Democratic convention special

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello Buglers and welcome to a very special issue number 43 of the Bugle for the week beginning Monday the 1st of September 2008.

With me, Andy Andy Zaltzmann back in civilization having returned from Scotland back in London and in Denver Colorado Mr John Oliver hello buglers hello Andy I am in Denver the mile high city and I am in bed I'm not gonna write you

I am physically in bed things to do in Denver when you're in bed one of them is do the bugle.

I think this is interesting Andy, this will be the bugle at its highest ever altitude.

That's interesting what effect that could have on

the bugle.

The air is extremely thin.

I really think these punchlines could soar.

But it's hard to say whether I would.

I've had an average of around three hours' sleep each day this week.

So my head feels slightly stray.

I'm not sure with the altitude or what I've been doing to my body over the last seven days.

Right.

Well, you've been getting absolutely hammered with the Democrats, John.

That's right.

Oh, that's right.

They're so happy to have us here, Andy.

You know, it's been non-stop wine evenings.

So, yeah, John is on the phone from his bed in Denver.

So, if I go quiet for a moment, I might have just dozed off, Andy, you'll have to just blast a hooter or something.

Well, if like a chambermaid comes in and starts getting frisky, this could get blue.

I suppose it's not, it isn't impossible, but we will be interrupted sometime

by someone wanting to

turn my bed down.

Do you do that?

Is that what you do with a bed?

Do you turn it down?

I don't know, John.

It depends how attractive the bed is.

Gaboom.

And that one has soared off into the depths.

Well, it has.

But that was delivered from sea level in London.

So I think it was more...

The setup hit me faster because it was coming through altitude.

But the problem is, any long jokes, stamina is a big problem.

We can go back to the Mexico Olympics.

A lot of quick times in the sprints.

But very slow times in the distance races.

Could be the same with the bugle.

Anyway, so this is a Democratic Convention special of the Bugle.

Also, as I said, it is the week beginning Monday, the 1st of September.

September thus becomes, John, the last month in history to host an edition of the Bugle.

October really kicked things off, when was it?

Last October, I think.

Since when all the other months have gone in on the act, one by one.

And now finally, September, clearly a real tin of a month, has broken its bugle dub.

Well done, September.

Nice to have you on board.

Prick.

And as always, some sections of the Bugle go straight in the bin in this week's Democratic Convention special.

We have some commemorative Democratic Convention sound effects going in the bin, including the cheer, the cheer, the cheer, the round of applause, and the cheer.

Also, an exclusive supplement on what other celebrities would have said if they had been Barack Obama, including swimming star Michael Phelps, I think he would have suggested John that America should swim faster.

80s pop starlight Debbie Gibson, I think she'd have gone very much along a similar lines to Barack Obama, but perhaps suggested intermittently that America should shake its love of something.

Stone Cold Steve Austin, he'd have just suggested wrestling stuff.

And science ace Isaac Newton, who sadly died in 1727, so couldn't be at the convention.

But I think he probably would have gone on about gravity and motion and prisms and shit like that, and how rival scientist Hook was a tosser, and how he gets genuinely upset when people call him Applehead.

Not the most American of gentlemen, Isaac Newton, no, Andy, was he?

British is a nut, John.

British as a nut.

Tough story this week, and it is the Democrats volcano of democracy, which has been erupting over four days this week.

And I've been here the whole time, Andy, and let me tell you, the convention center itself looks like what would happen if you've got a six-year-old to design their own birthday party.

I want a million balloons and TV screens all up the wall onto the ceiling, and I want doughnuts.

Thousands upon thousands of doughnuts.

Well, they're good doughnuts, John.

That's the key.

They were many doughnuts, Andy.

So it depends really whether size is important for you with your doughnut.

Well, it is important.

Or whether you prefer the small doughnut in higher quantities.

Well, I don't like donuts, so I like the small doughnut in small quantities.

