Instead of recession news, let's talk chimps

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello Buglers and welcome to Bugle 1,011.

Sorry, that's for our binary fans.

It's Bugle 43 if you're in a hexadecimal system.

Or for the rest of us, Bugle 67 for the week beginning Monday the 16th of March, or as you Americans would say, March the 16th, 2009.

With me, Andy Zaltzman here in the beautiful city of London and in New York City, it's John Oliver.

Hello, Buglers!

Hello, Andy.

Over complicated start there, Andy.

All right, mate.

But I'm looking for a new apartment to rent.

All right, Andy.

Yeah.

And I went down to see a pretty amazing one on Wall Street last weekend.

Because perhaps that's just a huge...

It's a spiritual home, isn't it, mate?

Well, I mean, there are some pretty great deals down there at the moment due to the fact that no one really works there anymore.

Really?

Do you get the odd one with something still hanging from the roof that shouldn't be there?

This is one positive side of the global meltdown.

What I looked at had a balcony, and either side of the balcony were two concrete lions.

I'd love to live somewhere with access to concrete lions, Andy.

They make life seem a bit more grand.

Just imagine drinking a cup of coffee in the morning between two concrete lions.

It's bound to taste better.

So are you going to go for that flat, John?

I don't know.

I don't know.

Right.

Because you would have to buy buy a toga if you if you do go for the concrete lines.

What buy or just dust my old one up?

Yeah.

I know it's been a while.

I don't know if I'd fit into it now.

It's Monday the 16th of March which means it is 97 years to the minute since Captain Oates left Captain Scott's Antarctic tent saying I'm just going outside and maybe sometime.

Tick tock, tick tock.

We're still waiting Oatesy.

I think you've made your points.

I admire a man who sticks to his word but this really is taken it too far.

So please, if you are listening to this podcast, do call home.

I'm afraid your parents have passed away.

And on this day, of course, John, the 16th of March, the state of Mississippi officially approved the abolition of slavery.

Now,

can you guess what year that happened in?

I'll give you three choices, John.

Was it A, 1865, the year the 13th Amendment was ratified prohibiting slavery?

Was it B, 1866, the next year when Mississippi realized it was lagging a bit behind its fellow states?

Or was it C, 1995, 130 years after slavery was given the big red light.

Please tell me it was the first one, Andrew.

No, it was C.

It was C

1995.

But I guess this is as if we didn't just didn't want to rush into something like that.

Just taking a long-term view and seeing how the whole abolition of slavery panned out across the rest of America before signing up.

We criticise our politicians for being short-termist, but I think arguably this was taking it too far the other way.

Also with us today in the special Bugle Soundproof Safe, it's Jack Bauer from 24, big friend of Bill Clinton.

Hello, Jack.

How are you doing in there?

Hey, Jack, one bang if you're not angry.

Two, if you're angry, are being kept in a safe.

Oh, dear.

Well, he's always angry, isn't he?

He's always got something to complain about.

He's had a few bad days.

He sure has.

And we'll not be hearing more from Jack later in the show.

As always, some sections of the Bugle go straight in the bin this week.

A property section.

How to soup up your house, flat cave, bunker, or well, wherever you live, to impress prospective buyers in these economico-strangulated times without spending too much wedge.

One, buy a pair of concrete lines.

Two,

remember that buyers like to know that their new house will be secure, so put up cheap but authentic looking battlements on your roof using cardboard boxes and make one of your family stroll around like a medieval century carrying a pipe whenever you have people around to view your property.

Buyers also like to feel at home in your home, so as soon as they leave their house to go to view your house, break into their house, steal some of their most homely belongings, a painting, a much-loved armchair, a pet, or even a child, drive back to your house at breakneck speed and install their stuff or children in your house.

So there's something comfortingly familiar about it when they look around.

Also buy a select thing they can make swift and cheap improvements to a house as soon as they move in.

So nail a putrefying animal carcass to the living room wall.

You can explain that it's just something you picked up on holiday in Cornwall or Canada.

