The Real Swine Flu Vaccine

This is a Times Online podcast.

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, Buglers, and welcome to Bugle 72.

Do not download this podcast without a mask on.

Do not listen to it whilst eating a plate of pork sausages.

Do not translate it into Mexican.

And do not, I repeat, do not sneeze if you're listening to it on your computer.

We can't take that risk of getting that virus from you and no oinking either.

Not even for fun.

The world is at war with a virus.

And not just any virus, a virus that's not kosher.

Yuck.

So this is me, Andy's Olsman here in the disinfected city of London and in the pestilential city of New New York City, it's the king of bling himself, John Oliver.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, buglers.

And Paul, the regular producer here, is not here today.

He spends a lot of time in Mexico, Andy.

Oh, does he?

Join those f ⁇ ing dots yourself.

It's a bugle emergency special.

Let's all get through this.

We can live through this, Andy, through this minor flu infraction.

Well, let's see about that.

History will be the judge of that, John.

I'm just trying to live each day like it's my last now, Andy.

Yesterday, I spent a few minutes talking to Hugh Jackman.

Is that what you intend to do on your deathbed?

Yeah, I think so.

That was the idea.

It's hard to know how to feel when you're conversing with a man like that.

He's Wolverine, Andy.

He was cast as a man who had blades shoot out of his knuckles because it was believable.

And as I stood there, I felt like a little French six-year-old girl holding a lollipop.

And after this, I'm going to go and have a fitting for a GQ shoot I have to do on Saturday.

I can't have to.

Is that the law?

Is it the law that you have to do a GQ shoot?

I cannot imagine that any designer of any kind of clothes is going to be particularly happy to see them hanging off me.

No.

I think that would make most people less likely to want to buy them and more to set fire to them.

You're a clotheshorse, John.

Unfortunately, you're a clotheshorse that deserves to be made into a tube of glue.

It's pig flu, Andy.

The whole world's gone mad.

Yep, Bugle72, John.

What an ironic number Bugle to be doing this week of all weeks because 72 is of course the average pulse rate of a resting adult.

But this week in the the grip of global panic, I can't imagine anyone dipping below 160.

So it's the week beginning Monday, May the 4th, 2009.

If we'd been recording this exactly 383 years ago, John, in 1626, and you'd been recording it where you are now on Manhattan Island, you would have been interrupted by a load of Dutch guys landing on Manhattan Island saying, we'll have that, we'll bloody have that, and we'll have that as well.

A little Dutch explorer Peter Miniot would have got his wallet out and said to you, hey kid, what say I buy this little island off you?

How about you shut up with your jokes and your quips and we can reach a little arrangement?

Do you get my drift?

I get the island, you get...

Hang on, let me see.

Let me count it out.

$24.

We got a deal?

Let me answer that kid.

Yes, we have a deal.

Nobody takes on the mighty Dutch, not with this accent.

$24, kid.

Now go back to Britain and buy something nice for that lovely queen of yours.

Go back to Britain and buy something nice for that lovely queen of yours.

What, Elizabeth?

Yeah, that's the one.

She died 23 years ago.

She did?

I've been had by that girl I saw last week.

Andy, the way you said mighty Dutch made it sound like the mighty Ducks.

Well, that's where they came from.

Estones' finest moments on celluloid.

That's where the New York accent comes from, from the Dutch.

Whereas the Dutch accents, as mutated over the subsequent 400 years, the New York accent is, in fact, how the Dutch used to speak.

So imagine Rembrandt talking.

He would have spoken like a New York Jew.

Do you like my painting?

Paint here, painter.

What are you going to do?

My face is getting old.

Of course, John.

30 years ago, today, the the 4th of May 1979, a darkness descended over Britain, casting gloom across the entire nation from the tip of Cornwall to the top of Scotland, enveloping the entire country in a smothering, lightless pall as a long night began.

Well, in fact, it was just the standard end of your average day, really, your basic night time.

But coincidentally, on that same day, Mrs.

Thatcher became Prime Minister.

Read into that what you will.

Also, 12 years since the Labour Party marched into Downing Street with a big smile on its face, and exactly one year from now, they will march back out again with a big smile on their face and just as 12 years ago both the Labour Party and the nation will join arms and say thank f that's over as always some sections are of the bugle going straight in the bin even though the bin is especially disinfected this week this week in the bin part one of the bugle audio world atlas this week's audio map south america big and wide at the top but on a bit of a slant, then tapering off to a pointy bit at the bottom.

