Iran, pick on a country your own size!

This is a Times Online podcast.

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello Buglers and welcome to Bugle number 80 for the week beginning Monday the 29th of June 2009.

I'm Andy Zoltzman in the morning city of London and I can hardly bring myself to say this in New York City as John Oliver.

It sounded like you were about to announce that I was dead then Andy Solzzy.

No, obviously, you know, my

thoughts had just been overcome with the thoughts of the death of a true music legend, one of the biggest names in world music, a revolutionary, hugely influential figure who's touched the lives of fans all across the world.

Ludwig van Beethoven.

Can't believe he died in March 1827.

Yeah.

It's not even an anniversary is it Andy?

No March March 1827.

182 years ago.

Yeah well.

It doesn't get easier does it?

No.

It doesn't get easier.

But his music lives on John.

Sure he had a controversial life but you've got to judge the man separately from judging the music.

So hello Andy and hello buglers.

Andy there are times for all of us when you find yourself wondering what you're doing with your life.

One of those times happened to me this week when I was filming up in Westchester County outside of Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner's house and I found myself walking down the middle of a road in a blue dress and high heels before perhaps understandably having the police called on me.

And so it definitely undermines your argument over the legitimacy of what you're doing when you're talking to a policeman wearing a blue dress.

and high heels with enormous lady sunglasses balanced on the top of your head and your real glasses still on your face.

It's hard to claim any kind of moral high ground in that situation.

What seems the problem, officer, just doesn't seem enough.

Sometimes you have to concede the point that yes, you shouldn't be doing what you're doing before acting like you're putting your stuff back into the car, waiting until the policeman drives away, unpacking everything and starting to do it again before he doubles back around the corner to catch you at it again.

It's the circle of life, Andy, as Elton John so meaningfully squawked.

Is it illegal in Westchester County to wear a blue dress and think fungal?

Well, well they certainly didn't seem happy about what was happening on that very affluent road.

I don't think they're used to seeing British men tottering along in the middle of the road, getting in the way of their enormous cars.

I mean, there is one question, I guess, that does arise from this story, and that is, um, well, what the f are you doing?

It probably won't even make the edit.

So it will have been a completely futile exercise.

I suppose I could have showed the policeman a bit of leg, but that really is going double or nothing.

To see your national youth theatre days all over again.

There you go.

Yeah, a bravura performance.

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

This week, a summer holiday at home section in which we tell you how to build a nice sandy beach in your garden without having to wait for thousands of years of coastal erosion.

And in other time and money-saving devices for this credit-crunched holiday season, move from your nice, spacious bedroom to a much smaller, cheap, hotel-style room in your house and play a tape recording of a couple in the next-door room alternately arguing loudly and humping even loudlier.

Then cook some inedible food for your family, overcharge them for eating it whilst leering lasciviously at your own spouse and making lewd comments in a foreign language.

Also, give your family a guided tour of your own house and pretend it's full of objects and places of massive historical interest.

If you live in America, for example, claim that your garden shed was where Lee Harvey Oswald, the Mafia, and Lyndon Johnson secretly plotted the JFK job.

If you live in Britain, perhaps you can claim that your sofa was built on the site of a mud wrestle between Henry VIII and the Pope in 1534, which led to Henry splitting off from the Catholic Church and setting up a Church of England.

For non-religious fans, that's when Christianity became like boxing.

Just so many different organisations all claiming to have a world champion.

You just don't know who to trust.

Or you could even say that your toilet was the one on which Churchill planned the Normandy landings.

A little bit of history for everyone, and also that ornamental vase with a picture of a turtle on it on your mantelpiece.

That's what Charles Darwin was looking at when he discovered evolution.

If a turtle could turn into a vase with a picture of a turtle on it, then John in the Dots, dinosaurs would one day become people.

Also, here to complete your summer holiday at home are some audio mosquitoes to keep you awake at night

top story this week iran news sorry i've got the tone of that all wrong andy um top story this week Iran news

Andy, it's important to remember what is going on in Iran at the moment, especially since the new cycle is going to be dominated by Michael Jackson for at least the next week.