They'll nod, claim that their friends Bridget and Clive have got one too, then look at each other with that unmistakable look that says, that's going, we're going to put our own carcass up there.

Also things things not to do when your viewers arrive: make sure you're not standing on the patio patting down a paving slab with a shovel.

It might be completely innocent, but the perception that a house is an active crime scene can reduce its value by up to 1.5%.

Top story this week: financial news.

Hold on, Andy.

It's just too depressing.

Let's wait until later for that.

Top story this week, monkeys.

Yeah, that's more fun.

That's right.

Monkeys.

Intrinsically funny animal.

We are starting the bugle this week with monkey news.

I think we've all earned a bit of a delay before we talk about the financial black hole that the world is hurtling towards.

So let's spend that bonus time talking about monkeys.

Everyone loves monkeys, Andy.

Some people even believe that we descended from them.

Those people are called scientists and they're all gonna burn in the fires of eternal hell But there are some indisputable things about monkeys that we can all be absolutely sure of one they like bananas and nuts two they like dressing up as old women and holding tea parties three they like riding in cars with Glint Eastwood and flipping the bird at people four they like raising animated children as one of their own and five they were designed in a collaboration between God and Paul Frank who is a designer Andy oh is he but you've changed well there has been a lot of monkey news, John.

A lot of monkey news.

Can I just say as well, Andy, this is now my second favourite section behind the berry news from a couple of weeks ago.

Now, scientists claim to have discovered that monkey mothers give into their babies' tantrums more easily if other monkeys are looking on disapprovingly.

Now, personally, John, I can't tell when a monkey is chucking a tantrum and when it's just telling me all about its day.

But apparently, its mummy can tell that.

And the little macaque babies, they have an ear-chisling cry, similar to those of human babies, testify sisters.

And their mummy macaques, or macaquettes, as they're known, get off their not particularly brightly coloured backsides and feed them more quickly if other monkeys are looking on stroppily, clearly thinking, look, if you can't control your child, you shouldn't be allowed to have one.

A trans-species facial expression, also known as the commuter on a crowded train look.

And I can actually back this research up, John, from a human angle, because my wife would actually never get around to feeding our baby boy if I didn't personally stand there tutting and growling at her.

Well, that's that's good.

I suppose this all makes sense though, Andy.

You know, they don't monkeys don't want other monkeys to think worse of them in case they ever develop the capacity to feel shame and are then embarrassed.

Yeah.

Just on the off time.

And do you do you find you have this instinct?

And say Matilda or Horace choose to throw a big protest at not being fed.

If you are near a group of monkeys,

are you more likely to fold?

I don't know.

I've never actually, I don't think I've ever been to that.

See, I have taken Matilda to the zoo.

What did she think of the monkeys there?

Well, she's a big monkey fan.

Huge, huge monkey fan.

But I don't know really if she's a particular macaque fan or whether she'd go more for a, you know, your regular chimp.

Now, there's an extra detail in this story which is worth mentioning here, though, Andy.

Apparently, it is the threat of violence from on-looking monkeys, which is the key factor.

So it's not an embarrassment here.

It's not monkeys tutting in disapproval at bad parenting.

It's flat-out monkey violence, which is the deterrence.

Well, this is basically how parenting used to work in the Victorian age, isn't it?

Feed that child woman, or you will feed all the back of my hand.

A mother and baby monkey are apparently 30 times more likely to cop some aggressive flack from other monkeys if the baby is crying, which essentially means that being a rhesus macaque monkey is just like being at a funeral or a snooker tournament.

And according to the research scientists involved, Dr.

Semple, baby monkeys' cries are high-pitched, grating, and nasty to listen to, making them A, hard to ignore, B, ideal Republican vice presidential candidates, and C, a bit like a bad Nazi oboe player in a helium balloon.

In other monkey news, a male chimp in a zoo in Sweden has apparently been planning rock attacks on visitors.

Now, when I first saw this story, Andy, I slightly misread it because I thought it said a chimp had been planning rocket attacks on visitors.

And to be honest, that sounded amazing.

Not that this isn't.