South America has a fewer knobbly bits sticking out than, for example, Europe, one of its rivals as a continent, and it is the world's most aerodynamic continent from space it looks a bit like a tapir wearing a turban next week Antarctica

top story this week old MacDonald had a pig now old MacDonald's dead yes it's swine flu

in this emergency bugle to be injected straight into the ears it's not an antidote but it's not exactly not an antidote either.

Pigs, Andy's so longer a peripheral player in the news, have taken centre stage this week as they threaten to wipe out the human race.

And we can't say we weren't warned, Andy.

George Orwell always said that they were snouty little bastards.

Two legs good, four legs bad.

He pretty much wrote a whole book about how we should keep an eye on pigs.

At least, that's what I took from it.

I'm pretty sure his seminal masterpiece was based around the thesis, never trust a pig, as I wrote in my criminally underappreciated GCSE English exam.

Yep, but H1N1 is back or swine flu or pig flu or piggy flu or oink oink at you

to give it its various different names.

Spreading a lot of concern around the world, John, but also spreading delight across Israel and the Jewish world where, but imagine just like me, they've all spent most of the week punching the air shouting, see, we were fing right all along, dirty, dirty animals.

Well, there has been controversy over what to call the virus.

Initially it was called swine flu, then pig flu, then Israel opted to call it Mexican flu due to the pork connection, I guess implying that this virus was not kosher.

The EU called it novel flu for reasons best known to themselves and France even opted to call it North American flu.

Oh for f sake Frenchies That is just lazy, outdated anti-Americanism.

You can have your standard French flu, but they've got freedom flu over here, so suck on that.

Well Obama calls it H1N1 influenza A.

He's always had a way with words, that man, hasn't he?

So poetic, so uplifting.

Well, here are some of the headlines from the papers here this week.

Mexi no,

and so looking at the pictures of all the Mexicans wandering around, Mosxico,

and also Pandemiconium.

Those clearly weren't headlines, but they could have been, and that's the most important thing.

By the end of the week, the World Health Organization itself had announced that it would stop using the term swine flu to prevent confusion over the danger posed by pigs.

A spokesman said, rather than calling this swine flu, we're going to stick with the technical scientific name H1M1 influenza A.

Now, is this in response, Andy, to potential pig vigilante attacks?

Have there been gangs roaming the streets at night looking for wayward pigs?

Farmers doing drive-by shootings in their tractors on farms, spraying the side of sties with bullets.

On Wednesday, Egypt started slaughtering its roughly 300,000 pigs, despite science explicitly saying that the virus was not passed on by eating pork.

Not a good time to be an Egyptian pig, Andy.

They've better start developing a pretty f ⁇ ing convincing cow impression in the next few days.

Here's the thing, to be honest, even if there was a risk eating pig, I think I'd still take my chances.

I love bacon, Andy.

And I guess I've never before really had a barometer to gauge just how much I love bacon.

But now I do.

I love it so much.

I'm willing to risk death.

I'm willing to play bacon roulette with every sandwich I eat.

Yep, the flu kicked off like so many things in Mexico.

And also like so many things from Mexico, it has now sneaked across the border into America.

Oh, boo!

Boo, Andy!

What?

Shame on you!

You're Park Saltzman, Park Limbaugh.

Are you looking for a high-profile provocative talk show over here?

Got a few gaps in the diary coming up.

That's a yellow card, no joke.

Well over here, John, people have been reacting with similar concern at the near certain prospect of pig flu wiping out humanity.

In fact, just yesterday I saw a guy in my local supermarket standing next to the bacon counter and booing for about half an hour.

So I think you made his point.

Anyway, here's a topical joke for you.

Hey, my wife's been feeling ill for a couple of days, so she went to the doctor.

Influenza?

Well, I did advise her to seek professional medical opinion, but in the end it was her own choice.

Pig flu?

How dare you say that about my wife?

And no, she got the train.

You take inspiration in such unusual areas, Auntie.

Thanks, mate.

I'll take that as a compliment, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't one.

Currently the world is on pandemic level phase five.

Now that doesn't sound too bad until you learn that the scale only goes up to phase six.

