Joe the plumber now regrets chatting with Barack Obama

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, Buglers, and welcome to issue 49 of the Bugle for the week beginning October 20th, 2008, with me, Andy Zoltzman, in the historic city of London and in New York.

John Oliver.

Hello Andy.

Hello Buglers.

How are you doing Andy?

I'm alright.

I've had a bit of a cold this week but other than that I'm okay.

I don't think it's going to be fatal.

Good anecdote.

How's this for an anecdote Andy?

I think Lou Reed lives close to me in New York and I'll tell you why because he often sits on the steps outside my apartment drinking his coffee and I have to ask him to move so that I can get past.

That's the extent of my semi-regular relationship with Lou Reed.

And our one-way relationship took another turn recently because he was there and by chance the song Vicious was playing on my iPod.

I looked down and there was Lou sipping on his coffee and being in the way.

Classic Lou.

The two things he loves to do the most when I'm around.

It was one of the strangest moments in New York I've had.

I asked him to move because you know I still needed to get past but this time he was unwittingly serenading me as he scooted over a bit.

I had a very interesting meeting in Streatham in South London where I I live this week.

I saw the guy who works in the little cafe near the bottom of my road.

I saw him out of the cafe, which I've never done before.

That's always strange, isn't it?

Out of context.

Did you nod at him awkwardly?

He recognized.

He'll see you in the cafe, that's right.

Extra sausage.

Right, also.

So we've both had interesting weeks.

Issue 49, and what a great number 49 is.

Most test wickets ever taken in the series of cricket.

You don't need me to tell you that, John.

I think I do.

Also, Also, the most hedgehogs ever eaten in one sitting

by the late actor Paul Newman, who was rehearsing for the 50 egg-eating scene in Cool Hand Luke.

And

to make it easier,

to make it easier for himself, he warmed up by eating 50 hedgehogs so that when he got to do the scene on camera, he'd be able to manage it.

But sadly, the last day he got 49 hedgehogs down, the last one ran away, and he was stopped by the police scrabbling around in the undergrowth.

So for issue 49, also, interestingly enough, the dial-in code for Germany.

Let's not go into that.

And also the number of strings on a harp.

Who would have thought, Andy, you could find a number so inspirational?

You like a one-man Sesame Street.

It being the 20th of October, John, that means it is what Saints Day?

Come on,

you should know this.

Is it St.

Barry of Lincoln?

No, John.

It's St.

Andrew of Crete.

Now, you've had a crack at me for being a bad Jew.

So, too shy.

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

A smuggling section.

It's the new middle class trends sweeping through Britain and America.

A fun hobby for couples, friends and families and we give you tips on how to smuggle antique teddy bears, golf trophies, swivel chairs, carrots and other rare vegetables.

And the key is to dress everything you're smuggling up like an old woman and wheel it through customs with a concerned look on your face as if it is genuinely a matter of time.

Also how to tell the difference between importing, smuggling and bringing your own stuff back from holiday.

Those are three very different ways of getting things into your your country.

And also, a look back to the golden age of smuggling when smugglers were the star footballers of their day.

Also, a special giveaway going in the bin this week in association with the Jongleurs chain of comedy clubs, a free heckle.

And this week, we're starting off with the classic get off your shit.

So take that down to a Jongleurs comedy club with your special bugle token and heckle away.

Top story this week: American news, and it's getting closer and closer to Election Day.

This has been a marathon campaign, Andy, so much so that I think every American voter should be greeted outside the polling booth after voting with huge cheers, wrapped in one of those silver capes they give to marathon runners, and presented with a medal for having completed the most gruelling election in history.

You made it to the end.

You're all winners, even though around 49% of you will in fact be losers.

I for one am looking forward to this being over, Andy.

Due to my job, I'm simply watching too much news at the moment.

There is only so much news the human soul is designed to take, and I think I am well over the recommended daily threshold.

What is that amount?

