What to do with Guantanamo Bay?

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, Buglers, and welcome to Bugle 75 for the week beginning Monday, the 25th of May, 2009.

Gosh, is that the date?

No, but it will be on Monday with me, Andy Zaltzmann, here in

London

and in New York City, City of Ducklings.

It's the Archduke of Entertainment himself, John Oliver.

Hello, Andy, and hello, Buglers.

Buglers, if you're thinking, oh, Andy's stuck down that well again and sounds a bit out of breath, that's because he went to the wrong studio and has been rushing his way across to this new well-based studio.

We'll be in for one week.

Yeah, it is the kind of room where you can imagine if Britain ever goes the wrong way.

People are going to be reading forced statements criticising American foreign policy in a room like this.

Anyway.

Also, my voice might sound tired because it's f ⁇ ing early here.

And that's because I'm off to West Palm Beach in a couple of hours.

We're on hiatus on the show this week, but instead of having a break...

Andy, I'm cleverly doing stand-up in West Palm Beach, Atlanta, Nashville, South Carolina, Denver and San Francisco.

Plug, which is a great place to be.

It seemed like a great idea three months ago when I wasn't this tired.

I'm going to be spending most of the next week airborne.

I'm basically going to be living like a a bird, soaring above treetops and crapping above the clouds.

And then returning to ground to do some gigs like a bird.

Like a bird.

Bugle 75, three-quarters the way to the big ton, but as most dead old people will tell you, the first 75 is the easy bit.

So let's see how far we can go.

For the week beginning the 25th of May, 1993.

Sorry, 2009.

Sorry for getting your hopes up there.

So will this prove to be the greatest week in the history of humankind?

Who knows?

It's a bit of a long shot, but even if it isn't, I guess it's still worth trying to get to the end of it just in case.

So hang in there, fuglas.

It is 48 years to the day, John, since JFK pledged to the world to put a man on the moon.

So I think now is the appropriate time to ask, will we ever get to the moon?

And why should we trust JFK with getting a man all the way to the moon?

After all, this was a guy who couldn't even get himself from one side of Dallas to the other.

As always.

Wow.

Wow, Andy.

How did you feel as that joke echoed back off the walls towards your face?

It's alright to Oliver Stone to make a comedy about it.

It's alright for me to make a joke about it.

I don't think he would have seen that as a comedy, Andy.

That was, you know, a decisive piece of speculative investigative journalism.

I'm not saying it didn't have its amusing moments in its slapstick.

As always, we have a section of the bugle going straight in the bin this week, a political protest section, including self-immolation for the safety conscious, how to set fire to yourself in the public space without endangering others.

The key is to cordon yourself off with high visibility cones, at least a five-metre radius, ideally, and use a fast-burning high-temperature fuel to make sure you make your point quickly, safely and infernoically and avoid self-immolating on a windy day.

Plus how to make reasonable achievable requests with properly structured logistical timetables within the confines of a what do we want, when do we want it chant.

And also why riding a brightly painted elephant on a protest march can undermine the credibility of your cause.

Plus, we look back at some of the most famous political protests in history.

We look back on the forgotten suffragette Derek Jeta Pankhurst, the least well-known of the Pankhurst stable of protesters, who famously interrupted the 1906 Epsom Derby by running out onto the course in front of the king's horse dressed in a pantomime horse's outfit and seducing the king's horse in front of an astonished crowd.

Later she put on a medieval suit of armour and welded herself to some reinings and sadly she died in her greatest pro-women's voting escapade when she mowed the word women in big letters onto the outfield at Lourdes during the 1909 test match with Australia then hired a biplane jumped out and free fell into the middle of the square at the famous cricket ground arms and legs akimbo to form the letter X as if she had just voted for all women in a traditional bastion of male dominance.

The force of the impact was such that her body could not not be dug out of the turf, and the match had to continue around her, to the disappointment of the great Australian batsman Victor Trumper, who was bowled up by a ball that kept low after bouncing on her past and axe.

Struth, he muttered as he trudged back to the pavilion.

Scuffered by a Sheila's Guzzlewicks.

