanging in the USA.

Oh, that's nice.

So we would ask all you buglers as a mark of respect to listen to this episode with the wire of your headphones knotted dangerously around your neck whilst standing on a chair with a sack over your head and 20,000 spectators looking on baying for your death and hot dog sellers doing a roaring trade.

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

This week, on Tom's request, the section in the bin is a guide to Scotland in the 2010 Football World Cup.

Completely unnecessary, you will not be needing that.

A 4-0 defeat to Norway.

Norway?

Oh, I didn't know Norway still existed as a nation.

I don't know, I don't even have any football in Norway.

Top story this week, Jailhouse Crock.

You may remember that several bugles ago, we talked about the American man who swam across the lake to visit the house of Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung Sang Su Kyi, who then made the alarming decision to let him in, presumably simply to let him try off.

Also, incidentally, this is how I now demarcate time, Andy, how many bugles something is.

A unit of time being one bugle.

It wasn't three months ago, it was 12 bugles ago.

A good holiday would be two bugles long.

I think of Horace as being around 50 bugles old.

Anyway.

Are you counting additional episodes in that or not?

Because I mean, that's where less like the Jewish calendar, isn't it?

With leap months, you know, leap bugles.

Exactly.

Well, anyway, she has finally been sentenced for the horrific crime of opening a door to a further 18 months of house arrest, or to be more accurate, 81 bugles.

Now,

that sentence may seem dehumanisingly harsh, but remember, it is just the tip of a human rights abusing iceberg.

She has spent nearly 14 of the last 20 years in detention.

That is a long time to be incarcerated, especially without having actually committed a crime.

You would literally get less for murder.

Now, the critics of Burma's military junter regime, which is pretty much everyone on earth apart from Burma's military junter regime, argue that the verdict is specifically designed to prevent her from taking part in elections in 2010.

And you would need gigantic 20-foot inverted commas around the word election there to be able to genuinely use it in that sentence.

Yep, she's been up to her old tricks again, Ong Tang Su Shi, the convicted criminal.

I mean I would look at it this way.

If she's been under house arrest for that long, there must be something in it.

Surely.

No smoke without a fire.

When I come to it, if a kid at school had spent 14 of the last 20 years in detention, you'd think, well, there's clearly an underlying problem.

Yeah, bad kid.

Yeah.

No, you're right.

They were very clever with this particular sentence, though, because the courtroom was initially told that it would be three years in prison with hard labour for her.

Then, after a five-minute recess, Burma's home minister came in and announced that the sentence had been compassionately reduced to 18 months that could be served under house arrest.

That's brilliant, Andy.

Go in big

and then hope the people are stupid enough to, when the new sentence comes down, actually be quite grateful.

You're hereby sentenced to death.

Oh, God, please, no.

Actually, out of the kindness of my heart, it will now just be 15 years in prison.

Thank you, merciful judge.

Thank you so much for sentencing me to 15 years in prison.

What a lovely man you are now just don't ever park in that unlocked space again exactly it's like a doctor saying you've got eight months to live letting that sink in and saying actually no but i do need to lop one of your legs off

but you wouldn't have thought john that having a mad american man swim across a lake to your house would constitute grounds for a conviction of this type but that is ignoring uh the fact that the crime committed by Aung Sang Sushi was that crime of having an American man swim across a lake to her house.

So bang to rights on that.

I don't think we can argue that she was guilty of that.

Hillary Clinton has stepped in and said that she shouldn't have been convicted and called for John Yettle, the American man involved, to be released.

Well, I would say, butt out of it, Clinton.

You know, last week we had a bomber telling the US police how to do their job.

This week, Clinton's banging on about the Burmese judicial system.

It's not your business, Hillary.

Have you ever been tried by a Burmese court?

No, well, you don't know what it's like.

You've got no right to comment.

Well, what of the American swimmer, though, Andy?

He was sentenced to three years in prison for breaching Miss Suki's house arrest, three years with hard labor for an immigration offence, and another one-year term with hard labour for swimming in a restricted zone.

And he didn't have his Varuka socks on either.

It's that last one that really stings.

A year's hard labour for swimming in a restricted zone.

That is some strict lifeguarding.