In fact, such is the extent to which this is going to affect global coverage of Iran, you might almost think that Michael Jackson was actually working for Ahmedinejad.

Almost, but let me, for vital legal reasons, now point out, not quite.

So, what have been the big changes in Iran over the last week?

Well, to summarise, violence has gone up, hope for the future has gone down, Supreme Leader Khamenei has gone crazy, Mousavi has gone quiet.

And Ahmadinejad is doing just what he does best.

Being an arsehole.

He really is a testament to the theory, Andy, that to find happiness, you should find something that you love doing and just do it as much as he can.

He's inspirational in a way, but absolutely only in that way.

I guess his counterpoint to you calling him an arsehole would be to say you spent most of last week dressed in a blue dress, wearing high heels and wearing sunglasses.

And I think we both have to concede that the other one had a point.

So it has been another week in which the official silver medalist from the election, Mir Hussain Masavi, has been striding around in a t-shirt with the slogan, I ran for president of Iran, and all I got was this lousy fixed election and subsequent violent crackdown.

Been a kind of violent pantomime sequence in Iran.

John, one side saying the election was rigged, the other side saying, oh no, it wasn't.

Oh, yes, it was.

Oh, no, it wasn't.

And to prove it, I'm going to hit you with this massive stick.

Only 105 out of 290 MPs attended Ahmadinejad's victory party, suggesting either that even his own party have certain misgivings about popping open the bubbly when he might well have faked the bubbly.

This isn't champagne, Mahmood, it's badger piss, and I don't care how bubbly it is, or that his wife is really bad at making party nibbles.

I'm guessing it was the former rather than the latter.

Why not throw a victory party?

Well, there are certainly a good few reasons why not, but he probably pre-booked a haul and didn't want to lose his deposit.

Also, Ahmadinejad's victory party.

That has got to be a very awkward party to DJ.

Good luck getting people onto the dance floor there very difficult to get the tone just right especially because as you say only 105 people turned up out of 290 possible invitees ouch that was not an evite that you wanted landing in your inbox that necessitated 185 separate excuses oh I was busy my dog ate my invitation my dog was killed by the basige I got the dates mixed up you haven't actually won the election I felt ill that's just six right there you need another another 179.

Rumour has it, though, that this is this has kind of shown that the Iranian government is now as split as an ice cream-covered banana splaying its legs in a painful-looking gymnastic pose whilst jointly winning a poker hand in a large Croatian city, whilst also singing a 2005 joint album by the rock bands Zeke and Peter Pan Speedrock, divorcing, wondering how to knock down two remaining non-adjacent bowling pins, and drinking a bottle of wine left over from an aeroplane meal.

Technically, to explain that last bit, 187ml bottle of wine is called a split.

So that's not quite as many split-based puns as my North Korea effort the other day.

No,

no,

to be honest, I just don't know how to respond to that joke, anyway.

It's a real roller coaster of emotion that I'm feeling.

I'm impressed in a way.

I'm absolutely furious.

As well.

Well, because you didn't get there first.

Definitely not that.

No.

Violence over the last last week has indeed increased dramatically, depressingly, demoralisingly, and disgustingly.

And it's clearly going to be best for us to skip over the particulars of the terrible scenes that have been witnessed over the last week.

Suffice to say that, to put it in the mildest way I can possibly state, it's been a bad week for the image of motorbikes.

Also, it just may be, Andy, that journalism has significantly changed after this, because now technology may well have changed how history is recorded forever.

Just think how different our view of history would be if camera phones were always available.

Imagine people at the crucifixion just standing there, holding up their cameras, tweeting their friends, saying, Still alive, this is taking forever.

Capturing that moment of poetic wonder, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

And having it become a YouTube smash.

Step aside, Pharisees, getting a nutshot.

There'd be trillions of views alongside the usual negative comments underneath them.

You suck.

This sucks.

If you like this, check out my website.

Well, the situation has led in Iran to arguably the most uneasy standoff since eight-year-old Timmy Watkins was selected to play fly-half for England against the mighty New Zealanders in 1979, despite never having played rugby, weighing four stone, and having asthma.

