Obama and his not so secret code name

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, Buglers, and welcome to issue 53 of The Bugle, the World's Leading and Only Audio Newspaper for a Visual World for the week beginning Monday, the 17th of November, 2008, with me, Andy Zoltzmann, in the picturesque town of London and in New York City it's John Oliver.

Hello Andy!

Hello buglers!

What have you been doing this week?

What have you done?

I've been what's happened in Andy's world this week?

Not a lot John, I've been going through quite a lot of receipts.

Good anecdote.

Thanks mate.

And that is why you are the second highest paid public speaker in England though.

But I have

that's bad news for other public speakers in England.

I have learned a valuable lesson this week though, John.

And that is no matter how hard I as a comedian strive to find the perfect joke.

And I think my various efforts to make sausage-based puns on the words worst and worst prove that I do strive harder than a granite-coated walnut.

However hard I strive, it's Herculean.

Herculean.

Nothing will ever be more entertaining for the human soul than hearing a 22-month-old child say the word sausages for the first time.

Where did she do that?

Well, she was playing with a little doll's house that

she's got and she put a little dog in a chair and I said, what's the doggie eating?

And she said, sausages.

She's got it.

She's got it.

She's got it.

She's got it.

She's got the timing.

She's got the winning smile after the punchline.

She's every bit the comedian her dad could never be.

That's right.

Well, and there's been a bit of a blast from the past.

here in America this week.

Ex-Congressman Mark Foley was back in the news.

You may remember him because, funny story, he was heading up a committee investigating internet pedophilia when he was, and this is the really funny part, sending sexually explicit emails and texts to underage pages.

You just had to not be there.

Foley had his first interview for two years this week, and in it he claims that the minors involved were only, and I quote, months away from being men.

Wow.

Two years and that is the best you can do.

Congressman Mark Foley, Andy, he really puts the un into repentant.

So it is the week beginning Monday the 17th of November which means that it is 450 years to the second since Queen Elizabeth I became Queen of England.

The pale-faced ginger nut famously admitted that she had the body of a weak and feeble woman but the heart and stomach of a king.

And we now know that it was true, John, because recently discovered papers released under the Official Secrets and Lies Act have shown that her body was in fact so weak and feeble that in 1574 she underwent major transplant surgery and received the heart and stomach of King Alfonso XII of Navarre, the northern Spanish kingdom.

He'd been captured by the English Navy whilst on his way home from a shoplifting expedition in a Portsmouth clothes store in 1567.

Alfonso sadly died during the operation, but during the public operation at Tyburn he met his death with such coolness and good humour that he became something of a cult hero.

Indeed, Alfonso, or Fons as he became posthumously known, was heard to mutter Dias Vedices, which roughly translates as happy days as his carotid artery was severed.

Stories of his suave and funky actions spread and became burnished and embellished by the retellings of history.

And exactly 400 years later, those myths were turned into a hit American TV sitcom.

Fonzi's catchphrase, E,

is thought to be derived from the A

noise that Alfonso made when the official royal surgeon, the Blatchcroft Scrofflescrotch, made the initial incision with the royal chainsaw.

Also, 75 years to the date since America first officially recognised the USSR, President Frankie Roosevelt, after hearing about the nation for the first time during his weekly game of volleyball with Secretary of State Cordell Hull, held a public competition to enable the people of America to decide what those letters USSR should stand for.

Eventually, he plumped for Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, much to the disappointment of novelist John Steinbeck, who suggested unbelievably stinky, smelly ruskies, songster Woody Guthrie, who submitted useless, sodding, spiky-bearded reds, and film star Mae West, whose entry was Up Your Shit Faces, Suck My Rumpole.

As always, some sections of the bugle are going straight in the bin this week.

In the bin, a baggage section, including how to tell the difference between baggage and luggage in a crowded airport departure lounge.

Also, how to make your bags get all the attention of the airports.

A torn bag of talcum powder and a couple of sticks of beef jerky to attract the sniffer dogs are absolutely crucial.

Also, how to use your luggage to find the perfect life partner.

Your bag says so much about you.

For example, are you a man or a woman?

The bag could give vital clues.

Also, do you like golf or shopping for vegetables in a market?

