Obama and his 'do nothing' wonderland

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, Buglers, and welcome to issue 62 of The Bugle, the world's greatest and only audio newspaper for a visual world for the week beginning Monday, the 2nd of February, 2009, with me, Andy Zoltzmann, here in London and in New York City, Mr.

John Oliver.

Hello buglers!

Hello Andy, how are you doing Andy?

I'm all right thanks mates.

I'm okay.

Although little Horace had a quite a prolonged squawk in the middle of the night last night so I may flag as this broadcast progresses.

Well that's that's your fault Andy, that's your boy.

You should have trained him better.

You don't really train children do you?

That's dogs.

Well, you nurture them.

That's right.

I always get those two mixed up.

It's just a fine moment in nurturing and indoctrinations.

yeah that's right you got to stay the right side of it or do you

well anyway I made it back from Bermuda Andy and it was great it was fantastic to be standing on one of the the few remaining pieces of the British Empire you know and it all comes back to you I just naturally started ordering people around there it's just you never forget it it's like riding a bike so it is pretty much just Bermuda and the Falklands that we've got left now it's going to be the three of us mighty nations trying to get back to where we once were and I looked around at what kind of possible army they have there that we can use to take over the world again and i think our bermudan militia is going to have to be scooter based that's pretty much all they've got andy if you think a viable military strategy is doing wheelies around people then the future of the british empire looks great well it's what it's worked for the italians

So it's the 62nd bugle, John, which means that we've now done more bugles than plays by Shakespeare, novels by Dickens, albums by Britney Spears, and films starring John Oliver put together.

That means we are better than Shakespeare, Dickens, Spears and you.

What an achievement by the bugle.

Take that, Shakespeare.

So welcome to February.

This is the first February broadcast of the 2009 calendar year.

February, of course, John, the newest month of the 12 current first choice months being used at the moment.

Roman king Numa Pompilius invented February and its close buddy January when he realised that the Romans were wasting the first 59 days of the year sitting around doing sweet Jemima crankshaft, waiting for March to begin.

Now, of course, being the last month to be discovered, John, February had to make do with the very last few remaining scrap days left over after the other months had had their fill, plus 12 days given to it by September, which until then had clocked in at a big fat, distended 42 days.

For more than a thousand years, February was roundly teased by all the other months until St.

Valentine, the patron saint of hackneyed chat-up lines and clumsy passes, posted himself anonymously to a nun he fancied on the 10th of February one year.

Arriving by second class post four days later, a hungry, cold and urine-soaked Valentine tumbled out of his cardboard and bubble wrap package onto the nun's floor and recited these lines.

Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a rhino in bed and I'll bet you are too.

Love from guess who?

Before the nun smashed him over the head with a Bronze Virgin Mary trophy she'd won the previous day as Miss Chaste 453 AD.

Valentine slumped to the floor, mumbled, I wouldn't mind breaking your habits.

She clunked him again, he burbled, sister, sizzler more like.

She booted him in the head with a size 9 Mordland 3000 nun boots and he whispered, I love you so much I'm falling to bits.

Now whip off your wimple and show me at which point she body slammed him while screaming, Hail Mary, full in your face.

And Valentine died instantly but happily.

Of course, the big sake was then commemorated by Valentine's Day, which, along with February's relaunch as the end of winter month, thrust it into the mainstream as a month where it has remained ever since.

It's been month of the year on 14 occasions, most recently in 1935.

There, a bit of background on February for you there.

Well, that was from the mind of Andy Zaltzmann, father of two.

I'm 34.

I'm 34, John, and to illustrate quite how suited I am to the responsibilities, the onerous responsibilities of fatherhoods, a couple of weeks ago I bought a new shirt for our Comedians Tuesday football games, John.

It's bright pink and it's awarded to the person who does the worst miss of the day.

And I also ordered some big letters to go on the back spelling out the word loser.

I'm a 34-year-old father of two and Oxford graduates.

Where's it all gone wrong?

Anyway, we're beginning February the 2nd.