What is wrong with blowing a f ⁇ ing whistle or waving a brightly coloured flag?

Baywatch would have been a very different different programme if David Hasselhoff had spent his entire day running across a beach with a bikini colleague in slow motion to sentence a rogue swimmer to 22 months hard labour for venturing outside the designated paddling area.

Clearly, there's something that they need to add to their swimming conduct posters.

No running, no bombing, no heavy petting, and no visiting pro-democracy leaders.

So, well, the international pressure must be working a bit, John, because as you say, the sentence was immediately reduced just 18 months more on the house arrest, so housework rather than than hard labour.

So that's good news.

And as you say, you know, given that she's already spent 14 years under house arrest, or what might charitably be described as a non-voluntary staycation.

She must be used to it.

I guess she must be bored.

How many times do you think Aung Sang Su Shi has reorganised her CD collection in that time?

Oh, many times.

She'll have gone through alphabetically by artist, alphabetically by album, release date.

She'll have gone through the lot.

But it does look like she's destined to be the nearly woman of Burmese politics, John, because she came so close to winning that election in 1990, but just missed out when she won by a landslide with nearly 60% of the vote and 80% of the seats.

It was so close.

So close.

If only she'd been leader of the military junta, she would have won.

That's how close it came.

Within touching distance.

The response from the world has been to condemn this sentence, apart from Burmese trading partners China and India, who've instead stared at their shoes and muttered something about how nice the weather's been recently.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon released a statement describing her conviction as profoundly disappointing.

But for something to be genuinely disappointing, do you not have to have reasonably expected another better outcome?

My goat penis hot dog was incredibly disappointing.

But then what was I expecting?

It was made of goat penis.

Were they really expecting the court to suddenly say, hold on, this case is absolutely ridiculous.

This woman is clearly innocent.

Let's release her now to rightly defeat us in next year's election.

For God's sake, we've been acting like complete arseholes.

Why didn't anyone say anything?

But

the international community is in a difficult position, John, because what can they do, really?

Because last year's reaction to the devastating cyclone in Burma showed that General Tan Shui's government is very much operating out of the couldn't give a flying school of rulership.

His country is supposed to have signed a new Association of Southeast Asian Nations Agreement on Human Rights, but I think he only signed it to get a free copy because he was running out of toilet paper.

There have also been complaints about the harsh sentence for John Yetor, who suffers from epilepsy, diabetes, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

So, really, nothing that four years of hard labour won't bash out of him.

We've mollycoddled bastards like him for too long.

The Burmese tough love approach, I'm sure, will do him a lot of good.

Along with the international community's strong tuts, whines, moans, and gripes, the UK announced that it will be pressing for an arms embargo against Burma.

Now, isn't the big question here, is there not already one?

Why has the world been arms dealing with them all this time?

Apart from the obvious answer, because they have money and we'd like some of it.

If there isn't international support behind a full arms embargo, perhaps we can all just agree to give them terrible arms service next time.

Get their order wrong, be surly to them over the phone, make it deliberately late in delivery, send it with missing parts and then claim that it's just that they've lost them, that kind of thing.

Not so much an embargo as an infuriation.

It's the British way.

Exactly.

It's the best we can do.

Britain going down the plughole news now, and a report in The Economist magazine has suggested that British energy, like an embarrassed bride at a wedding in which she realises that the man she's about to marry is, in fact, a woman in drag with a fake moustache, is running out fast.

Oh,

hot truth, that is contrived.

That is contrived.

It was a long walk that

where are we going I wondered oh look we've arrived

it's all about the journey old job exactly all about the journey

so British energy is in short supply and I can relate to that I'm feeling pretty knackered at the moment I've had a busy few weeks but apparently our North Sea gas supplies are dwindling our nuclear power plants are being shut down our coal is too naughty to be used much these days and whenever anyone puts up a wind farm people and newspapers start blathering on about it saying whatever next are we going to put the queen on a treadmill?

So, we are massively dependent on gas as a result, and our own supplies running out.

The problem is, John, that we are going to end up being Russia's gas bitch.

This is not good news to be so subservient to a country that not so long ago killed 30 million of its own people just to keep a lid on experimental poetry.