There is a world of difference in a bag, John.

Later on in this week's Bugle, a very special competition indeed.

A real one with an actual prize.

Hang on to your britches.

Top story this week, the economy.

Andy, you know those images of polar bears standing on melting pieces of ice?

Well, we are now those polar bears, and those tiny pieces of ice used to be the economy.

He's had one week now of still not quite being president, and Barack Obama has still singularly failed to fix the global economy.

Worst, not quite yet, president ever.

Always destined to end an anti-climax, John.

Always.

He's done nothing.

The expectation levels were too high.

So instead, we're left with the current president, who is doing his level best at the moment to look like he gives a shit about anything anymore.

He really is trying.

He just can't help looking like he's about to say, sorry, but I'm going to chalk this up as a YP, not an MP.

Oh, what means?

Your problem, not my problem.

He's at the end of his workday now, Andy.

And if you're at work, say it's 5.45, you've got one eye on the clock, if the phone rings at work and you think it might be a big job, there is every chance you're just going to let that phone ring and play some more Minesweeper on your computer.

And that is what Bush is doing regarding the economy at the moment.

I bet he is setting some top scores for Minesweeper on the Oval Office computer.

Unfortunately, Bush's copy of Minesweeper is actually a real Minesweeper.

That was a problem.

And that was not point.

They only found that out after six years.

Yeah, Bush has almost literally been phoning it in, John, and hearing him attempt to explain the complexities of global economics is a bit like watching a dolphin trying to climb a tree or a sausage trying to play basketball.

It's just not going to work, and ideally, it shouldn't have been allowed to happen.

Well, Bush admitted this week that the financial system does need reforming, but insisted that the credit crunch was not a failing of the free market system.

He's still defending the free market despite how naughty it has been.

Essentially, he thinks the free market is still a good kid.

It just fell in with a bad crowd, made some bad decisions.

So instead of an apology, we got a lecture about the dangers of too much government intervention from the self-same man who had just championed the biggest bailout in US history.

I was quite intrigued, John, by the meeting of the G20 in Washington.

Now, the market's been going up and down like a well-meaning but forgetful priest trying to remember what he's supposed to be praying about.

And so it seems to the number of countries in the G.

It's been seven,

the G8

has been 14 at times.

Now all of a sudden it's 20.

And it seems that the market for countries in the G G is no more stable than oil or anything else.

And I think really it's time that the G192, or as they're more commonly known, the United Nations, clamp down and impose a regulation number of countries in any given G.

I'd say 10.

They're meeting in Washington over the weekend to discuss the financial crisis.

And I don't know if they're going to be discussing the crisis so much as hiding in a room with all the lights turned out to try and convince journalists that they're not there.

Shh, everyone be quiet.

They'll go in a minute.

It's affecting the entire world.

The Eurozone is now officially in recession, as is Germany.

And, John, well, we all know what happens when Germany goes into recession, don't we?

They vote in the Nazis.

You would have thought there was one thing the economic world should have learned from the 20th century.

It was don't let Germany go into recession.

They'll just start dressing up in fishnet stockings and voting in the Nazis.

How many times does it have to happen?

I'm not saying they're definitely going to do it again, Andy.

I'm just saying, let's keep a really close eye on them this time.

So, what what news of the bailout bill here, Andy?

That's the $700 billion that the taxpayers have left in a brown paper bag on a bench outside Congress, just like they told us to.

Well, $290 million of that has already been committed to saving various banks, but that still leaves a fair chunk of change.

And there is good news and bad news on that front.

The good news is that Congress only approved the bailout on the condition that some independent oversight posts were set up to prevent corruption and government waste.

That's a good idea.

The bad news is that absolutely none of those posts have been filled yet and the first monetary report has not been completed despite the deadline passing.

But wait, it's not over yet.

The even worse news that I didn't offer you at the start is that Eric Thorson, the Treasury Department's Inspector General, said, and I quote, it's a mess.

I don't think anyone understands right now how we're going to do proper oversight of this thing.

Now, first of all, don't call it a thing.

That is simply too vague and colloquial for a man in his position.

This just goes to back up my suspicion that literally no one knows what is happening.

It's true, absolutely no one knows.

