I need a hero! Bill Clinton jets off to North Korea

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, Buglers, and welcome to Bugle 85.

With me, Andy Zoltsman, here in London, England, home of the official world time, London Time.

And in New York City, it's Corporal Krakenwise, John Oliver.

Hello, Buglers.

Hello, Andy.

How are you doing, Andrew?

I'm okay, thanks, John.

Okay.

That's a very formal question there.

Well, I mean, I'm saying it's formal because, you know, Buglers, you know, yes, the cricket is on, but this time it's not going well.

So

there's probably a different level of distraction you're going to get from Andy.

A, you know, more resigned.

I don't want to say depressed, but I certainly mean depressed.

This is sort of what I'm saying.

A version of Andy.

That's what the bugle would sound like were I recording it live at my own funeral, I think.

Which incidentally is definitely a plan.

Monday.

Hopefully not for a good couple of hundred bugles yet.

Also, I'm in a different studio today.

Basically an underground bunker, which is reassuring in the sense that

if there's a nuclear strike on London now, I reckon I'd have a good half hour on everyone else.

But bad in that there's no telly to watch a cricket on.

So

you have my full undivided attention.

Oh, that's great.

Okay.

Well, Andy, I mean, this might cheer you, Hobb.

This week, I attended a Kanye West concert.

Create?

Well what was that for?

Yep.

Wyatt who works on our show wanted to go.

So I went along with him thinking, oh yeah, I'd like to see what a Kanye West concert's like.

The answer to that is a bit weird.

He spent a lot of time shouting out the words, do you know what it's like to be amazing?

I mean, he shouted it so many times.

One, it seemed like he actually wanted an answer.

And I think the implication was that no one in the room knew what it was like to be amazing apart from him.

And that he knew exactly what it was like to be amazing.

We're recording slightly earlier this week because it's Lobster Fest 09 with my job.

We're having kind of work morale getaway day.

We're going on a boat to the Jersey shore to, I think, throw some frisbees around and eat some New Jersey lobsters, which are the finest in the world.

If the rest of the world is hit by nuclear armor again,

we should do a work morale weekend sometime, Andy.

Yeah, well, what have you got in mind?

You know, well, it's obviously it's going to be different, you know, either side.

so maybe we should just watch a movie at the same time together

somewhere and then just say do you enjoy it afterwards?

And, you know, at least we'll have done something.

We're out paintballing.

We could do transatlantic paintballing.

I'll stand on the Isles of Scilly.

I'll stand on this shirt on Coney Island.

We'll see who gets closest to getting splattered.

Probably be you, mate.

You've got the Gulf Stream with him, yeah.

I'm far and against the wind.

I'm going to have to absolutely nail it.

Yeah, bad workman blames his tools.

So this is Bugle 85, a number of Bugle firsts for Bugle 85.

It's the first bugle that FDR would have liked.

Also, the first bugle that's been edible when translated into food.

And also the first bugle that contains coded warnings about an apocalypse.

So bear in mind the end of the world will happen at some point in the next 50 billion years.

That's not a coded warning.

That is.

Yeah, that's pretty explicit, Andy.

It's pretty shit code there.

I think I've cracked the enigma behind that.

so this for the week beginning Monday the 10th of August 2009

and of course on the 10th of August John 991 AD was the battle of Malden between the old Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings and it was a big away win for the Vikings their star man and captain Olaf Tryggverson and that led to King Uthera the Unready and the Archbishop of Canterbury Siguric absolutely shitting themselves basically and deciding to pay the the Vikings 10,000 quid to stop being such penises now that's basically what it was.

That was the first example of Daingeld being paid in England.

Now, £10,000 these days, that's about what it takes to get you out of bed for a fashion shoe, isn't it?

But back then, it was big bucks.

Big bucks.

3,300 kilograms of silver.

Or in today's money, actually, in today's money, that is only £1.5 million.

What?

That's quite a bargain, isn't it?

For not having a country humped by Vikings.

I suppose it is, but, I mean, didn't, maybe that's why, didn't Vikings continue to be penises even after receiving that?

Yeah, well, they'd, you know, they'd take it and they'd play with silver for a bit and then get bored of it like a child, come back and

conquer the shit out of us again.