That is one away from the highest level available which would indicate a full pandemic but still not a pandemic.

Not a pandemic.

Now it's been hard to accurately judge exactly how many cases of swine flu there are due to the fact that everyone that cough now thinks they've got it.

It's been a great week for panicked overreactions.

On Wednesday the WHO claimed that far from the cited more than 150 150 swine flu deaths, there'd in fact been officially only seven.

People have been quick to point the swine flu finger at anyone who made the mistake of dying in the last seven days.

Hey uh Terry died, I think it was swine flu.

What are you talking about?

Terry was hit by a bus.

I know, but I think the swine flu probably got him first, then the bus got involved.

In fact, I was on the subway this week, which incidentally was noticeably less full, and a guy coughed.

A woman opposite nervously put her handkerchief over her mouth.

The guy saw this and said, hey lady, I don't have f pig flu.

I don't think she was fully convinced.

Also, he may not have had f pig flu, but he also didn't have any fing social skills.

That is one of the symptoms, apparently.

All right, well, there you go.

That was nothing next to what happened at Baltimore International Airport when an inbound flight from Mexico radioed ahead that two passengers on board had suspected swine flu.

Apparently, they had fevers and were sick to their stomachs.

The fire, the rescue department, as well as ambulances scrambled to meet the plane on the runway, but after careful examination, ascertained that the two men had just had too much to drink.

They were drunk.

Come on everybody we have got to calm down.

Is one of the symptoms of swine flu stinking of tequila and singing La Bamba at the top of your voice?

Because if so I came down with a spot of swine flu in a karaoke bar last week.

So how much should we be panicking?

The World Health Organization currently advises a level 5 flap, which is still well short of the top level 6 screaming hysterical frenzy, but more serious than a level 4 frown.

The level 5 flap requires people to take speculative and useless precautions like wearing a homemade mask, cancelling holidays to countries beginning with M, and praying, and also to call an ambulance whenever they feel an unscheduled itch.

In Britain, the government claims it has enough of the Tamiflu vaccines to treat 80% of the population.

Uh-oh, that sounds like a national game of musical chairs.

Well, John, you say that.

Well, that is basically England covered.

And it's just not looking to get fly cats, I'm afraid.

But, you know, according to the famously non-existent British Constitution, medicine is distributed strictly by alphabetical order of country.

I'm sorry, Wales.

It's not looking good for you.

Bird flu was largely a panago for nothing, Andy, whereas pig flu has already infected a good many people around the world.

And I guess this tells us that pigs are tougher than birds, Andy.

Big result in the battle of the farm yard there.

Ragging rights for teen pork.

I think at this stage, Sean, the most important thing to do is not to mention the 1918 influenza epidemic that killed two times as many people as the First World War and affected around half of the world's population.

Because it was ages ago, and most of those people would have been dead by now, anyway.

So let's brush over it as if it never happened.

Well, also, if you're going to attach a country to the flu, Andy, you've got to go Spanish.

If it is maximising body count that you're after, the Spanish do not mess around.

What this whole thing does raise, John, as a question is, what is the f point of viruses?

They just don't seem to have anything positive to contribute.

To me, I just don't see why they don't just go and f themselves.

They're just little little invisible terrorists to me, and I'm not changing my way of life for these bastards.

I don't want the government to do anything about it.

They cannot be seen to negotiate with viruses, so they should not treat anyone, John.

We have to stand up for ourselves.

As Muhammad Ali might have said if he'd been fighting pig flu for a world title, f you flu.

He had a way with words as well.

Yeah, that's right.

The response to this virus has been not only medical, it's also been depressingly political.

Michelle Malkin, the nauseating conservative blogger, and Glenn Beck, repellent human being and cartoon journalist, both made arguments for illegal Mexican immigrants bringing the disease into the US, just like you, Andy.

Now, there is absolutely zero evidence to support those claims, but

I guess I'm missing the point there.

If there was evidence for every claim, that would take away the excitement of making claims in general.

Yeah, I apologise to both of them and wish them both well in their descent towards hell.

Talk radio host Michael Savage had the best Hail Mary piece of racism last week when he claimed that, make no mistake about it, radical Islamic countries planted the virus in Mexico knowing that humans make the perfect mules for bringing this strain into America.

Make no mistake about it.

That is making a lot of mistakes about it.