Now, admittedly, if I may explain that joke as well, it is dependent on listeners having the knowledge that the term standoff is another term for the rugby position of fly-half, roughly for our American listeners, as the equivalent of quarterback.

Hence, his unease.

The joke stands.

Maybe, Andy, it's time for you to consider using audio footnotes for all of your jokes.

I already do.

I just don't publish them.

What's happening in Iran does seem now to be about much more than just this election and instead concerns the future direction of the entire Islamic Republic.

Now, option one: do they take an even more militaristic, even more isolationist stance and move towards becoming more like North Korea?

Obviously, let's clearly hope not.

North Korea should be the perfect warning sign for them there.

That is a miserable country to live in or even near.

Yes, it has one phenomenal water slide.

We know that.

But remember, only one man can use it and everyone else isn't even allowed to watch him use it.

That would be something.

Or option two, do they open up, dial down the crazy, and we increase the possibility of us all living happily ever after?

Tough call for Iran to make that, and it really is worth restating to them that they would not be able to have a go on that water slide.

Mousavi this week instructed supporters to release green balloons into the sky and take videos or photos of the scene and post them online to show the world that they're still in solidarity with one another.

And I hope that works out but I am guessing that the Revolutionary Guard are going to see that as an invitation to some impromptu target practice.

Well, things have certainly got pretty niggly John between Iran and Britain and a game of diplomatic expulsion tennis has begun.

They kicked two of ours out, we kicked two of theirs out.

It's looking like we could be sliding into a grinding baseline rally like two Spaniards on a slow clay court.

Iran claimed that the British diplomats had been, quote, involved in activities incompatible with their status.

Right.

Which is pretty vague to me, John.

I don't know what activities there would be.

Hopscotch, maybe.

Or unicycling.

I don't know.

That's not really what you want your diplomats to do.

Or it's like you trying an overhead kick in football, Landy.

It's incompatible with your status as a player.

Well, it's incompatible because I don't need to resort to that kind of of flashy shit, John.

I've got a complete passing game.

I know if I'm having to do an overhead kick, I'm in the wrong position, which I never am.

Basically, these poor diplomats, though, John, they basically become porns in a game of political chess.

But as with most games of political chess, the pieces just get knocked over by the players swinging their penises to and fro across the board.

What?

I'm so glad we've only played chess once.

Well, what a game.

What a game.

What a game.

What a game of chess.

The one time John and I played chess, we were doing a gig in Liverpool together with an irish comedian called johnny candon and staying in a triple room in a cheap bed and breakfast to which johnny candon took the only key went back and accidentally locked us out so john and i were then left on the streets of liverpool at around i don't know 1 30 in the morning sure sure the only place we could find to go was the local ymca shelter yeah so then like i don't know two prisoners of war we made a chessboard out of a sheet of paper

And as I recall, I demolished you with a quite scintillating counter-attack on yourself.

To be honest, I don't remember much of the details of the game.

I merely remember just seeing over your shoulder the various smack addicts coming in and out and thinking, this will be the strangest game of chess that's taking place in Britain at this moment.

This diplomatic expulsion tennis has

really been done more out of routine than anger.

We're just going through the motions of this bad relationship, Britain and Iran now, Andy.

It used to be really passionate, genuine, spontaneous hate on both sides.

But now look at us staring at each other across a restaurant table, unable to think of anything nasty to say about each other.

Maybe it's time to just give up and just be friends.

I know it sounds negative, but it's just not working out.

Because in his speech last Friday, Ayatollah Khamenei called Britain the most evil of the hungry wolves in the ambush on Iran.

We're back!

Friends back, number one, the most evil of the hungry wolves, not the second most evil.

I mean, he says that, but I just don't think he could possibly mean it.

A Middle East analyst said there is a deep-rooted belief in Iran that Britain's always up to something, is never passive and always devious.

I mean that's a lovely thing to say, but I think they're just trying to be nice, Andy.

We got nothing anymore.

The Ayatollah, or as a football manager would call him, the lad Kamenei, picked out Britain for special, special dissonance, the most evil of the enemies of Iran.

He accused us in Britain, John, of trying to foment unrest in his country.