So it doesn't sound like it's right for me, really.

I always found that strange that you weren't a big doughnut fan, Andy.

Why is that strange?

It's such an inoffensive snack to doughnut.

Oh, Hitler liked doughnuts.

Really?

Is that the only food stuff that you know that Hitler enjoyed?

Yeah, that's all he ate.

That's why he was so short.

Didn't get all the vitamins he needed when he was growing up because he ate donuts.

And I think, as his actions showed, that man was over-sugared as well.

In many ways, too much short-burn energy.

Maybe Germany would have been a different country in the 30s if he had avoided the chocolate D.

Anyway, back to the convention, John.

Yeah.

Must have been quite an amazing thing to see.

It was incredible.

I was actually on the floor of the Obama speech amongst the delegates, which was a place that somehow I had the credentials to be.

And yet I think all around me would have agreed that there was a problem with the issuing of those credentials.

It was quite a strange feeling being at a moment of genuine American history with the sole intention of finding a way to undermine it.

It really was strange.

It was like being at Gettysburg and taking a whoopee cushion with you.

At one point during the week, I found myself physically running after Jimmy Carter, trying to think of something ridiculous to say to him if I could cut him off before he got behind a cinnamon stick stand and that sticks with an X.

And it was an almost out-of-body experience as I ran towards a living President of the United States getting ready to say something reprehensible.

Did you catch him?

I did catch him.

Actually, Joe, I did catch him.

That was the thing.

And so

I was ready to go.

And then the cameraman's battery went down.

Yeah.

So that's quite an awkward social situation, isn't it?

When you've chosen a former president and then you've got nothing to say.

It was.

I mean, he was looking at me very much with who the f are you in his eyes

and why are you standing in my way?

uh but yeah so sadly jimmy carter and i only got to enjoy an awkward silence rather than an awkward conversation so what what did you what did you do to break that silence i think i said sorry mr president the camera badly seems to have gone down

he didn't seem as disappointed with that as i was right

and so he simply continued on uh into the arena

where he fought a bear barehanded

that's right that was what he was there for it was Carter versus the bear.

It was the 3 p.m.

slot.

He's done a lot of speeches in his time, Andy.

Now he just likes to do bear fighting.

The real Jimmy Carter at last.

That's right.

So he just did 20 minutes of that.

Did pretty well.

And what did you think of the stage at the stadium speech?

The

supposed barrackopolis, as it was described by Republicans.

It was a natural phenomenon, Andy.

Ten columns rose overnight

out of the stadium's floor.

No one knows how they got there.

No one knows when they're leaving.

But it is one of the great natural phenomena of life.

Ten Greek columns standing there.

I mean, it was an incredibly arrogant move.

Pretty much to say, I'm Zeus.

This is Mount Olympus.

Look on my democracy, ye mighty, and despair.

Well, that, of course, is how Stonehenge began.

It was a political rally in the early 19th century.

Well, it's just a druid.

Yes, we can.

Yes, we can.

What druid?

Yes we can what yes we can do spells

But I heard that the Democrats actually toned it down a bit from their original plans.

'Cause in rehearsal I heard that Barack Obama came out carried by Persian slaves in a tunic, sacrificed a bull and invoked the vengeance of Zeus in his feud w feud with John McCain before declaring war on Sparta, stripping naked and wrestling a teenage boy.

To get the full kind of Greek analogy going.

You know I know.

I I think that might have won over some of the undecided.

I think it might have been a mistake just to go with words in the end.

You know, you can dress it up how you like.

It's still words coming out of a man's mouth.

Whereas, yeah, stripping naked and wrestling a boy.

I mean, it was quite a momentous speech.

What did you make of it?

I mean, yeah, I was there, but I was also working and was

so I heard very little of it.

until I actually got back at night.

I mean, it seemed pretty impressive.

What did you find?

Well, personally, John, I I wanted a bit more policy detail.

I was hoping.