They'll want more silver.

So, in many ways, I guess this was the either the first example of the British government giving into the demands of terrorists, or the first example of us forking out our hard-earned British money to give to the Europeans and getting nothing in return other than peace.

So, it's really the EU in its earliest form.

Either way, we abandoned ourselves, John.

Dark things.

Top story this week.

I need a hero.

I'm old enough for the hero till the end of the night.

He's gotta be tall, and he's gotta be a two-time president, and his hair's gotta be white.

God, it's almost every other bugle you start singing now, John.

I think I'm settling into a nice rhythm of power rock as well.

I'm wearing spray-on-leather trousers.

It's with the invention of spray-on-leather that's made that possible.

Now, Andy, I think I said a few bugles ago that the key to life seems to be find something that you're good at and do it as much as you can.

So, you know, if you're a good carpenter, make as many things out of wood as you can.

If you're a good pole vaulter, you should carry a long pole with you wherever you go and always be on the lookout for things to vault over, preferably with highly cushioned surfaces on the other side.

And if you happen to be good at flying across the world to negotiate the release of two female journalists before flying back to greet the world's media looking like you just stepped out of an aftershave commercial, then for f sake, do it.

And perhaps luckily, and definitely unsurprisingly, President Bill Clinton turns out to be just the man for that job.

This week, in a closely guarded move, he flew to the most secretive nation on earth to retrieve two American journalists who'd been captured months ago and sentenced to 11 years in jail.

And this is a North Korean jail that we're talking about, Andy.

Probably not a pool table there.

Although there might be a photograph on the wall of Kim Jong-il's water slide, if you're lucky.

But it wasn't just 11 years though, John, though, was it?

It was reform through labour.

So it wasn't just your standard

Her Majesty's pleasure that you get here.

This is reform through labour.

Now, I reckon if I heard that in my sentencing, I'll start getting a bit jumpy.

I'll start calling in a few presidents, frankly.

You're not a big fan of reform or labour, are you, Andy?

Let alone when they're put together.

Yeah, not really.

No, there's a time and a place, and

neither of those is in a North Korean jail.

The problem was that not only is America still technically at war with North Korea due to the fact that the North Korean war was never really technically declared over, but relations have worsened recently with North Korea's insistence on making very loud bangs, even when they've been expressly told not to.

Bill Clinton had apparently agreed to meet with Kim Yong-il just days after North Korea had insulted his wife.

Things had descended to petty name-calling after the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had likened North Korea to an unruly child.

She'd said, what we've seen is this constant demand for attention.

And maybe it's the mother in me or the experience I've had with small children and unruly teenagers and people who are demanding attention, but don't give it to them.

They don't deserve it.

They're acting out.

Now that might sound true, but is it really?

Because would you actually ignore a petulant child who has a toy box filled with nuclear warheads?

I think you might be inclined to keep an eye on them.

It's all about balance parenting, John.

You know.

What do you give with one and you take away with the other?

I mean, you say that, Andy.

Say Matilda had a few random nuclear warheads in her bedroom.

Now, would you just go, you know, yes, she's threatening to set them off, but, you know, that's just a phase she's going through.

Well, I'd say we can't have them

unless you eat your peas.

So, you know, it's about negotiation, isn't it?

If you play around with the nuclear weapons and you're not supposed to, no story before bedtime.

Pretty much what America seems to have done with North Korea.

Also, Clinton, there, Hillary Clinton, also said that North Korea has no friends left, which really is kind of a playground-level diplomacy, isn't it?

Just kind of teasing, taunting North Korea.

Mateless, you're mateless.

In fact, North Korea did not appreciate that because they hit back saying, sometimes she looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes like a pensioner going shopping.

Well, hold on, witch, Kim.

There's not a lot of crossover between those two looks.

She's got a very good makeup artist, though, to be fair.

So the two journalists, Unilee and Laura Ling.

Now, before this week, if someone had said Unilee and Laura Ling to you, you'd probably have guessed that they were an adverb and a present participle, meaning respectively, in an inevitably one-off manner, he cut off his own head, Unilee, or and also in the process of going off on a tedious and unnecessary tangent in the middle of a long anecdote.