But if we have been trying to ferment unrest, we've chosen a pretty stupid time to do it, given that Iran has been fermenting unrest in Iran and quite a lot of it.

So I think any British fermented unrest would probably slip under the radar.

I just hope the government wouldn't be so stupid as to waste our fermenting at such a stupid time.

Britain, the most evil, John, now this is an unexpected side effect of the Obama administration.

He has made Britain relatively more evil as a nation.

Oh, that's that's true.

By making America seem less evil to the Iranian regime, he's made us in Britain more evil.

So if there is a sudden surge in racially aggregated violence in Britain, a further lurch towards the far right, or a spike in nicking handbags of old biddies, we'll all know it's because of Obama and his message of peace and racial equality.

Now, Akham Dinijad this week also compared Obama to Bush.

Come on, Mahmood.

Does that really have any traction anymore?

You just miss your old enemy.

It just goes to show.

He didn't know what he had until it was gone.

He should have appreciated the times that they spent together.

Now, you know, it's all in the past.

The latest and least horrifying technique to keep people off the streets in Iran is particularly imaginative.

Now, normally, Iranians only get one or two Hollywood or European movie nights a week.

But Iranian State TV's Channel 2 has now increased that to two or three a day, including an upcoming Lord of the Rings marathon, where all three films will be shown back to back, hoping to pacify young people and keep them indoors.

Although, it will be nerds who they'll be pacifying, who are already fairly naturally passive anyway.

So, well finally here's my message to Armandinejad and the Ayatollah John.

Pick on someone your own size John.

I don't pick on Britain.

Iran is geographically seven times as big as Britain.

That's not fair.

It's not brave.

Pick on Mongolia or don't you have the balls?

British Foreign Affairs News now and David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, potential future leader of the Labour Party, and a man with one of the most important jobs in the country, has posted a message on Twitter about the death of Michael Jackson.

He's done what, you ask?

Well, he's done exactly what I just said, John.

The Foreign Secretary, whose current concerns range from the hostage situations in Iraq, the inquiry into Iraq, relations with Iran, the war in Afghanistan, trying to piece the empire back together again, making sure the Germans aren't plotting anything new, keeping tabs on the Costa Ricans, normalising relations with Spain after the whole Armada.

No, senor, haven't seen an Armada for a a bit.

Why don't you try looking for it under the sea business?

All of those on his plate, John, as Foreign Secretary.

And he had the time and far, far, far more disturbingly, the inclination to tweet about the passing of the King of Pop.

He tweeted these words: Never has one soared so high and yet dived so low.

R.I.P.

Michael.

This nation has gone to the electronic dogs, John.

I mean, unless he's talking about Michael Martin, the deposed speaker, who obviously did a fine job and yet

did dive low during the expenses crisis.

But the next tweet posted by the Foreign Secretary of Britain, John, was in big letters and it said, CNN has basically become an MJ-only version of MTV exclamation mark.

Now there are a number of things that I don't like about this, John.

I don't like the fact that the Foreign Secretary feels that tweeting is an acceptable form of communication for anyone over the age of sixteen.

I don't like the fact that the Foreign Secretary is relying on CNN for his news.

I don't like the fact that the Foreign Secretary knows what MTV is.

I don't like the fact that the Foreign Secretary used an exclamation mark within hours of the death of a global pop legend.

Too soon, Milliband.

Too soon.

And I don't like the fact that he used an exclamation mark at all, John.

He's the Foreign Secretary.

In fact, he's used 12 exclamation marks in his last 14 tweets.

This suggests that one or more of the following is true.

The Foreign Secretary is too easily surprised and uses exclamation marks accordingly.

Or that the Oxford and MIT-educated Foreign Secretary has learning difficulties and can't punctuate without the use of exclamation marks, that's unlikely.

Or, and I sincerely hope this is true, someone is masquerading as the Foreign Secretary on Twitter.

And if they're not, buglers, please do.

See if you can masquerade as the Foreign Secretary and tweet Britain to the brink of war.

Maybe tweet Iran's getting toasty.

Who thinks with a letter X?

We should teach Arm as a lesson.