I don't doubt that it's a major breakthrough in primate research.

It's just if he'd been planning rocket attacks, I would already be on my way to Sweden now.

Yep, this cheeky little sod goes by the name of Santino.

And he has been storing up ammunition to pelt at visitors to the zoo.

So this means that he has been kind of planning these attacks, John, which means that he has either A, remarkable ingenuity, B, a showbiz temperament turning on the audience who have made him a star, or C, terrorist inclinations.

Well, that's it.

Possibly all three.

Well, he stockpiled these weapons, Andy.

Yeah.

That he would like to use as missiles.

And of course, if he was really smart, he would realize that he'd artificially pushed the price of those stones up by limiting their supply.

and he'd even start arms trading with other monkeys.

I think that's the next step in evolving and there goes opposable thumbs arms trading.

But it does make you think John what an ungrateful species the chimpanzees are because we rescued these little hominids from the jungle or whatever it is they claim to come from these days.

Our old compadres from the early days of evolution and we gave them all the perks of zoo life.

Free board and lodging, job security, a crowd and often a mate.

Makes me feel like a pimp just saying it.

And this is how they repay us.

We're hurling stones into our faces.

Well, good luck evoluting you bad-mannered little tits.

See you in six million years and we'll see who's keeping who in an enclosure by then.

Put on your fur coat, your floppy hat Andy and your grill and start screaming big pimpins spreading the cheese.

Check it out.

Now of course the liberal lefties amongst you will probably claim that this chimpanzee was merely issuing a heroic defiant gesture of protest.

One creature's dignified blast back at its captor.

A cry for the freedom of nature over the artificial constraint of being stared at by school children trying to see how big your willy is.

But chimpanzees who coincidentally actually have the same life expectancy as chimps and very similar behavioural traits, have thus become one of the very few animals proved capable of planning future events, which you wouldn't believe if you've ever been to a chimp wedding.

Total chaos from soup to nuts, and the less said about the bridesmaids, the better.

Speeches were good though, a bit crude but funny.

But this is where Evolution John is going to come back to bite us, because if you cast your mind back to another stone-throwing incident involving primates, David and Goliath, a carefully planned stone throwing, and some 3,000 or so years later, the descendants of the latter are still throwing stones back at the descendants of the former, and the descendants of the former are throwing high-tech explodey stones back at them.

I think we've got to keep an eye on these chimps, John, before they evolve and little Middle East starts springing up in the monkey enclosures of zoos the world over.

A lot of them are already surrounded by big walls.

I don't like the way this is going.

Maybe peace in the Middle East is available just by watching these monkeys.

You've got to make that monkey not want to throw stones at us, so maybe we should not cage it for people's entertainment and viewing pleasure.

Is that basically what you're saying saying Israel has done to the Gaza Strip.

Yes.

They've caged people in Gaza for everyone's entertainment pleasure.

Not sure the entertainment pleasure bit stands up, but they have caged them.

That is a fact.

Other news now and billionaires!

The financial crisis has claimed its latest victim, wiping 332 names off Forbes magazine's rich list of world billionaires.

Just 793 people can now lay claim to a place on that list.

And even they have lost an average 23% of their wealth.

Andy, this really brings it home to you, doesn't it?

Some of our most vulnerable billionaires have been cruelly snatched from us.

You just don't know what you've got until it's gone.

I never appreciated them while they were here.

And it's a chilling lesson for all of us to appreciate it when we inevitably, due to hyperinflation, become billionaires.

Because one second you have billions.

The next thing you know, a storm hits, and you're left with merely hundreds and hundreds of millions.

It really makes you think.

Since the World Wildlife Fund last did a census on billionaire population a year ago, 332 billionaires have died out.

And if this continues, billionaires will have died out completely within three years.

And I guess we've all really got to do everything we can to help the endangered billionaires.

Some obviously lose their money due to natural causes, but others have been poached by major fraud investigations or had their natural habitat ruined by the changing global economic climate.

And also billionaire poaching is an increasing problem.

The illegal trade in billionaire pelts is now worth billions of dollars a year.