I'll be damned.

That section in the pin.

Top story this week, Guantanamo.

All together now, Guantanamo!

Just the fellas, Guantanamo!

Now the ladies, Guantanamo!

Remember Guantanamo Bay?

Isn't that how you start your gigs these days?

It is, yeah.

I'm trying to bring a little bit of the stadium spectacular to small comedy clubs.

But you remember Guantanamo Bay, Andy?

Little nook.

Little nook in the corner of Cuba.

Beautiful place, Andy.

You really must go if you ever conspire to commit a terrorist act, or more importantly, look like you might.

Well, Obama pledged to close the not remotely exclusive resorts as soon as his second day in office, saying unambiguously that he would ensure it was closed within 12 months.

Now the problem with saying things like that is that you then have to do them.

I guess that's why politicians don't often say things like that.

And in a major bipartisan defeat this week, Senate Democrats, that's right, Democrats have said that they will block the move until he comes up with a plan for where to send the detainees.

Obama lost the vote 90 to 6 as the Senate essentially voted to keep the president at Guantanamo open for the foreseeable future.

Whilst Obama didn't say this out loud, you could read across his face that he was thinking, what the f?

Anyway, the point is no US senators want Guantanamo inmates in their states.

And Lamar Smith, the representative from Guess Where, that's right, Texas, said, no good purpose is served by allowing known terrorists who trained at terrorist training camps to come to the US and live among us.

Guantanamo Bay was never meant to be an Ennis Island.

Where to begin?

I mean, there does seem to be some kind of confusion here, Annie.

No one is suggesting that the inmates are moved from Guantanamo Bay into the bedrooms of America's children.

Perhaps they should have been more specific and made it clear that that had been ruled out as a possibility.

These people will be going to maximum security prisons from which, to round up, no one has ever escaped.

No one.

One senator even said, you know that they'll be in there trying to tunnel out.

Well, good luck to them.

Have you seen seen maximum security prisons?

There aren't conveniently placed trampolines next to low fences.

They're not getting out.

You cannot tunnel through a floor with a plastic spoon if it's reinforced with steel.

Well you say that, John, but when Johnny Cash did his San Quentin prison gig,

people actually used him as one of those commo horses and tunnelled out underneath Johnny Cash.

It was a great gig though.

Let's not let that affect our enjoyment retrospectively of what was an incredible gig.

Actually, if you listen to the recording, you you can just hear the sound of prisoners vaulting over him.

And the terrorists are getting taken straight there.

They're not putting them on charter flights with a map and some money and saying well look when you land in America please report straight to the maximum security prison.

You really mustn't stop off on the way to do any terrorism, okay?

Can't stress that enough.

Guantanamo, of course, based on the irregular Latin verb, guantanimo, guantanimare, guantana maxi, guantana mactum, which of course means to wantonly and deliberately flout international law.

Also Also, the military tribunals, they're back, aren't they?

And that's good news for fans of military tribunals.

Bad news, I guess, for fans of taking legal picnics on the moral high ground.

And Obama, of course, has previously described Guantanamo as a sad chapter in American history.

I guess I think in any book you want a bit of light and shade, don't you?

You know, the chapters in American history, I mean, there's lots of happy chapters and there's quite a lot of sad chapters.

And

I guess it's starting to look like a bit of a mess.

I'm just waiting to see some kind of common thread come through.

through.

Maybe I'll just have to wait for the sequel.

It's a real emotional roller coaster of a novel.

Also, with these Supermax prisons, Andy, there are already 347 convicted terrorists in these prisons, and they are yet to break out or turn any one terrorist inside there.

And even if they do convert someone, bear in mind those someones are already in a maximum security prison.

That is literally the safest place for any new terrorist to be.

The court has said that America can hold these detainees indefinitely.

And I guess, John, when you think about indefinite detention, objectively, you've got to remember that time is really just a concept and we're all just a bunch of molecules randomly thrown together by fate and science.

So, what does it really matter

at the end of the day?

You would make a terrible human rights defense lawyer.

Listen, dudes.

I'll notice nothing.

I'm not chopping because I'm about to blow your mind here, man.

