You Will Know Us By Our Knobbly Fruit

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello Buglers and welcome to issue 34 of The Bugle, the world's only and leading audio newspaper for a visual world.

Issue 34, that means that the Bugle is now older than me.

This is for the week beginning the 23rd of June 2008 with me, Andy Zoltzman, in the fair, fair city of London and in the equally fair city of New York.

It's John Oliver.

Hello, Buglers!

Even Fairer, Zoltzmann, even Fairer.

I mean, Buglers, you should know that Andy has spent the last 15 minutes complaining about the echo in his headphones.

It has been a colossal debus drop.

You're sounding like Mariah Carey, Andy, and not in a good way.

This is also Andy's third attempt at introduction.

You don't need to tell people that.

That's the beauty of being able to edit stuff.

Yeah, I just don't want to lie to them.

I think

we as the perpetrators of the viewpoint, to suddenly say that you don't want to lie to our listeners after 33 editions in which we've done little but lie to our listeners, I think that's a bit rich.

In this week's edition, John, I will be attempting and hopefully completing my most contrived ever joke.

Right.

Wow, so that's a hell of of a claim, Andy.

That's a big claim.

I'll see if you're going to spot it.

As always, some sections of the audio newspaper go straight in the bin.

This week, a fishing ethics section, including, a shark wouldn't throw you back onto the land, so why should you throw his fishy little compadres back into the water?

Is it okay to fish for dolphin if you're a really good cook?

Rod, net, or bare hands, how to choose the equipment your fish would most like to be killed by?

And who should set fishing quotas for the Atlantic?

The EU or Mighty Poseidon?

Or the fishermen?

And why should the fish have any say in the matter?

If they'd bothered to evolve an arse that they could then get off in order to evolve, they wouldn't be in this mess.

Was that it?

Was that the contrived joke?

No, it wasn't.

No, it wasn't.

Oh, really?

No, wasn't it?

Oh, wow.

I'm not saying there aren't other contrived jokes.

I'm just saying that wasn't it.

Top story this week, Europe.

Ireland was thrust into the political limelight for something other than being historically persecuted by Britain when it voted no on the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.

And I know what you're thinking, buglers, the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, that is a comic gold line.

John, Andy, helmets on, sacks out, canaries in a cage, get digging.

Well, I mean you're absolutely right, of course, and what you know it is tempting to fall back on some of our old Lisbon Treaty ratification material, but we've managed to resist that and this is all new stuff.

All killer, no filler.

Although if any of this does sound familiar, you have to understand that there is bound to be some overlap with other comedians' Lisbon Treaty ratification material.

That's just natural when you're in generic territory.

That's right.

Europe, the continent that has brought the world celebrities such as Julius Caesar, Nostradamus and Virginia Wade, is in turmoil.

Ireland, the country that has brought the world such phenomena as the Irish Guinness and disgraced swimmer Michelle De Bruyne, voted no to the Lisbon Treaty.

Now, no one in Europe really knows what the Lisbon Treaty is or how it would work, but people don't don't like it anyway, and in that respect, it mirrors my own attitude towards molecular biology.

I think, John, part of the opposition stems from the word treaty itself, which is a very misleading word, John.

It sounds like it's going to be full of treats.

In fact, they're mostly full of clauses, which aren't as much fun.

And you wouldn't go trick or clausing on Halloween, would you?

Well, you might.

You wouldn't do that.

Well, you might, but you'd be left at the end of the evening with an incomprehensible jumble of mutually aggravating vested interests, which isn't what you want if you're dressed as a pumpkin.

It's healthier though.

The problem was any treaty in the EU has to be ratified by all 27 EU nations, which for a continent that gets on as well as Europe does is a bit of a stretch.

You're talking about 27 nations who spent at least 10% of the last century not only thinking about how to kill each other, giving it a pretty good try as well.

Some of us will vote against what we ourselves want solely to annoy another nation.

Now Now that we can't be at war with each other, we just have to irritate one another instead.

It's like retired boxers who live next door to each other sitting in rocking chairs all day and calling each other dicks.

In fact, the only reason that we're not at war right now is that we couldn't agree over whether to have one or not.

And some people say that why should a few thousand voters in Ireland spoil the fun of thousands and thousands and thousands of bureaucrats across the whole of Europe.

It seems a little bit undemocratic to me, John.