Uncle Frobisher was once again laureling at considerable length when suddenly it became clear that Auntie Javieta had died.

But now we know more about them, John, these two gentlemen, and what a story, what a story.

Bill Clinton, as far as I know it, the details of the story are that Clinton,

in a secret undercover mission, stormed into North Korea, posing as a wildlife photographer, and then gradually over the course of several years infiltrated Kim Jong-il's inner circle by giving the leader some really nice photos of insects and tigers and stuff, becoming one of Kim's most trusted confidants and lovers.

And then when he'd been accepted as an honorary North Korean, he busted into the Pyongyang ladies' prison, armed only with a rucksack full of apples, which he then started flinging about with wild abandon in a flurry of fruit as the prison guards returned fire.

Clinton grabbed the two journalists, slung one over each shoulder, and used them as shoulder pads as he barged his way out of jail like an American football player trying to get hold of a quarterback who's been swapping his wife.

At least that's according to the first draft of the film script of the story.

Still

about as close as Pearl Harbor to the historical account.

It deserves a movie, this, honey.

It's an incredible story.

The State Department was unable to sanction an official visit to negotiate, so it did need someone to operate under the radar.

And then you realise, hold on, Bill Clinton is Jack Bauer.

He's become the very TV character he loves so much.

And I do think it's important that we recognise when they do something the world can enjoy.

The Navy SEALs killing the pirates and freeing the hostage.

That was impressive.

And Bill's little adventure, pretty cool.

No taxpayer money was used to fund the trip, apart from the Secret Service agents travelling with him.

The plane was an all-business class private jet lent to him by Steve Bing and Shangri-La Entertainment.

All I will say on that Andy is this.

Bill Clinton plus Shangri-La Entertainment's private jet.

One, there was definitely a hot tub in there.

Two,

it definitely got used.

I'll leave it at that.

You're right.

While I'm sure there were preparations and negotiations done long before they left, I love the idea that he just decided to get in a plane and go and get them.

Well, it was slightly more complicated than that, wasn't it?

Because Clinton was actually on a list of names of people that North Korea apparently said they would be prepared to negotiate with.

That's true.

Alongside the likes of Rhys Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson, Kirsten Dunst, Michelle Desser from 24.

Hang on, those are all women that Kim Jong-il fancies.

It was a diplomatic booty call.

Wily old sea dog.

Marilyn Monroe's on the list too, but as we know, news is quite restricted over in North Korea.

But the Obama administration had apparently wanted to send Al Gore over instead of Clinton.

Now, Gore is co-founder of Current TV, who the two journalists were working for at the time.

But North Korea wanted Clinton I think it essentially became a question of haggling you know maybe North Korea first wanted Mandela so America offered them ex-Australia Prime Minister John Howard instead so the North Koreans counter offered by saying they take Bruce Springsteen and the White House offered Al Gore both sides settled on Clinton but whatever preparation went into it you cannot deny it was a huge success he didn't even spend the night there landed took a few photos picked them up and f ⁇ ed off back to America that's the way he rolls exactly that he was very careful not to smile or seem glib but it must have been very tempting for him just to swagger back up the steps of the plane shouting see not that hard high-fiving anyone within arms reach and shouting back at the North Koreans that's right that's how daddy gets it done

It was even a surprise for the two journalists.

Apparently they've been told they were going to a meeting and then walked into a room to see President Clinton standing there.

I imagine for a start there there were two things.

Am I free or am I in even more trouble?

And

it was pretty much ramped up for the most dramatic impact.

It's not there should have been reality TV show cameras stationed there so that Clinton could look at them and say I have the results of our negotiations in this envelope and I'm going to tell you whether you're free when you join us after these messages.

The only way it could have been more stylish was if they'd just airdropped Clinton in full black Navy SEAL gear and a hunting knife in his mouth to bust them out and come back appearing through a cloud of smoke, journalist under each arm, torn shirt, and as the smoke clears, you see all North Korea's nuclear warheads physically tied into cartoon knots.