February the 1st, John, 60 years since the end of wartime clothes rationing in Britain.

And I think it's fair to say, John, that neither you nor I have fully adjusted

to pre-rationing levels yet.

As always, some sections of the Bugle are going straight in the bin.

This week, part 9 of our 52-part weekly audiobiography of Mike Genghis McGonagall, the former deputy leader of Tunbridge Wells Town Council.

This week, Mike tries to persuade councils, but double yellow lines are the high street to ease congestion and leads a rampaging army in the slaughter of thousands in the Seven Oaks area.

Also in the bin, a shelf aggrandisement section, how to make your shelves sound more impressive than they actually are featuring 1970s pop sensations of the osmonds on how their bookcase can solve crimes sounds good yeah use it johnny quick there's been a shooting go get the bookcase

can you use your contacts uh stateside to get that one off the ground you're oh you may have just pitched the one film worse than the love guru

in which case i am in

Top story this week and Obama week one unleash the Uniter.

We're now a week into living in Hopeland and I have to say Hopeland is a lot more depressing than I thought it was going to be.

I mean don't get me wrong it's still a lot less depressing than living in Despairland for the last eight years but I've seen a lot fewer of the unicorns and rainbows that I was in no way promised but had definitely come to expect.

There have been frightening amounts of job losses over the last seven days here, Andy.

Nearly five million Americans are claiming unemployment, the biggest figure since records began.

And the new administration is still very much in the early stages of planning their economic recovery strategy.

And yet, people are still pretty happy with Obama.

And Obama's basically done next to nothing yet and is still sitting on top of a nearly 70% approval rating, which just shows how bad the last eight years have been.

America has essentially fallen in love with the concept of nothing.

Nothing!

See, this isn't a high-maintenance country after all, Andy.

They just want a husband who doesn't hit them.

All they ask is that they don't automatically flinch every time their president opens his mouth.

Obama is so hot, you can toast marshmallows off him.

In fact, a New York Times journalist was seen in the White House pressroom this week with a marshmallow on the end of a long stick, just poking it towards the podium.

At the end of the press conference, he pronounced that what he'd heard was bipartisan, positive, and delicious.

Yet, the Obama effect is working worldwide, quite aside from the little things like people hugging their children more, smiling at passers-by, giving religious fundamentalists a friendly pat on whatever hat they happen to be wearing, and not mooning their radios every time they hear the words white and the house in the same sentence.

Obama, John, he is already creating world peace.

The Russians have announced they're going to halt plans to deploy short-range missiles near Kaliningrad, their Baltic enclave.

You can pronounce it better than that, Andy.

You just went straight through Kalingrad there.

Kaliningrad.

There you go.

There you go, right.

Much more fun.

Years at Russian impersonating school.

It's like being a sushi chef, only more so, and with bigger knives.

Well, a Russian military official, apparently, John, he said that a change in US attitude had prompted this decision.

And of course, when he said attitude, what he really meant was president.

And Olga Kokochko Kochkova, the Kremlin spokespershka, said that's not how her name sounds, is it, Andy?

Do it again.

Kokochko Kochkova.

That's it.

There you go.

She's the Kremlin spokesper bushka.

And she said in a special statement, sorry, did we say attitude?

We meant president.

They're very similar words in Russian.

Listen, yetitude, president.

You see, it's easy to get them mixed up, particularly after your morning flag and a vodka, a gentleman.

Hands off Dmitry or I'll rip your twanger off.

The Russians said that they believe that Obama is going to reconsider plans for the strategic shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

But again, he hasn't actually said he won't.

And yet Russia are still willing to show faith and put their trust in him.

Obama has won them over with nothing again.

His bargaining chip is an empty hand because people would generally rather be offered an empty hand than a handful of shit.

And this nothing strategy is incredible.

It even temporarily won over the Republicans this week during the stimulus plan debate.

Republican Representative John Meeker came out of a meeting feeling positive saying, well, he didn't say anything, but we got the message.

What?

He's even taking this nothing strategy to language now.