I don't know, that's probably not much consolation if you are being held indefinitely.

But then, if you are being held indefinitely, then A, well, you shouldn't be listening to this podcast for a start.

We don't want your sort of associating with the bugle.

And two, you're not in the best position to comment objectively.

So keep out of it.

It's not your business.

Glantenum, of course.

Of course, kick them where they're down, Andy.

Guantanamo, of course, currently boasts an unimpressive 3 for 775 conviction rate for its inmates.

That's not a good batting average.

No, in baseball terms, A is batting 3.8, which, I guess, in legal terms is tantamount to convicting only 3 out of 775 possible inmates in a prison camp.

Either way you look at it, it's got could do better written all over its report.

Also, there are 240 residents, or as they were known under the Bush administration, pre-convicts, still lodging at Shea Gitmo, a one-star hotel with inadequate facilities and often rude staff.

And it's hard to know what to do with them all, John.

I mean, you because letting them go is obviously problematic.

You could, I guess, have a five-aside football tournament with five eight-team leagues, each team with a squad of six players and a rotating sub.

That's an option.

But once that's finished, it hasn't really solved the overall problem.

And there's a problem also with offloading detainees who have been cleared for release because a lot of them don't want to go home on on the grounds of that they're scared of being killed.

Albania has taken some in as guests, but then I guess Albania doesn't have a lot else to do, apart from being a bit mysterious.

Uh so rumour has actually that Obama is set to start auctioning off these inmates.

In fact, um I've got a leaked copy of a US government advert that's uh due to come out that goes um have your own living piece of US extrajudicial history helping out around the house, starting at just two hundred and ninety nine dollars for a standard inmate caught up unwittingly in a global political power game, up to $899 for a Deluxe inmate who is quite probably an active al-Qaeda member but isn't saying much on the issue.

Never has helping the US government move on from an internationally embarrassing issue been so affordable.

And the running costs are low.

These gentlemen, which come in five different categories of anti-US sentiment, from simmering resentments to thunderingly incandescent fury, have become accustomed to low daily calorie intakes and a limited range of wardrobe choices.

Sign up now for your chance to buy your own diplomatic time bomb.

Obama and Cheney did back-to-back speeches about national security on Friday.

Cheney insisted that his speech was about not looking backwards, but for a speech that was not about looking backwards, he sure as shit used the past tense a lot.

And Obama chose to speak at the National Archive, literally in front of the Constitution.

Not the most subtle move he's ever pulled, but you know, it does seem like we're past subtlety at this point.

He said that national security is the first thing he thinks about in the morning and the last thing he thinks about at night.

And that sounds good, Andy, and I'm sure he means well, but there is just no way that's true.

I bet that the first thing, the very first thing he thinks when he wake up in the morning is, f ⁇ me, I'm president.

I'm president of the United States.

I live in the White House.

I'm going to take my morning dump in the White House, and there's nothing that anyone can do to stop me.

Wow.

And I'd imagine the last thing he thinks at night is probably, is it too late to order down to the kitchen for an ice cream?

Because I can have free ice cream whenever I want.

Why?

Because I'm the president.

I'm the president.

I guess John, it's got to put some strain on a marriage when the first thing you think of in the morning and the last thing at night is national security.

You're right.

Rather than the love and light of your life.

Yeah, that was

an awful moment.

Kind of romantic moment between, you know, a couple have children.

Michelle looks to him and says, what are you thinking about?

I'm thinking about national security.

Oh.

I thought you were thinking about how much, uh, how much you love me.

No.

I was thinking about preventing a massive terrorist attack to kill innocent Americans.

Just hope he doesn't call it out in a moment of passion.

You're thinking of something else, aren't you?

It's the fundamental responsibility of a president to protect Americans.

Yeah, I hope he doesn't do that too, Andy.

He also went on to say that America will be ill-served by the fear-mongering that emerges whenever we discuss this issue.

And he's right.

America will be ill-served, and there's nothing that he can stop to do that.

Because America has a surplus of fear-monger waiters, happy to ill-serve the American people if ever their plate of fear starts to look a little empty.