And also, if terrorists had somehow managed to create a magic terror flu, why not just bring it straight into the US and sneeze it directly into American faces?

Why go to Mexico and hope your now overcomplicated plan works out?

That's like being a bad Bond villain, tying Bond to a table, pointing a slow-moving laser between his legs, and then leaving the room for no apparent reason and assuming everything's going to work, rather than just shooting him in the head.

Democrats then waded in when they pointed at the Republicans for voting against the stimulus package money for flu pandemics preparedness.

So the Republicans hit back, criticising the Democrats for not having successfully named Kathleen Sebalius as head of health and human services yet.

But I'll tell you whose fault that is.

That's the Republicans' fault.

They've been blocking her appointment because they don't like her view on abortion.

She's pro-choice, which the Republicans claim means that she loves abortion.

Well, in fact, that's not true.

She just likes it.

So doesn't party politics make your heart swell, Andy?

Educated adults can even argue over whose fault a virus is.

Isn't democracy fun?

So next week on the Bugle, we'll be telling you how to catch, interrogate, and torture a virus.

The key is, anything goes.

Don't be afraid to bring its family into it.

And also, we'll be looking at the trendiest diseases to be seen with this year.

A lot of celebrities are presenting the latest designer symptoms.

Hollywood A-lister Mina Suvari has got an odd rash on her arm.

Ex-basketball player Dennis Rodman claims he has blurred vision but doesn't know why.

And singer Leanne Rhimes has been feeling nauseous and is worried about some blisters on her fingers.

Well, that is the good news coming out of this hand.

In fact, swine flu masks have started getting released with fashionable decorative patterns on them so that you can stay hip while you have gauze tied across your face.

And this is just typical of the fashion industry.

They're so quick to respond to any disaster.

Thank God they're there.

The fashion police are so often our first responders, Natalie dressing people's wounds.

What would you have on your swine flu face mask, Andy?

I think I'd probably have a picture of my own mouth dripping blood

and foaming slightly.

I think I'd either have like a small little dolphin in the corner or something classy, or maybe a crocodile mouth.

So I could pretend to be a crocodile.

Old-fashioned British rudeness news now.

And, well, it's been a bad week for Gordon Brown, John.

He has lost a House of Commons vote on the government's, frankly, insulting plans for restricting the number of Gurkha servicemen allowed to settle in the UK, John.

This is quite an extraordinary story.

It's been a bad week all round for Brown, but on the plus side, he's only going to have to put up with another 52 bad weeks at most, so every cloud.

Now, when a British government is getting hammered by both the press and the public for trying to be tough on immigration, you know that it is unremittingly unpopular and also startlingly inept.

It's quite an astonishing achievement.

People said it couldn't be done, John, but the Brown government keeps coming up with brilliant new ways of making itself even more unpopular.

The Gurkhas are a Nepalese-born faction of the British Army who've served honourably in all Britain's wars and in fact have also been involved in the current ones in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And not only that, they're pretty fing fierce, Andy.

Their motto is better to die than be a coward.

And they still carry into battle their traditional weapon, an 18-inch long curved knife known as the kukri.

In times past,

it was thought that once the kukri was drawn in battle, it had to taste blood.

If not, its owner had to cut himself before returning it to its sheath.

Now, the Gurkhas say, it's used mainly for cooking.

Well, that's a sad fall from Grace for the kukri.

It's the same for the samurai sword that used to have to kill someone when it was drawn.

Now it's mostly used to clean under samurai warriors' fingernails and occasionally as a makeshift screwdriver.

What's like the Russian army, John, they mostly use Kalashnikovs as a means of preparing salads now.

You just unload into a pile of lettuces and tomatoes and bingo, there you are.

Also as a means of making cheap cheese look like expensive Swiss cheese.

I would love a Kalashnikov salad.

Just a lettuce, tomato, few onions, maybe some olives.

Okay, open fire!

Well, I live in Streatham, John.

I could probably sort something pretty similar out for you.

So yeah, the Gurkhas have fought and died for Britain for almost 200 years now.

They played a heroic role in both world wars and in the violent spats Britain's been involved in since.

There are still around 3,500 working for the British Armed Forces, and thousands of young Nepalese apply for the 200 annual vacancies, John, in an application process that involves lugging massive rocks up massive hills.

So I think it's safe to say that the Gurkhas are tougher cookies than me, which I guess isn't true, because I guess Gherkins are probably tougher cookies than me.