And bear in mind that Ireland is a country that has never actually actually been invaded by Germany and therefore barely counts as being part of Europe.

The Lisbon Treaty can't be ratified until it's been approved by all the 27 members, as John said.

So it does now appear to be as dead in the water as a ferret which escaped two weeks ago from a submarine.

Was that it?

No, no, that wasn't it.

That wasn't it.

I feel now that my claim of doing my most contrived ever joke is now distracting you from

the podcast.

It's a fun game.

But it's very hard to know what to think of the Lisbon Treaty, John, because

I don't know anything about it and there's too much sport on telly, realistically, for me ever to be able to read it.

That's the basic British attitude towards it.

We like to ignore Europe in general.

We're not part of it, that's why, Andy.

We're not part of that landmass.

We're on our own.

Well, I think plate tectonics would disagree with you on that one, John.

No, we're definitely not part of it, Andy.

There's water there.

I listened to Destiny's Child's take on the European issue, which is

we're independent.

And everyone should throw their hands up at us.

I think they do throw their hands up at us, John, but unfortunately they throw their hands up with their two fingers extended.

The things in our museums, we stole them.

But Britain, we've been sceptical about the influence of Europe in Britain, John, pretty much ever since the Romans pitched up and said, hey guys, you look freezing, your faces have turned blue.

What say we look after this place and teach you all about underfloor central heating?

And

the prevailing British attitude remains, what have we ever got from the European Union?

All they've ever done is confiscate our measurements, make us pay for some French farmer to lean on his pitchfork smoking jutans, and insist that the ingredients of the great British sausage are no longer covered by the Official Secrets Act.

Well, I'll tell you the ingredients of that sausage

Britain, Britain and Hooves

to disgrace.

In other Europe news, the European Parliament has passed some new rules dealing with illegal immigration under which illegal immigrants can be detained for up to 18 months and face a five-year re-entry ban.

Quite harsh measures these against illegal immigrants coming into Europe.

And I think, John, there is more than a splosh of irony source in this legislative sausage sandwich, given that the European Union is an organisation one of whose primary functions and purposes is to allow the free flow of people between countries.

And it's now stamping down on the free flow of people between countries.

The solution, of course, is for the EU to keep expanding until every country in the world is a member.

At the current rate, that will be around the year 2085, and that will bring an end to all immigration.

Now, can you guess, John?

I'll give you one guess, who has been mouthing off about Europe's latest set of rules.

Okay, okay.

Just one guess you're giving me.

One guess.

Is it the tabloid press?

No, no,

I'm looking for a single global political figure who likes to mouth off about stuff.

Okay.

I mean, I feel I'm stuck now between Chavez and Armadine Jad.

Right, you're very much on the right table, tennis table.

Oh, okay.

Which side are you going to serve from?

Armadinejad.

No, it was Chavez.

It was Chavez.

Yeah, and guess what he's threatening to do, John?

Can you guess?

He is threatening to...

Hold back oil.

Exactly what he's trying.

Yeah, that's exactly what he's doing.

Classic threats.

Classic threats.

It's a textbook piece of Chavez.

Some people are saying, come on, big man, wheel out some new material.

But, you know,

why change a winning formula?

It's a classic.

It's like Woody Allen's moose routine.

Also, the European Commission has said that it wants to loosen the rules that prevents knobbly fruit and vegetables being put for sale alongside fruit and vegetables that aren't knobbly.

and are regularly shaped.

Now that is a story, Andy.

We love those stories.

Anything where the EU tells us how long our Mars bars can't be.

For some reason we're much more irritated and interested about stories like that than covert draconian dehumanising immigration.

A statement from the Office of the Agriculture Commissioner Marianne Fisher Burle said, in an era of high prices and growing demand, this makes more sense than just throwing them away.

Now, arguably, you could say that that would make more sense in an era of low prices and negligible demand, not throwing away perfectly good food.

But I think, not good enough, Commissioner Burle.

I'm a citizen of Europe.

I did not fight two world wars so that I would have to eat slightly misshapen vegetables.

Admittedly, John, some of the world's hungry nations might say to Europe, what the f?

What is your fing problem?

You're throwing away your misshapen vegetables, and as a result, I'm about to throw away my misshapen child.

Among the vegetables no longer having to meet the strict EU standards of shapeliness are carrots, courgettes, and aubergines.