He said this week that the old system was flawed.

That's

fairly uncontroversial, I guess.

He promised that in future no statements would be allowed that were obtained by the use of cruel or unusual inhuman treatment.

That's moving the goalposts midstream as far as I'm concerned.

Also that he was planning to tighten up the rules on allowing hearsay evidence.

Now I think this is hypocritical, John.

This is America after all.

It's a very Christian country which follows as its holy book a document that is 100% hearsay.

And I think that's double standards.

But I do admit that convicting terrorists on the basic basis of gossip is problematic.

Oh, did you hear about Mrs.

Hopkins by Ahmed?

No, what's he been up to?

Only plotting the destruction of the West and everything it holds dear.

He hasn't been.

That's what I heard from Julie.

Click, right?

I've got that on tape.

The bastard's going down.

He also said that opening and continuing Guantanamo set back the moral authority that is America's strongest currency in the world.

Well, it is certainly stronger than the dollar now, but that's more to do with the dollar than it is to do with America's moral authority.

I think Robert Mugabe's moral authority is stronger than his currency as well.

There's nothing to boast about.

He also,

John, said that defendants will be allowed to choose their own lawyers.

Now, what next, John?

Are they going to be allowed to choose their own verdicts as well?

If these people are so worried about justice, John, what were they doing when they were doing whatever it was they were allegedly doing in the first place?

That's my question to you.

Royal news now, and Britain has stumbled into yet another constitutional crisis John.

Well hold on hold on Andy.

Hold on a second.

If this really is Royal News Bugles should be standing up for this.

Right.

Wherever you are, even if you're driving, stand up.

Have some respect.

I'm more than standing up, John.

I'm so proud of being British that I'm actually levitating naturally about three inches above the ground.

Well, as you should, Andy.

Everyone has their own response to it.

Whenever I think about the Royal Family, I'm about three inches off the ground.

Whenever I think about the Queen herself, I was about seven or eight inches.

Anyway,

an Irish rugby player, Rodan Ogara, met the Queen, John, and I don't know how to say this.

He kept his hands in his pockets when he met the Queen.

That's a snub.

It's a snub to Her Majesty.

Short of sending the Luftwaffe back over for seconds, it's hard to know what greater slight on our nation the Ireland and Munster No.

10 could have perpetrated.

I tell you what,

it's been a bumper year for the Queen, Andy.

First, she was lightly touched between the shoulder blades by Michelle Obama.

That can't have been easy for the big Q.

And now she has been snubbed by this Irish rugby lout.

How dare you keep your hands in your pockets when you've got the honour of meeting Q-Tip?

But I'm trying to understand this incident, John.

And I think maybe O'Gara was worried that the Queen...

Look for me, when she stands upright, she's narrower at the head and feet and a bit rounder in the middle.

Right.

Which I guess makes her shaped a bit like a rugby ball.

And Ronan O'Gara, clearly, as a professional rubbing player, is clearly worried that he might mistake the Queen for a rugby ball and then just do what comes naturally to him as an international fly-half, namely catch her when she walked past him, steady himself, and then torpedo kick her 60 yards down the room and out of a window.

So what you're saying is it could have been worse.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

He's doing it for the good of the Queen.

The important thing here, Andy, is that there is only one way to resolve this.

The only reasonable response is for the Queen to cut Ronan O'Gara's hands off with a sword.

She's got to send a message, and otherwise, people are going to start to question her authority.

She's got to stamp down on this.

I guess

another explanation is that O'Gara still hasn't forgiven Britain for the injustices we were responsible for on Irish soil.

What was it now?

One or two, maybe 10,000 years ago now?

I forget exactly when it was.

But you certainly had the look in the photo of a man who feels socially awkward in situations where he's expected to show an elementary level of courtesy to an unelected head of state, with which his own country has been at squabbly loggerheads for much of recent history.

The other alternative, John, is that maybe he had his hands in his pockets to check that he had his underpants on.

Because the last thing you want to do as an international rugby player is meet the Queen without underpants.

That's the first thing any good mother tells you.