He can simply sit silently, motionless, and make people feel better.

He's like a jazz president.

It's the notes you aren't playing rather than the ones you are.

It's what he isn't doing, Andy, rather than what he is.

Well, I guess, as you say, this is we're seeing the benefits of the Bush era, and I think we owe the man a great vote of thanks.

That's right.

Because really, the world is just returning back towards how things were eight years ago.

But it feels like the Renaissance, the Sexual Revolution, and VE Day rolled into one, if I may exaggerate wildly and unnecessarily.

And when it comes to the missile defense shield in Europe, John, from an American perspective, it does seem to me a bit like having an airbag in a car.

You're just tempted, since you've got it, to use it.

Absolutely.

So I think, you know, by having it there, they'd be tempted to do more kind of proddy, aggressive foreign policy just to see if it worked.

Just like wearing a helmet in cricket.

That's, you know, players, before helmets invented, Lee, you've been much better at avoiding bouncers.

Now you're just tempted to see how loud it sounds when you get clonked on the noggin.

It's the same with US foreign policy.

Take my word for it.

Although and in a major gesture and a huge departure from standard US foreign policy, Obama gave his first major cable news interview to a Middle Eastern news channel at Al-Arabia and he struck a very balanced tone arguing that America needed to listen to the Arab world rather than dictate, even explicitly stating at one point, I have Muslim members of my family.

I've lived in Muslim countries.

So the rumours were right all along.

That's right.

It is hard to fathom that we live in a world where we have a president of the United States who can say that and not be joking.

It's incredible.

And a good incredible.

Obama said that he will soon deliver a major speech to the Muslim world in a Muslim capital, which is intriguingly vague.

It's like one of those secret gigs that record companies make bands do now to build up hype.

Perhaps it's going to be like Willy Wonga's golden tickets.

Muslims are going to need to buy certain chocolate bars to get invited to this historic speech.

There are still certain groups here in America who will be terrified to hear that Obama is going to do this.

I think there is genuinely a part of them which will expect him to start his speech by firing a machine gun into the air and screaming death to the west as they sit at home and go, I knew it.

Are the Muslim fundamentalists, John, are the bin Ladens of this world, are they going to give ground as well?

Fundamentaloids.

Fundamentaloids.

Are they going to downgrade death to the West to injury to the West?

I think that's it, yeah.

Like illness to the West.

Back pain, maybe.

That can be bad, though.

Well, exactly.

Yeah, you're not dying, but it can affect your quality of life.

Obama also has announced that he would like a new push to getting rid of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe in the week that Zimbabwe basically abandoned their currency.

Like a motorist with a car that has been chugging along a motorway and just conking out every couple of hundred meters.

They finally just said it and are now walking across a field.

He said that he wants to lead a US diplomatic push to get tough UN sanctions against the Mugabe regime.

You've got to feel a bit sorry for Mugabe John.

He's really struggling to keep his head above water and his opponents' heads underwater, as it is, without having President Superman wading him, telling him how to run his country a bit less abominably.

And also, I'm not sure how this is going to work, because presumably by now, Mugabe in Zimbabwe is immune to sanctions.

When he could just sit there and say, Well, what are you going to do?

Cut off our food, not let us have clean drinking water, ruin our economy.

Good luck with that big dog.

Good luck.

The only thing you've got is to tease me about my moustache.

Obama the Uniter Andy is also currently attempting to get significant bipartisan support for the eight now currently 819 billion and climbing stimulus package even meeting alone with Republicans to collect some ideas and whilst the Democrats comfortably have enough votes to pass this bill Obama seems to want to collect large amounts of votes from across the aisle in response the House Republicans Democrats have been sniping at each other all week and Obama is starting to look like a dad driving a minivan trying to keep the squabbling kids in the back quiet.

Shut up!

Don't make me come back there!

Why can't the two of you just try to get along?

I will pull this thing over!

I will do it!

He even invited both Democrats and Republicans to an evening drinks party at the White House to discuss it further.