Yeah, just to send a message to poets around the world.

I didn't even mind these poets, it's you guys who really piss us off.

So, traditionally, the issue of future supplies of power is one in Britain that we like to force shuntons under the heaviest available carpet, John.

But I guess the time is going to come when it's we're going to start having power cuts and as soon as people's tellies get cut off twice in a week, the nation is going to start giving a shit about this issue.

So what can Britain do?

I think there's three options.

One is use less power, but

a bit boring.

Bad option.

Bad option.

Two, pray, but you know, we're not qu we're not I don't think we're as religious enough as a nation anymore.

But i he also is this not God's fault, Sandy?

Should he not have put some more gas down there?

He should have done.

He's a bad landlord.

Yep.

Well, I guess, you know, he's given us other things that we could use as energy.

The Welsh and the Scots, I suppose.

Just, you know.

True.

Big bonfires.

Yep.

With their diet as well, they probably burn quite well.

But the third option is Empire, John, because in the past, when we needed tiger skin rugs, we just went and colonised places with plentiful supplies of tiger skins, and now we need more power.

It's time to get the pith helmets on again and dust off those uniforms.

We're going to need to look very smart to pull it off this, Don.

We're probably not gonna be able to do it with just sticks this time but you know it's worth a go.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

You've got to be in it to win it.

Well this is just further evidence John of the fact that Britain has now gone more tits up than actress Jenny Agata in that scene in the Australian film Walkabout where she goes skinny dipping.

Anyway.

It's another long walk to that one Andy.

But unemployment figures are reaching stratospheric levels.

But there have been claims this week that the recession is coming to an end.

So, John, are we Brace yourself.

Like a German trapeze artist doing a special show in a butcher shop over the worst.

It's been a while since I did a worst pan.

It doesn't feel that long ago.

I can remember the same feeling of bile rising in my stomach.

Just

inexplicable.

Bile, John, or envy.

But even worse was the disastrous news yesterday that France and Germany are already out of their recessions.

This is a total humiliation for us.

How the f did that happen?

I want to know how it was allowed to happen, John.

What was the point of Agincourt and D-Day if we don't get first dibs at coming out of economic downturns?

Yeah, can't we just say that we have as well now?

The basic rule of the playground, we can't let them get one over on us.

So the government has responded in traditional style by throwing more money at the problem, more quantitative easing.

As St.

George, our patron saint, used to say, is the best way to kill a baby-eating dragon is to keep feeding babies to it until it's too fat to breathe.

Because in the long run, you'll make a net saving on babies.

And that's how we're going about getting out of the recession.

It's the fiscally responsible way to slay a dragon.

I have a depressing British news.

The Tory shadow cabinet minister, Alan Duncan, was caught on a hidden camera complaining that MPs are treated like shit now in the wake of the expenses.

He claims it was as a joke, but you know, the timing wasn't quite there.

Is he not mistaking the whole of MPs with, you know, Alan Duncan being

treated like a piece of shit because he is a piece of shit well I don't know John but coincidentally shit is also treated like shit so maybe there's something in that exactly but I think I think in a way he's right that MPs are treated like shit in the sense that a small majority of people are fascinated with them but the vast majority finds them pretty disgusting would prefer to just flush them away and never see them again and certainly doesn't want to have to watch them on television.

Still seems to be

remains to be seen whether waste MPs can be treated and purified sufficiently to be safe for any form of reuse.

But not for the first time.

David Cameron has had to wade in to tell the public what the Conservatives want people to think they think after one of his underlings has accidentally let slip what they actually do think.

Yes.

And this has happened as well with the NHS debate, John, which I understand has been raging across the Atlantic as well.

The Tory MEP, Daniel Hannan, was quoted in the US media as saying that he wouldn't wish the NHS on anyone, and he's now been accused of being unpatriotic.

I wouldn't concur with him.

I did wish the NHS on my mother, and as a result, she's come out with a new hip.

So there you go.

Also, not the most inspirational team talk to Britain's hard-working, underpaid medical professionals as well.

On my worst enemy, I wouldn't wish you people.

But the American Right's been sticking it to our beloved health service, I understand, calling it a socialist system.