Oh, yeah.

Now, it does look increasingly like this entire batch of vegetable shape related legislation was essentially designed to avoid nuns getting offended by rude shaped food in the supermarket.

The regulations for fruit and vegetables were extremely detailed Andy specifying their design appearance weight size and other features.

For example regulation number 1292 slash 81.

Oh what a beauty.

Oh yeah, I mean that laid down the quality standards for leeks, aubergines and courgettes and it states that for class one leeks the white part of the leek must represent at least one-third of the total length or half the sheathed part and for aubergines the difference between the smallest and largest aubergines in the same package must not exceed 20mm for elongated aubergines and 25mm for glovers aubergines there is every possibility andy that under current eu law aubergines have the same if not more rights than people

So essentially that is what Europe can actually agree upon.

Not being prejudiced against knobbly fruit.

What an alliance, Andy.

The next superpower.

You will know us by our knobbly fruit.

Other food news now, and biscuits are absolutely critical to the health of the world economy.

According to a new report, the success of business dealings could depend on the range and quality of biscuits, or as my young baby daughter calls them, if they're a little out of her reach, Bic Bic.

Bic.

Bic!

Bic!

Wah!

Fate!

Why must you mock me so?

Those were her first words.

Fate, why must you mock me so?

Yeah.

That really would be an incredible first sequence of words for a child to have.

But could this biscuit power be true of all negotiations, Andy?

And if so, is it not tragic we've only found out now?

Might America have signed Kyoto if there had been wagon wheels on the table?

Could Chamberlain have properly appeased Hitler with a hobnob?

Was a custard cream all that stood between us and Armageddon with the Cuban Missile Crisis?

We know Khrushchev loved them.

Did JFK have the foresight to send him a pack?

We just don't know, Andy.

Also, at the Battle of Hastings, John, King Harold was actually killed by an arrow that had a rich tea biscuit on that was a generous gift from William the Conqueror that went horribly wrong.

He must have felt awful after that.

William, I've got some terrible news.

Did he get the biscuit?

He got the biscuit.

Well, that's great news.

Well, no, sorry.

I should have said he got the biscuit, but there's bad news.

He's dead.

Oh, no.

It's amazing the influence of biscuits on business.

And I actually did some research into this, John.

I walked through the city of London, dropping biscuit crumbs on the pavement.

And by the time I got home, there was a crowd of about 150 chief executives literally throwing suitcases full of cash at me.

It's quite incredible.

Given that, as John Maynard Kane sang in the musical he wrote about his own life, that's money makes the world go round.

As we've already seen how the economic stability of the world and hence the livelihoods and the existence of millions, perhaps billions of people is dependent on market traders taking just the right amount of cocaine before risking billions of dollars because the guy standing next to them has just done up his shoelace.

Well, on top of this, to now find out that the financial health of the world is also dependent on biscuits at business meetings, well, John, it just makes you think, grow up.

All of you, for f' sake, grow up.

They're just biscuits.

Well, you say that, Andy, but you love biscuits.

I do love biscuits, but I hate business meetings.

So I think it's all right.

But I guess so, but Andy,

if you have to go to a business meeting to get a biscuit, then

it's like a dog, isn't it?

I'm sure they don't want to beg, but they'll beg if they get a biscuit.

John, I am not going to mortgage the security of my and other countries for the sake of a biscuit.

I'm sure that's true, Andy.

It's just not my thing.

It's not my kind of thing.

Yeah, you say that, but again, like a dog, you say that stubbornly now.

Whereas if you even hear the rattle of a pack of biscuits in my hands your ears will prick up and you'll come scampering over won't you uh biscuits and business have long been uh happy bedfellows it's a common interview question at uh jobs for wanky companies a common interview question is if you were a biscuit what would you be to which the correct answer is if you weren't a

what job would you have but the answer that they're actually looking for

What a very, very swift way to not get that job.

But the answer they're actually looking for is: well, I'd probably be a variety selection pack because I'm so good at everything.

Or I'd be a Garibaldi because I like to have a raison d'être.

Or maybe I'd be a chocolate chip cookie because I'm dangerous if eaten in excessive quantities.

Or maybe even I'd be an oat cake because you can cover me with the strongest cheddar you can find, but I'd still do my job.

Or maybe I'd be a giant digestive because of my massive packet.