Maybe we need one of those quintessential images, like the polar bear balancing on a small piece of ice that was melting away that affected even President Bush so deeply.

Maybe we need to see a banker on a small island of money looking troubled as it melts away.

Maybe a billionaire on his one remaining 300 meter long yacht.

That single tip.

That's a haunting image.

That's a haunting image, Andy.

To make the top 20 of the Forbes list this year, you need a net worth of just 14 billion

compared with 21 billion only last year.

Hang on, wait a second, I've just got to cut him off to be on.

Yeah.

I'm still a little bit short, I think.

I am only 14 billion away from qualifying now.

Compared with being 21 billion away from it last year.

Technically, doesn't that mean I'm 7 billion richer this year than last year?

Hold on.

If my numbers are correct, this recession's working out great.

Well, Russian billionaires have been particularly badly affected.

John, 55 of them have disappeared since last year.

They were down from 87 to 55.

And I guess that means really that Russian billionaires are like London buses.

You wait the entire communist era for one to come along, and then 17 years later, 87 of them have turned up at once.

But then a year later, 55 of them have disappeared.

It's uncanny.

There are also 55 billionaires in New York, John.

That's the billionaire capital of the world.

And 28 billionaires in London.

That's the second most billionaire-y city in the world.

No, what?

Only 28 billionaires?

Yeah.

It won't be long before London becomes once more a city of jauntily singing pickpockets, Andy.

You people aren't fit to wear a monocle.

All right, little Johnny Wall Street.

Can't create lines.

But it does mean there's a correlation here, John.

New York, London, most billionaires in the world, the two home cities of the bugle.

There's something about this audio newspaper that attracts billionaires like hyenas to someone else's dead wildebeest.

They're swarming all over us to billionaires.

In fact, I'm just on my way here today from the way between the tube station and here, I had to swat off three billionaires with my special shield.

I think they were Laxmi Mittal, the Indian-born steel magnate, Simon Halabi, the big cheese of real estate.

In fact, he's bigger than big.

He's the massive, great mega truckle of property.

And Big Johnny Caldwell, the self-solved Nebuchadnezzar of mobile phones.

I think it's hard to tell when they're swarming around you like that.

Coming at you from 3.60, and all you can think about is whether you'll ever see your kids again.

It's a bit of a blur.

Also on the Forbes list was Mexico's most wanted man, Joaquin Guzman.

Now, he's head of one of Mexico's most powerful drug cartels, and he's 701st on the list.

Two quick things here, Andy.

One, why are they putting a career criminal on that list?

And two, how the hell do they know what he's worth?

Is it from his tax returns?

Yeah, yes, he ruthlessly kills people to control his drug cartel.

You can say what you like.

He files on time, Andy.

And he never rounds up his expenses.

That's right.

He even separates out his bullets between personal use and for business purposes.

I tell you, Andy, it is good that the credit crunch doesn't seem to be be affecting the drug trade yet.

Because, I mean, that's a huge relief for me.

My fallback option for my career was always going to be to become a drug mule.

I think I'd thrive.

I'm good at getting from A to B.

Unless A is in attack and B is in defence and the opposition's got the ball.

Bullshit.

Finance news now and Tunbridge Wells Council in Kent, England has become the first administrative authority in Britain to issue on-the-spot penalty notices to small social insects able to carry several times their own body weight.

Quizzed by the press about the legality and logistics of his plan to fine ants.

Council leader Redford Bunk commented: These little bastards walk on off pavements, scuttle around our woodland, and shit in my flowerbed.

And they don't contribute a single penny to the public purse.

Parasites.

We're not officially allowed to pour boiling water on them anymore, thank you, Brussels.

So why shouldn't we find them?

And their outdated, monarchical, feudalistic social structure makes me sick.

Bloody colonialists, he added.

I suppose we should be grateful it's taken 67 bugles for you to do a fine ants joke, Andy.

Feature section now and science versus God is the ultimate matchup Andy.

They've been fighting since the earth was created and have also been fighting about when and how that happened.