But the point stands.

That's the point.

See, the Gurkhas deserve to live in the uk more than most of the people who live there now do not only should the gurkhas be allowed to live there they should be allowed to choose who gets kicked out in their place like choosing a lobster in a restaurant

prime minister gordon brown's pathetic excuse had been we've got to balance our responsibilities to those who have served our country with the finance that we need to be able to meet those obligations and not base our offer on money we cannot afford.

I think when it comes to people who have served in the armed services, you just find the fing money, f head.

It is amazing how penny-pinching we get with money as soon as military pensions and healthcare are involved.

F you Gordon Brown.

You're quite sweary today, John.

Yeah, I think this particularly has got me mad.

I cannot believe it.

But you can understand why limiting the number of Gurkhas allowed to settle here as a cost-cutting measure has been something of a PR blooper, John.

To me, it's a bit like when a man has dived into a lake to rescue your beloved pet dog and you then charge him for the cost of having your dog's coat dried, then then throw him into the lake and tell him to swim home if he's so fing good at it and then set your dog on him.

That is how I see this issue.

Not the politest way of saying thank you very much for jumping in front of those bullets for us.

You know, we've seems to have lost a touch of our old-fashioned British manners.

And the government attitude has generally been these plucky little fellows should be bloody grateful to have had the opportunity to be killed for a nation as great as Britain.

That was pretty much the attitude of the Empire, wasn't it?

The greatest gift one could give another human being is the gift of dying for the British Army.

Look at the little bugger.

Look at the smile on his face.

How happy he must have been to have been riddled with bullets.

So the government was defeated, John.

This defeat was greeted with very public and very grinning delight of David Cameron, the leader of the Conservatives.

The Conservatives, who let's not forget, during their 18 years in power up to 1997, had done precisely Jack Hieronymous shit about this issue.

Still, better to jump on a bandwagon late than not to jump on it at all.

Obama news now and Obama has been in power for 100 days which I believe means he gets a card from the Queen.

I think that's right.

The yardstick of 100 days was first suggested by FDR and has now haunted every president since.

For the first month at least, Obama could happily ride the not being President Bush train and what a train that was.

It's still not a bad train.

But now he does need something more.

And one thing he may need to work on is luck, because in just 100 days, he's been dealt some pretty rough cards a global economic meltdown and now a borderline pandemic he may want to get a different rabbit's foot to carry around because the one he's got looks like it went bad after it got him elected as a congratulations present on his 99th day andy arlon specter of the republicans wrapped himself up in a bow and defected to the democrats thus potentially handing them the filibuster-proof majority that they want once minnesota finally accepts that the 2008 election is over and decides on a senator and the news here went crazy And you know how excitable they get when nothing happens.

So imagine how they react when something actually does.

Usually they're the boys who cry wolf and wolf blitzer on CNN is the wolf who cries news every afternoon.

News, news, there's some news outside.

Oh ignore wolf, he just wants attention.

It does mean though, John, that Obama has now become the first black president to serve 100 days.

Oh wow, I hadn't even thought.

Yet another milestone for the young man.

He's really doing incredible things, isn't he, with the amount of days he's in power.

Has cynicism set in yet in America?

His poll numbers are still pretty positive.

He's had the odd howler, Obama, hasn't he?

Mostly in appointing people who hadn't told him about their own howlers.

But at least his howlers do not happen every single time he opens his mouth.

And I think that is the real step forward.

The bar still seems so low.

I'm sure he'll disappoint soon.

The media had all claimed that Spectre's defection was a seismic event in Washington.

One even said that the ground was literally shaking underneath my feet.

That, I think, was not true.

And, you know, if it was true, it was almost certainly not connected to the story they were supposed to be reporting on.

It's a news tornado here in DC.

A tornado, I tell you, picking up the cowl of history and slamming it through the windshield of America's truck.

I've lost all sense of perspective.

Back to you in the studio.

Bugle ladies section now.

Something for the ladies.

Well, there have been a couple of fantastic stories for our lady listeners, John.

Run yourself a hot bath, ladies.

This is for you.

I don't know why it's all.

I'm starting to sound more and more like Barry White.

Okay, ladies, now it's time for you to get your bugle on.

I want you ladies to enjoy this section.

A little bit like Barry White.