Democracy news now and great day for democracy in Romania.

The village of Vojnesti has re-elected Mayor Nekulai Ivascu, despite the fact that he is dead.

Ivascu overcame the minor inconvenience of dying from liver disease to beat his rival Georgi Dabrescu.

One villager, in a shaft of conservatism that may never be equalled, commented, I know he died, but I don't want change.

What?

Too bad.

You've got change.

He's dead.

He used to be alive and now he's dead.

That is change.

This isn't weekend at Bernie's.

You can't just pretend he's alive by dressing him up and taking him to the beach in a series of mawkish and hilarious sequences.

Also, I do hope one thing, that Dabresco's political career is now over.

Well, it's not, John, because the Electoral Commission in Romania ruled that Dabrescu is the winner, which I think is a bit harsh, really.

Insult to fatal injury for Ivascu's family.

Ivascu himself has not commented on the decision, being as he is, dead.

But his spokesman has said that they will appeal and are keeping Mr.

Ivascu in the freezer so they can wheel him out to fulfill his responsibilities as mayor.

Although any supermarket openings he was supposed to be doing this summer have been cancelled in case the weather's nice.

But I think it shows, John,

how disillusioned the world has become with electoral politics, that we as a species have started electing dead guys.

Surely that is a message to our living politicians, that the electorates of the world are just not happy.

And I think it shows what we are now looking for in the 21st century in our politicians.

We want someone who will listen without interrupting and without trying to bend the conversation or debate their own way, and someone who won't make gratuitous soundbite comments against a favourable newspaper headline.

And if to fulfil those, that means that person has to be dead, well, so be it.

Music news now, and fans of Grammy Award-winning music legend John Cougar Mellon Camp were left fuming when they turned up to what they thought was going to be a concert of rootsy rock classics, only to be whisked off in a bus for two weeks camping with celebrity host former Welsh international rugby legend Barry John, in which they hunted mountain lions and ate nothing but fleshy, if fairly tasteless and often disappointing fruit.

63-year-old rock fan Trevis Lemond angrily commented afterwards, If I'd known it was going to be that kind of John Cougar Mellon Camp, I'd never have paid £950 for my ticket.

Oh my god.

Is this it?

That is it, Tom.

That is it.

And that, listeners, is the kind of joke you write under conditions of extreme sleep deprivation.

Talk me through about how you're feeling about yourself at the moment.

Well, it's a mixture of pride and exhaustion.

And finally, Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash has mercifully cancelled his forthcoming solo tour.

Bugle feature section now.

And 500 years ago, this year, Michelangelo, or as he was known by his friends, Mickey Paintbrush, was commissioned to do a little bit of decorating for the Pope.

He got his nickname, of course, not because of his artistic skills, but because he had tough, bristly, straight hair, which, when he was drunk, he would dip in a vat of paint and head-butt cartooned testicles into the sides of churches.

Anyway, the story goes that Julius II asked Mickey Paintbrush, Can you whack a lick of paint on the ceiling in my chapel?

It could do with a bit of sprucing up.

Sure, Papa J, replied Michelangelo.

What do you want?

How about a bit of a fresco?

Uh sure, why not?

replied the pontiff.

Great yipped the young artist.

I was thinking of doing something with some dogs playing snooker.

Uh right, Mickey P, said the Pope awkwardly.

It's just uh I was just kind of hoping for something a little bit more kind of neutral.

Maybe just, you know, just a plain off-white magnolia colour.

You know, Mickey, something that isn't going to go out of date.

Right, oh, Skipper, replied Michelangelo, a little downcast.

Hey, do you mind if I do a couple of little bits from the Bible in the corner?

No, all right, conceded the Pope, but just nothing too flash, little little Mickey.

Yay!

Yelped the 33-year-old five-time winner of the Golden Chisel Award for terrific sculpture.

I'll go and get my special scaffold.

Four years later, an angry Pope banged on the door of the Sistine Chapel with his big staff.

Have you finished yet, paintbrush?

he shouted.

Yep, all done, big man.

The pontiff stormed in, hat akimbo.

What the f ⁇ have you done to my ceiling, you flash?

Sorry, Pop, said the artist.

I just got a bit carried away.

Oh, balls, winced the Vatican vicar.

Bloody El Mickey, what is your obsession with naked cocks?