Also, that is part of royal etiquette, you know, like a slight bow.

Or there has to be at least two different layers of material between your balls and Her Majesty at all times.

That's right.

That's why that Paul Keating incident in Australia caused such a rumpus.

It was nothing to do with the fact he touched her in the lower back.

Goes going, Commander.

He was plums out.

In other royal news, the leader of the British National Party is apparently to be a guest at Buckingham Palace garden party hosted by the Queen.

He will accompany Richard Barnbrook, a BNP member of the London Assembly.

Now, if you don't know who the British National Party are, then, oh, congratulations.

You've managed to live a life untouched by the poison of these platinum-grade finguckles.

Sadly, I'm afraid your ignorance is about to change for the worse.

The BNP are a racist political group who campaigned for the, and I quote, voluntary resettlement of non-white British citizens to their country of ethnic origin.

Oh,

even repeating that out loud makes me feel slightly queasy.

Yeah, I think it's important to inform our

audio readers about the British National Party.

Juvenilically right-wing organisation, the leader, Nick Griffin, is a man with a face that simply screams out, hit me hard with a plank of wood.

And so it is the closest the far right will have come to Buckingham Palace since Edward VIII abdicated in 1936.

Griffin

Griffin.

I mean you're not wrong, but

Griffin's policies include standing up for Britain's mythical indigenous population, good luck to him, if he can sift them out from those who are related to anyone who can prove their British family bloodline predates the Roman invasion of 43 AD.

And also the voluntary resettlement of non-white British citizens, as you say.

Now I consider this, John, to be unacceptably racist against white British citizens such as myself, because if the BNP ever takes power, I will want to get out of the country just as much and just as quickly as any non-white Brit and I don't see why I should get or shouldn't get the same preferential treatment as others just because of the lack of colour of my skin.

I want to have as much chance of being on the first plane out of fear as anyone.

And let's not forget John, my father is an immigrant to this country and a Jewish one at that, but a white one so the BNP probably haven't noticed that he's an immigrant.

But just because the BNP can't tell that I'm not a proper Indigenous Brit just by looking at me doesn't mean I should be kept here against my my will.

That's against human rights legislation and it's racist.

Good luck having that conversation with him.

I just hope the Queen, with her immigrant ancestry and immigrant husband, takes this opportunity of meeting Griffin at Buckingham Palace to bully him in front of the other guests and just embarrass him, knock his sandwiches on the floor, jog his arm when he's drinking his tea and maybe point out to him that really the closest there has ever been to a purely British nation after which his party is so laughably named was the Kingdom of Great Britain which lasted from 1707 to 1800, the result of an economic and political union between two traditionally warring countries.

Then maybe offer him a knighthood, but say, I'll warn you though, that sword is pretty heavy, and I'm not getting any younger.

My knighting arm isn't quite as strong as it was.

Wouldn't it be a shame if it's lit?

Well, that's the point, Andy.

See, the Mayor of London, the non-lovable buffoon Boris Johnson, has urged that the invitation be withdrawn, saying we cannot tolerate any such abuse of this invitation or any potential embarrassment to Her Majesty.

But here's the thing.

I think he should go.

And I think the Queen should ask him a question, patiently listen to his answer and then say, oh, I'm sorry, what was that?

I don't speak, asshole.

Can somebody translate, please?

And then high-five her footman saying, oh, you just got queened.

I just burnt you.

I'll burnt you bad.

Somebody take this guy to the burns unit.

There's no coming back from what I just did to him.

Heyo!

Heyo!

Are you doing an impression show soon?

Oh, the impressions are of a New York Jew and the Queen.

That's it.

Those are my only two impressions.

impressions.

The British National Party is of course so cool because that is what would be thrown if they ever decided to give up politics and stop polluting on national discourse.

They would quite literally be a British National Party.

I'm not going to vote for them John.

I've already decided that in the local elections coming up in a few weeks.

Yep.

For the main reason that, as I said, I think they're racist because they they don't treat me as the immigrant that I am.

And also because they're a bunch of and history shows that history shows us, John, that voting for a bunch of

does not often work out well long term.

