Help Save The Investment Banker

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello Buglers, and welcome to issue number 45 of The Bugle, the world's leading and only audio newspaper for a visual world, for the week beginning Monday, the 22nd of September, 2008, with me Andy Zoltzmann in London and in the unholy city of Los Angeles.

John Oliver.

What are you talking about unholy city?

It's God's city.

What are you talking about, John?

God hates Los Angeles.

Hello, by the way, buglers.

Hello, Andy.

That was merely a very informal start.

That's not what I'm about.

I'm about formality, if nothing else.

This is probably the furthest distance between us of any bugle yet, Andy.

London to LA, about eight-hour time difference, around 5,000 miles.

You're eight hours ahead.

You may get the jokes slightly before I do.

Don't spoil them for me.

And I'm here in LA because I'll have to go to the Emmys tonight where for the first time in my life, Andy, I'll be wearing a full tuxedo, which I was led to believe is the item of clothing which makes men look the best they possibly can.

And if that's true, then let me tell you, I've got nothing.

As I looked in the mirror, I didn't look suave.

I looked like I'd just been embalmed and was about to be lowered into a grave.

I was imagining I was going to look like James Bonds surrounded by women in bikinis, not grieving relatives.

The fitting lady looked at me as I came out of the room with a mixture of horror and sympathy before just saying, well, at least it fits.

At least it fits.

Well, the photograph from my wedding of you attempting to wear a jacket can certainly testify to your inability to hold clothes.

Exactly.

Exactly.

I'm not a good clothes horse.

Well, if you were a clothes horse, you would be heading straight to the glue factory.

Also and I met Tony Blair this week and by meet I mean that he stared at me with barely concealed contempt.

I realised beforehand as well that he was my first vote.

That I gave my democratic virginity to that man and at the time I thought it was something really special like there were scented candles in the booth and now it just felt like meeting an ex-girlfriend after a period of years with the relationship having ended really really badly

and you just find yourself wondering what you saw in that person in the first place.

We did this opening sketch on the show, which we actually had to cut for time, but it's on the Daily Show website if buglers are interested in seeing it.

And it ended with me telling Jon Stewart to ask the Prime Minister why he drags my country into an unnecessary war.

And I think it was probably that that pissed him off a bit.

So John is in LA for the Emmys and just met Tony Blair.

I had a really good pastrami sandwich on Thursday.

So big things happening for both of us this week.

I am back now from my holiday in Italy where I've been

for about 10 days and

John I've learned a greater respect for the buffalo over that period of time.

I like to think the buffalo's learned a greater respect for me and my capacity to eat its cheese.

But I think I've learnt one very valuable lesson

from my trip in Italy and that is if you squeeze a buffalo's tits and collect the resulting liquid in a special bucket and then then put it through a basic cheesemaking process.

But the key part of that process, John, is ensuring that you accurately determine the sex of the buffalo before you start squeezing.

So, as always, some sections of the bugle are going straight in the bin.

This week, an autumn section, now that autumn is coming to the only hemisphere that really counts, the British hemisphere.

Then, autumn, that cockish metaphor for life's inevitable decline.

We are commemorating it with its own special section, including a feature on the grouse shooting season, which is now in full swing here in Britain.

Looking like it could be a good one for the Grice this year John.

They've already killed 28 people while suffering only 13 fatalities themselves.

Prompting fears that the Russians have been arming the Grice and this season could be one of the bloodiest in the history of the British aristocracy.

Also in the autumn section, leaves.

What the f is their problem with staying on trees these days.

And also, last week was London Fashion Week.

So we ask to commemorate this, what is more important, fashion or medical science?

It's nice not to die so much of cholera anymore, but if we didn't have such lovely clothes to wear, would it be worth it?

You decide.

Top story this week and the economy.

In case you hadn't checked your bank balance for how much money you've got in the last seven days, spoiler alert, you haven't got any anymore.

What you've got instead is ownership in the debts of some catastrophically irresponsible international investment banks.

At least that's something.

Try and buy your weekly groceries with that.