I'm not sure the 70,000 crowds would have agreed with that.

Well, I think, John, you know, he was basically showboating.

He had a crowd of people already on his side there.

He should have, you know, it was a very safe speech.

You know, we all knew he was going to get a standing evasion.

If he'd been really brave, he'd have done a six-hour ramble through the technical and financial details of the legislation he's planning.

Let's see if he can hold a crowd when he's reading out footnotes and describing graphs.

That is the real test of his rhetorical skills, John.

There was a demand that he do some more policy detail whipping around the crowd with a Mexican wave.

And it all seemed a bit scripted as well.

You know, it'd be nice if he'd riffed a bit.

You know, a bit of banter with the crowd.

You know, just get the front row.

You, what's your name?

Where do you come from?

Disappointing.

It's all signposted around the front.

They've all literally got little sticks saying Idaho, Arkansas.

So that kind of indicates your ability to do crowd work.

Right.

But surely Idaho, there, there's.

I mean, that's, you know, Idaho, there's an easy, easy kind of deliberate misunderstanding of the word Idaho.

They could have got a bit blue with that, surely that would have wound the crowd up a bit.

Wouldn't it not be more interesting for these conventions?

Because they're all, you know, it's all a bit kind of happy-clappy, isn't it?

It'd be more interesting if the presidential candidates had to give their speeches at their opponent's convention.

That would be more of a test, and it would be a tougher crowd.

And then I think we can see what they're really made of.

That is a fantastic idea, Andy.

That really would be booed onto the stage.

Yeah, and we'll see how good he is.

Because then you really would want to get in the biggest possible place as well.

McCain will be speaking in front of 55 million people

on top of a mountain.

John, one of the best speeches for my money came from Cheryl Crowe, the Democratic Party spokeslady for Country Rock, which I think it does look like Cheryl Crowe's setting herself up for a tilt at being president in 2016.

I'd vote for her, you know, if I were American and had a guitar.

But I was slightly disappointed.

I mean, here was a woman singing, A Change Will Do You Good, which was a touch of hypocrisy as she blasted out her 1997 hit for about the 8,000th time.

It is the fact that every day is a winding road.

Is this the official Obama line now, John?

Or was this a bit off-message from the nine-time Grammy Award winner?

You know, that's what I want to know.

Just seems to be slightly running against the tide.

Well, also, she's the unelected representative of Country Rock, Randy.

It's very much a dictatorship she's practicing at the moment.

There were were some very interesting ideas in Obama's speech, John.

He seems to be in favour of a better economy, better healthcare, and better education for America.

These all seem like good ideas, John.

How come no one in American politics has suggested these things before?

Well, it is a bold new strategy, but you know, McCain is a very different candidate, so do be prepared for next week when he'll be very much going the other way.

He's got to separate himself from Obama now.

Yeah.

So the Republican convention really will be about killing everybody.

everybody's basically going to be a sequence of people half on a podium with a machine gun unloading it into the crowd.

Well at least it'll mark them out as different

from the Democrats.

Exactly.

That's what it's all about.

Now as a neutral spectator, John, of the convention, and by neutral I mean non-existent given that I spent most of last week in the west coast of Scotland where the only news they're interested in is whether the beer and whiskey has arrived.

Everything else is a very very small footnote.

So I find it quite hard to catch up, keep up with the exciting back slapping and hooting of the convention.

I did try to stay up for Obama's speech but unfortunately he was on about 3.30 in the morning.

I fell asleep about half an hour before he came on.

But I do remember thinking there was 80,000 people in the stadium getting really overexcited.

You wonder can he keep that momentum going?

Because I remember

leaving an occasion like that thinking that you know in England coming to the next general election I just walked out of a stadium with 80,000 people shouting and screaming I remember thinking there was no way come the next election that the England rugby team won't win it but since their victory over Ireland in March they've really failed to build on that popular support and you know will Obama make the same mistakes well but I don't know Andy I mean Obama's young unlike the England rugby team we're of course quite an ageing group he's also very much about new ideas rather than reactionary defensive manoeuvring also Obama's pledge to end American dependence on Middle East oil within 10 years.