President Obama, when he got back, said, I'm sure that President Clinton will have some interesting observations from his trip and well, I'm sure he'll have some information on the health of Kim Yong-il and perhaps even on his likely successor in the near future.

Obama should be prepared for Clinton's first few observations to be on the lines of, I'm the greatest.

Say it.

Say I'm the greatest.

If you say it, I'll give you the rest of my observations.

What was that?

Louder?

You're right.

I am the greatest.

Here's my second observation.

I'm unbelievable.

The White House were very careful to distance themselves from this trip, but the Secretary of State said, I want to be sure people don't confuse what Bill did, which was a private humanitarian mission to bring these young women home, with our policy, which continues to be one that gives choices to North Korea.

But of course, we have the strange situation here where the State Department cannot possibly even claim to have not known due to the fact that the Secretary of State is married to the man concerned.

And that trip is likely to come up in conversation.

Oh, just so I'm off out, love, back in a bit.

Oh, yeah, where are you off to?

Just a bit of a wonder.

Might catch a movie or get some dinner or go over to North Korea to negotiate the release of those journalists or maybe go to the driving range and just hit some balls.

What was that last one?

Said I might catch a movie.

Okay, then, bye.

Do you just worry, though, the stress it would put on their relationship?

You know, if he couldn't tell her, Bill, you're being secretive again.

You know, I don't like it.

Brings back memories.

He's just lucky that there were cameras there in North Korea.

Hey, guess what?

While I was away the last couple of days, I was in North Korea negotiating those journalists' release.

I don't lie to you all with her again.

Other politician news now, and well, in China, there's been a quite remarkable survey published, John.

It has been revealed that Chinese people trust prostitutes more than politicians which

it's never really good news unless you're a prostitute I guess they're apparently more considered more trustworthy than politicians and scientists before we get too excited about this John the editorial of China Daily newspaper wrote these words at least scientists and government officials have not slid into the least credible category which consists of real estate developers secretaries, brokers, and entertainers.

What?

Hey, come on, we're doing our best.

That stings a bit, Andy.

That's bullshit.

You know, we are less reliable than Chinese prostitutes.

That's a real blow to the self-esteem that.

I mean, I've never met a Chinese prostitute, so, you know, I'm sure

they're lovely ladies, but, you know.

That is the thing, Andy.

Maybe we're mistaking this.

Perhaps Chinese prostitutes have just been very trustworthy this year.

Now, maybe they've just gone up the league table, returning lost wallets, getting cats out of trees.

Maybe they've had a good year.

Maybe this isn't negative about everyone else.

They've just, they've had a phenomenally trustworthy year.

Prostitutes apparently came third behind farmers and religious workers.

And one of my first thoughts there was, what is so trustworthy about farmers?

I'm not saying they're inherently untrustworthy.

It's just a bit of a shock to see them placed so high.

But politicians are apparently way down the list closer to, as you say, scientists and teachers.

And that is a bit of a concern.

What are they they doing down there?

Why has suspicion crept in to the world of Chinese education?

Maybe, you know, would it help if prostitutes taught school children or worked in research laboratories while teachers and lab technicians hit the streets to give out hand jobs?

Would that make them happier?

Endemic British behavioural problems news now, and the mayor of Riga in the Baltic state of Latvia has really stuck it to British stag parties for their abominable behaviour in his country's capital and says it's putting off other tourists from going there.

One of the things about being British these days is that

anytime you go overseas, you do so with fear and potential embarrassment in your heart, John.

And I went to Tallinn in Estonia, just up the road from Latvia on holiday a few years ago with my first wife and my current wife, which would have been a bit awkward if they hadn't been the same person.

But anyway, I'm overcomplicating things.

And, you know, it was great.

You know, we went to a medieval themed restaurant and ate some spelt.

Yep.

It was pretty cool.

A sausage with some extraordinary animals.

Yeah, that's right.

What was it?

It was one short of a unicorn, wasn't it?

Yeah, it was.

There might have been a bit of unicorn gristle in there, I think.

I'm not sure.

You know, there was an embarrassing profusion of British people really debasing themselves, their nation, and their species in acts of alcoholic carnage, John.

And the mayor of Riga, Niels Usakoffs, said that misbehaving was

British tourist speciality.