There are in fact only two independent investment banks left now, Andy Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.

And these proud beasts who once so proudly ran through the city savannah of wine bars, snorting cocaine before pillaging the economies of the third world, are in danger of extinction.

We must collectively do something to save these endangered species before it's too late.

I do hope that parents are taking their children to witness what could be the last days of these free-range douchebags before they are taken into captivity for their own and everyone else's safety.

In fact, I saw David Attenborough on Wall Street last week shooting a wildlife documentary.

He was crouching against a newsstand, gaining the confidence of a banker by holding a glass of Shabley out in his hand, making sure that he made no sudden movements to startle these easily panicked creatures.

And by the time I left him, Attenborough was curled up in his lap as the bank had cradled him in his arms and went through his wallet.

Well hopefully the world will club together and start breeding investment banks in captivity because it's quite tragic John to me it's sort of like the dinosaurs when they died out you know they just got greedy the dinosaurs and they didn't really prepare for the asteroid attack that they simply must have known was coming.

They just got complacent and ran around roaring, eating cavemen and trying to get off with Raquel Welsh.

And sure enough, bang, goodbye, Johnny Dinosaur.

And that's pretty much what seems to have happened with the world economy.

Interesting spin on history, Andy.

Really interesting.

So, indeed, the world economy, as suspected, is up Shit Creek.

And what's more, not only does it not have a paddle, having always relied on pretend paddles to get it out of trouble, but it's actually driven itself up Shit Creek in a massive, ostentatious, oversized speedboat, and now seems intent on accelerating further up Shit Creek just to see what is at the end of that malodorous waterway.

Now, John Muddy Waters, the great blues man, said a lot of wise things in his time.

But when he sang, you can't lose what you ain't never had, he betrayed that for all his mellifluous, sonorous magnificence.

His ability to encapsulate the ultimately tragic nature of human existence in one wordless,

he knew Jack K shit about 21st century economics.

You can clearly lose what you've never had.

And you can also lose what no one else has ever had either.

hence the problem we're in i think john what we've learned from this is that the world economic markets are total dicks earlier in the week the investment bank layman brothers filed for bankruptcy after the fed refused to bail them out and this yeah this seems inconsistent uh mainly because it is and some have said that this was to send a message to the rest of wall streets but the only discernible message that i can make out there is that they just didn't screw up badly enough aig got bailed out because they were more entwined with other major organisations and the damage of them falling would have been greater.

Lehman Brothers were only guilty of not quite being shit enough at their jobs.

So that's the lesson for the future.

Be worse and you'll be fine.

If you're going to act irresponsibly recklessly, you have to do it to such an extent that you become immune to consequence.

It's basically these financial institutions demanding protection money from the government and therefore us, the public.

If the government don't bail them out, they'll basically steal our savings and effectively burn down our houses.

Who is to blame for all this?

Well, Bush is anxious to point out that this is no time to be pointing the finger, especially if the finger is jabbing in his direction.

But the truth is that deregulation was actually started under the Clinton administration, so he has to shoulder some of it as well.

I want to go on record, Andy, of saying I don't think it's my fault.

I have never owned a share in my life, Andy, so I'm pretty sure that I'm in the clear on this one.

I'll tell you who I blame, John.

I blame the communists.

Because if the communists hadn't kicked off the whole capitalism-communism-bitching match, then capitalism wouldn't have felt the need to prove how f ⁇ ing cool it is by swinging its wang around so much.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said that as much as $1 trillion could be needed to avoid an imminent meltdown of the US financial system.

And Bush is proposing the most expensive bailout in US history.

We all thought he wanted to go out with a bang, but most people just assumed that that bang would take place in downtown Tehran, not be in the form of a spending spree.

That man is full of surprises.

If only at least a few of those surprises were pleasant.

So the US taxpayer is bailing out these banks.

And Andy, that's me.

I am a US taxpayer.

I'm a hero.

Now, I'm not entirely sure how this works, but I think this means I now own part of your house.

Why help Wall Street rather than the four million people who are losing their homes in this country?