This is quite an exciting pledge John.

I guess we've got to give credit to George W.

Bush for this.

Because if he hadn't spent so much of his eight years in charge proving how dangerous it is to be dependent on Middle East oil, Obama wouldn't have said that.

So really that is very much a Bush policy.

That's right, it's more of the same, Andy.

Four more years.

Four more years.

So after the excitement of Denver, John, you're now off to St.

Paul.

That's right, I'm leaving for St.

Paul, Minnesota.

That will be for the RNC, the Republican National Convention.

And I'm feeling nauseous almost saying those words.

It could be the altitude, but I think it's just a prescient state of what it's actually going to be like.

I don't think I will ever have seen so many pro-life people inside a single building before.

It's going to be so celebratory of life and the atmosphere there.

It'll be incredible.

They just love life.

That's not a crime.

They love life.

They also appear to love love shooting that life with the guns that they also love.

There's just too much love.

That's the only thing they're guilty of, having too much love for things.

But the big news amongst the Republicans is the announcement of Sarah Palin,

John McCain's running mate.

He announced that his running mate would be 44-year-old Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska for the last 18 months, and self-styled hockey mom, whom he has met only once.

And

the instant reaction to this from most of the American media was variations upon the sentiment, what the folks have instantly thought this was McCain executing one of his hilarious practical jokes and that he would in a matter of seconds unveil someone else.

But no, Sarah Palin is the Republican nominee for vice president.

So let me give you a little information about her, Andy.

She's about as right-wing as you can get without having paintings of yourself on the side of tanks.

She is pro-choice, pro-creationism in schools, a member of the NRA, and does not believe that global warming is man-made.

And this is the person who would be one heart attack away from being leader of the free world.

She doesn't have a lot of experience, which is strange for a campaign which so far has been run almost solely upon that issue.

Now, on the one hand, she is governor.

which is a very impressive position, but on the other hand, it is of Alaska, which has a population of around 670,000 people in total.

So there are actually more salmon than people.

She definitely qualified to be queen of all salmon.

And I believe she currently holds that position, which is elected every eight years.

As you know, she's a big fan of guns, and I guess that comes from living in Alaska, where, you know, it's kill or be killed, John.

If you don't shoot the moose, the moose is going to shoot you.

Exactly.

There are so many moose just wandering around, butting things, ready to whip out an AK-47.

They've got to defend themselves.

It's war up there.

They've actually evolved guns coming out of their hooves and horns.

They had to to survive.

But I guess the key thing about Sarah Palin is she's a woman and therefore presumably all women now will vote Republican because

of her having ovaries.

Because there were no ovaries on the Democratic ticket, only testicles.

And now there are ovaries on the Republican ticket.

You know, that lasts.

People with ovaries have someone who they can relate to.

It is amazing that the first time the Republicans have a vice presidential candidate who's a woman, and the fact they're doing this in a manner which is almost sexist,

they've managed to make this glass ceiling gesture almost offensive.

And well done to them.

I'm also sure that when she was giving her speech, when she was unveiled as the running mate, I'm pretty sure that John McCain from over her shoulder had a quick peek down at her décolletage, shall we say?

Pretty sure.

Look it up on YouTube.

I think I won't do that.

Well, women clearly are a key voting group, but Paynon appeals to more than women.

She was once Miss Wasilla in Alaska.

Is that how it's pronounced?

Wasilla?

Wasilla, I think so, yeah.

So she appeals to both beauty pageant contestants and stalkers,

the latter being a key voter group in Delaware.

She also apparently once thought about buying a pinball machine, so she should also appeal to pinball who are currently getting nothing from the Obama-Biden ticket.