I think it is about 45 minutes.

Do you know so?

Because

most major news bulletins here in Britain are half an hour long.

So maybe we Brits have a slightly lower news threshold.

It should be said, John, that the original marathon run by the Greek runner Phidipides on the way back from the Battle of Marathon did result in him dropping dead as soon as he finished it.

Which does possibly point the finger to a McCain victory.

The main news from the campaign trail this week was the third and final presidential debate from Hofstra University, Long Island.

What university?

Hofstra and bless you, John.

What university?

Hofstra.

Oh, they always come in twos.

Obama is leading in almost all polls at the moment, although this is perhaps slightly clouded by any potential Bradley effect on election day, Bradley effect being the more palatable way of saying racist effect.

All the talk in the build-up was of John McCain needing to land a knockout punch on Obama.

One MSNBC pundit said he needs a knockout.

LL Cooljay had a song called I'm Gonna Knock You Out.

Good point, pundit, but LL Cool J also had a song called Lisa's Got a Big Old Butt.

And I'd be more impressed if you managed to force that into a commentary.

It's true.

You did, Andy.

He went, Lisa's got a big old butt.

I know I told you I'd be true, but Lisa's got a big old butt, so I'm leaving you.

Has he become quite a major player in American electoral politics now?

Well, he's huge because he comes up with sound bites as strong as that one.

Right.

Any other ones that we should know about?

Yeah, backseat of my Jeep.

That was

another.

And now I'm out.

That's me three and done.

That's clearly a reference to the underfunding of the military in Iraq, an inadequate provision of equipment.

He's always been concerned about it.

Andy, here is the beauty of going up against the Democrats.

You may not need to deliver a knockout blow to them, as they have proven adept over the years at landing that punch on themselves.

Who can forget Al Gore and John Kerry repeatedly smashing themselves in the face until electoral defeat?

Or in Al Gore's case, electoral victory, then electoral defeat.

He even lost an election, he won.

Do you know how terrible you have to be at running campaigns to do that in a democracy?

Pretty bad.

It did seem though that Obama was pretty much going rope-a-dope in that last debate.

He really wasn't, you know, he was just letting McCain kind of punch himself out, kind of leaning over, whispering in his ear, is that all you got, John?

They told me you could punch before swinging off the ropes and knocking an old man to the floor.

Watching McCain get angrier and angrier and Obama essentially doing nothing was like one of those cartoons where one man puts his hand on the forehead of the shorter man who just swings his fist around until he falls over.

This debate was a much testier affair than the other two, partly because McCain came out like someone had just told him Obama had eaten his burrito, the one he'd been saving, especially for after the debate.

Did seem that he didn't quite go in hard enough though, John.

I mean, his tactic seemed to be like a rugby team that's seven points down and went for a penalty kick in the last minute instead of kicking it to touch and going for a try and a conversion.

And for our American listeners, 10 seconds left on the clock, seven points down, went for a field goal.

And for our non-US non-rugby cognizant listeners, get a fing life, sunshine.

McCain certainly tried everything.

Aggression, passive aggression, even sarcasm, which is absolutely the single most charming form of expression there is in the entire world.

Neither candidate was particularly impressive, and you start to wonder if both of them are having second thoughts over this job altogether.

Because in their defence, this was not the job they applied for over a year ago.

Since then, the economy has crashed like a panda on a motorbike.

And frankly, no one would blame them for having a part of them which wants to chuck it all in.

The way things are now, the upcoming four years look a lot less attractive to sort out.

So how do you think Obama could contrive to lose from here, John?

He's only got a couple of weeks, hasn't he, to really balls up badly.

And McCain is making it even more difficult by being so shit.

Do you think this is why he appointed Palin?

Was that he realised how things were going and he wanted to guarantee defeat?

I think that, I mean, that is the only rational explanation at this point.