Just a little bit.

Well, a lot.

Not a lot.

Block a pretty repressed Barry White.

So the big story this week, John, is that women's activist groups in Kenya have instituted a week-long sex ban on their partners in protest over the infighting in the government in Kenya.

The campaigners have also asked the wives of the Kenyan president and prime minister to join in their action.

John, this is a real-life Lysistrata scenario.

The women of Kenya hitting men and politicians right where it hurts most in their primeval biological urge to hump.

Now, the ace, ancient Greek comedian Aristophanes, of course, put a sex strike in his classic rom-com Lycisrata, as the women of Civil War era Greece try to get their man folk to stop behaving like penises by stopping them, behoving them with their penises.

Oh, very good, Andy.

Very nice.

And it worked, albeit in an entirely fictional scenario, and in a society obsessed with willies, and where, of course, the men always have the get-out of humping a boy instead.

But it does make you think, though, John, with hindsight, if only Laura Bush and Sherry Blair...

No, let's not think about that.

No.

Why would you even bring that up, Andy?

I just love peace.

Yeah, I know you do, but at what cost?

The campaigners are asking the wives of the Kenyan president and the prime minister to join in the embargo, saying great decisions are made during pillow talk.

Not true.

So we're asking the two ladies at that intimate moment to ask their husbands, darling, can you do something for Kenya?

I tell you what, that's exactly the kind of talk that gets me going, Andy.

I like nothing more than someone whispering in my ear, darling, can you do something for Kenya?

We all have our peccadillos.

Well, it's a...

Kenyan domestic policy is mine, Andy.

What's another classic excuse, isn't it?

You know, the old headache just won't wash anymore.

Now it's how about it, love?

Sorry, there's still too much infighting in the Kenyan government.

But it's our anniversary.

Well, why don't you ring President Kivaki and Prime Minister Akenga and tell them that?

Listen, I understand that they're probably a beacon of democracy on the East Coast, but there is still rampant corruption.

There have been some admirable and unusual protests from members of 51% of the world's population this week.

The wife of Silvio Berlusconi, poor woman.

Well, John, poor woman, yes, but not only is she his wife, but she's still his wife.

So

you can kind of understand her marrying him by mistake.

But she stayed married to him.

Silvio Berlusconi, Italian Prime Minister and spectacular crook, has

had.

Is that staying in?

That is legally rock solid.

It's a fact.

That is a legal fact.

It is a fact.

He is shaped like a shepherd's crook.

That's right.

His wife has criticised he and his party's plan to field attractive young women as European election candidates.

Veronica Lario.

No, it is not.

Veronica Lario said the plan amounted to shameless rubbage being put on for the entertainment of the emperor.

You're right, Andy.

He's corrupt enough and arrogant enough only to to be a head wreath and a toga away from calling himself Caesar.

That's right, John.

This is a woman who is clearly fully aware of her husband's opinion of himself.

Apparently, I've heard that he does actually wear a toga in cabinet meetings, and whenever a cabinet member says something he disagree with, he just growls at them like a lion and says, Grrr, grrr.

Do you want to discuss this here or at the Colosseum?

She went on to say, behind the facade of curvacious feminine beauty, what's even more serious is his impudence and lack of reserve, saying it offends the credibility of all women.

Bertluscone later hit back telling reporters that he was sorry his wife had apparently believed what she read in the papers, before going on to say, sorry I feel that way, Toots, and slapping her on the ass.

Now, of course, the rest of the world might think that Berlusconi is a bigot, a sexist, and a man of quite indefatigable crassness.

Well, the Italians clearly agree, and that's why they keep voting for him.

They love an entertainer.

Candidates standing for this party, he said, will be unlike the malodorous and badly dressed people who represent certain parties in parliament.

What is is wrong with this man?

Malodorous?

My party will smell better than my opponents.

You are focusing on the wrong areas, you career criminal.

Fact!

Legal fact!

I'm not sure that being malodorous and badly dressed is a bad thing in a politician.

To me, John, that shows that a politician is working so hard that he's prepared to forego basic personal hygiene in order to put the final touches to that crucial bit of legislation about where you can and can't kill swans, or making sure that the arms we're selling overseas don't go straight into the hands of crackbok dictators, but at least have to pass through intermediaries to assuage our national guilt.