Question mark, exclamation mark.

iraq news now and there is controversy already over britain's inquiry into the iraq war and it hasn't even started yet that is when you know you're onto a good one andy when people can't even wait for it to begin to start arguing these are a pair of tiff squabbles before the main course blazing row that's coming up let's just hope that everyone leaves some room for a tiff dessert afterwards It will start next month and will take at least a year or in other words until after whenever the election is.

After.

That is the the key word there.

After it.

Controversial parts so far were the government announcing that it would be in private and would not aim to apportion blame.

I gather people weren't too keen on that in Britain Andy as I think they would like the most public and blamiest inquiry possible.

I'm not sure the public desire for accountability will be sated by anything less than finding those responsible, loading them into a cannon and firing them off a cliff at France.

Always used to work.

But the British government will finally hold its inquiry into the Iraq war.

Although this does seem to be challenging the veracity of the old saying, better late than never.

In fact, given that it will, as you said, be held in private under various restrictions, it will actually blur the distinction between late and never to almost completely, unobservably small.

There are a number of other restrictions other than the inability to apportion blame, John.

I can't mention the word weapons, that's for security reasons.

Can't talk about Iraq.

There's been enough chat about that already.

What more good will any more do?

Can't use any evidence collected in the last 40 years.

People will just be too emotionally close to it.

Can't take any evidence from anyone who's read a newspaper since 2001.

They'll already be prejudiced one way or the other.

And also, those involved have to give their evidence in one breath.

And they picked that idea off in the Indian sport of capadi.

So it's hard to see that we're going to get a satisfactory outcome from this.

I think the argument is that if the inquiry takes place in private, witnesses could be as candid as possible.

And I guess there is a case to be made for that, but I'm not quite sure how you justify not making people do it under oath.

Because someone refusing to do it under oath does seem to imply I'm going to lie about this.

Tony Blair has said that he will appear before the committee if asked.

If asked?

How is he not going to be asked?

Although maybe they'll want me there.

Yeah,

I don't know why, don't know what they'd have to ask me in particular, but yeah, sure, if they ask me.

And two inquiries have already been held into the Iraq war, of course, the Hutton inquiry and the Butler inquiry, both of which found, oh you know stuff happens worse things happen at sea

feature section now and I sue your ass

I sue your I see your ass I sue your ass

Andy I live in America so you are very lucky that I haven't already sued your ass at least 12 times since I moved over here extremely

thank you for your for your mercy that you've shown this place is litigious with a capital L and in fact capitals for all the other letters as well.

And there have been a number of lawsuits that have come up over the last couple of weeks.

So, the feature section this week is going to be us delivering bugle verdicts on these cases.

It's a lot less expensive for the taxpayer, and in this economy, what you've really got to ask yourself is: can people really afford not to vest us with the necessary power to make these judgments?

Think of us as two halves of Judge Judy.

Which half do you want to be, unde top or bottom?

I want to be the left-hand half.

Oh, you want to do it down the middle?

Yeah, all right, Solomon.

Okay, so case one, approach the bench.

All right.

A Borehamwood secondary school headteacher is suing her neighbours in England, Andy, over a security light that she claims is keeping her prisoner because of her religion.

She claims that she and her husband cannot leave their holiday flat in Bournemouth on the Jewish Sabbath because when they do, the automatic hallway light comes on.

Great case.

Andy, it's an absolute pleasure to rule on this case.

I would argue that

rather than suing her neighbours, she should be suing God for giving her such a ludicrous rule to live by.

Well,

where would you rule on that as a Jew?

Well, I think it was interesting.

As a bad Jew, though, that's the interesting point here.

I think what this shows, John, is that the problem that happens when deeply held if slightly unfathomable religious beliefs clash with basic everyday convenience.

Because on the one hand, you have the Coleman saying this fundamentally undermines their faith and compromised their basic right to practice that faith as enshrined in widely accepted morality and national and international law.

And on the other hand, you have the residents in the other thirty-five flats saying, Oh, it's just some lights, isn't it?

Just basic security and safety measure, I guess.