Now that is a great idea, Andy.

If in doubt, just get people hammered.

And that is yet more Lincolnian presidential behaviour.

That's exactly the kind of tactics that Lincoln employed to end slavery.

He got people absolutely wasted before issuing the Emancipation Proclamation.

People didn't really know what had happened until they woke up the next morning, bleary-eyed and suddenly remembered.

That's certainly what Boris Yeltsin did in Russia, except he just got himself hammered and came to agreements with himself.

But Obama hosting the beer party was another bold political move.

He likes to fly close to the sun because, yes, they could have got drunk together and ended up stumbling away happy saying, I bloody love you.

We're going to sign this stimulus bill together because you are my best friend in the world.

But it also could have turned into an all-out brawl.

Also, in another major foreign policy shift, Obama has decided to send a letter to Iran.

The US State Department has apparently been working on drafts of this letter since election day and it's in reply to a lengthy letter of congratulation sent to Obama by Ahmadinejad and it is so hard to get the tones of these letters exactly right and it's like it's like when you're in the early days of a relationship you don't want to come off as too eager.

Now he's left a good amount of time before replying just to keep Iran guessing, keep them keen.

He's not got carried away and carved Obama and Ahmadinejad forever into a tree.

No, he's not standing outside Ahmadinejad's bedroom holding a stereo over his head playing love lift us up where we belong.

And there was so much to decide on.

John, are you giving an insight into your seduction techniques?

I've got two moves, Andy.

The tree carving and the love lift us up where we belong.

If none of those work, I am snake eyes.

I've come up snake eyes.

I don't know any better seduction technique than that.

Put the two together.

It's never failed.

Sorry, it's never succeeded.

I got that wrong.

It's never succeeded.

And there was so much to decide on.

Did they go go with a letter or maybe a card with a kitten lying asleep on a dog's chest, proving that adversaries can get along?

Maybe just a Twitter message.

Don't drop that.

You don't know what you're talking about.

Don't just drop that because you've heard it mentioned on a trendy news broadcast.

Explain Twitter to me, Andy.

Explain that reference you just made.

Sean, we've just got too much to get through in this podcast.

Bro, I don't have time to get sidetracked.

So it's a question of time rather than a lack of knowledge.

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

And something tells me, Andy, that a lot more of these letters are going to be going out over the course of the next few months.

It's like America is now part of the famous 12-step program to recovery.

By electing Obama, they've admitted they have a problem.

That's step one.

The way I see it, they're around step eight now, which is make a list of all persons you have harmed and become willing to make amends to them all.

There are going to be letters landing on the doorsteps of Castro, Chavez, Kim Yong-il, and in terms of the environment, on the doorstep of every single inhabitant on Earth, which ironically is going to be an astonishing waste of paper and fuel transporting the letters around the Earth.

earth.

They just can't win, Andy.

They can't win.

Obama also has said that America will ease back on the use of torture.

This is, of course, the land of the free rather than the land of the free reign.

Waterboarding and other forms of what its proponents might refer to as justice accelerators are out.

Out, John.

Obama's executive order that he's released sets out to promote the safe, lawful, and humane treatment of individuals in U.S.

custody.

To which Dick Cheney was heard to respond.

Oh, the safe, lawful and humane treatment of individuals.

Why, why, why?

And also commented that we only degraded you sexually and debased your religion because we love democracy so much.

Amongst the techniques that are allowed, John, under the current code, include techniques called rapid fire questioning, we know all, good cop, bad cop, ego up, ego down, emotional, fear up, and silent.

Now, these all sound like rounds in a studio-based TV game show for adults.

It does.

Ego up, ego down sounds like a Japanese game show.

Well, in fact, it's interesting you should say that because, according to the Geneva Convention, sounding like a round in a TV game show is a criterion for acceptable torture.

Whereas waterboarding, that only sounds like it might feature in a kids' game show that's not allowed.

And other techniques, including mock execution, dog threatening, and posed sexual acts, they would only appear in a Japanese TV game show, so they also are completely off the books.