I guess it is in the sense that it doesn't just let poor people die for fun.

That's right.

If that's how you describe socialism, and it shouldn't be, but if it is, then that's correct.

It's also been

that the NHS just just lets old people die when they reach a certain age.

Although it's true in Britain, unlike in America with its private healthcare system, old people do sometimes die once each, usually.

But it's also true, John.

I went to my doctor a couple of months ago, and my NHS doctor said to me, Andy, as soon as you're old, I'm going to fing kill you.

I mean, I'm going to hunt you down and fing kill you.

And I can do that because I'm NHS.

I couldn't do that if I was private.

You're a dead banana, mate.

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

And then as you were walking out of the room, did you say, seriously, mate, I'm watching you?

Yeah, I did.

Actually, what he said was, don't worry, Andy, it's probably nothing.

But if you still feel like a pair of curtains in two weeks, come back and see me.

Here's a prescription for scoplopacionol.

It's a new drug that helps you pull yourself together.

Oh.

There you go.

Do they have doctor-doctor jokes in America or not?

But only if you're insured.

Right.

Otherwise, it just doesn't make any sense.

Otherwise, it's doctor-doctor.

What?

Fill in this form.

Actually, I'm not insured.

Then get the f out of my office.

That's the only joke.

Rabbis on a plane news now.

I like where this is going.

You have to.

And let's be clear right from the start.

This is not the much anticipated follow-up movie Two Snakes on a Plane.

I'm tired of these fing rabbis on this fing plane this week.

I know it sounds like a mental breakdown and something I hallucinated.

This is true.

A group of rabbis and Jewish mystics got into a plane and flew over Israel praying and blowing shofars to ward off swine flu.

And there is an absolutely phenomenal video of this which again we will put up on the website and which you must see.

They are making an enormous racket, blowing these trumpets as hard as they can and wailing prayers at the tops of their voices.

Also, I think it was actually a commercial flight because there seem to be some regular passengers on there who have a look in their eyes which seems to be, I now have a new story for the worst flight I've ever had.

There's one guy in a blue shirt just off camera who looks like he's trying to get some sleep, presumably having given up on trying to watch the in-flight movie Beverly Hills Chihuahua.

Ah, forget it, I can't hear a thing.

One of the rabbis was wailing his prayer through the intercom phone as if, oh, I'm not being loud enough.

Well, usually when there's a load of men in an aeroplane chanting, blowing horns, you'd think it was a return flight to Britain from Obisa.

That's That's true.

With an empty seat because Barry couldn't get a bail after urinating on a Spanish policeman.

But I've never heard, John, I've never heard of any situation in life that cannot be improved by a plane load of flying rabbis

blowing chauffeur horns.

Hey Mordecai, how are your horn lessons going?

Oh, quite well, thank you.

Shaufar anyway.

I'm struggling with the other types of horn though, particularly the Tibetan Dong Chen.

I don't have the cheek work for it.

Why be in a plane?

I'm not saying I don't appreciate that they were in there because I really do.

It brightened up my week no end.

I've watched it every day

since I first saw it.

Why does being airborne make the prayers potentially more effective?

Is it because they're further off the ground and therefore closer to God?

These prayers do have a 30,000-foot head start on all the other prayers flying up from that region.

In which case, should they not go even higher?

Let's put a bunch of rabbis in a rocket and blast them into space where they can float around in orbit with a nice clear line straight to the Lord.

I do hope that they weren't just praying for protection from swine flu as well, Andy.

I hope they threw something else in there.

Please, God, spare us from the swine flu virus.

And do you know what?

Before I go, while I'm on the line, how about getting some f ⁇ peas down here?

But I think, you know, for any public health issue, John.

You know, a plane full of rabbis could probably do the job.

And that's why cholera used to be such a problem in the 19th century, because the world didn't have the capability to put a plane load of flying rabbis in the sky to sort it out, like we can now with swine They did try putting hot air balloon loads of flying rabbis in the sky but they they didn't move fast enough to work properly because I think rabbis have to be going at 150 miles an hour otherwise they don't function to maximum rabbi capacity.

It's like the Keanu Reeves film speed.

If rabbis go any slower than 150 miles an hour they just explode.