They've both proved they could take a punch.

Galileo didn't stay down.

Neither did Jesus.

It's the street brawl that just won't stop.

It is the second biggest question facing the world today.

Science or God?

One can live, one must die.

Today, we make that call.

Here on the Bugle, we like to address the big questions of life, and we always have throughout our previous 66 episodes.

The big questions, such as, how can you tell when a turnip is asleep?

Who do you ask when you need to know how to do something, but don't know what that something is?

Shark or elephant?

Do or die, or both.

Probably do then die.

That's probably your best call on that one.

Although you could go with die, then do if you're an obscure folk singer.

And also, the big question: what's up with worms?

Well, which I mean, the ancient German city of worms, home of the famous Concordat of Worms.

It was a big city in medieval Europe, John, but what the f ⁇ has it done since then?

So this week we're taking on the second biggest question in the world, science or God.

The biggest question, of course, is, where can England find a strike bowler before the ashes start in July?

It's fight night!

Round one!

And Obama dealt God a serious blow at the start of this week, Andy, when he lifted restrictions on federal funding for research on new stem cell lines.

Scientists say the research will lead to medical breakthroughs, but many religious groups are opposed to it.

They think we should just wait until God provides us with those medical breakthroughs.

Bush, of course, very much took the view that science is basically witchcraft with a clipboard and was not a big fan of the old stem cell research.

I'm not sure exactly why, either because he's a huge fan of God or

doesn't want us to tinker around with the big man's work, or because he loves children, even really, really, really small ones, or because he fears that we will soon find ourselves toboggoning down the slippery slope towards human cloning, and we all know what human cloning means.

Loads of Hitlers all over the place.

Maybe it's just because George W.

Bush just loves to see people suffering from debilitating and or fatal illnesses.

That's the thing.

Obama has stressed that he is definitely against human cloning.

He said it is dangerous, profoundly wrong, and has no place in our society or any society.

And why is that, Barak?

Because it'll lead to loads of little Hitlers everywhere.

Come on, though.

You've come this far, Obama.

Let's just go the whole way.

You're already going to hell.

You can at least go down there with your own private clone army.

Yep, stem cells, love and more hate them are here to stay apparently so we better learn to live with them.

When I was a kid John, I didn't actually have any stem cells, or at least I didn't know that I did, and that's that is basically the same thing.

And I always say the same thing to these so-called Christians.

How come we never heard you bang on about how much you love your stem cells until the scientists piped up?

You can't have it both ways.

Well, polls suggest that the majority, the vast majority of Americans actually support stem cell research, but the National Right to Life Committee and the Vatican have condemned it.

Oh, the Vatican have condemned it.

Oh, what a surprise.

Is that the same Vatican which is against the use of birth control to fight AIDS in Africa?

That Vatican?

It doesn't sound like something they'd say.

Obama has promised to listen to scientists even when they're saying something inconvenient or boring or socially awkward, having spent an entire lifetime looking at insects in tubes or trying to make water explode.

And Obama said that we should let scientists do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda, and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology.

And you've got to ask, John, Obama's made a big career out of politics.

And what is the point of future politicians getting into politics if they can't manipulate and coerce people, ignore those far better informed than themselves, and distort and conceal facts to serve an agenda?

What are you left with then?

Pen pushing and number crunching.

He's forgotten what got him into the game.

Who's going to want to do that?

So is science, in this case, like Morgan Freeman in the film Bruce Almighty, playing God?

And if so, so is it any of God's business after all if God hadn't wanted us to research stem cells he wouldn't have given us laboratories to research them with and electron microscopes to look at them through or whatever these madass scientists use these days I'm out of the loop to be honest round two put your clothes back on Tom

Secondary schools in Hampshire are to teach creationism alongside the theory of evolution in science and religious education classes.

Now Andy, there is absolutely nothing wrong with teaching both of them as long as you also teach that one of them is probably right and one of them is probably wrong.

And this is key that you get which one is correct right.

The guidelines suggest that teachers explore with pupils the reasons why Darwin's theories were dismissed and ridiculed in the 19th century.