That's what he said.

Yes, it always has been.

Damn right.

You know, he can't misbehave much more than being leading players in the Atlantic slave trade.

I mean, that he really misbehaved.

So we've got the history of it.

Exactly.

Exactly.

We conquered the world without speciality.

And we were on top.

We didn't let someone not wanting us to be in their country stop us.

The whole world was our stag party.

It was permanent, loutish behaviour.

Apparently, the mayor had said that if the city had more regular tourists, the badly behaving ones would not be as noticeable.

Oh, so it's our fault now.

We need to send our most sophisticated tourists over there to distract the Latvians.

Men in bowler hats and monocles, sipping wine and flying around in hot air balloons.

You can't get more sophisticated than that.

Apparently one of the biggest problems is tourists urinating on Central Riga's Freedom Monument.

Oh boy.

Tourists have been arrested, Andy, for urinating on it or, and I quote, climbing naked on it to pose for pictures.

Because Because you do really want a naked picture for that, Andy.

Hey, Barry, nice photo of you climbing all over that statue to commemorate the Latvian war dead.

But one question, why did you have your clothes on?

I know.

I know, I just wasn't thinking.

It's embarrassing, isn't it?

Give it here.

How do I know it was really you without your chubblers out?

And a spokesman for the mayor's office said the British first started to make bachelor parties and the most popular thing was using our Monument of Liberty as a toilet.

Now, I think I might know know the problem here, Andy.

Has anyone checked the translation in the rough guide to Latvia?

Does it say when you go to Latvia, it is seen as the height of politeness to urinate on national monuments?

And whatever you do, don't leave Riga without taking a dump on the steps of the Museum of Latvian History.

But why does this happen, John?

Is there some genetic abnormality in the British chromosome that makes us more than averagely susceptible to growing up as complete pricks?

I just don't know.

I'm not a son.

Well, because for your stag party, Andy, we didn't debase Europe for that.

We went up to Scotland and played dominoes drunk

for three days.

Setting an example to other stags, John.

To how to behave with dignity.

Yeah, I don't think they've followed that example.

That's the problem.

I don't think you were the trendsetter that you were...

Unless you were way ahead of your time.

Perfectly good fun.

Yeah.

You know, some good dominoes.

It was more about the dominoes

than the stag events.

It was certainly much appreciated by not only, you know, me, but I think your immediate surroundings that you kept your chubblers and your chubbler bucket.

Well, that's right, that's where that belongs, John.

I'm Jewish.

We're a more dignified species than you Gentiles.

Now, the chair stagger of the Latvian Council for Stag Dews, Vidan Jufikovs, commented: We'd love to return the compliment and come to Britain for our stagdos and behave appallingly in your country.

But unfortunately, it appears you Brits behave just as badly at home, whether you're on stag dos or not, so we wouldn't be able to make our mark.

They've got it all wrong.

They think they're getting, you know, the worst side of Britain.

In fact, they're just getting a fair reflection of our society now with the new Vikings.

So, given this story, here is the official bugle list of stag do's and stag don'ts.

Stag do, have fun, maybe have a few drinks and nice food and celebrate the passage of your friend into the next phase of his life.

Stag don't, as a drunken prank, put the stag on an aeroplane to Thailand with a kilogram of cocaine in his suitcase.

Stag do, allow your stag to enjoy a last blast of masculine freedom before settling down with the woman he loves and respects.

Stag don't, spike his drinks, strip him naked, and chain him to a street prostitute.

Stag do, go somewhere new and exciting and do something new and exciting.

Stag don't, go to an historic city and urinate on a monument of fallen war heroes.

Even if you then say, what's the problem?

It's only we, hey, there should be nothing to you.

After all, members of your nation actively and enthusiastically collaborated with a few days of prison, okay, I'll get down.

Feature section now and world leader fitness.

Vladimir Putin Andy has been on holiday in Siberia and has been releasing frankly some of the most ridiculous photos I have ever seen and we'll talk about these now but it we'll try and put these on the website as well because you have to see this to believe them if Clinton was trying to be a kind of chocolate box hero Vladimir Putin is trying to be a geriatric James Bond.