The G20, though, have pledged very kindly to tackle the meltdown.

That was the results of that summit.

They've agreed to do something about it at some point in the future.

And that's a bit reminiscent when Captain Smith on the Titanic, John, issued a press release pledging to do absolutely everything he could to resolve the iceberg and sinking crisis, but pleaded for patience from the public as repairs tended to take longer when both he and the ship were lying 2.5 miles underwater.

The leading candidate for the post of special inspector in the US is currently Neil Borofsky, a lawyer who used to work as a white-collar criminal defence attorney.

That's right, defence.

Not prosecution, defence.

The man who is likely to be a watchdog for corrupt businessmen is the very man who used to keep them out of jail.

You're right, Louis Armstrong.

It is a wonderful world.

I get it now.

Trees of green, red roses too, and white-collar criminal defence attorneys becoming government-appointed oversight chiefs.

Oh

yeah.

Andy, when you struggle to understand what is going on regarding the economy, which I find is all the time, it can be helpful to gauge the scale of the problem by looking at the faces of the people involved.

I will not soon forget Obama's face during his first press conference after meeting with his top economic advisors.

He was a shadow of the man who had been on television 48 hours previously.

He was stumbling over his words, visibly rattled.

And he clearly just spent 45 minutes sitting in a room with some of the world's greatest financial minds, telling him in the clearest possible terms, how f we are.

We're f Obama.

No, no, look at me.

We're power f.

Is that a technical term?

I don't know, but it should be.

I think it applies here.

So do you think he's regretting applying for the president's job already, John?

Well, the job kind of shifted during his long, long-winded application.

The interview process just took too long.

Right.

Because, you know, it can happen.

I remember when I was a boy, John, on my eighth birthday, I had a dream and I asked if I could run the local waste collection and disposal service for my local council.

And they said, sure, kid.

Knock yourself out.

So I went in for my rubbish briefing and it turned out to be quite a lot more complicated and harder than I'd ever envisaged.

And, you know, sure, I had to get it done.

And I got it done in the end, but people have to be patient.

I can only really use my inexperience as an excuse for the first couple of years.

But these things are always tougher than you expect in advance, John.

Just ask Moses, for example.

You know, even with God promising us the land, it's still been a tricky business over the last 6,000 years or so.

Other news now, and well, John, this is probably one of the most significant moments in British history.

Prince Charles is 60 years old.

Happy birthday, Prince Charles, from the bugle.

Charles has basically now been waiting 56 years to replace the Queen as King of Britain.

And I think that must be the longest anyone has ever been on standby for anything.

And as the Prince enters his seventh decade, he must have been struck by the ironic timing of a report that came out this week, which showed that Britain came a pitiful 81st in the world at paying men and women the same money for doing the same jobs.

And showed our nation continuing to slide embarrassingly down the Gender Equality League.

And yet, John, the British throne has had female buttocks on it for 119 of the last 171 years and what buttocks yeah not just any old buttocks no as as discussed on this program before queen victoria had 64 years of huge buttocks on their throne probably increasingly large in fact they had to expand the throne in about 1884 That really would be an awkward moment for any employee of the palace.

Hey, Vicky,

we were thinking about how to put this delicately.

Just adding a foot either side of your huge ass on that throne.

How's that?

Off with my what, you say?

It's quite embarrassing, though.

81st best in the world, John.

From this from a country that has produced such feisty females as Roman slang East Anglian Tempress Bodicea, nudist jockey Lady Godiver, and of course the Crimean Foor Florence Nightingale, railings enthusiast Mrs.

Panky Pankhurst, and not to mention the former world tennis number five, Joe Jury.

I know 81st sounds bad, Annie, but perhaps if someone had told us it was a competition, we might have taken the whole thing a bit more seriously.

Apparently, this is partly down to our worsening performance in gender equality and partly due to the improving performances of countries like Latvia.

Oh, well, if women like Latvia so much, Annie, why don't they just go and live there?

Britain scored only 28 out of 100 for women's political empowerment compared with 53% scored by the best country in this category, Finland.

Ooh.

But the fact is, John, if you and I were women, we would probably have to pay to do the bugle.

That's how bad it is.