Well, Andy, they've got something better than homes now.

They know that they've saved an investment bank from self-annihilation.

It should be like those systems of sponsoring an African child.

I hope these homeless people get birthday cards every year from an investment bank with a little drawing that they can stick to the fridge that they no longer own.

I think the problem is, John, that's as a species, we've become a bit obsessed with greed.

There's a great problem for humanity in saying enough is enough.

People always want more.

Let me illustrate.

You know, if you, for example, have just bought a giant golden statue of British TV weather forecaster Helen Willits for £50 million.

Well, the thing is you're always then going to want to buy a giant golden statue of British TV weather forecaster Sarah Wilmshurst for at least £80 million, just in case your friends think you've fallen on hard times.

So in case they say to you, how come you haven't bought a massive golden statue of a weather forecaster recently?

And you might reply, well, I just thought one was enough.

I'm quite happy with it.

And they'll say, oh, really?

Sure.

Well, it's just Dave down the road has got Nina Ridge and two Rob McKelweys in his garden.

Look, if you're having problems, no, no, I'll get Wilmshurst and a Philip Avery for the wife.

So that's kind of how it works.

So

I guess it's

not how it works.

I don't know how international finance works, but I'm pretty sure it's not like that.

Joel and Rob McKelwyn statues.

You see, this is how Trickle Down works.

Give it 20 years.

There'll be stores on street corners selling affordable, low-quality porcelain Helen Willitses that everyone can afford.

Other news now, and what a week for democracy it's been all around the world.

All kinds of bits of democracy happening left, right, and centre, particularly in Zimbabwe,

where it seems that Mugabe and Svangirai are getting ever closer to sharing power, which does seem a bit of a strange partnership, John.

To me, Sfangirai going into partnership with Mugabe is a bit like a woman marrying a man who has spent the last 15 years throwing her in jail, intimidating and murdering her supporters, and bringing his country to and beyond the brink of social and economic catastrophe.

I just can't see how it's going to work.

You know, the best man speech is going to sound sarcastic, and there'll probably be a fight between some drunken aunties.

You just don't see what it's like when they're together, Andy.

That's right.

In Zimbabwe, the inexplicably still alive, Morgan Svangerai, has finally reached a power-sharing agreement with Robert Mugabe, which seems to be that Mugabe stays president and Swangerai stays not dead.

Not a bad deal, but certainly not a democratic one.

And one of the details of the deal seemed particularly surprising.

Mr.

Mugabe's justice minister, Patrick Chinnamasa, appeared immediately after the signing ceremony and said, all parties agreed that they share liability for violence around election time.

So sharing power seems to mean sharing the blame for everything.

First rule of power sharing, Andy, what's mine is yours.

And that includes responsibility for human rights abuses.

I guess John Life is all about compromise and, you know, relationships do change.

And maybe in 10 years, we'll all be sitting here laughing about how Mugabe and Sfangarai never used to get on with each other.

And they'll probably be sat by a fire somewhere in Harare saying, hey, do you remember when you broke my skull?

Yeah, that was funny, wasn't it?

Quite a lot of leaders on the way out.

Tabo and Becky is going to be clearing his desk to devote more of his time to kidding himself about AIDS.

Ehud Olmert is snipping off to brush up on the Israeli corruption laws, some of which seem to have slipped by him.

So could Gordon Brown be next?

Well, the Labour conference this week in Manchester should give us a few clues.

We do know that Gordon Brown John is going to attempt to smile at some point, and everyone here at the Bugle wish him well for that and it's good that he's still trying to master that most difficult of facial crafts.

But John, will it be the kind of smile of a man who's going to eat a bear or the kind of smile of a man who's going to be eaten by a bear?

I guess that's the big question going into this conference.

At the moment Brown is about as popular as Nikolai Ceaușescu turning up in a women's changing room at a public swimming pool.

So let's see if he can.

Especially unpopular because, you know, he died a long time ago and there's bound to be some kind of decomposition.

You don't want that in his changing room.

So, the party conferences are upon the people of Britain, who must now desperately try to fake at least some level of interest.