Obviously, that will have been bleeped, Andy.

So just to try and get across to listeners what Andy said, it's the biggest bleep there is.

There is no bigger bleep.

Do you think it's editorially justified for me not to bleep?

Yeah, I mean, technically it is.

I know they're not going to let you do it.

This would be the one instance where really you should be able to hear what's underneath the biggest bleep there is.

Who'll stand up in court?

And if it doesn't let the sue us

expenses update now.

And for the love of God, make it stop.

Make it stop.

Please, please, John, the expenses saga has been dragging on like World War One here.

This is really from the heart.

We all thought it'd be like previous expenses controversies, a bit messy, but over quickly and all home for Christmas.

But now it becomes clear that the pain will be endless, the entire nation will suffer, and humanity will be all the poorer for it.

And I'm willing to bet that the films from this expensive saga will not be as good as the films from the first world war you think all quiet on the western front harold and kumar go over the top of passchendae and herbie goes bananas court-martial edition that's right britain has continued to get its knickers in a historic level of twist over the mp's expenses scandal which has now culminated in the speaker of the house of commons michael martin being forced out of office and this is the first time this has happened to someone in that position for 300 years.

There's no way of cutting it otherwise.

it's a constitutional crisis.

Is it anarchy in the streets over there?

Are you having to hunt and kill your own food as the entire basis of civilized society crumbles?

Yeah, it's pretty much like that, but then I live in Streatham, so it's kind of been like that for a while.

I suppose that eased you into it pretty well.

It weaned you off civilization.

So how are they trying to steady the ship?

Well, you know, it varies.

Conservative MP Anthony Steen claimed this week that the British public are, and I quote, just jealous because I have a very, very large house.

Well, that may may be true, but a response like that is just not helping bridge the gap.

He seemed to stop just short of calling people peasants who, if anything came near his very large house, would get whacked by his very large stick.

Wacky.

Wacky stick.

Wacky stick.

The polls, interestingly, show that all the parties are becoming less popular.

A recent poll showed that only 45% of people intend to vote in a general election, which is kind of embarrassing, John.

It sort of takes

at about the levels that it was before women were allowed to vote.

The Conservatives, in one of the most shameful pieces of political opportunism, have been calling for a general election because of this, saying that because the public have lost faith in politics, there must be a general election.

Whereas, in fact, what they mean is we reckon we can have the Labour Party on toast because we are not quite as unpopular as they.

So the next election, John, is shaping up to be a bit like going to a restaurant and having to choose between an omelette made of used syringes and fox eggs, a portion of tramp car paco, and rat braised in its own saliva garnished with photographs of Donald Rumsfeld in swimming trunks.

It's pretty unappetizing.

And that's a shame, John, because I still think democracy is a good idea in theory.

Your emails now, and well, we have to start, John, with the composition that has literally had entries cascading in in their tens of thousands.

Just under a million entries we've had for the competition to win tickets to my shows at the Soho Theatre this Friday and Saturday, the 30th and 31st of May.

Yeah.

Tickets available on the door.

Hold your nerve, Andy.

Hold your nerve for a while.

You've not had time to read all of the many millions of entries to this competition.

But the winner is this from Andy Corliss, who writes, Oh, Andy, what a terrible time to be bringing this up.

My family just lost two dogs this past week.

Yes, two.

But I believe your doggy gave us change we can believe in and delivered on that promise.

She was a beacon of hope.

She kind of crossed boundaries and groundbreaker as a dog.

Literally, she, well, she dug a bit in the garden.

She was a big bugle fan as well.

I know she died five and a half years before the bugle actually began, but she would have been.

She would have loved it.

So, Andy, call us, if you do actually

you need an address as well.

Sounds like he really wants these tickets.

If you do want

these tickets, just email thebugle at timesonline.co.uk.

Friday and Saturday night, Buglers, Soho Theatre.

Total sellout.

Some of the seats will be totally sold out.

We have another email here from Bella Irvin, Smithville, North Carolina, who says, Dear Mr.

Oliver and Mr.

Zoltzmann, keep it formal.

I like that.