Now I suppose if you're on a plane with a rabbi though, apart from the inconvenience, sonically, you do probably feel a little safer.

Now God really can't let anything happen to that flight.

I was once on a flight with a bunch of nuns and I've got to say it does give you that extra sense of calm.

You know, really God?

These women have devoted their entire lives to you.

Are you really going to let this one go down?

Didn't think so.

Now if you don't mind me, I've got an inflatable cushion to put around my neck and a nap waiting for me.

On the other side of that, earlier this year, I was on a flight with Bobby Kennedy.

I couldn't help thinking...

You guys are not so good with a transport safety record.

If you don't mind, I'm going to spend the rest of this flight staring straight ahead and digging my nails into the armrest.

But Rabbi Yitzhak Battery explained, the purpose of this flight was to stop the epidemic, thus preventing further deaths.

We're certain that because of it, our previous danger is already behind us.

Now, this, John, is raising the stakes, because this now has ceased to be a story about a load of rabbis blowing chauffeur horns in an aeroplane and become a test of the existence of God.

Because if there's any further swine flu in Israel, we'll basically know that either God doesn't exist or that he thinks those rabbis just took their point a bit too far.

What an unexpected way to go all in.

But it makes you wonder, why have people just not prayed for the end to diseases before?

I'll tell you why, John, because of the pharmaceutical industry.

They've got it tied up.

Too much money is done.

They don't want us to be well.

You know, who's going to buy brand name drugs if you can just get a plane load of rabbis for half the price?

I'm surprised the pharmaceutical industry weren't lying in front of the plane full of rabbis when it tried to take off.

No, no.

Woodstock News now, and Woodstock was 40 years ago.

There, I think we've wrapped that up.

That is, that would be the most honest way of reporting that story, Andy.

There's a real clarity to that.

I just wish that all the TV shows and newspapers I've seen in had just said that.

Anyway, moving on.

They should have done that with the moon landing.

Well, it's interesting, isn't it?

The 40th anniversary of the moon landings recently, 40th anniversary of Woodstock this week.

And you would have thought if one thing out of landing on the moon or spending a weekend in a muddy field would catch on, it would be landing on the moon.

But quite the opposite.

We're a funny old species, aren't we?

Yeah.

But looking back, Woodstock's probably one of the key moments in the history of rock music.

Perhaps as important as that day when Elvis Presley, as a young boy at a picnic holding a jam sandwich in each hand, found that he had a wasp on each hip and started trying to flick them off without dropping his sanis and certainly had a crowd of screaming girls around him.

Or maybe even as crucial as when Robert Plant said to Jimmy Page, well I quite like this song, but do you think it would sound even better if I had massive hair?

But I was just looking at some of the things on the internet about it.

There's a picture of a car with peace slogans on it, including the slogan War is Not Healthy, which originally came from an anti-Vietnam poster.

And I think, you know, that's a very good point that war is not healthy.

I mean, it's

simplistic.

But, yeah.

You know, we're all agreed on it.

My doctor's always saying to me, Andy, cut down on your fried breakfasts, take more exercise, and do stop fighting long, intractable, and unwinnable wars.

You'll feel much better for it.

And I have to reply, oh, let me live my own life.

We've all got to die somehow.

I don't smoke.

I don't do drugs.

I don't drink much.

Can't I have the odd war every now and again without some box-ticking, do-gooding, pacifistic medic jumping all the way down my throat?

I'm just trying to protect the world from communism, even though practically it's probably spread about as far as it's going to go.

The interesting story about a band called Tommy James and the Shondells.

John, have you heard of them?

No.

They're the authors of top hits, such as Hanky Panky.

Also,

I think we're alone now, as covered by the

Immortal 1980s.

The Great Tiffany.

The Rocket Tiffany.

But Tommy James and the Shondells declined an invitation to Woodstock.

And their lead singer, Tommy Tommy James, said, We were in Hawaii and my secretary called and said, yeah, listen, there's this pig farmer in upstate New York that wants you to play in his field.

So we passed and we realised what we'd missed a couple of days later.

So they could have been Jimi Hendrix, John.

It could have been Tommy James and the Shondells found dead in a London flat a year later.