You know, it's quite convenient, you've got your hands full of shopping or children or pets or antique globes or whatever you happen, yeah.

Uh it's just some lights.

But as ever,

when you get what social scientists know as a GAFO imbalance, uh that is a giving a flying one imbalance, squabbles arise.

I mean history shows that.

You know, think back 1914.

Come on, it was only an archduke.

Just one archduke.

Why don't you just get another archduke?

Oh, all right.

I'll gather up the flower of this continent's youth and let them sort it out with the devastating tools of mechanised warfare whose impact we cannot yet understand.

Okay, satisfied?

But in fact, it's interesting you say that she should sue God, because God actually did turn up in court

to give evidence on calculus.

Well, yeah.

And he said that having checked his original paperwork, whilst technically that rule about not turning on electronic lights does stand, he doesn't actually remember making it and thinks he must have made it on one of his stroppy days.

Right, okay.

And as we know when God gets stroppy, he either gets vengeful against his enemies or unbelievably petty towards his own fans.

Don't eat this, put this on, don't kill him, don't hump that, don't set off automatic lights.

That really gets under my skin.

So let's get to the verdict, Andy.

I think personally, I'm inclined to find for the defendants here and against the plaintiff, especially because the defendants are already suffering enough due to inevitably one day burning in the fires of eternal hell.

How do you find this case?

I'm going to go with my team, John.

Oh, really?

You're going to go after all of that, you're still going to stay

with the Jewish plaintiff.

Blood is thicker than water.

That's true.

I actually held a quiz between a pint of blood and a pint of water.

Pint of water, one easily.

So blood is literally thicker than water.

Okay, so that's a split decision.

No verdict.

Case two, approach the bench.

Now, this case, Eddie Van Halen, the famous rock star from the rock group Van Halen, has sued Nike over a colour scheme on one of their shoes, which he says they've stolen from his famous red, black, and white colour scheme on his guitar.

Now, I'm not really up with kind of trainer-fashioned on them.

I'd imagine they like to kind of be quite hip and cool with an appeal to young people.

I don't know that Van Halen, dinosaur rock band from the 80s, really fits into that scheme.

Obviously, no one's explained that to Eddie.

He's also actually suing Andrei Silnov, the current Olympic men's high jump champion, for jumping, claiming it was an obvious plagiarisation of Van Halen's hit song, Jump.

Silnov counter-sued by proving that the Olympic high jump had pre-existed the song, and that Van Halen had, in fact, been inspired to write their 1984 hit single after watching West German Ulrika Mayfarth jumping her way to silver at the inaugural World Athletics Championship in Helsinki in 1983.

Silnoff won the case, but then Van Halen claimed that Mayfarth had in turn been so inspired by the song jump that she had won gold at the LA Olympics later in 1984 and should therefore contribute 50% of their compensation payment to Silnoff.

Mayfarth responded by Fosbury flopping through the courtroom window, which coincidentally was two metres, two centimetres off the ground, her winning heights in Los Angeles, thus proving her guilt.

She is still on the run.

And that, John, is what happens when you attempt to write a joke at 5.51am.

I guess my advice to, before the verdicts rendered here, my advice to Eddie Van Halen would be, Mr.

Van Halen, don't sue Nike.

This is going to cost you a lot of money.

So much money, you might have to go work in one of their fun factories in Indonesia for a while.

And that's not going to make you a lot.

My favourite part of his challenge is not only saying that this did irreparable harm and damage to his design, but he's also seeking money and Andy, and I quote, the impoundment and destruction of all footwear.

Does he want everyone just to set fire to their shoes?

That's it.

You've ruined shoes, Nike.

Or the concept of putting something around your naked foot.

Well, it's understandable.

He probably can't put shoes on that.

It's just too painful.

He's going in big there.

That's too painful.

Verdict in.

I'm fighting for Van Halen, Andy.

Everyone set fire to your feet.

I'm going along with that.

Okay, that's it.

Well on Van Halen.

Final case, please approach the bench.

A group of Christians in Wisconsin, and well, you know it's going to be good

when they're bringing this.

You know it's going to be good.