If or when.

Of course, many traditionalists explain away gender equality by saying that women live longer than men, so on a per year's life expectancy, we are actually paid the same, roughly.

Also, that men need more money because they drink more and go to more football matches.

And also, women are used to the elemental agonies of childbirth.

so what's a few quid less on a paycheck?

They're all strong arguments, Andy.

I don't really see that we have a problem here.

In fact, this seems like a non-story to me.

Obama update now, and the election of Barack Obama has already had a significant impact on the country, and he isn't even president yet.

Gun sales have gone through the roof as people are panicked buying weapons, frightened that Obama is going to attack the Second Amendment.

And there is nothing more reassuring in this life, Andy, than terrified people armed to the teeth.

And maybe this is his attempt at reviving the economy, because there were queues outside gun shops at nine o'clock the next morning after the election.

And buying guns at nine in the morning, that is a hell of a way to start the day.

I like to get up, have a bowl of Wheatie flakes, go buy the biggest, loudest gun I can find, and fire it into a bowl full of eggs.

I call that scrambled eggs eggs Texas style.

Well, it's great news for the economy, John.

It shows that Obama really already knows what he's doing.

By suggesting that he might clamp down on guns, he's encouraged people to go out and buy guns.

Now, this, of course, in turn will lead by a kind of economic domino effect to a boost in sales of bulletproof tabards, bullet-proof windscreens, bullet-proof coffee mugs.

Because the last thing you want in a shootout is a scalding hot latte all over your groin.

And, of course, surge in also gun-related crime also boosts criminal lawyers, freelance pathologists who get contracts in to cover the official shortfall.

Companies who make the white paint used to make the outlines around bodies at crime scenes.

Companies who build prisons, guys who own burger vans stationed outside courtrooms.

You know, we all benefit from gun crime and I think Obama's realised this and that's what makes him the economic visionary who is going to save the world.

One of the people on camera queuing up outside the gun store was dressed like Father Christmas.

And thing is, he really looked like him as well.

And it seems that even Santa is concerned about his Second Amendment rights.

How else is he supposed to keep the elves in line?

Or indeed defend himself from the hordes of angry, naughty children?

Take me off the list, old man, or face the consequences.

Also in Obama News, a sheikh in Galilee, the region made famous by the Bible, has claimed that he and his family are linked by blood to Barack Obama.

And John, I guess it was only a matter of time before everyone in the world started claiming that they are linked to Obama.

In fact, of course, I claimed that on the show last week.

Many people around the world are laying claim to close links with Obama.

A councillor from Sunderland in the northeast of England claimed that if you look at an aerial photograph of his town, it looks a bit like Obama's cheek.

42-year-old Paul Hoffingston from London said he once watched Hawaii 5-0 while on a business trip to Des Moines, Iowa, and that Obama is from Hawaii, and that both he and the president will be 50 in the next 10 years.

Also, the entire population of Queensland, Australia, thinks Obama is probably a good bloke and would like to go for a couple of beers with him, according to a local man.

And Ecuadorian Freddie Mercury impersonator Ignacio Frederico Mercurio Gonzalez claimed that Obama once sang I want to break free whilst doing some housework in 1997 just like Freddie Mercury did in the video to the hit queen song.

He's a part of all of us John.

He's like Jesus but real and without the criminal record.

What does this Bedouin tribe think this means?

Do they think that this makes them president?

Do they know that this position is not hereditary and that they are not going to be moving into the White White House?

Sheikh Abdullah swears that he has papers and pictures to back this claim up, but that he will not divulge them until he has presented them to Mr.

Obama.

Something he presumes is going to happen once his relative is in the White House.

And that is very convenient.

I've got proof, but none of you can see it yet.

I need to speak to my blood first.

Also in Obama News, the Secret Service code names have been released of the new First Family.

Barack Obama's is Renegade.

That's a pretty good one.

Yes,

Michelle Obama's is Renaissance.

Malia Obama's is Radiance.

And Sasha Obama's is Rosebud.

Joe and Jill Biden also received code names and I think Joe Biden's is Celtic and he's a huge fan.

And Joe Biden's is Capri, like the Ford Capri.

Car of the millennium.