But amongst the other acts not to appear at Woodstock, the Banana Splits, who despite suiting the vibe with their 1969 hit, Long Live Love, were probably counted out on the grounds of being kids' TV characters in animal costumes.

Also not there, 1950s songstress Patsy Klein, dead.

50s rocker Eddie Cochrane, dead.

Mozart, dead, but would have loved it.

The Bay City Rollers, not dead, but Scottish, and also didn't exist as a band yet.

Justin Timberlake, too poppy.

Fred Funk, golfer, and would have been only 13 years old at the time.

Well, it sounds like he might have fitted in.

You can easily see him supporting Sline the Family Stone.

It's Fred Funk.

And also Beelzebub Japperswick and the waterborne viruses.

Made up.

Fred Funk would have been a magnificent act.

Right, Fred, we just show them a video of a short game and just chip some balls into the crowd.

They'll love it.

They'll love it.

Just sign a few balls and just get a 9-9 out and just chip them into the crowd, Fred.

I know.

They're going to love it.

There is a man who does not live up to his name.

He's the opposite of funk, is an old man playing golf.

Your emails now, and this comes from Phil Bennett.

No, not the legendary Welsh fly half of the 1970s.

But Phil Bennett, who, as he writes in his email entitled Something in the Road, I'm a supervisor in the Highways Department of Leicestershire County Council.

I often get calls to remove debris, crashed cars, dead animals, etc., from the road.

A couple of Fridays ago, however, my first call of the day at 7.30am was, please could you remove a six-foot cock and balls from the carriageway?

Naturally, I was quite disappointed when the gang I sent to remove it reported that it was a painted cock and balls.

But knowing your predilection for large penises, I made them photograph it.

And I I've included this photo in the email for your enjoyment.

So, Tom, will that go up on the website?

Does the Times mind us putting up pictures of Willie's on there?

It really is best not to ask.

Okay, I mean, it's a don't ask, don't tell policy, okay?

Yeah, that's what they operate when it comes to 60-foot penises.

And Phil concludes actually, keep up the good work.

Isn't it about time for another audio-cryptic crossword?

Absolutely not.

I would say that it is.

Yeah, I would say again, absolutely not.

We've also had a phenomenal remix, Andy.

Another remix, this time not of the bugle theme, this time not of you rapping.

It's from Tom and Pete, who say, Dear John and Andy, inspired by John's rendition of a timeless 80s classic and having nothing to do but cower in our bunker awaiting the inevitable robot and/or zombie apocalypse, it seems only natural to kill some of what little time remains by adding a backing to John's vocal.

Yours with a growing sense of dread and terror, Tom and Pete.

So Andy,

strap in.

I need a hero!

I'm holding up on the hero till the end of the night.

He's gotta be tall, and he's gotta be a future person, and his hair's gotta be white.

I need a hero!

I'm wearing spray-off leather trousers.

He busted into the Pyongyang ladies' prison, armed only with a rucksack full of apples, which he then started started flinging about with wild abandonment.

I need a hero!

There you go.

That is huge.

Album time, John.

It's getting there.

Ready for the Christmas market.

Emails have been flooding in as well in response to our request that you ask some three-word questions to Tom.

And I mean, they really have been coming.

And Tom's been

answering them on the Bugle blog that Andy has now completely officially abandoned.

I'm just waiting.

I've just got to have a fitness test.

The one question that I focused on was the question, Andy or John.

And no, no, I mean, there are many ways to avoid answering that directly.

You know, you can just say, oh, I can't possibly answer that.

I mean, there's so many ways to not engage in the premise of that question.

Oh, Tom didn't go with any of that.

He just came straight and went, yeah, Andy.

Andy, fk you, Tom.

Well, John, it hurts.

In my defence, you're not here a lot.

You're absent.

You don't put the time in, despite living in New York.

I don't think that's a good enough excuse.

Listen, the fundamental rule of an absent father is that, you know, it's like the prodigal son.

I should have more mystique, Tom.

I just plain don't like immigrants, John, wherever they are.

That's it.

Even immigrants who have left Britain.

Yes.

Now, if I came back, would you not still have a problem with me?

Because I'd be...

A double immigrant.

Yeah, that's very confusing.