It's also the only way of explaining an inexplicable moment during McCain's answer to a question on late-term abortions, which, you know, I'm always hoping for whenever a moderator opens their mouths.

Come on, late-term abortion question, come on.

When McCain ridiculed the concept of women having concerns over their health, when he said of Obama, he's health for the mother.

You know, that's been stretched by the pro-abortion movement in America to mean almost anything.

That's the extreme pro-abortion position.

Quote, health.

He was even putting physical quotation marks around the word health, Andy.

Now, I'm not a campaign manager, and if I ever become one, I'd like you to hold a pillow over my face until the twitching stops.

But I don't think that's a great way to go about winning the female vote.

And not only the female vote, but the male vote as well.

In fact, just the general human vote.

Really, for Obama to lose from here, what he would have to do would be one or all of the following.

Mutter about Ala whilst fiddling fiddling with his jacket during a press conference, make a pass at Joe Biden live on television, set fire to a Stars and Stripes whilst urinating on the Lincoln Memorial, or announcing killing firstborn children as a new money-saving policy.

And there's there might be something in that because you've got to analyse these policies in terms of their impact on the incomes of the average American family in these straightened financial times.

And in fact, most families would be significantly better off under a killing the firstborn scheme.

So it might actually be a vote winner.

In fact, in many ways, John, firstborn children are a tax on the fertile.

Whereas Whereas I think for McCain to win from here, what he would have to do is get under Obama's skin, literally, and then play him like a puppet.

Make him do Nazi salutes and terrorist fist bumps left, right, and centre.

I think you might have a chance then.

Or he's going to need some quality endorsements.

Has Colin Powell actually...

Because there's a lot of rumours about him being about to endorse Obama.

Yeah,

he hasn't done that yet, but no one would be surprised if he did.

Right.

One of the reasons he hasn't done it yet is because apparently he's been busy singing hip-hop songs in the Albert Hall about Nigerian email fraud.

I heard about that.

You do want to check what they're singing about before you start jumping around.

He has shown his gullibility on previous occasions, I guess.

That's true.

That's true.

He's got a track record.

At least this time it was a little more obvious.

Are you sure this is a genuine hip-hop song?

Okay, okay.

Well, that's good enough for me.

The surprise issue which emerged was both candidates' desire to appeal to one man in Ohio who was referred to as Joe the Plumber.

Joe Joe the Plumber was mentioned 20 times during the debate, four times more than Iraq.

And this followed a run-in that Joe the Plumber had with Obama on his campaign trail when Joe questioned Obama's tax plan and how much money that would lose him.

Obama had responded that perhaps everyone will benefit if we, and I quote, spread the wealth around a bit, which many people here took to mean that Obama was about to slap a Lenin mask on and prance around muttering in Russian.

The media fell in love with Joe the Plumber camping outside his house that night, but by mid-morning the next day, they were already looking for dirt on him, whether he'd registered to vote, and the fact that he was once a member of the Natural Law Party, which George Harrison had once belonged to, which can involve yogic flying.

This...

This lightning quick relationship between the media and an overnight political celebrity is a dance as old as time.

It's nature in action, Andy, the natural news cycle.

First, a significance is lavished on him which is neither warranted, asked for, nor deserved.

Then, every facet of his personal life is scrutinised and publicised until he's left a broken shell of a man living out the remainder of his days as a half-remembered punchline.

It's like watching lions maul on antelope and vultures then tearing the carcass apart.

Joe the Plumber is today's antelope and the media are the Pulita Prize-nominated vultures.

Did Obama not respond to Joe the Plumber's question about his tax policies by asking Joe the Plumber a question about plumbing?

Surely that would have been the way to go with that.

You do your job.

I'll do mine, Sunshine.

I don't come to where you work and knock a plunger out of your hand.

Let's not forget the running mates, too, Andy.

Joe Biden has been consistently gaffing this campaign.

Has he?

And not really receiving the attention he deserves for them.

In many ways, he's a victim of how prolific a gaffer he is.