Because, coming off the back of the US conventions, these look even worse.

Although it's been announced that J.K.

Rowling has donated £1 million to the Labour Party, and Mr.

Brown said he was delighted to have the backing of, and I quote, one of the world's greatest ever authors.

Deadion.

I like those stories as much as the next man, which is I like them a bit.

If Danielle Steele gave the bugle a million quid, John, I would happily rank her up alongside the greats of world literature.

In Israel, Zippy Livny is closing in on replacing Ehud Omert as Prime Minister of Israel, and all she has to do to achieve this is put together a coalition government.

And that shouldn't be too hard, should it?

And it's not like she lives in one of the most divided regions on earth, is it?

Oh, I'm sorry, she lives where?

As Israel's lead peace negotiator, she's already committed to discussing all issues with the Palestinians, which goes down with the hardline Israelis about as well as a woman discussing all issues with the Palestinians.

The only problem is that the kingmaker in this coalition may well be an ultra-Orthodox party run by a rabbi who has said in the past, and brace yourself, the Holocaust was God's retribution against the reincarnated souls of Jewish sinners, and Hurricane Katrina was divine punishment for godlessness in New Orleans and US support for Israel's pullout from Gaza.

What a lovely man, Andy.

A real raconteur.

He also said, walking between two women is like walking between two donkeys or between two camels.

I really don't see why she should have a problem dealing with him, Andy.

As long as she's not offended by being called a donkey or a camel, they should get on like a checkpoint on fire.

Bugle feature section now and this week we have a special section on escapism.

The world has become even more depressing than it already was before and we are giving you the chance to escape from reality because the harsh realities of reality have hit home like a drunken husband finding that his wife has changed the locks and it's got to the stage now where we really could do with another war kicking off just to take our minds off things.

So for escapism, John, I would suggest that everyone should take up a new hobby or religion or species.

Right.

Just so we can get away from worrying about global economic catastrophe.

Hobbies I would suggest taking up are pencil snapping, which is quite a good challenge to see how many times you can snap one pencil.

Scientists believe the maximum is 16, however long the pencil is.

Air croquet and eavesdropping, which I think, John, is one of life's great free hobbies.

Eavesdropping.

And I was on a train the other day and I overheard a man talking to his wife on the phone.

He'd bought her her favourite thing and could she guess what it was.

And she couldn't guess what it was and he then gave her clues he said well it begins with g and she still couldn't get it and then he said it begins with g r

and then she got it and i don't know what it was you're kidding me what i really want to know what it is some grapes grapes i just can't see i mean i i respect grapes they play a very valuable role in the history of human civilization in their very crucial part in the winemaking process.

Yeah.

But I can't see how they could be someone's favourite favourite thing, Grace.

Grue?

Is it Gruyer?

It could be Grue.

I don't know.

I can't believe you're doing this to me, Andy.

I'm not, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be on my mind all day.

Maybe he'd kidnapped former England cricketer Graham Gooch and was gonna take him home.

Buellers, send in your suggestions for what her favourite thing may have been.

GR, that's what it starts with.

Gravel.

And the most likely winner will be announced next week.

Also, in terms of escapism, perhaps the best thing to do is to try and distract one another.

And Britain did what it could this week by producing a magnificent photo op for the release of the new Guinness Book of Records.

Gathering the world's smallest man, He Ping Ping.

He measures in at 29.37 inches tall.

And they stood up.

Or his stage name.

I don't know.

They stood him between the legs of the world's longest legged woman, whose pins measure 51.96 inches.

And judging by the amount of worldwide media attention that this got, this was just what the planet needed in our darkest hour.

A return to the Victorian freak show.

It seemed to be the best way of distracting people.

Get an over-small thing and an over big thing and put them next to each other.

Is everyone still depressed?

Okay, bring out the bearded boy.

Your emails now.

And the first email this week comes from Nick Korn, who says, greetings, John and the guy in Britain.

And he said, I found a useful side effect of listening to the archives of the bugle in large chunks for many days in a row.