And Andy's about to point out that that's quite rich considering I'm from a different country myself.

Scott in London.

I just hate myself, though.

That's the problem.

Also, you should have avoided the boxes or briefs question as well.

Now I have far too much information there.

You don't need to engage, Tom.

I should have just answered what's your favourite colour.

But you're a Scott.

You're supposed to wear a kilt and nothing else.

Yeah.

I have no response, really.

Bad Scott.

Bad Scott.

So do keep your emails.

Coming into thebugle at timesonline.co.uk.

Sport now, and I've had a bad week in sport, John.

A bad, bad week because

in the cricket, as was happening last week as we recorded, England took a proper, old-fashioned walloping, in which not only did Australia wallop us, but they also, for the most part of the game, England actually grabbed the paddle out of the Australians' hands and walloped themselves.

Give me that, they said.

This is how you spank England, and proceeded to give themselves a fearful whacking as the Australians borrowed another paddle and joined in.

We were hammered like a rusty nail at an elephant's crucifixion.

We were taken over the Australian's knee, told we'd been a naughty boy, given six of the best like a Victorian orphan until our buttocks sang an extremely loud version of Waltzing Matilda.

We were coated in a special giant eggshell, cracked into a bowl with some caster sugar, electronically beaten until we formed stiff peaks and served with lemons in an Australia-shaped pie.

We were tied to a dump truck covered in rotting fish carcasses, driven the wrong way up a motorway by a driver in a kangaroo outfit.

We were dressed up like Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz but with a pink balaclava on and made to recite Mein Kampf in a full set of Australian accents.

We were hired out by a rock band as a hotel room, trashed, thrown out of our own window, and accidentally drowned in a swimming pool, whilst former Olympic swimming star Ian Thorpe swam up and down shouting, ah!

I think I've made my point.

I guess what I mean is we were outplayed by the better team, and they thoroughly deserved to win.

But we've got to put it behind us now and focus on the final test match, because there's everything still to play for, and we back ourselves to front up as a side and come out on top.

There were too many directions in that bit.

I had an incredible piece of sporting news delivered to me, Andy, during the wedding last night.

And

one of the producers on the daily show was also there as well.

He'd had a text from a friend of his telling him that Michael Vick had just been signed by the Philadelphia Eagles.

Really?

Now, we know it's signed.

Not the Philadelphia Beagles.

No, not the Philadelphia Beagles.

They felt there was a conflict of interest there.

I mean, obviously, he could have kept this news to himself and waited till after the wedding was over.

That was not an option.

So instead, he typed a message into his mobile phone and passed it down the line that read, Holy fuck, Vic's gone to the Eagles.

we have to talk about this

started passing around at this point his wife looked like she wanted to physically kill him but and you'd think it could get any worse than this until he started trying to catch the groom's eye and mouthing to him Vic's gone to the Eagles while this man was trying to get married

So just time for the bugle forecast this week and well who would believe it but a year since this last happened It's my wife's birthday this week.

And if you remember from last year, I got her a great present, a baby in her womb.

What every girl wants.

Yeah.

At the right time of her life.

Yeah.

She might be the only girl that wanted my baby in her womb.

But anyway.

Oh, there's no way that's true.

But it's on Thursday this week.

Her birthday.

And Thursday is also the first day of the final Ashes Test.

Oh, dear.

The crucial Ashes Test match of this series.

Oh dear.

And the forecast this week is

which one of those two events am I more likely to think of first when I wake up that morning?

Oh no.

Will it be A,

the 13th time in my relationship with my wife that she'll have moved one number closer to the eventual decrepitude to which we're all ultimately doomed?

Or B, just the second time in 20 years that England have gone into a last Ashes Test with a chance of winning the series?

I think it's not so much, Andy, which one you'll be thinking of first, it's which you are clever enough to appear to think of first.

I'm not that clever, John.

I don't think she's asking to be first, she's just asking you to pretend.

That's all.

Good luck, mate.

Thanks.

I'll report back.

Bye-bye, Buglers.

Bye-bye.

Have a lovely week.

Bye-bye.

Hi, Buglers.

It's producer Chris here.

I just wanted to very quickly tell you about 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.