I want that level of commitment, John, and I feel Gordon Brown looks like he is making it at this moment.

And I bet Churchill never washed.

I don't know how Bert Luscone's wife puts up with an Andy other than having the right and the opportunity to slap him in the face every day.

In fact, that is quite a sudden perk.

If I was married to him, I would do that every single day.

In fact, Mr.

Bertluscone, I know this is sudden, but would you do me the great honour of being my wife?

Let's not forget also, this is a man who, when speaking to the New York Stock Exchange, said Italy is now a great country to invest in.

Today we have fewer communists, and those who are still there deny having been one.

And another reason to invest in Italy is that we have superb girls.

Oh, no.

He's a natural entertainer, but he's an arse.

Different time, different place.

Upside down from a meat hook.

Your emails now, and there's a great email here, Andy, from Bella Irvine from Smithfield, North Carolina who says dear Mr.

Oliver and Mr.

Zoltzmann recently in my French class at school we had to make a list of things we liked.

In that list I put the bugle.

However, I did not know the bugle's gender.

Against all odds it turns out the bugle is a she.

This is obviously incorrect.

Was it a French swipe at the bugle's masculinity?

Probably Bella.

Probably.

Maybe, she says, but the more likely option is that's because the French think the bugle is a woman.

The opposite is true and the bugle is a man.

Buglers, what will be your retaliation on the French language?

She goes on, also, regarding the bugle's maturity level of past the episode.

I don't know where this is going.

Maybe you just need to lower the age of your target audiences.

I'm a 15-year-old and I find the immaturity hilarious.

So I know you have at least one listener on the teenage girl demographic.

Perhaps that's a group you need to be aiming at.

Lots of love, Bella.

A 15-year-old girl is calling us immature, Andy.

I mean, it's hard, but it's fair.

Yes.

Well,

I've had my own two-year-old daughter telling me to grow up.

That's true.

That's true.

You're 13 years too old, Bella.

That's what we're aiming at the toddler market now.

That's a huge.

Children's books, that's huge.

Children's podcasts could be the new thing, Andy.

Satirical children's podcasts.

We could be the J.K.

Rowling of podcasting.

But yeah, I guess we're La Bugle.

Now, hold on, what would people feminine?

La Bougle.

La Bougle.

La Bougle.

Ajacoute La Bougle.

La Bugle.

French.

Crazy people.

So do keep your emails coming in.

And, well, the blog is up and running, as described last week.

And when I say up and running, it's up.

Running.

You know, maybe not.

It's stretching.

It's stretching its legs on.

It's just loosening out its hands and its quads.

And it'll start just loose jogging.

There'll be another blog up and I'll start putting your emails in it.

So do keep them coming in to thebugle at timesonline.co.uk.

Bugle sport now.

And well, obviously the big news, John, in the coming week in World Sport, is the build-up to the match of the millennium.

Harley Quinns against London Irish for replacing the Premiership rugby final.

It doesn't get any bigger than that, John.

No one cares.

It doesn't get any bigger than that.

No one cares.

It's probably the greatest sporting event of all time.

It's like if Muhammad Ali had fought Jesse Owens in a swimming pool.

That would have been in a swimming pool.

Wow.

That would have been phenomenal.

Well, exactly.

Well, this is bigger than that.

This is bigger than that.

I don't know, Andy.

You've just described the greatest sporting event that never happened.

Ali Owens in a swimming pool.

I don't know why they're there but I know I'm watching.

Anyway all I can say is too big an event.

It's probably the biggest, most important event of the last 20 years in the northern hemisphere but so it's probably too important to talk about.

But there have been some signs of sport getting hit by the credit crunch and the Highland games in Stirling in Scotland have been cancelled due to the credit crunch.

The Highland Games of course consists of events such as tossing the Caber, the tug of war, traditional Scottish things like that, haggis eating.

That is an event at these Stirling Highland Games, also being explicitly uncomplimentary towards the english uh swearing advanced swearing combination swearing team swearing uh the glasgow shuffle that is staggering drunk across busy streets and things like that and also remembering beating the english in battles and football riots dating back literally hundreds of years and before you scots all pitch camp outside my house complaining about the lazy use of national stereotypes demanding to re-enact the battle of banning burn on my face just let's remember who it was that started dressing up in kilts and throwing telephone poles across a field and the worry john is that if the stirling games go the other highland games will follow suit and And then the youth of Scotland will lose their outlet for throwing telephone poles across a field.