The professor of my college art class has a particularly thick British accent and I, like 98% of my fellow Americans, am allergic to British accents.

The first day of class, I innocently walked in and my reaction when she opened her mouth caused my ears, nose and throat to swell so badly that it necessitated me being airlifted to the local hospital to be treated by a lingual therapist who assured me that ain't is perfectly fine to say in conversation.

However, because of MP3 compression along with studio filters and John's extended residence in New York, I have no trouble listening to the Bugle podcast and find that by listening to upwards of five episodes at a time, your condensed accents are acting as an audio antivirus.

And now when I attend my art class, I barely break out into a rash when she talks about the things she had to get used to when she first came over to the States.

Feel proud, Andy and John.

You're part of the miraculous remedy that will probably go unused as Americans are so busy with their tiny clothes for dogs and chocolate ice cream potato chip smoothies that they will be forced to continue ignoring the rest of the world for many years to come.

Thank you again, Nick Corn.

Well, you're welcome, Nick.

Unlike the major pharmaceutical companies, we're just letting this out there as an autoimmune system, Andy.

We don't want to profit from this.

I would like to pick up on something, though, John, because it's well known that there is no such thing as a British accent.

We just talk.

The rest of the world has accents.

Yeah.

We are the default.

It's like Greenwich Mean Time.

You You know, we have time, everyone else basically takes us as a lead.

Yeah, that's right.

This is how words are supposed to sound.

That's your baseline.

Now, you want to be flamboyant on top of that?

That's between you and your conscience.

This email comes from Christopher Adlum in Glencoe, Ontario, Canada.

And this is on the subject of hockey moms.

And he writes, Dear Andy and Ollie, I've been a huge fan of yours since episode 31.

Now, I sincerely hope that means that you came came across it on episode 31 and have listened to it since, rather than you plowed through the first 30 episodes and finally thought, actually, it's okay.

And Chris continues, I wish to point out an error in your recent episode about Hockey Moms, episode 44, where you stated that Wayne Gretzky's mother defeated Mario Lemieux's mother, two shrieks and a yelp to a squawk and two yelps.

Since Gretzky's mother has now been dead for close to three years, it would be next to impossible for her to utter so much as a faint wheeze, much less a shriek and a yelp, to defeat Lemieux's Mother, unless Dr.

Victor Frankenstein were to bring her corpse back to life.

Since Gretzky is considered to be Jesus-like here in Canada, I'm afraid you two have committed the ultimate act of hosa blaspheme.

Therefore, in order to avoid being extradited to the great white north to face a public stoning with day-old doughnuts from Tim Hortons, I strongly urge you both to apologise to the 30 million plus Canadians, there can't possibly be that many, who worship Gretzky and all things hockey because we Canadians have no other lives to lead as it is cold and boring as hell in Canada.

They count seals up there, Andy, as full Canadians.

Yeah, they've got passports.

We have another email from a pig

who says, as a pig, I'm outraged by Barack Obama's insinuation that Sarah Palin looks like a pig in lipstick.

Now, obviously, as a pig, he has misinterpreted that comment as well.

He's been led by the media.

That was not a reference to Sarah Palin at all.

But the pig goes on to say, yes, this is a dark day for pigs in America.

Pigs today, all over America, are are offended by the recent political comparisons pigs have not been so offended to such a comparison in recent history north american pigs are banning together with the canadian bacon union and organizing an international response to this insult to pigs all over the world and particularly the north american continent being compared to republican politicians is just simply outrageous and will will not be tolerated for shame mr obama for shame and that's signed skeeter the pig

there's no more angry creature than an insulted pig.

But that pig needs to calm down, put himself between some lettuce and tomato and a couple of slices of sourdough and enjoy its natural habitat.

Nestled safely in the BLT.

Thank you also for your nominations for the Bugle Presidents.

As we requested, these nominations have include such luminaries of the world as Crackers from Caracas Hugo Chavez

and the Newcastle football legend Kevin Keegan.