The photos show Putin standing on a rocky mountain slope, resting in the branches of a tree, swimming in a river, riding a horse.

And in these photos he's either wearing military style clothes and boots or when he's on the horse he's shirtless.

It's like he's posing for a homoerotic calendar.

It's a superb effort John and he is absolutely ripped.

You know I haven't seen a torso like that in Russian politics since Peter the Great was in his body popping prime.

Apparently he's also actually released a fitness video for other world leaders combining upper body workouts with slightly alarming rhetoric unveiled threats.

But I guess the question is John looking at Putin now and how he's looked in the past and given his age, the question must arise, John.

Is he juicing?

He's jacked, Andy.

He's jacked.

Is he?

Do world leaders have to do piss tests?

I don't know.

The last decade of Russian history is going to have an asterisk nest, I think.

That's sad, that's sad.

Also, on this absolutely spectacular holiday, he was reported to have shot a Siberian tiger with a tranquilizer dart while out filming with a TV crew.

Apparently, they're claiming the tiger escaped from a trap and was heading straight for the TV crew when Mr.

Putin stepped in and shot it.

There is no fing way that happened, Daddy.

I reckon he'd eat the tiger.

He'd probably just bite his head off.

That's what I'm saying.

He's not going to use a gun.

He'd just die.

He'd make sure that he had most of his clothes off.

Maybe go to Connor's just leopard skin thong.

And he'd just wrestle the tiger to the floor as a single bead of sweat spilled down his forehead and rolled onto his chest.

And then he'd lie on his side and go, okay, I'm ready.

Take a shot now before I lose my pump.

It was impressive stuff from Putin.

And he did slightly look like he was auditioning to play the part of Michael Douglas in a film about Michael Douglas playing a 40-year-old man.

And it was just interesting when you think of his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin.

The difference physically between those two and their different approaches to health and fitness.

You know, it's pretty much equivalent to the moral difference between Silvio Berlusconi and the Pope.

Also on this holiday, Vladimir Putin apparently dived to the bottom of the world's deepest lake in Siberia aboard a mini submarine.

Okay, now this is just getting ridiculous, Andy.

And apparently after he emerged from the dive, Putin was asked by reporters whether his next challenge would be to travel in space.

And he looked at them and said, there is enough work here on Earth.

Who the f do you think you are?

That's not a no either, is it?

No, it's not.

Of course, he's not the only world leader to take a lively interest in fitness activities.

Barack Obama has been playing basketball quite a lot recently, I understand, John.

It's quite interesting that Obama's into basketball because NBA legend Shaquille O'Neal spends most of his spare time wandering around a scale model of the White House in his garden, pretending to be A, a president, and B, even more of a giant than the 7'1, 23-stone, 15-time All-Star already is.

And in fact, amongst the bills that Shaq has forced through Congress, as he calls his wife, are free peanut butter sandwiches with every lunch, bedtime extended past 11:30 on weeknights when his team has won, and state-funded healthcare for all.

He calls his wife Congress, does he, Andy?

Yeah, he does.

And does he call his children the Senate?

And there's the battle in balancing those two.

Yeah, it's difficult, isn't it?

The perennial struggle of the president.

Obama's also into golf, apparently, and not just golf, but trash-talking whilst playing golf.

This is a brilliant story.

Eugene Kang, who a White House Special Projects Coordinator, apparently has been playing golf with Obama and said that he tries to persuade his opponents to take on unnecessarily difficult shots.

He's very strategic about his use of trash talking, according to Kang.

He likes to say that it's always fun to make the putt and give the president a nice little look at the end so uh doesn't have it all his own way if you are president of the United States of America though India you've probably got some pretty good trash talking under your belt because you know if you hook this drive I'm gonna put you and your entire family in prison

Just wanting you to think about that on the team.

We're also going through your tax returns.

Okay, you're gonna be fully aware it's a dangerous road to go down though, isn't it, John?

Because that's that's how Nixon got in all that trouble.

Started off on the golf course.

Apparently Obama is a solid putter, but not very good out of bunkers.

And well, he's not the first top politician to be pretty bad at getting out of bunkers.