The World Economic Forum has started in Davos as well, usually a chance for finance leaders to sit around and chat whilst rolling around in piles of gold and cackling.

But not this year, Andy.

A number of bankers have decided not to attend, prompting British Chancellor Alastair Darling to pull out of going as well.

And by the way, for American listeners, the British Chancellor really is called Alastair Darling.

I know that hearing it for the first time can be difficult to believe.

You get used to it, but it never stops being ridiculous.

Well, of course, every year, the great and the good of World Economics gather in the Swiss resort of Davos to pat themselves on the back and tell everyone how lucky we are that they invented money before going down a bobsled run on a solid gold luge and blowing cigar smoke in chalet girls faces but this year they've been wiping themselves on the back trying to cleave the bird shit off their jacket which has been deposited by the chickens which have come home to roost on their shoulders.

It seems, Andy, that no one really wants to face the reality of the meltdown that we are currently facing.

And the word meltdown is never a positive thing to hear unless in connection with a sandwich.

Well and Andy.

What kind of sandwich?

I don't know, like a cheese and tuna meltdown.

Right.

Cheese and tuna, that's an unholy combo.

Yeah, no, that was that's a bad.

Do you know like cheese and bacon meltdown?

That'd be nice.

Cheese and tomato meltdown.

What would you melt tuna with?

I wouldn't melt it with anything, John.

I'd have it raw with some wasabi and soy.

Financial experts are starting to sound like a cross between a weather forecaster just before a huge tornado hits.

It's all board your windows shut, stand by your radio and stockpile canned goods, and a crazy man shouting at traffic.

Bankers seem spectacularly unable or unwilling to learn from their mistakes.

It was announced this week that Wall Street gave out 18 billion in bonuses over the last year, the sixth biggest amount ever.

Wow, Andy, they have got some bulls.

They have got titanium balls, balls they cannot afford and which we have bought for them.

In fact, John Thane, the ex-head of Merrill Lynch and the man who spent $1.22 million in corporate funds to decorate his office, including a $35,000 commode on legs, and the man who paid out $4 billion of public bailout money in employee bonuses said, if you don't pay your best people, you will destroy your franchise.

What are you talking about, you massive moron?

You spectacular piece of shit.

Your company failed.

And it's this kind of bulls that destroyed it.

You arsehole.

Yeah, the talking, Davos, so far has been of exactly how totally shafted the world is.

And it does seem that the world is as totally shafted as someone who's been forced to watch a 1971 blaxploitation film about a private detective back to back for 10 unbroken years.

Thanks very much.

A panel of economists, in fact, economists who'd predicted this crisis and have therefore never been allowed to set foot in Davos until this year, blamed the rapidly unfolding map to shitsville with which our economic and political leaders have been navigating the world partly on the culture of short-term reward for long-term risk.

And Nassim Taleb, a former derivatives trader and author, described derivatives trading as being, quote, all about how to make a bonus and screw your client, which makes it, as a profession, the exact equivalent of prostitution, especially if you leave the S off the word bonus.

Only it's grubbier because your client has not asked to be screwed.

I would equivalise this overall situation, John, to how you would feel as you sat in your house as it bobbed up and down on top of a lava jet from an exploding volcano.

Yes, it might have been a bit foolish of you to buy the house, even if it had a really nice view and natural underfloor heating.

But also to blame are the estate agent who aggressively sold it to you as an unmittable property and a safe investment with great potential, the builder who didn't bother to make the house volcano-proof because it would have cut into his profit margin, the planning officer who gave permission for the house to be built because he hated saying no and ruining people's dreams, the self-appointed unqualified geologists who said, no, it's not a volcano, it's a big molehill, that rumbling you can feel, that's a really big mole.

And most of all to blame is Pele.

Not the greatest footballer of all time and celebrity vasectomy reverser, but Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of volcanoes, an unquestionable hottie, who not only put the volcano there, but made it erupt when she lost her notoriously magmatic temper after she caught Greek volcano god Hephaestus, obviously copying a pervert her delectable Ponson Beast.