And she also has the same surname as Monty Python star Michael Palin, so she should appeal to US-based Python fans because no one on the Democratic team, John, has the same surname as a Python member.

Although, I guess since both Joe Biden and Barack Obama are male, and Biden is quite old, and Obama is not Jewish, they could claim collectively to be Graham Chapman.

So it might not be such an advantage as people think.

Yowza.

Why is there kind of competition for Miss Wasilla, though?

I'm guessing it isn't just seals and salmon in bikinis.

That's mermaids, isn't it?

Oh, that's right, that's mermaid.

What I found most impressive about Sarah Palin, she's got a son called Track.

Really?

Yeah, she's got a son called Track.

Oh,

good for her.

But she's got quite a lot of kids, so I guess at that point she was probably running out of names.

And she was just naming her children off the things she was looking at.

Yeah it isn't a couple of people have mentioned this actually that you know she's she's pro-life but also she's the mother of five who is now trying to become vice president of the most powerful nation in the world presumably meaning that having brought all these children into the world she's now going to farm them out to an opaque well she has one of the toughest jobs in the world that's right Although she had said there was a clip that's just emerged of her saying a few months ago when she was mentioned in connection with the vice presidency.

Well, I don't know.

I mean, someone is going to have to explain to me what a vice president actually does.

So I don't know if someone in the intervening time has explained that to her, or if that is an awkward conversation which still needs to take place.

Because I don't think the prime responsibility of the vice president is raising your five children.

But let's not forget, John, her husband is the four-time winner of the Iron Dog snowmobile race.

No way.

I don't believe that

it's true.

I don't believe that there's ever been a four-time winner of the Iron Dog snowmobile race who's been married to a vice president.

Does that race actually have to be run with Iron Dogs as well?

Well, I think that's what they call the snowmobiles.

Oh, right, I see.

But, you know, Iron Dog.

I mean, I'd have that as a nickname.

If I was a wrestler and the Iron Dog Zaltzman.

So next week, John will be live from a bed in St.

Paul.

That's right.

Hopefully, sounding slightly less sleepy than this week.

It is about eight in the morning.

Yeah.

It is that.

It is that.

It doesn't sound as bad until you factor in what I've done to myself over the last seven days.

You didn't have to go to all of those gentlemen's clubs, John.

I didn't have to, no, but it was my democratic right to.

And I've tried to exercise every democratic right I have whilst being here.

So, John will be live from St Paul next week.

Also, we'll be giving you a self-diagnosis kit to find out whether you are a Republican and will also the following week be offering you the cure.

Now a special sports section about sports at the Democratic Convention and the Denver Broncos turned up a pre-season training at Invesco Field but despite prolonged arguments with the Democrats they were unable to run through their pre-season drills.

However a compromise was reached and linebacker DJ Williams gave a rousing ten minute speech to the convention about how important reform of health insurance is.

That's a fact.

And in Democrat boxing, Joe Biden's son Bo Biden beat Chelsea Clinton with a final round knockout after 12 rounds of quite brutal brawling reminiscent of Frazier versus Arlie, but more so.

And finally, baseball and baseball statistician Scruton L.

Polgavia from Cooperstown has calculated that, in terms of rounds of applause received, if Barack Obama had been a baseball player rather than a politician, he would have hit 34 for 34 with 25 home runs in his speech on Thursday.

What a player.

Your emails now, and due to John's convention commitments, we are postponing the Wikipedia update for two weeks to a special edition in two weeks' time, the 15th of September Bugle, when I will be on holiday.

And we will give you a full update of the Wikipedia and all the various offshoots that you listeners have set up.

So, thanks for that.

In the meantime, we have one email about the conventions, and it's from SW in Washington DC.

No first or surname given there.

That's a bit shady.

Anyway, it's on the subject of Democratic ticket poetry.