And there'll be teenagers across Scotland ripping telephone poles out of the ground on main roads, carrying them to the nearest field and throwing them.

Is that a world you want to grow up in?

I'll tell you what I've noticed, Andy.

You've been willing to do a lot more aggressive jokes about Scotland since announcing that you're not going to Edinburgh this year.

Well, I think I've got a distant family ancestor, John, who was Scottish and was executed for stealing a sheep.

Is that true?

Yeah.

My mother's side.

That's a great fact.

How did you find that out?

My granny told me.

It's not the kind of thing you'd make up as a boast, is it?

It's not.

It's not.

And do you know what?

I've always felt whenever we've been around sheep, which I know hasn't been often, I felt like I needed to keep an eye on you.

Right.

It's in your blood, Andy.

You're a sheep stealer.

Also, it's affecting Formula One, John.

Formula One, most racing is introducing a £40 million annual budget cap per team.

Now, John, of course, most people only watch Formula One because of the thrill of seeing seeing an incredible amount of money hosed straight down the noisiest available drain.

That's what they're cheering.

That is what they're cheering.

It's basically setting fire to money around a track while people watch in expensive hats.

Of course, cheating and industrial espionage are all part of this, but it's the wastage that people really want to see.

And I'm just worried that if they cut out the economic excess, will people still bother tuning in?

I'm not sure.

Who's winning?

Hamilton.

How much did this car cost?

Only £40 million.

Yeah, let's watch the golf.

But the good thing is, John, that with this £40 million a season cap, it means that basically anyone can enter a team into Formula One.

All you need is a sum of money less than £40 million, and bingo, you're in.

Which means that I'm delighted to announce, lining up on the grid, in the 2010 Formula One season, next to the big stars of F1 will be the Bugle Formula One team.

Yes!

You and me, John.

That'd be great.

I'll tell you what we should do.

If we can just raise whatever the entrance fee is, we can then just use your car.

Yeah, it's got a few aerodynamic bits to it.

Mean dents.

Can you borrow a car?

You haven't got a car in America, have you?

No, of course I haven't.

I've got the subway.

If they'll let me go on the subway, that would be good, though.

If they'll build a little subway track, I'll whiz around on that.

I heard you go everywhere in massive limos with blacked out windows these days.

I don't do that, but I do go, I do use cabs.

Maybe

I can get a cab.

Have a cab on the starting grid and then say,

basically, I need to go exactly where we are, but in 72 laps time.

Athletics news now, and scientists have discovered an extra phase in the triple jump between the hop and the step after studying super slow motion footage of more than 125,000 different triple jumpers from all 12 corners of the world and all manner of sexes.

They conclude there is a previously unnoticed shuffle stage of the event in which competitors shuffle along the track like penguins for anywhere between 0.1 and 0.4 millimeters.

That's not notable to the naked eye, said Olympic scientist Hunter Schlung, but these bastards are shuffling and shuffling good.

British gold medal-winning triple jumper Jonathan Edwards was unavailable for comment.

When the story broke, he boarded up his house, attempted to leave, removed one board, left, hammered the board back in and ran across the field shouting I'm innocent Andy the one sporting event I believe greater than our Lee Owens fighting each other in a swimming pool is the penguin triple jump write these down and post them to the IOC

the London Olympics could yet be the greatest Olympics in human history there's this penguin representing Iceland oh Two and a half meters.

That's a personal best.

Representing Iceland?

Yeah.

That's from Reykjavik Zoo.

Yeah.

It's qualified by residency, has has it?

These Kenyans running for a Qatar.

Just doing it for the dollar.

Is that all the Olympics is about?

Bugle forecast now, and the forecast is: will any of us still be alive by this time next week?

No way, no way.

No chance, no chance.

Just relax.

Relax and enjoy the last few hours.

Okay.

And I guess the other question to be asked, would it matter?

I mean, the sun's going to run out of juice one day, so what's the point?

That's a really uplifting thought to end the bugle on Andy.

Yeah.

People to enjoy their week, the futility of life.

Well done.

Thanks, mate.

Yeah.

It's that kind of joie de vivre which has got you where you are today.

It's that kind of always say die attitude.

Bye-bye buglers.

Bye buglers.

Shooting!

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.