And as you sit there, John, atop your fountain of fire, waiting for the inevitable incendiary crashdown and wondering if any of Florence Nightingale's boyfriends ever called her pyroclastic flow after a particularly hot and rumbustious encounter.

I guess you can console yourself by thinking, well, I guess we're all to blame.

We're all to blame apart from that professional volcanologist with a clipboard who's been locked in a soundproof vault and has spent the last 15 years shouting, for f's sake, stop building and buying houses on top of volcanoes.

Bugle feature section now and health.

That's right, neither Andy nor I are qualified doctors, but we do both have internet access, so that qualification is only ever a few clicks away.

Medical hoax news and Baroness Murphy, a member of the House of Lords, has admitted that when she was a young doctor, she hoodwinked the British Medical Journal into publishing a report on the medical condition called Cello Scrotum.

Now, this was

apparently...

What a magnificent combination of words that is.

Cello scrotum.

Cello scrotum.

Didn't he used to play for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers?

No, no, you're thinking,

I was was in a band at school called Cello Scrotum.

Sorry, my mistake.

The hoax report that Baroness Murphy was involved in in the 1970s that she's now come clean about over 30 years later, said that the chafing of the cello could cause an irritation in one assumes particularly male cellists by a chafing of your instrument on your instruments and the age-old battle between Stradivarius and Nutzack.

And I want to know, John, if Cello Scrotum is a hoax, where will the lies end, John?

How many people have suffered and perhaps even died because of non-existent diseases?

And is it because people trust doctors?

And they trust anyone with a stethoscope and a clipboard.

And that's basically how the British Empire worked.

So if one of these self-styled doctors tells you that you've got terminal heptamoclical flamboliosis or inoperable vancatragevan's finger, what are you going to do, John?

Are you going to say, hang on for a moment a boy, I feel fine.

I want a second opinion from someone who isn't giggling.

No.

You're going to trust them.

You'll say, well, thanks for sparing me the agony of living to 150.

Tell my wives wives I love them.

And if you've got time, pick up my suit from the dry cleaners so I've got something smart to be buried in.

Then curl up in a ball and slowly die.

And that is what the medical profession has relied on for too long, John.

We're too trusting.

This is not the kind of thing that doctors should be doing, Andy, because there is definitely a hypochondriac cellist out there who has spent the last 30 years panicking every time his cello goes everywhere near his cojones.

In fact, Yo-Yo Ma, the cellist during the inauguration, played with a foam pad around his testicles.

And I presume that was why.

Other invented medical conditions include a veterinarian squint, which is suffered by 85% of all vets.

It's a muscular cramping in one side of the face caused by repetitive grimacing whilst shoving a gloved arm up a cow's fundamentals and thinking to oneself, I spent how long training to do this?

Also, banker's neck, a relatively new condition and increasingly common amongst high-ranking bank executives.

It's a stiffness of the neckle region caused by looking over one's shoulder while sneaking out of one's office with a suitcase full of crisp 50s to make sure no one's watching.

and also politicians' chin, an inflammation and scrafing of the chinnock area on politicians and industrial economic spokespersons caused by repeated and vigorous tucking of the chin into the throat to convey particular seriousness when making a statement about an issue that will impact devastatingly on the lives of potential voters due to the previous actions of the chin tucker prevalent amongst 1990s conservative ministers and gordon brown in response to this story andy the a british medical journal spokesman said that the inclusion and now debunking of cello scrotum had and i quote simply added to the gaiety of life.

Does this spokesman Andy live in a Jane Austen novel?

Coffee health news now and UK research has found out that people who drink too much coffee could start seeing ghosts and or hearing strange voices.

And here was my response to this story, Andy.

I drink an heroic amount of coffee.

In fact, this has started to make me think, does the bugle even exist, Andy?

Or are you a coffee-based hallucination?

Who's Andy?

Oh, God.

Well, Well, that's the point.

You see, we drink a lot of coffee separately, and even more whenever we're together.