And SW, possibly male, possibly female, writes, Dear John and Andy, as the news came out last Friday that Obama's running mate was to be Joseph Biden, I, like many other Americans, and indeed many other earthlings, found myself stuck on the assonance of the new Democratic ticket name, Obama Biden.

I couldn't figure out why the two names together sounded so pleasing until I realised that read out loud they form exactly one half of an iamic pentameter line.

What an opportunity.

Unfortunately, SW continues, I'm a totally crap poet myself.

You are therefore in harmony with 99.99% of the Earth's population.

That's correct.

Especially teenagers.

And I haven't gotten anywhere past one complete iamic pentameter line, which goes as follows Obama Biden banners raised aloft, and then I fell off

says SW.

I wanted to add something like oh a Denver's mountain sky but I couldn't complete the line.

Plus, that's two hokey contractions I'd rather not claim authorship of.

This just isn't my game.

I thought since you two are our accomplished poets, steady,

specializing in iamic pentameter, a fact I found by searching the Bugle Wiki, which I just edited.

Well done.

That's it.

Create to our own facts.

We can create a brighter future.

Perhaps you could help us museless folks by composing a sonnet or two, starting with the five syllables Obama Biden.

Or if you want to hide your talents, ask your other listeners to come up with some.

McCain is also fortunately, and I am.

Perhaps he could compete poetically if he picked someone with an amphibracic name.

Unfortunately, the only amphibrac I can think of in current American politics is Barbara Mikulski, Senator from Maryland, and she's a Democrat.

Yours in prosody, SW from Washington, D.C.

Well, that is certainly the most technical poetry-based email we have ever received at the Bugle.

And what finer week to receive it in than the week of the Democratic Convention, when language has soared to new heights?

Well, feel free to take up that challenge, buglers, and get your I ams in.

Not enough poetry in

convention speeches, John.

I was hoping that Hillary Clinton would come out, come out with some limericks during her speech, but

I guess once she'd put on that bright orange suit, everything else was pretty much irrelevant.

Well, there must be a delegate from Nantucket, Trouble.

It just seems such a huge waited opportunity.

So do email your poetic convention-based contributions to thebugle at timesonline.co.uk.

And there'll be more convention emails next week.

So that is pretty much it for this special Democratic Convention edition of the Bugle.

Just time for our bugle forecasts.

John, the forecast this week is on what kind of temple is John McCain going to appear in front of in St.

Paul?

Well, that's an interesting one.

I'm going to go with Aztec temple, Andy.

I think it's going to be a mound of bricks in a dense jungle undergrowth.

And there's going to be an effigy of his face planted at the top of it, and the eyes will be on fire.

Right, I think

he might actually just emerge from a pyramid, mummified, and then he will get,

which, you know, might, of course, be heightening fears about his age.

But he could then get his...

He could then get Sarah Payman to just unwrap him gradually.

And then once the bandages are off, dressed like a young Tutan karmoon in a loincloth and a big beard, he can begin his feet.

He really doesn't seem a million miles away from being mamafucked at the moment.

If he starts wearing a kind of gold plate over his face, I think we'll know that something awful is happening inside.

The other forecast this week, John, at the end of Obama's speech, she said, God bless America.

Now, do you think God will bless America?

If so, how?

Of course, Andy.

God has and will continue to bless America, and he's done it ever since America was born by ripping it from the hand of the Native Americans who God did not bless.

He did not bless them.

He blessed real Americans.

Not the ones that were just passing through.

That's what they were doing.

They were passing through, Andy.

Very slowly.

Yeah.

And they were encouraged to go a little faster.

So I guess if God is going to bless America this year, we'll see whether he's a Democrat or a Republican

in November.

Because he's been pretty right-wing the last eight years.

He's been pretty right-wing for the last 6,000 years, I think.

So, thanks for joining us for this Democratic Convention special.

Next week, it's the Republicans strap in.

Hooray!

From London, it's Buh-bye,

and from Denver, it's back to sleep

night night, buglers, night nights, 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 right now.