But we had another footballer suggested, John, in fact, another Newcastle footballer from James McBride in Dublin, who votes for Malcolm MacDonald to be Bugle President in November.

For our American listeners, Malcolm MacDonald was a 1970s footballer, renowned for his large side burdens.

James writes, I'm voting for MacDonald this November for so many reasons.

Well, three.

Firstly, he scored five goals against Cyprus, whose location in the Mediterranean probably means that he has as much expertise on Middle East matters as Sarah Palin's home in Alaska gives her on Russia.

Two, because the transfer fee involved in his move from Newcastle to Arsenal in 1976, which was £333,333.33,

means that he must have a certain flair for economics.

Well, more than the people who run Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae anyway.

And three, he played for Arsenal.

How much more military experience does a man need?

And as his vice presidential running mates, I'm voting for myself.

My campaign slogan of whatever you believe in, I agree, should close the deal with most voters.

Football and outright pandering, it's a winning combination.

Thanks, James McBride.

McDonald and McBride.

It's going to be a tough one to beat.

Well, you say that.

How about this one from Leary from Silver Spring, Maryland, who said, Dear John and Andy, I'd fully intended to vote for Barack Obama in the upcoming election, and I may still.

But after your compelling arguments in issue 44, I felt that I'd not given due consideration to a small pencil I stole from IKEA.

It may be an inanimate object, but it definitely has more charisma than John McCain, and he gets to be a candidate.

Further reasoning for nominating a small pencil I stole from IKEA include 1.

It actually serves a purpose.

2.

It has gold in life which is certainly achievable and makes sense.

3.

It is filled with graphite, a material which itself is cheap but is related to diamonds and so has the perspective of both ends of the spectrum of wealth.

I absolutely love that.

And 4.

It has never to my knowledge discriminated against anyone for any reason and is content being used by a person of any given race, sexual orientation, gender.

Indeed, the only people it might possibly be prejudiced against are those who do not have fingers.

True.

I hope that more people will consider voting for this, a small pencil I stole from IKEA, in the upcoming election.

I can just tell by the way it lies there on my desk that he's excited at the prospect of becoming the next president of the United States.

Love Leary.

Magnificent.

And this nomination comes from Brett Sonnenschein in Brooklyn, in New York.

Thanks for your email, Brett, again.

And he writes, Dear John and Andy, I'm supporting as my nomination for president for Bugle in 2008 the ghost of basketball great Wilt Chamberlain.

Oh yeah, good.

Like many Americans, I've wanted a ghost chief executive for years.

The advantages are obvious.

A ghost doesn't need Secret Service protection as he is already dead.

Ghosts can haunt unwanted world leaders like Chavez or Ahmed Dinijad until they flee their residence in fear.

And who wouldn't want to see the amusing spectacle of a White House press corps conducting seances instead of press conferences?

And instead of Bush looking into Vladimir Putin's eyes and judging his soul, a ghost president could literally reach inside Putin and touch his soul.

I'd like to see him wriggle his way out of that one.

And why Chamberlain, sure he was a brilliant athlete who used his skills instead of his physical advantages, and had a famous sense of sportsmanship, but mostly because the man said in his autobiography that he slept with over 20,000 women.

That's hotty from history territory.

That's more women than the entire British Parliament has ever slept with.

Let's see hipster French President Sarkozy look cool next to a seven-foot ghost with 20,000 bedroom conquests.

The USA will be the envy of the world again in no time.

Even though nothing indicates Chamberlain has any economic experience, this would be remedied by placing a leprechaun on the ticket.

With their limitless supplies of pots of gold, the American economy would be out of recession in weeks.

Also, this would lock up the Irish votes.

So I say, ghost of Wilt Chamberlain, stroke leprechaun 08.

Thanks, Brett.

We've got some very strong contenders.

Do keep those contenders flooding into thebugle at timesonline.co.uk.

And on the subject of escapism again, sport!

And well, as we record, the singles day of the Ryder Cup is quite literally about to begin.

So we can simultaneously do a review and preview of the Ryder Cup.

John, it's been a fascinating couple of days of golf, I'm sure.