That is why Jill Biden wanted to commemorate that.

The Secret Service spokesman said, there is nothing top secret about these names.

Well, not now, they're not.

Just as well.

These names will replace George Bush's Secret Service name, which was Trailblazer, which I can only imagine was ironic or indeed threatening.

But what would your Secret Service code name be, Andy?

I don't know.

I've got one for my wife that I use

when we go anywhere dangerous.

Snout.

Right.

That's

romantic.

I mean, she must love that, Andy.

What a great husband I have, she must think, when you say, snout is in the building.

The snout has landed.

Oh, thank you, darling.

I think my secret service code name would be John.

I think I'll go up with a double bluff.

I think I might go with John as well.

No, you can't do that.

If there was ever...

a high security situation at the bugle,

it would cause kind of confusion and at least one of of us would escape.

You know, I've spent quite a lot of time over the history of this podcast making up nicknames of American presidents.

And it turns out that the American Secret Service are doing exactly the same thing.

And I can't help thinking that they should concentrate on the important stuff and leave that kind of bullshit to us.

Bugle feature section now, and this is President McCain the next four years.

Now this is a section that we recorded in advance of the American election, and just in case you know we were covered in events of either results, it would just be a shame not to use it.

So, this would have been the section we'd have done to commemorate the election of John McCain.

So Andy, John McCain won the presidency on Tuesday and that sound you can hear just outside my studio is America going up in flames.

We've been rioting all week Andy this makes the Rodney King riots look like a bar mitzvah.

In fact I've got a flaming torch on me now Andy which I must nip out in a second to go put through a shop window.

I've just got to get this rage out somehow.

So it sparked scenes of quite non-existent celebration around the world John the election of McCain.

We've got correspondents for the bugle on the streets of Kenya.

Let's just hear from Kenya now.

Big day for them.

Yep, so that's the reaction in Kenya.

Also, on the streets of Indonesia, let's hear how they've reacted to McCain's victory.

And also, absolutely no gatherings to celebrate on the streets of London.

Let's hear what that sounded like.

And of course, in America, John, Republican supporters have celebrated jubilantly by switching off their TV sets and muttering to themselves, well, thank God, that's a bullet dodged.

It was my bullet, and I've dodged having to fire it at Barack Obama.

It was a historic election, Andy.

Historic for the shortest amount of time that anyone has been president.

He was president for about 45 minutes.

John McCain kept looking nervously over at Sarah Palin during his acceptance speech.

And then, in a horrified moment, just at the end, as they walked down the stairs off the stage, she seemed to accidentally push him over.

He fell all the way down into the mouth of a lion that she said she'd put there to protect him from any predators.

Next thing you know, she'd ripped her clothes off.

She seemed to be wearing a tear away suit to reveal her stars and stripes bikini, at which point she started unloading a machine gun into the crowd.

Memorable speech.

Well, yeah, no one's ever going to forget that.

You know, what a way to start for President Palin.

It has emerged, John, of course, that President Palin didn't actually know that Africa is a continent rather than a country.

Yeah.

And I think...

It's not clear whether she didn't know or wasn't interested.

But yeah, carry on.

I think this is good for the world, John.

It shows that

she is prepared to go beyond the centuries, millennia, billennia-old geographical definitions that have caused the world such strife over the years and herald a new world of global inclusivity.

If only

over the last eight years or so we'd had a president who expressed such a similar level of kind of benevolent ignorance about the world, you know, we might be in a much happier planet today.

There's a great phrase which came up regarding Sarah Palin over the last few months and you know it seems even more applicable now that she's president and it's that she's a post turtle.

And the explanation of that is that when you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a post turtle.

You know she didn't get up there by herself.

She doesn't belong up there.

She doesn't know what to do while she's up there.

And you just wonder what kind of dumbass put her up there to begin with.

So it's soon to be the end of the George W.

Bush era, John.

And I guess it's up to history to judge whether or not he's made it into the top six presidents of all time.

What would you say?

I mean, this is too early to judge, really, but it is too early.