You just expect it from him now.

My favourite was this week during a stump speech he was giving on The Economy when he said, and I quote, The most important issue is a three-letter word, jobs.

J-O-B-S.

He even spelt it out.

That's got to be one of the biggest campaign gaffes since Grover, Cleveland opened fire in a school.

And now, the first of two special Bugle presidential campaign profiles.

This week, John McCain.

John McCain always wanted to be president from the moment in 1954 that he was given a talking Dwight D.

Eisenhower doll for his 18th birthday.

He retired from the Navy in April 1981, coincidentally, just months before Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer got married.

In the 80s, he supported Reaganomics as well as other forms of New Age exercise like aerobics and tantric badminton.

He is renowned for his maverick behaviour in the Senate, including voting against his own party and hiding up trees making squirrel noises.

That's genuinely maverick.

Whilst most people do now know that John McCain is running for president in 2008, no one knows that he actually tried to run for president in 2000.

He had a campaign bus called the Straight Talk Express, so-called because all anyone was allowed to talk about was how much they fancy girls.

Ironically, he was later accused of homosexuality, the evidence apparently being the testimony of a woman who correctly claimed that John McCain had never slept with her.

So he therefore must be gay.

Similarly, the claims that he'd fathered an illegitimate black baby transpired to have omitted to include either the word not before the word fathered or the words adopted a Bangladeshi orphan instead of fathered an illegitimate black baby.

But I guess in the heat of electoral battle, such trifling linguistics mistakes are inevitable.

And also when the Iraq war started in 2003, McCain volunteered to fly a bombing mission over Baghdad, quotes, for old time's sake.

However, if he flew, he'd had to forfeit his military pension, so he just played a Gulf War computer game instead.

British news now, and it's been a great week for Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Unemployment is soaring and his government has had to back down humiliatingly on its plans to uh detain terror susp terror suspects for 42 days.

They're gonna have to stick with the current 28 days.

And that's enough time for the Football World Cup.

Should be enough time to deal with a terrorist.

That's what Pele thinks.

That's what I think.

Brown, of course, is never happier than when things are going absolutely terribly, as the recent economic crisis has shown.

So I would imagine he's absolutely loving unemployment rocketing up.

It's quite hard for me

and you, John, to really understand the issue of unemployment since we've never really had proper jobs.

Yeah, that's true.

I'm self-employed, and actually last year I was briefly unemployed.

I had to sack myself after I caught myself stealing stationery from my own office.

But I did end up then rehiring myself just because I like to work with people that I know.

Even if you don't like them.

And everyone deserves a second chance, John.

Yeah, there's going to be two million people out of work in the UK by Christmas.

So we seem to want to return to a real Dickensian Christmas this year, Andy.

Spluttering orphans and cot death.

The way Christmas used to be before it became commercialised.

I think it's a good thing, though, John, that they've capped detaining terror suspects to 28 days, because I've found that if you have a deadline, you work to that deadline.

You know, what can be done in 40 days is you'll be able to do in 28.

You know, if you just cut out the time you waste doing things like watching unicycling crocodiles on the internet or trying to perfect the art of solitaire, good, aggressive solitaire.

But there is a loophole for the government whereby if those 28 days detention happen to coincide with Wimbledon, then they are allowed to extend it to 42 days because it's a

basic British right to watch Wimbledon uninterrupted.

It's in the Magna Carta.

Yeah, Home Secretary Jackie Smith told MPs that plans to extend terror detention to 42 days will be dropped.

Now, this really can mean one of two things.

One, we're in grave danger now, or two, it wasn't nearly as important as was claimed when they were first trying to ram it down our reluctant throats.

So, which is it?

Are you endangering us, or were you lying to us?

And is there any way that you could be doing both?

And I say us, of course, I mean you, Andy, because I'm protected by US national security.

The same US national security team who seems so reluctant to let me back into the country whenever I come here.