So, are we living a kind of comedic-based version of Fight Club?

You're my Brad Pitt, Andy.

I'm your Edward Norton.

Yeah, but that's always been the case, John.

That predates the Bugle by several years.

Your emails now, and this very useful update comes from Thor Alabaster Doherty, who writes,

in addition to his made-up name, what ho, Buglemeisters?

Good start.

Now that King Obama is in charge of the USA, I thought I'd take a look back and then in capitals, you can still contribute to the Rudy Giuliani for president campaign.

Is that for a few years' time or is that still

the current president?

2008.

Right.

And you know, let's not write him off yet.

He's shown he's tough, Giuliani.

He can come back from difficulties.

So who knows?

Who knows?

He's a powerful man.

He's got a lot of contacts.

We've had some more death threats, Andy, coming in after talking about how much we liked.

And here's one from Daniel Coley saying, dear buglers, hey a-holes!

Well, you have my full undivided attention, Daniel.

Patrick isn't the only one who threatened to kill you.

So did I.

Not only that, but I also threatened to get you sent to hell.

I tried to carry out my plot at the inauguration, John, but it's difficult to sneak a weapon into that sort of thing.

Testify.

I was in fact inclined to let the whole thing go, but now you are destined to adorn my the space above my fireplace.

That goes for you too, Andy.

After killing, skinning, and mounting John on a wall, hello, I'm swimming across the Atlantic and finding you.

Run like hell, gentlemen.

Sincerely, Daniel Coley.

Oh, Daniel.

Well, it should be put in context.

This is a guy who emailed us a couple of months ago and said that he'd done a bugle marathon and listened to every single episode of the bugle concurrently.

So it's understandable that he has gone spoon loony.

Another threat, Andy, came in from Mauricio Aldecasilla, whose subject was threat and not idle either, and said, Hello, Andy, hello, John.

I consider sending you a death threat, but I see that market is already more than covered.

Well, even more than we originally thought.

No, I come to you with great portance of things to come, lest hotties from history is restored.

People are pissed off, Andy.

It's still so much been cancelled.

That's moved to the rest of the bugle now.

You may think you're a bad Jew and Catholic, respectively, but you're both terrible, terrible Mormons.

True.

You think this does not concern you?

Well, keep in mind that Mormons can convert you after you are dead.

Good point.

So, as soon as Patrick comes through, you are looking at an eternity in Mormon hell.

I've got to say, Mormon hell sounds like anyway.

Therefore, I expect either A, Hotties from History back from podcast limbo, or B, Andy marrying his third wife by this time next week.

And John, you know what?

John gets a pass on that one.

God knows, at least he's trying.

What?

So, thanks once again for your emails.

Do keep them coming into the bugle at timesonline.co.uk.

Bugle sport now, and well, of course, there's only one big sporting story of the week, and that is where the Harlequins will play their quarterfinal of the Heineken Company.

Stephanie

to Twickenham to maximise revenue.

That's not that you've got that wrong.

Is it the beginning of the World Skiing Championships?

No, that's strike two.

No,

is it the International COPSAS SARSAT satellite system stopping monitoring for Class B signals from distress radio beacons?

You took a big swing on it, but no, that's strike three.

You're out, Andy.

It is the Super Bowl.

Right.

So yes, it will have happened by the time you listen to this, assuming you listen to it on Monday or subsequently.

Super Bowl 43, John.

This is Bugle 62.

Yeah, Bugles and Super Bowls and World Series involving the St.

Louis Cardinals put together.

Suck on it, Super Bowls.

Take that Pooh Holtz and Ruffelsberger.

That's right, we've had more.

So it's the Arizona Cardinals against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

John, I think for me, it's going to come out to two things.

What?

Offense and defence.

Well, who says?

British people don't understand the intricacies of American football.

That's right.

Who says?

Simple game, overcomplicated by over-analysis.

I mean, it's going to be very difficult for people to get particularly motivated by those two teams, Andy, but it's still the greatest spectacle in sports.