Last week you were talking about the Pope and it reminded me of something I recently discovered.

The Catholic Church rates movies.

The ratings range from A1,

general patronage, to O, morally offensive.

And for most movies, there's a little written review.

I looked up some of my favourite movies at the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

That can't be one of your favourite movies.

Courtwork Orange, all of the Monty Pythons, to find out that almost all of them are morally offensive and have reviews saying things like a display of bad taste and moral viruity.

Ouch.

One star.

Have you ever had that in a review for a film you've been in, John?

Nothing that good, to be honest.

I loved it.

You know, I kept scouring the internet, thinking someone must have liked it more, but no.

And an attack on formal religion.

I'm adding poor selection of movies to my list of reasons I'm not Catholic.

It falls somewhere between my lack of belief in God, but somewhere above the Pope sounds exactly like Doctor Strangelove.

Blasphemously yours, Bella Irving.

Well done, Bella.

Burning hell.

Couldn't be nice to have a few buglers joining us in Eternal Damnation.

To be honest, we're in it together, the buglers.

I think that's why it becomes such a community.

We're all going downstairs.

Let's stop kidding ourselves.

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

And I will have some of them in a blog at some point in the next, well, what is it?

What's it now?

2009.

In the next decade, definitely in the next decade, there'll be another vlog up.

I've been busy this week.

The kitchen's rumbling on.

Yeah, it's very hard to get anything done.

You don't cook a blog.

Good point.

Bugle Sport now.

And well, John, coming up this side of the Atlantic is a game of football so massive that it defies the very concept of size.

A clash between two great footballing cultures.

Leviathan meeting Leviathan, legend against legend.

Two clubs representing proud regions clashing on one of the game's great stages with the ultimate prize up for grabs.

It's Gillingham versus Shrewsbury Town in the League Two promotion playoff final.

What a matchup, John.

The mighty Jills, the greatest non-cricketing sports franchise in the whole of the county of Kent, representing not only the drab connivation of the Medway towns, but also all who love freedom, truth, and beauty, against Shrewsbury Town, or the Shropshire shitheads, as they might as well be rebranded.

A club which isn't sponsored by a company that sells cluster bombs to dictators, but could well be in the future, for all I know, Hitler's favourite lower league English football team.

Well, here we go again.

Here we go again, dropping the H-bomb.

Well, John, did Shrewsbury Town march through the streets of Berlin protesting about Hitler's aggressive militaristic expansionist bustering in the mid to late 30s?

Did it?

It's as good as sending him a postcard saying, well done, little fella, keep it up.

But once the excitement of the Kentish heroes defiant efforts to provide hope for the oppressed, the disenfranchised and the hungry people of the world by defeating the evil empire that can barely even decide whether it's in England or Wales, all eyes will then turn to the Champions League final on Wednesday, John, Manchester United against Barcelona.

Is America excited about this game?

Just as is always the case with football, Hispanic Americans are, and it stops there.

I know.

And me, and I am as well.

You count yourself as an American now, do you?

Oh, yeah.

Shit, I fell into a trap there.

You did say gotten last week, so.

I can't believe that is still sticking in your throat.

Of course it is, mate.

I'll never look at you the same again.

Come on, Andy.

How do I make it up to you?

So, since a lot of Beaugles are probably neutrals in the Man United Barcelona clash and may not know which side to support, I'll give you a quick guide on how to choose which side to support in this massive, eagerly anticipated game.

I guess one thing you can look at, John, is the ownership of the club.

And you have to decide whether you like your football clubs to be owned by reclusive American tycoons whose pursuit of a quick buck is financed by saddling their club with a testicle wateringly big debt.

Or you want your clubs to be owned by the ordinary people of a historically oppressed region for whom the club is a symbol of their centuries of resistance and their fiercely independent spirit.

So I guess you know you've got to decide that's you're not United or your Barcelona on one hand or the other.

Then you can look at shirt sponsorship.

You might want to throw your temporary support behind the team whose sponsor you like best, in which case, maybe you like Manchester United, sponsored by AIG, the US insurance giant recently kept in distance by almost $200 million of US taxpayers' money after years of crass mismanagements, then forked out, or was it $200 billion, was it?