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg added, the decision to prepare emergency legislation instead is merely a fig leaf, which does little to disguise their defeat.

He lost confidence in that analogy halfway through, Andy.

He should have committed and seen it through to the end.

It is merely a fig leaf, covering up the penis of defeat and the balls of shame which hang and sway behind it.

Or indeed the vagina of humiliation.

It's impossible to tell which because of the leaf.

You know, that's the problem with the Liberal Democrats.

They never really fully commit to something.

Also in British news this week, there was a parade of our Olympic heroes in London, John, and what a great day for Britain that was.

Just two short months after they had been heroes.

People were reminded that they had been heroes with this special parade.

And I think the country needed this.

It's been a very difficult couple of months since then, and really only sport can give us the kind of quantifiable, unarguable triumphs that

lead to such mass approval.

And a politician can only dream of that level of adulation.

I mean, Gordon Brown, he could play an absolute blunder at a major global conference.

He could save the world economy, cure the environment, rescue a stranded dolphin even from a swimming pool or a tennis court.

But if he returned home and paraded up and down Whitehall and and around Trafalgar Square in an open-top bus, people would probably throw bins at him.

That's the difference between sports and politics.

Do you remember, Andy, that when England won the Rugby World Cup, we went to that parade in Trafalgar Square really solely to procrastinate from work.

And I wonder how many Nazi parades were full of people doing just that.

Just goes to show, people will let you do anything if it means that they cannot do some work.

That's what Nuremberg was all about.

Exactly.

Do it on a weekday.

Hitler was no fool in that particular capacity.

Boris Johnson, the moronic mayor of London, referred to British swimmers and sailors during the parade as achieving the greatest aquatic triumph since Horatio Nelson won the Battle of Trafalgar.

What?

That is not like with like.

That was warfare.

Andy, no one died in the skulls, did they?

Or did they have cannons on board?

Because if they did, I can't believe I missed that.

I think naval warfare would be quite a good thing to get into the Olympics.

Yes.

Because it's hopefully dull.

I mean, you watch the sailing.

And, you know, Ben Ainsley won the gold medal in some kind of boat or other.

But, you know, it's really dull to watch.

And it's kind of impossible to tell who's winning or what's going on.

But if they were firing cannons at each other and they had lots of people leaping overboard with eye patches on, then everyone would tune in to watch that.

There is not a single person in the world who would not want to watch a full-scale naval battle instead of yachting.

Bugle feature section now, and this week's feature section is on Ringo Star.

And Ringo Starr does not want to hear from you.

He has posted a message on his website demanding that no one sends him any more fan mail or objects to be autographed.

He says he is simply too busy to deal with this stuff.

And he said it in quite a stroppy way.

Here's a little clip.

Please do not send fan mail to any address that you have.

Nothing will be signed after the 20th of October.

I'm warning you with peace and love, but I have too much to do.

So no more fan mail.

Thank you, thank you.

And no objects to be signed.

Nothing.

Charming Ringo.

I'm warning you with peace and love.

That's not really peace and love, Andy.

That's warning people with arrogance and spectacular selfishness.

Good old Ringo, always amusingly getting his words mixed up.

If you add up on the average Beatles

total lifetime, they probably spend around about 3% of their time signing autographs.

Right.

I would think.

And also, to be fair to Ringo, both Lennon and George Harrison have long since given up signing anything.

So it seems a bit unfair that it's only him and McCartney still have to do it.

Well, Andy, I've been inspired by Ringo.

I will no longer sign any autographs as myself.

What I will do is sign autographs as Ringo Starr.

I'm going to pick up his slack.

Anyone who wants a Ringo Star autograph, please just let me know and I will be happy to sign.

I'll even personalise the message.

You could email us at thebugle at timesonline.co.uk and we will email you back just the words Ringo Star, just from Ringo Star.

Brackets, Beetle, brackets.

I don't really understand the autograph, though.