And of course, especially when the first time we watched together years ago, we spent, I guess, the whole of the time firing guns at each other.

We got lots of toy guns, Andy and some of our friends.

A friend of ours called Danny baked a chili.

and then we invented some game where I can't even remember what it was.

So every time a flag was thrown you got shot in the head with a plastic dart.

I can't remember but it was a lot of fun.

It was our British tribute to American culture.

The halftime shows being performed by stand-ins Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band after the original choice Australian singer and artist Rolf Harris had to pull out.

Harris had been due to do a quick painting of Donald Duck kicking a field goal whilst humming a medley of his own songs to himself.

But sadly left his paintbrush at home in Australia and had to withdraw.

So John, I think this match is going to come down to who reacts best to Springsteen sets.

And of course, last year, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady is a massive Rolling Stones fan, and after half-time, he couldn't stop thinking about trying to get Charlie Watts' autograph after the game.

So, really, it's all about keeping your focus after the halftime show.

Are you sure that it was the Rolling Stones last year, Andy?

Was that two years ago?

I thought it was Tom Petty last year.

Oh, it was Petty, you're right.

All right, well, okay, Tom Petty's autograph, or whatever his drummer's name is.

You're going to have to just take the joke back, Andy.

There's an official recall on that joke.

Flag on a joke.

joke.

That's been

an inaccurate reference.

Repeat first joke.

Australian Open tennis updates and the 2009 Australian Open champion Andy Murray is still on course to win the 2009 Australian Open despite being knocked out by Spanish racket wielder Fernando Vidasco in the fourth round due to a combination of physics, maths, the quixotic tennis scoring system, a bit of a cold and the vengeance of the almighty lord for the war crimes committed by the Scots at the Battle of Bannetburn in 1314.

God is tenacious, Murray, isn't he?

He just won't go down.

After his defeats, Murray inhabited the body of world number one Rafael Nadal.

He said, It's been a bit weird playing in Rafael's body.

He's left-handed and plays quite a different game to me, so it's taken a bit of adjusting.

That's why my form dipped a bit when Nadal beat Gilles Seamel in the quarter-final, and I struggled to get past Verdasco in the semi.

But I'm confident by the final I'll be ready to beat Federer.

Both Rafa and myself have good records against Roger, so I can't see how a combination of us both couldn't win.

It's going to be a great day for British tennis.

Vamos!

Also, John, I'd like to take this opportunity to announce my retirement from top-level tennis.

I'm 34 now, and I'm getting on a bit in tennis terms.

I've been a professional tennis player for 15 years now, freelance, and I'm just not getting enough work to justify carrying on.

No.

I've never really been booked to do any tennis anywhere, in fact, in my pro-career.

So I'm leaving with a lot of memories, John, and no regrets.

Right.

Might go on the senior circuit in a couple of years.

You're a bad tennis player, Andy.

Well, John.

You're bad at tennis.

John, 6'1.

That's all I'd say to you.

No, 6'1.

No,

you are completely falsely remembering that.

What do you mean?

6-1?

Or was it 6-Love?

All I know is that by the end, that racket was begging to get out of your hand.

Bugle forecast now, and, well, the forecast this week, John, is we've got a man coming to deal with our pigeon problem on Wednesday.

How deep does this

pigeon problem go, Andy?

Well, they are nesting above off our front porch, John.

Yes.

Not only they're nesting but they're cooing quite a lot and even more than cooing they're shitting a hell of a lot.

So we have what I believe is technically known as guano all over the place.

Yes.

And these pigeons are going to get it big time, whether they like it or not.

Big time.

We've got a man coming to deal with them.

I'm hoping to have pigeon pie for breakfast.

How do you deal...

I mean that sounds sinister.

How do you deal with a pigeon?

I think you just climb up a ladder as a stern talking to them, shoes them off and then sticks some little metal spikes where their nest was

and then disinfects the entire outside of our house so the forecast is by next week there will be no pigeons shitting on my doorstep that's all buglers bye-bye have a great week and goodbye

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.