And again, that's an interesting thing to learn about Andy.

No doubt about it.

If you learn that the main reason was that people were idiots then.

Creationism versus evolution is it's a bit like maths versus fairies.

You know, one of them is right, one of them is wrong.

But you're always going to get people who only believe in one or the the other.

I think I have a better understanding of fairies than I do of maths, and my GCSE results would attest to that.

Round three!

Your third and final round.

Turkish students and teachers have been protesting the removal of an article about Charles Darwin from a state-run science magazine amid concerns that secular views in the Muslim country are increasingly under threat.

The editor of Science and Technology magazine was sacked after she devoted the cover of the March issue to Darwin to mark the 150th anniversary of Origin of the Species.

And wow, they've had 150 years to get over how offensive they found that book, Andy, but it's still clearly too soon.

And the subject of the new cover was global warming, which is presumably God's will.

He just wants us all to be warmer.

He doesn't like polar bears.

He thought they were a mistake.

And that's it.

That is the end of the fight.

So let's score the bout, Andy.

There's judges.

There's the scientist, the priest, and me and you.

So the scientist scores it 2-1 in favour of science.

The priest scores it 3-0 in favour of God.

Andy, what do you have?

Well, I'm doing it more on a kind of boxing round score.

So

I'm going to score it 29-27 to God.

To God?

Yep.

To science.

To science.

Sorry.

Oh, to science.

Yeah.

Two rounds to science and one round square.

Actually, I'm going to deduct a point for God for an illegal knockdown.

Hitting science below the belt.

26.

Okay, here's the problem, Andy.

Right.

I've got it 29.26 to God.

Who got to you?

What did they promise you, Andy?

What did the scientists promise?

The fix is in.

I got promised a one-way ticket to heaven.

I can't turn that down, Andy, even though I'm not sure I fully believe in the concept.

Well, I said, draw, maybe this is the right way, John, because you know, the two can live in perfect harmony, as anyone who's ever seen me play football can testify.

I managed to combine both the incisiveness of science with the kind of amazing omnipotence of God.

So, what a draw, and what do the fans think of that?

They're not happy, Andy.

They're not happy.

They paid a lot of money to see them smash the shit out of each other, just like Lewis against Hollyfield Part One, all over again.

Your emails now, and this email came from Matt Parker.

He writes, In these thrifty economic times, it seems practical to kill two birds with one stone, as it were, and have Kiefer Sutherland, also known as Jack Bauer, as a detonate in your safe room.

Well, we have made your wish come true, Matt.

He continues his imminent and miraculous escape, whereby one or both of you are killed with a satisfying degree of moral posturing and gleeful retribution.

Would A, appease many of your listeners, many of whom have sent detailed death threats, and B.

Embolden the U.S.

Democratic Party former President Bill Clinton, could continue to regale dinner guests about how nothing holds Bower and how neither Zoltzman or Oliver knew what they were dealing with.

Now, we also had a great number of emails off the back of our Berry News segment, Andy.

Andy, Marion Berry.

A number of emails on this.

One here from Amy Ewan, who says, Dear Andy and John, I wanted to bring something to your attention.

You discussed the new official Berry of Oregon, the Marion Berry.

I won't dwell on the absurdity of debating berries at this juncture in our nation's and world's massive shititude.

However, good word.

However, I wanted to share my first thought and probably the first thought of any other listeners from the Washington, D.C.

area.

When we hear the phrase Marion Berry, we'll all be thinking of Marion Berry, a former mayor of Washington, D.C., who was busted smoking cocaine and canoodling with a prostitute in a hotel room in 1990.

Barry was strung out and downright impudent during his arrest, thus solidifying his place in Washington DC law.

Curiously, Barry has made a triumphant return as a D.C.

city council member and apparent stand-up member of society.

So well done, Oregon.

Your official Berry is now synonymous with a crack-smoking, whore-loving f ⁇ up from Washington, D.C.

Keep up the good work and please note that I don't wish to kill you.

Cheers, Amy Ewan.