I mean, I know that history has pre-judged and saying that they're not revealing anything at the moment they're saying he's not in the top six

that's all they're saying right and what do you think four more years of republican rule means for the american relationship with uh the rest of the planet well it's hard to tell andy i'm certainly planning on killing myself at the end of this week so i won't be around to see it but i wish everyone the very best of luck it's just life isn't for me anymore

Well, John, it's what everyone's been waiting for.

It's competition time.

And what a prize we have here, John.

I mean, what is the prize Andy fascinated to know well it's an astonishing probably the greatest prize we've ever given away on the bugle here is two copies of the soon-to-be platinum selling book does anything eat bankers and 53 other indispensable questions for the credit crunched by a very promising young British comic writer called Andy Zaltzman who some of you might also have come across talking to you one second ago on this issue of the bugle.

Now wake up and concentrate.

So these are two copies of my brand new book, which is out this weekend.

Shame on you, Andy.

Shame.

For shame.

What?

For shame.

I'm just giving our lawyer listeners the opportunity to read more of the kind of bullshit I've been spousing on this show for the last year.

I'd like to point it out, Andy, that I've had a DVD out for a long time now, and I haven't mentioned it once.

I've given people the benefit of the doubt there.

I don't want to ram it down people's throats.

But your DVD was on tele in America.

And also, it just shows that you're a bit more tight-fisted than me.

And I'm willing to share my produce.

And also, I will actually sign the winning copies of this book.

As who?

Ringo Star?

John, I will sign them as any historical figure of the winner's choice.

So do mention in your answers which dead historical figure signature you would like me to fake in your prize book and why.

Buglers might like to know there's a precedent for this, that often when you go out for a bite to eat with Andy, he will sign the napkin

from a famous person.

Like, enjoyed the omelette, best wishes.

Marlon Brando.

And he'll just leave it there.

Just for someone to perhaps stumble upon and think, I wonder.

I wonder.

So, John, this is the competition question.

The winners are not those who get the question right.

The winners will be those who, as adjudicated by our judging panel, consisting of me, you, if you're not too busy, and our producer Tom, are those who get their answers most wrong.

So, the question is, who or what is Jigme Wangchuk?

So you have to get that as wrong as possible.

For example, if you were to say Jigme Wangchuk is a dragon king who was crowned in the month of the Earthrat in a place called Thim Phu, he wears a thing called a go and a hat with pictures of skulls on topped off with a pretend raven's head and what's more my friend he has a younger brother called Jiggle then you will not win the prize because that is in fact the correct answer.

Jigme Wangchuk is a 28 year old Oxford graduate who was recently coronated the fifth dragon king of Bhutan.

And ladies, not only does he believe that gross national happiness is more important than gross domestic product, but he's single, making him Bhutan's most eligible bachelor.

Himalaya, you can say that again, madam.

Anyway, so email your wrong answers to who or what is Jigme Wangchuk to thebugle at timesonline.co.uk with your full postal address.

And if you want your mother's maiden name, a memorable date, if you want us to check out how secure your bank account is.

So do email us your answers.

Thebugle at timesonline.co.uk.

Who or what is Jigme Wangchuk?

And make sure those answers reach us by 5 p.m.

GMT next Thursday, the 20th of November.

To least correct answers to winner copy of my best-selling book.

The winners will be announced live in Las Vegas by John and possibly the American next week.

Also, 50 consolation prizes of a free Bugleback issue of your choice, which you can download yourself off the internet.

Your emails now, and there's an email here from Matt C in in Florida, USA.

Dear John and Andy, we all love hyperbole, of course we do.

And while I enjoyed your recap of post-election exaggeration in the US, I must point out to you that you missed one example that is a billion times better than those you mentioned.

At least a billion, if not more.

Oprah, when asked by a reporter for a reaction after Obama's speech last Tuesday night, described his election triumph as the most meaningful thing that has ever happened.

Now, I'm just a simple American peasant next to to Oprah so who am I to argue with her no one Matt no one also I can't imagine Andy paid much attention in history class with his twisted long dead hotty obsession so maybe John can find some examples of meaningful things that have happened to counter Oprah's assessments

I can't it is the most meaningful thing that has ever happened in in the history of humanity Right.

More meaningful than when John Dillinger was killed.

Oh shit, that was more meaningful.

Okay, it was the second most meaningful.

Right.