Why ask for an autograph?

And why not ask Ringo Starr for something better as memorabilia than an illegibly scrawled version of his name?

And why don't you ask him to send you a fingerprint so you can frame him for crimes he probably didn't commit?

Or, you know, a swab with a DNA sample from his cheek so you can clone Ringo in your garage.

There was a previous controversial incident when a topiary Ringo star, and that also may be my favourite of three words put together, was beheaded after he said he missed nothing about the city of Liverpool.

But I think that was less to do with that comment as it was about the fact that there was a Topieri Ringo star.

That is, that's tempting to behead Andy.

Again, not because it's him, but because it's Topieri.

If there was a Topiuri Andy Zaltzman, I think I'd have to get my shears out.

No offense, though.

Some take him.

No offence.

Yo, I'll fing chop your head off before you fing chop my head off.

Shrub face.

A few background facts about Ringo Stahl.

He was, of course, renowned as one of the finest drummers in the history of the Beatles.

Also, the name Ringo derives from the irregular Latin verb ringo ringere rinxi rectum, meaning to beat something arhythmically.

Your emails now, and thank you for all your emails and your birthday greetings to the Bugle on the historic occasion of its first birthday last week.

and also to the heroic buglers amongst you who claim to have listened to all of the bugles in one sitting.

This comes from Eric Duker in Columbia, Missouri, who says, I don't know why and I don't know what it says about me, but I listened to all 53 bugles in a row.

Are there only 52?

I think it's a good idea.

That's committed.

If you've listened to that many, you've probably lose track of numbers and times.

That's including this one that hasn't come out yet.

24 hours, 39 minutes, and 20 seconds of Holties from History, audio, cryptocross crosswords, and enough snooker and cricket jokes to carry me through the rest of my life.

You can never have enough snooker and/or cricket jokes.

That's not possible to have enough of them.

You can have some, you can have a satisfactory amount, you cannot have enough.

When it was over, continues Eric, I was closer to death, both metaphorically and literally.

If they used this tactic at Guantanamo Bay, these wars would be over.

That's our contribution to the world.

I can't believe we've filled an entire day, Andy.

24 hours of bugle bullshit.

So thank you to Eric and a couple of others who claim to have done the same.

Well done.

Heroes.

Heroes for the world.

Quick email from Nick Richardson who says, gentlemen, if Sarah Palin is elected vice president or to any office higher than afforded to a manager of an IHOP, I will kill myself.

Did you get that?

I will straight up murder myself, probably with a fire poker.

Sincerely, well, well done, Nick.

You've made your feelings on that absolutely clear.

John, on behalf of our non-American listeners, what is an IHOP?

It is the International House of Pancakes, Andy.

It shouldn't just be an American issue.

It's international.

All right, sorry.

And IHOP, it does sound like Steve Jobs' new pogo stick.

Kaboom.

Thank you.

I'm here all week.

And a reassuring email comes from Sarah Hughes in Dumbass America.

That's her words, not mine.

And she writes, Andy and John, do not fear.

The economy and the world will be in great shape in a few short weeks.

That's a lie, but it could be a fact.

Very truly, Sarah Hughes.

That is comforting, Andy.

I think that that's basically on the level of what politicians have been saying as they have speculatively hurled billions and billions and billions of pounds and dollars at the problem.

That's pretty much it.

She has said more in two sentences than they've said in hundreds of pages of bullshit documents.

And this very moving email comes from Tom Hemmings in Bristol, in the UK, although his email address describes him as being Stavros Hampster.

Usually it's the other way around.

People's real name comes up in the address box and they make up a name at the end of their email.

Maybe this is what's happened here.

Maybe Stavros Hamster is his real name.

He's got bored of having a stupid name.

So scientists emails Tom Hemmings.

Anyway, Tom Stroke, Stavros Hamster, writes, Dear Andy, and short-term John Oliver replacement.