This was brought to our attention by a number of abusers, also jennifer gill from portland oregon who pointed out the unfortunate history which the marion berry conjures up and she actually has as an afterthought to her email she said internally the abugle website has been deemed inappropriate by my high school's internet monitoring system and has been forbidden it is blocked under the category message boards which sounds to me like the school district is trying to discourage children from communicating with the outside world although considering the current state of said world i can see some validity in their attempt to keep us from it just thought you'd you'd like to know, Jennifer Gill.

And this email on the subject of Gordon Brown's rubbish gift, as talked about in last week's Bugle, from John Brewer, who writes, Any word on what region the DVDs Obama gave Brown were for?

As a rule, DVDs sold in the US, brackets region one, won't run on a UK DVD player, brackets, region two.

Also, US DVDs will be NSNTSC encoded, while UK uses PAL encoding.

Although this may be less of an issue with modern digital TVs.

I have seen speculation in the media, but have yet to hear definitively if Obama gave Brown unplayable DVDs or not.

Getting to the bottom of this would seem to write up your journalistic alley.

So, John, you've got a bit of an inside track at the White House these days.

Yeah.

Was Obama basically just shifting off a load of DVDs he knew wouldn't work?

I think that was it.

Yeah, I think he was re-gifting something he was given by the President of China.

Please tell me they weren't bootlegs.

And we've put this man on a pedestal.

Please don't let him jump off it this soon.

Oh, come on, President.

That's clearly done off a camera on someone's knee.

Oh, there are no heroes.

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

Also, had a few technical glitches, so we'll be rounding up some more of your emails in the blog.

And also the t-shirt prizes for best contribution to the website will be adjudicated next week when we've wasted less of the podcast talking shit.

Also, Buglers have some very important news that's just been relayed to me by Tom, our producer, and that is regard to to iTunes.

Apparently they've been

having problems downloading the back issues of the bugle on iTunes.

It's all right Andy.

Just a test.

There's just too much of them on there now and poor little iTunes can't cope.

And so we're going to have to take off the back issues of the bugle off iTunes.

But you will still be able to get them off the website, timesonline.co.uk slash the bugle.

So times like this, you feel things are never quite going to be the same again.

But I guess we'll just we'll probably learn to to live with it eventually people can still get them you can still get them you can get still get all of them Andy so they live on in a way see one more star in the sky tonight though well oh that's I mean there's no way that's true

sport now and there's no real time for sport because we've overrun elsewhere all that we can say is that England following a heroic defeat to the West Indies in cricket are now the sixth best cricket team in the world.

Now bear in mind John there are over 200 countries in the world so we're pretty near the top.

We are better than America, Russia, China and Iraq put together.

What a nation.

And next week we will be reporting on the Afghan cricket team who have said that they will go and play in Pakistan despite recent terrorist attack attack against the Sri Lankan cricket team.

The Afghan cricketers clearly being from Afghanistan that is water off a duck's back frankly and they will not let the violent micro minority scare them away from playing cricket.

Also, it's March Madness College Basketball will be reporting on the English college basketball season, and which I believe there is a college in England somewhere that plays basketball, although quite often they have to share it with a badminton game.

Just time for the bugle forecast.

John, next Sunday is Mother's Day here in Britain.

I know you have a different one in America.

Reminder, Andy.

And I guess the prediction is: will either of us remember that it's Mother's Day?

Yes.

Now, yes.

I think I still will forget.

When I was a kid, my mother actively discouraged us from observing Mother's Day.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

I guess that was the ultimate act of mothering, isn't it?

Yeah, I think she saw it as a pointless waste of time.

But you know,

every day was Mother's Day for us, John.

But what it does mean, John, is that next Sunday on Mother's Day, our British bugle listeners are entitled to play this episode of the Bugle to their mother at full volume, absolutely free of charge.

Have this one on us, mums.

That's very nice, Andy.

Well, as a mother myself, now I know what these things mean.

That's all from the bugle.

Bye-bye.

Have a lovely week.

Cheery on!

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 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.