Anyway, Matt signs off.

Say hi to the Queen for me.

I will do that, Matt.

What about when Red Rum won his third Grand National?

That was pretty good.

It's the third.

The third most meaningful thing that has ever happened behind Dillinger and Red Rum.

That's two.

And your book, that's fourth.

Yeah.

That's fourth.

Well, that hasn't happened yet first.

Let's just wait until next week.

And another post-election question comes from Cathol T.

Scullion.

Congratulations.

I sincerely hope that's your real name.

Yeah, that's a great name.

And Cathol T.

Scullion writes, now that the election is finally over, there is still one question that remains unanswered.

Does Sarah Palin's daughter still have to marry that Na'er Dewell?

What knocked her up?

Yours in wonder, Cathol.

Well, it really depends.

If Sarah Palin wants to have a major political career, then yes, yes, I think her daughter is going to have to marry that Na'er Dewell.

So I think that it's really up to Sarah Palin.

If she's happy just staying where she is, which she clearly isn't, then she doesn't have to to marry him.

But

if and when Palin wants to run for I can't even but I feel nauseous just saying it.

I can't say it.

I can't say it.

I'd rather say Voldemort.

If and when Palin wants to do that thing that we all know she's going to do, but no one really wants her to do, then yeah, she will have to marry that Prince Charming without the charming bit or the prince.

So that Prince Charming is listening to this and would like to do the world a favour.

Just start playing the field a bit.

I'm sure there's lots of bugle listeners out there who are

willing to take one for the team.

Actually, that is a good point.

If he may be the only person that can stop Sarah Palin running for office, get out there and follow your natural instincts, lad.

So, thank you for all your emails, and there will be a hotties from history roundup next week.

We must be reaching the one-year anniversary of the first hotties from history.

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

Sport now, and there is no sport this week because Australia have lost at cricket to India, which is an occasion that transcends sports.

Australia losing at cricket.

It's more like you know, it's one of the great moments in human civilization for me whenever Australia lose at this series.

That's the spirit, Andy.

That's the spirit.

One of the greatest teams to ever play the game, Andy.

You should appreciate them for what they are.

Well, I did, John, but they're now not that good.

And if they did continue winning, despite not being that good, that would have been the most depressing thing that could ever have happened to humanity.

Thankfully, they've had the decency to get properly whacked by India.

Next week, the return of Woll, the Bugles marginal sports correspondent, who will be reporting from the World Nitpicking Championships.

Forecast now, and I will be in Las Vegas next weekend.

And I'm afraid that isn't a joke.

I am actually going to be in Vegas doing stand-up there.

So the bugle will, this will be a Vegas special for the bugle.

Have you got a bow tie, John?

No.

Well, you should wear a bow tie in Vegas, shouldn't you?

Really?

All the time.

Is that standard dress coat?

Well, a tux and a bow tie, you know.

Oh, and a tux, not just a bow tie over whatever it is that you're wearing at the point.

Oh, hello.

Well, I choose option A.

Option A.

If you'd like to email in a number and a colour, we will get the average of the numbers that you email in, and we will put a bet on a roulette table.

So those colours should be red or black.

Yeah, that's right.

You'll get an average of the colour.

And the numbers should be up to, what is the number on a roulette table?

36,

up to 36.

Naught to 36.

Oh, you answered that very fast, Andy.

Well, as I said, John, I've got a kid to feed.

That's not the way to feed it.

Anyway, the point is, and neither is writing books about the dense economic situation.

But the point is, the point is, Andy,

that's it.

If buglers email in a number, then we will put on a bugle bet.

And if we win, we will split the winnings.

I don't know how we'll do that because statistically it's not going to happen.

But we'll worry about that when we get to it.

Email in a number and I'll put on a bet in Caesar's Palace.

So do email your bets to thebugle at timesonline.co.uk and next week's show will be coming live from Las Vegas, the culmination of two and a half thousand years of Western civilization.

The only forecast really will be how depressing am I likely to find it?

I'm going to go with very depressing.

Thanks for listening, Buglers.

Bye-bye.

And don't forget to internet very promising competition.

What has publishing done to you?

It's a good book, John.

It's a good book.

Bye!

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.