Has America been gripped by it?

Well, American Andy Cam once again care about the Ryder Cup now that they're winning it again.

Their interest in the competition seems to be in direct correlation to how well they're doing at it.

So yeah, they are very pleased about it.

And you, John, as a member of the European nation, perhaps the greatest golf nation in the whole golf world,

I know that you know if you if you if you're cut John you bleed the blue and gold of the EU flag.

Yeah and with little yellow stars.

Yeah, although that comes out as well.

That's due to a mixture of a blood infection and a bad diet.

But anyway, I mean it's you know I think very difficult for you being a European in America at this time with such a fierce battle for supremacy going on.

Well, I just want to run onto the golf course and say, please, why do we have to fight?

Can't we just get along?

Phil Michelson, put down your golf club.

Faldo, relax.

So, what's your prediction for the final day, John?

And who's going to come out supreme?

It's a battle for supremacy between

America and Europe, the like of which hasn't been seen since World War II, when America invaded Europe only to find out that Europe had already invaded itself.

The winner is going to be golf balls, Andy.

Right.

You know, they love travelling through the air as fast as possible, and they're going to be doing that quite a lot.

So, I mean, you just, the big winner is those little white bespeckled balls.

My big disappointment so far, John, is the absence of novelty joke golf balls in the Ryder Cup.

The funniest joke in the world.

That is quite literally the funniest joke in the world.

As advertised on the box of a novelty joke golf ball that I acquired from my father-in-law, which I think was the funniest, it was the exploding golf ball.

That is the funniest joke in the world.

Yeah, the competition gets a little overheated at times in the Ryder Cup and a little jingoistic.

And maybe, you know, if Hunter Mayhan were to line up on the tee on the 18th, needing to win the hole to grab a crucial half for America on the last day, and swing his club at the ball, and the ball then just exploded in a puff of flour.

It just might lighten the mood a bit.

And I think top-level golf needs more pranks.

And here are the early results from the Crazy Golf Ryder Cup at the Belfry.

In the quarter-finals, Ian the Leicester slasher McHugh beat Nutty Trevor 4-3.

Wild Man McGraw came back from America by beating Screaming Pedro by one hole.

Ken Napoleon Smith Bonaparte got a walkover over dribbling Wes Nunk after Nunk hid in a tree.

And John Daly beat Ian Poulter 2-1.

So that's it for the bugle this week.

We'll just finish off with the Bugle forecast.

The forecast this week is on who is going to go bust this week.

John, who's your money on?

Tricky to say, Andy.

I think maybe

Microsoft are going to go bust this week and they're going to be taken over by Manchester City Football Club.

I think that's my economic prediction.

I've got two possibilities for this.

One, the guy who sells flowers on the A40 out of London.

Right.

I just think, you know, there's always going to be demand for businessmen feeling guilty on the way home to see their wives buying bunches of roses, but I think the quality of his products is just not good enough in the modern marketplace.

And also Bulgaria as a country is going to go bust.

They're just coming up to their 100th anniversary of independence and I think they just might buy too many fireworks.

So that's it for the Bugle.

Happy wedding anniversary to my parents.

Oh,

why not?

Why not?

Well, the reason why not, John, is they probably won't listen to this.

But anyway, it's out there now.

There's a good reason why not.

It's a good reason.

But I'm off for an excruciatingly awkward few hours.

Oh, yeah.

Well, good luck, John.

Amongst some hideously attractive people.

I'm sure you'll wear your Armani suit with style and thrive.

Yeah.

I think we all know none of that is true.

Have you written your winning speech in case?

No, I have not, Andy.

I have prepared my losing expression.

Well, good luck, John.

All the bugles are rooting for you.

Yeah, that's right.

And this will be a big

win for the bugle.

Well, do plug the bugle in your winning speech if you don't win.

Sure, we'll do.

I don't know when that hypothetically happens.

The next award I win, I'll plug the bugle, whatever it is.

Okay, even if that award is my breakfast in the morning.

Bye-bye.

Cheerio.

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.