Hey, adolf, take your medicine, don't try the miracle escape shot, aiming at the pin.

Come outsideways.

If you have to, put it on the fairway.

What you mustn't do is covertly marry your mistress and then commit suicide.

A number of other world leaders have top sporting pastimes, including Germany's Angela Merkel.

She's into freestyle motocross.

She can do a 360 backflip and a double McMetz in the same move, apparently, John.

Hold on, hold on, hold on.

Obviously, you look that up.

So, what is a McMetz Ande?

Well, double McMets, that's like a single McMets, but you do it twice.

That is exactly the answer to the question I wanted, yeah.

Okay, good.

New Zealand's John Key, their new Prime Minister, synchronised swimming with himself.

That's his thing.

He's built a special pool on the official PM's residence in Wellington with a mirror so that he can pretend he's in the Olympic final and is absolutely nailing the synchronisation, if not the moves.

And Gordon Brown plays air guitar to keep fit, and he really rocks out, John.

He's like a cross between Pete Townsend, slashed from Guns N' Roses, and a Labrador trying to escape from a cardboard box.

Your emails now, and this has come in from Chris Hansen, who has sent us a picture.

And the subject of his email is penis on roof version 2.0.

And the picture he's attached to his email shows, well, a penis on a roof.

I mean, it's definitely a penis, and it's definitely a roof, Andy.

The story checks out.

He writes, with your rooftop penis art fetish, I thought you might be interested in this, the senior prank of the 2007 Plano Senior High School class.

It was not found until over a year later when it was spotted by a traffic helicopter in the area.

Now that is one traffic bulletin I would love to have heard.

Traffic in Plano might want to be aware that there's a massive penis being drawn on the roof of the school.

Everyone's kind of craning their necks to try and see it.

John and Andy, this is my current high school, continues Chris.

Even though the penis is gone, we're all left with the possibility that a massive penis watched over us as we took our calculus and physics tests, as that was the maths and science building.

So, I mean, that seems kind of the most appropriate place for it.

The English and History Building is across the way.

It's also worth mentioning that there is a second huge phallic symbol on campus.

And he sent us a picture that is like so many buildings that are tall, shaped a bit like a willy.

But let's be absolutely clear about this, Andy.

Now, the bugle is in no way encouraging children to paint penises on the roof of their schools.

We are just admiring it when it happens.

We're not the instigators there, we're the appreciators.

We're just holding a mirror up to society.

Of course, we reported the story about the British boy boy painted a 60-foot wang on his parents' roof.

That's quite infantile length in Bugle69.

This week, for some reason, that story from March, I believe it was, returned to the top of the BBC website's most read articles chart.

Just go so some stories run and run.

Like the Bible, for example.

Who would have thought when that first came out?

That would still be

a hot topic today.

That's right, Andy.

That is the equivalent.

The Bible is the equivalent of the story about the penis on the roof.

It's a very cryptic email from Jay Reid, which simply reads, Dear Tom, do you ski?

I mean, I don't know, And if that's a genuine inquiry or if that is a code, and Tom is now about to go and launch an attack on Britain.

Tom, unfortunately, isn't in the studio today because we're in this different studio and I'm in a soundproof booth.

Oh, he can now talk.

He's leaning over.

No, I don't ski.

He doesn't ski,

but he does look a bit like Franz Klammer, the 1976 Olympic downhill champion.

Maybe that's what Jay Reed meant.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, he's even wearing a skiing kit.

Email in any more of your three-word questions for Tom over the next week.

It'd be nice for us all to find out a little bit more about that most enigmatic of producers.

So do keep your emails flooding into thebugle at times09.co.uk and Tom will do a blog this week.

My blogging muscle is still

not fully recovered.

Bugle Sport now and tragedy struck the world of sport this week when superstar Benson Karp was found floating lifeless in a lake following a suspected overdose.

Benson was just 25 years old and a fish, and the suspected overdose was of uncooked nuts, which can be fatal if you're a fish.

He's dead, John.

According to Benson's wishes, beyond the full state funeral, he'll be fully battered, deep-fried, wrapped in his own oblitery, and buried with a side of chips.

Andy, this is like Princess Diana all over again.