Yep, $200.

Billion, sir.

And then forked out hundreds of millions of this as bonuses to the staff who had driven it so spectacularly into the ground in the first place.

One of the credit crunches, more barefaced, thank you, f ⁇ you bailout responses.

Man United, of course, received over 50 million from AIG for the privilege of flaunting their logo on the famous red shirts.

Or perhaps you prefer Barcelona, who have never besmirched their proud shirts with the sponsor's logo until 2006 when they struck a deal with UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, under which not only did they take the UNICEF logo on their shirts, helping raise awareness of the plight of unfortunate kids across this 2-2-sullied planet, but they actually paid millions of pounds to UNICEF for the privilege.

So, John, who's it going to be?

The team that took millions from a dodgy insurance company that has screwed the US public, or the team that gives millions to hungry, sick little children?

Oh, let me think.

It's a tough one, Andy, but it's the ultimate moral dilemma, isn't it?

Ooh, Barcelona!

Right, there you go.

Or perhaps you can choose it on tantrum capability of the players.

And this, John, is no contest.

Man United are going to win this hands down.

The brilliant Portuguese strop chucker Cristiano Ronaldo, he can throw a tantrum out of absolutely nothing, John.

He's that good.

He's that unpredictable.

There might seem to be nothing on to get particularly rolled about.

But then, bang, he's wrong-footed everyone with a fully-blown hissy fit about the linesman not giving him a throw on, or someone not giving him a cuddle before the game, or letting him take the corner flag home.

Unorthodox technique Renal, though, hardly any backlift on his tantrum, so you can't see them coming, and they catch everyone off guard.

And he can lose his fruit from any angle, any distance, John.

He's that dangerous.

The tiniest little perceived injustice, and whoosh, there he is, pouting and lip quivering like a despotic medieval king who's been told everyone in his kingdom has died of plague and he's got nothing left to govern but a three-legged dog and a field of cabbages.

Writhing like an eczematic snake, wearing a shirt made of sandpaper.

I guess it's just lucky that he's a footballer.

If he was on Sang Su Shi at the moment, up on a show troll facing genuine injustice, he would vaporise in an explosion of sulkery.

So I'm back in Barcelona in this one, John, because I love the way they play the game and also on the grounds that I've never died on my ass at a gig in Barcelona.

Okay, yeah, good point.

Whereas in Manchester, well, let's just say it's been six and a half years now, and the comedy stores still haven't called me to say well done for lasting 20 minutes up there.

A lot of people would have bottled it after, too, the way it was going.

Final sporting news, and Andy, athletes have become very generic, identicate, uninspired, and certainly uneccentric creatures, which means when you find someone who's genuinely crazy, you have to cherish them.

And it's why I love Plaxco Beres so much.

And I fell in love with another athlete this week, Delante West, the basketball player for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

This man is out of his mind.

I'm going to be dropping some Delante West pearls of wisdom into the Bugle Sports section over the coming weeks.

Here is something he said recently.

Bugs Bunny is the smoothest dude I ever met.

You know, he'd be chilling just like it'd be a normal day and he, you know, it'd be cold just like how it is in Boston and he'd just want to dive into the ground, pop up, he'd be like, oh man, this ain't Albuquerque.

That's got to be the tightest life.

You just hop underneath the ground and go.

No traffic, no mass pike, no tolls, no taking Yankee hats off, just underneath the ground.

Bam.

Carrots.

Albuquerque.

It might seem crazy to you, but it's just a different way of expressing myself.

I think it's kind of freaky.

That's like a nonsense poem.

I don't know what he's saying.

I'm just glad he said it.

Well, there'll be more from Delante West.

Maybe we can have him in the soundproof safe next week.

Oh, that'll be great.

You do not soundproof Delante West.

You let the man speak.

So that's it from Bugle this week.

There's no time for a forecast because, well, the world might end, so it's probably pointless.

That's it, Buglers.

We'll hopefully speak to you next week.

If not, it's been a lovely ride.

Cheerio!

You're out of the game.

See ya!

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.