They've launched a legal claim demanding the right to publicly burn a copy of a book for teenagers, which they deem to be explicitly vulgar, racial,

what does that even mean?

And anti-Christian.

And the offending book is called Baby Bebop by Francesca Lear Block.

And it's a young adult novel in which a boy struggling with his homosexuality is beaten up by a homophobic gang.

And their lawsuit says, the plaintiffs, all of whom are elderly, claim their mental and emotional well-being was damaged by this book at the library.

And that it contains derogatory language that could put, and I quote, one's life in possible jeopardy, adults and children alike.

And they're looking for $120,000 for being exposed to the book in a display at the Community Memorial Library.

Exposed to that.

They didn't even read it, they just looked at it.

I guess religious sceptics might claim that by definition, a Christian group has already had its mental and emotional well-being damaged by a book.

That book, of course, being the Bible.

But now's not the time to get bogged down in theological nitty-gritty, John.

I guess what this does show, that if the derogatory language in a book can put your life in jeopardy, it really illustrates the importance of learning to read in your head and not out loud.

It just makes these things so much easier.

Book burning, though, is a dangerous road to go down, John.

I'm not sure Jesus was big into it as a fundamental pillar of Christianity, book burning.

I'm not sure that's really his bag.

I mean, apart from when he was in the wilderness and it was getting a bit parky in the late evening and he was out there without a

lot of clothing or blankets, and he just finished a trashy chiclet novel.

It was this little guilty secret, he'll take his mind off stuff, and you know, we just burn it.

But I don't think we can read too much into that, John.

And chiclet was very different in those days as well.

Does the book of Ruth count as chiclet?

I think it did.

So let's render a verdict, Andy.

I think we'll probably both agreed here that the Christians should grow up a bit.

Yes.

Relax.

And by growing up a bit, apparently they're so old they will just die and

everything will will get a little easier for them.

This world has become too painful.

We're with the library on this one.

Case, dismissed!

Your emails now, and this email comes in from Ryan.

Dear John and Andy, I'm an American who has recently stumbled across your podcast, The Bugle, and have now become an avid listener.

Over the past couple of episodes, you've made regular references to the sport of cricket.

I'm writing you to request that you provide a brief explanation of the sport of cricket for us American listeners in your next podcast.

I've asked a few British people I've met in the past to explain how this game works, but have gotten lost in their rambling about wickets and whatnots.

I suspect that it doesn't actually exist, but is instead used by you people in the same way that we have the snipe hunt, so we can fool those lesser people who have not learnt that snipes don't exist and leave them in the woods.

Anyway, an explanation of cricket would be helpful and go a long way to avoid alienating your American listeners.

Oh boy, you are opening Pandora's box here.

Andy, do you want to.

All I would say, John.

Hold on,

let me just strap in America had its chance with cricket it used to know what cricket was it could still know what cricket was and if it doesn't that is America's own fault for playing rounders instead hey Andy come on you enjoy baseball that's not a fair comment to make it's a different game

but they play rounders as well probably I'm just guessing that well if you don't know what cricket is then you don't know what life is I'd say that you'd go in that big I would go in that big John okay fine so here's another email here from Sarah in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, who says, Dear Pod Tators, that's a cross between a podcaster and a dictator that sounds and looks sort of like a potato.

What an outstanding title.

Following on from your sex non-suitable gift for Father's Day that you so dismissively threw into the audio bin, I thought that I would alert you to this fantastic headline that I spotted on the Telegraph website.

And it says, Tesco's criticised for including a book on Joseph Fritzel in Father's Day gift display.

And she says, I can't even finish that sentence out loud without breaking into fits of laughter.

Apparently, a Tesco spokesnutter,

beautiful phrase, very well written email this, said that was not appropriate because fathers and people in general are interested in things like this, books about war, serial killers, etc.

It would be touching on censorship if we removed it.

Where would we draw the line?

Would you like us to go through every DVD we sell, removing those that some may find offensive?

And she goes and says, I think they may have missed the point here.

This was a report of my local Tesco's, Sarah goes on to say.

So I did what any reasonable person would do.

I rushed to the shop and wept with tears of laughter in front of the display, purchased the book whilst giggling insanely to myself.