This is with reference to the assumption that John will have been killed at the Palin rally.

Did that not happen then?

Well,

it's difficult to say, Andy.

I was there on Tuesday at the Palin Rally in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

And whilst I did not physically die, I definitely did die inside.

So, I mean, I think it still stands.

So, what happens at a Palin rally?

Is that like a motorbike rally?

Lots of people come along with

an old Sarah Palin from the 50s.

It is the single most depressing place I've ever been, Andy.

It was just lots of old white people who are frightened.

They're just scared.

They're scared.

Over half of the people I spoke to, and I spoke to a lot of them, believe that Obama is both a Muslim and a terrorist and see no difference between those two things.

It was absolutely soul-destroying.

So, Tom Stroke Stavros writes: In the light of the tragic events that took place at the Palin Rally, I'd like to offer a humble tribute to the presumed late John Oliver in the form of this poem entitled Requiem for a Bugle Weight.

A giant of our times has passed, his wit unmatched, his wisdom vast.

Even Groucho Marks did awe his mind, though some did think that John just whined.

And though his frame was frail and bent, he said bent.

What?

Oh, what?

What?

He's neither frail.

It's both.

It's both.

And he gave off a fearful scent.

His fortune with women was unmatched.

His trysts a horde of bastards hatched.

I think history will judge that not to be the case.

History.

And my fortune with women has been the Battle of the Somme.

Suggesting tens of thousands of casualties.

Oh, that it could have been Andy instead that Palin supporters tore and shred.

What, mate?

Rather than Britain's wiser son, banished from the Isle of Albion.

His remains shall return home, placed in a shoebox packed with foam.

And what's left shall be into space hurled, a tribute to audio content for a visual world.

I mean, that's a fitting tribute to the ex-me.

Hotties from history now, and as it approaches the one-year anniversary of the invention of hotties from history.

One of the most significant developments in the history of retrospective sexual attraction.

Here are the latest nominations and this one comes from Kathleen Donovan in San Francisco, California.

In San Francisco during the Gold Rush an Englishman named Joshua Norton proclaimed himself Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico by sending a letter saying as much to the local newspaper.

That's a good way of claiming power.

Sure is.

Basically how Gordon Brown got in.

This by itself is probably not so unusual, especially in San Francisco, except that everybody accepted this proclamation.

He was given a military uniform by the U.S.

Army officers, a non-voting seat in Congress, and issued his own currency, which was honoured in San Francisco.

When he died, he was given a large and lavish funeral.

Another odd thing is that people in San Francisco love him, especially to this day.

and consider him to be a hero.

There was even a serious campaign to get the Bay Bridge named after him a few years ago.

People in San Francisco love him to this day and consider him a hero.

Hot.

He sounds really hot, John.

I mean, you've got to be pretty hot to declare yourself an emperor of somewhere.

And this comes from Stephanie Cohan in upstate New York, who writes, in the annals of history, there is but one man with more talent than John and Andy combined.

Bold claim.

Impossible, you say.

This sensuous Serbian, this martial of electricity, this gloved genius, generated 1.21 gigawatts of power every time he took to the stage with his flux capacitor showcase showdowns, causing his fawning Victorian crowds to swoon by the millions.

Who had a smile more mysterious than the Mona Lisa or that Dutch girl with the turban?

It was Nikola Tesla.

Who made Thomas Edison his bitch?

Nikola Tesla did.

Who solidly beat John Oliver for the title of double hill click-off champion?

Nikola Tesla.

From beyond the grave, his accomplishments speak for themselves.

Hot.

You've got to be really hot to be featured as a character and play by David Bowie in the adequate 2006 film The Prestige.

Do keep your nominations coming in, Buglers, because we are getting very close to the end of the 12-month hottie from history period.

I can't believe we've been strigging this out for so long.

We should make a printable calendar that people can print off for 2009 on the website so we can all have physical hottie from history calendars for 2009.

3D for Queen Victoria.