Britain is mourning.

It seems to me you lived your life like a fish in a leak.

I don't know how to go on, Andy.

No, how or whether, I hope.

Apparently, Benson, the dead fish, was worth £20,000 when he was alive, John.

Right.

How much is he worth dead?

Well, I don't know.

Six quid.

You'll have to ask the people who bumped him off with those nuts.

But in the current economic climate, that can't be a safe investment.

Spending £20,000 on a carp.

Although, tipping the scales at four stone £8, John, I guess that is quite a lot of gefilter fish you can make out of him.

Well, I don't go with battering a carp.

I'm deep fright.

I'd go with gefiltering it.

Yeah, it works out at 700 quid a kilo, John.

That's more than twice what wankyu beef costs.

Those had better be some tasty fish balls.

There were some really depressed fishermen on the news.

One of them said, Most of the lads that were fishing down here were trying to catch it.

I've been trying for nearly nine years and still not managed it.

And obviously, I'm not going to now.

It's a sad loss.

And I remember looking at the TV and shouting at him, it's a fish.

It's a f fish.

Big fish, yes.

But a fish nonetheless.

Snap out of it.

But for a fish to be caught 63 times, John, suggests a number of possibilities.

One, well, firstly, an ability to charm your way out of potentially fatal situations.

Benson, clearly the James Bond of fish, only a girl and a fish.

But it also suggests a real inability to turn down food.

You know, if if you're caught 63 times, that's greedy, stupid or masochistic.

I think after the 62nd time, Benson might have thought, might hold off on worms for just a couple of days.

Maybe it's just that Benjamin had an addiction to publicity, because if you're a fish and you love the camera, then you're just going to have to accept getting a hook through your cheek in order to get in front of the paps, aren't you?

It's kind of a morality's hell of modern celebrity, isn't it, Benson?

You know, she had to suffer in order to get more.

There you go.

Just like like Princess Diana, Andy, she was hounded to her death.

That's right.

And just like Princess Diana, you know, there was controversy over that death.

You know, people said that it was, you know, it's spiked bait and that the Queen never really got along with Benson.

So, you know, you can't help but ask questions.

Yeah, has the Queen released a statement yet saying she's sad?

No!

The nation's in mourning, Liz!

So, how will we remember Benson, John?

Well,

as a fish, the fact that she was a bit of a promicuous hook slut.

But I prefer to remember Benson as a very private fish who cherished her free time out of the limelight and did a lot of valuable work around her lake.

And, you know, it must have been very hard for Benson to cope when her companion and soulmate Hedges, another carp, whether they stopping or not, I guess we'll never know,

was washed away in a flood, you know, accident or contrived escape.

Who knows, John?

Hedges' diaries have never been found, and even if they were found, they would either be smudged due to having been written underwater by a fish, or completely incomprehensible due to the fact that they had been written by a fish.

but also it must be tough for Benson because as a lady carp she will have laid up to 300,000 eggs every time she spawned and you know she'll spawn you know several times over her lifetime of course many times and few if any of those of her babies will have grown up as far as being adult fish and we can't imagine what that must be like John

and also logistically I had enough trouble thinking of names for two children yeah imagine if you're a carp

just end up calling them really silly stuff it's a tough life for carp and it really makes you appreciate the things we've got now doesn't it and And it really brings it home.

And that's why I think the death of Benson has hit Britain so hard.

Not only because it's evoked losing the

Princess of Hearts, Princess Diana, and also that it makes you think about your own mortality.

You know, if Benson can die, and I mean, I never thought I'd live to see the day Benson passed away.

Then

any of us can.

And seize the day.

Carpe Diem and Carpe Benson.

And so that leads us to our forecast for next week.

Andy, do you think England are going to end up battered like Benson in this Test match?

It does look that way, John.

If

you've got Graham Onions, obviously the England fast bowler.

Well, pickled onions, really, with your

battered cricket team there.

Probably the worst day in British history.

I think England's chances of winning this test are about as healthy as Benson, who, according to the man who owns that lake, is currently living at the bottom of his freezer with, and I quote, the sausages.

Have a great week.

Goodbye.

Bye-bye, Buglers.

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.