That's a hard way to buy a Joseph Ritzel book whilst giggling insanely to yourself.

And finally, presented to my father as a belated Father's Day gift.

I'm slightly concerned that I may now be on some sort of government list.

Yours distastefully, Sarah.

Well done, Tesco.

What's your tiny father?

I like this term fathers and people in general.

Yeah.

I'm a two-time father.

Am I interested in books about serial killers?

I don't know.

Did Matilda make you a Joseph Fritzel biography?

No, no, no, she didn't.

Not for Father's Day, no.

She just made the little card with a heart on.

I did look for a Joseph Fritzel kind of cartoon book, pop-up book, but I don't seem to seem to have it.

It is a weird thing to receive for Father's Day.

I don't deny that, you know, they're allowed to have it up on display, but in the Father's Day section, I don't know what you're saying to your father if you say, you know, thanks for raising me.

Here's the book on how, to put it mildly, not to do it.

Congratulations for avoiding some of these pitfalls.

Do keep your emails flooding into thebugle at timesonline.co.uk.

And do keep looking at the website as well.

Have you put up a new blog, Tom?

You haven't even looked.

I've been pissing.

How have you not written a blog?

You haven't looked to see if Tom has.

How far removed from this

Let's get this right.

You're supposed to be doing the blog.

I raised my eyebrows at you, and I was assuming you were going to say, and there will be a blog in the not too distant next three or four years.

But in fact, you were just going, have you bothered to do a blog, Tom?

Yeah, I'm delegating, mate.

There is something up at the moment.

It's just two words, Delante West.

Sport news now, and well, Andy, it was a dark day for football this week when the United States football team, or soccer team, as they pathetically call themselves, beat Spain, the beautiful football-playing European champions.

They beat them in a completely meaningless tournament.

This is what I've been trying to say to people all week, Andy.

The Confederation's Cup is designed so that the host nation of the World Cup can practice getting people in and out of a stadium.

It's not about the game.

It's meaningless.

I have had so many awkward conversations with people at work, Andy.

No one in the world wants the American football team to do well.

That's the one thing that the rest of the world can completely get behind.

You're not interested in this sport, that's fine.

Maintain a safe level of apathy.

Just leave it alone.

You don't like it.

It's not for you.

It's the one thing we've got left.

Just leave it alone.

It'd be awful for you, wouldn't it?

Living in America, if America has a big run at the World Cup match.

I can't handle it.

Doesn't it help that my boss is quite a big football fan as well, and I can't face getting into any more arguments with him about it.

Cricket news now, and England are world champions at crickets.

We won the World 2020, John, with a quite devastating display of all-round dominance, putting our foes unmercifully to the cricketing swords.

There are now no arguments about who is the best cricket team in the world.

Unmercifully.

Unmercifully.

What do you mean mercilessly?

Unmercifully.

That's a cricketing term.

Really?

Yep.

So we are now unquestionable world championship on the greatest cricket team in the world.

Of course, the men's side didn't do so well, but hey, let's not pick airs, eh?

We're world champions at the greatest sport in the world, as practised by the equal greatest gender in the world.

Oh there you go.

Sounded like it was about to get offensive.

You made it less offensive in the end.

Bugle forecast now and the forecast is will there be a bugle next week.

John?

I'm thinking and knowing no.

Right, no is the correct answer.

Yeah.

There will not be a full bugle.

There will be a replacement bugle service departing from the same platform next week.

And in fact, it'll be an Independence Day special extra bugle edition because we're having a week off and I'm starting a radio series about cricket.

So listen to that if you want.

It's on the BBC website and radio.

Is that alright, Tom?

I don't want to plug this too hard, mate.

You gave it away by saying it's on radio, so I'm cutting that.

Censorship.

He's always John's always banging on, let's show this, the show that.

My film, my film.

My film.

My film.

So, no bugle next week, but we will be back with a full bugle in two weeks and the replacement bonus issue next week.

In the meantime, Buglers, bye-bye.

Cheerio!

This is a Times Online podcast.

For more podcasts, go to timesonline.co.uk forward slash podcasts.

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.