It's the only way to fully appreciate the lady.

Stop it.

So do keep your emails and hotties coming in to thebugle at timesonline.co.uk and do visit the webpage, which has links to the Bugle column from the print edition of the Times newspaper.

Sport news now, and we were going to do a World Series preview at this point, but unfortunately, we don't know who's going to be in it yet after the spectacular Boston comeback against Tampa Bay last night.

We're recording this on the Friday.

So it's going to be the Phillies against either the Tampa Bay Rays or the Boston Red Sox.

John, it's...

Pretty hard for me to decide who to support in this, but I think I'm going to have to go and say that I hope the Rays win because I'm quite a stickler for language, and both the Phillies and the Red Sox have got spelling mistakes in their names.

Well, more Andy, you should be supporting me because it can't be the Phillies because they're in the same division as the Mets, and I like the Mets.

And it can't be the Red Sox for obvious reasons.

It was a phenomenal game last night, though, between the Red Sox and Tampa Bay.

An incredible comeback from the Red Sox.

My favourite moment in this astonishing example of sport was as one home run was hit, it landed in the stands very near to a fan who was holding up a sign which simply read, I like baseball.

There is such a wonderful non-partisan simplicity to that.

And what do I want to say?

I want to say that I like baseball because I do.

I really like it.

So for those of you who don't follow baseball, of our listeners around the world, so the Phillies, they're so cool because the club was initially founded as a polo club for lady horses.

The Tampa Bay Rays began as a touring team of Ray Charles impersonators.

And the Boston Red Sox are so cool because when they were founded in 1901, they were a team of workers from a local abattoir who would go to play straight from work where they weren't allowed to wear shoes.

There's football news as well this week, and that news is that England have won the 2010 World Cup after thrashing Kazakhstan last week.

They disposed of Belarus in quite clinical fashion this week.

And John, I know he shouldn't get carried away, but we've basically won the World Cup already.

I just can't see any other nation.

Might as well save everyone's money and just have the parade through London now.

I think what's clear is that all England fans are basically bipolar.

We're either very excited or very depressed, and we need medicating or counselling.

Well, John, you know, look at the evidence.

So, name one other country in the world that beat Belarus 3-1 away from home this week.

Good point.

You can't do that.

We're clearly the best team in the world.

We've got the best record in Europe.

Argentina lost.

Brazil drew at home with Colombia.

We have basically won the World Cup.

I'm going to have to get a really enormous flag.

Just time now for a final bugle forecast.

John, I'm going to Paris for the weekend.

Oh, nice.

Very nice.

With my wife.

It's our last weekend of freedom before baby number two arrives in December.

We're leaving

our daughter with my mother.

And I want to know, we're basically getting the train out on Saturday morning and we're getting the train back on Sunday evening.

How many meals do you think we're going to be able to fit in to that time?

It's definitely double figures.

I'm going to go with 14.

14?

That's a challenge.

So

you assume breakfast, lunch, and supper every day.

That's taken as red.

So that's your basic six.

Yeah, but you're going to go early morning snack, breakfast, brunch.

Oh, a pre-breakfast meal.

That's a big one.

You're eating on the way down to breakfast, right?

So we've got breakfast.

Yeah, then brunch.

Then you want something around about just after midday to tie you over till lunch.

So I'd probably just have a steak and chips then.

Then you have your full three to four course lunch.

Then you're looking at an early tea.

late afternoon, about five o'clock.

You probably wanted to have something pretty substantial.

And then a dinner that's so big that it basically counts as two meals in one.

Yeah.

And then probably a snack, late night snack as well.

And then a midnight feast.

Midnight feast.

And then you wake up in the middle of the night and get room service.

So I think it's possible.

It's possible.

We'll give it a go.

14.

We'll report back next week.

14.

I'll buy the spread at 14.

So goodbye from me.

I'll be back slightly tubbier next week.

Bye.

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.