Shit, I've got a christening to do in twenty minutes.

This is going to have to do.

Okay, boss.

Sorry, boss, mumbled the four-in-one painter, sculptor, architect, and chicken impersonator.

You haven't heard the last of this, Buonerotti, blasted the Catholic Cahooner.

Give me that paintbrush.

That's confiscated.

Pope Julius turned to go to his dressing room.

Just then, something on the ceiling caught his eye.

Hang on, that looks like No, it can't be.

Is that my Wang?

Mickey Paintbrush, have you painted my papal prong on that nudie man?

Come here.

Come here, you little.

Oh, no, he's gone away.

I knew I should have got Da Vinci to do this.

Knew it.

So to commemorate half a millennium since this historic moment in the history of history, we present to you the Bugle Italian section.

Andy, that has to become a regular feature.

Historical story time.

Misinform your children with Andy's ultra.

And first Italian news, and I read a story Andy recently that came under the headline, Amnesty on Italian Racism, which I momentarily thought meant that we could all hand in any racism about Italians that we had.

And, you know, it seemed like a great idea.

I've got a lot of very unpleasant names based around types of pasta, which I'd really like to get rid of.

Sadly, it looks like I'm going to have to hang on to them and repress them for a bit longer.

Oh dear, poor little Charlie Conchigli.

It was in fact a report from Amnesty International about a troubling climate of discrimination in Italy, including racist language and very reactionary immigration policy.

In fact, in Rome, Aggiani Alemanno of the Alenza Nazionale was elected mayor on a pledge to expel 20,000 people.

Wow.

And the people in London thought they'd elected an asshole.

I guess.

I guess that has been put into a bit of perspective now.

Well, I love Italy, John.

It's, you know, it's a country that very much knows how to take lunch.

You know, you don't honk it down like a starving lion eating a bag of zebra-favoured crisps.

You take your time.

And I love it so much.

And

I'm prepared to overlook the occasional, deep and incurable undercurrent of racism and social disaffection.

I'm just prepared to let those slide.

Well, you are willing to pay for a meal in every sense.

In other Italian news, Naples as a city officially stinks.

There are 50,000 tonnes of uncollected rubbish in the Campanillo region.

5,000 tons of it on the city streets.

Wherever you go outside the cities, there are enormous piles of rubbish rotting in the sun.

And that, Andy, does not reze like an enticing tourism commercial.

If you're planning a trip to Naples, do go in the summer when the heat is at its highest and the street rubbish seems to morph into a lake of waste.

But they've called the army in now, John.

The government has called the army in to deal with some of the rubbish crisis.

And, you know, without wanting to make any old and hackneyed hackneyed Italian army jokes this has to be their big chance.

Just get a win under the belt.

Silence the critics.

Beat those bags of rubbish.

You can do it.

It's all about confidence.

Interesting with the waste problem in Naples though John which does go back a long way back to 1994 it's been in a state of waste disposal emergency apparently although I guess we can't really have expected much better from from that region of Italy.

It's taken them nearly 2,000 years to clean up Pompeii after Vesuvius blew his top and that place is still an absolute mess.

But interestingly there's some mafia involvement in rubbish collection which suggests I think it's quite a positive move that the mafia are weaning themselves off large-scale organised crime and onto bins.

In other Italian news, the Leaning Tower of Pisa has stopped moving for the first time in its 800-year history.

A $40 million project has been completed which should stabilise the tower for at least 200 years.

And by that point humanity will probably have cannibalised itself anyway, so leaning towers won't really be a key problem anymore.

This success was sealed by the news that the Leaning Tower of Pisa had now lost its title as world's wonkiest building to a small church in Germany.

And first off, Andy, I did not realise that was a title.

It is.

And secondly, did they factor in the house that I built when I was three with cardboard boxes and sticky tape, which I proceeded to live in for an entire afternoon?

Because all of a family photograph seemed to suggest that that was very wonky indeed.

It's

48 centimetres less wonky than it was,

that leaning tower, which is great.

An interesting fact about it, John, in 1934, Benito Mussolini ordered that the tower should be returned to a vertical position.

So upon his instructions, concrete was poured into the building's foundation.

However, the result was that the tower actually sank further into the soil.

Now, I think this can only be seen really as a metaphor for the history of Mussolini's Italy.

And Belito thus became the first political leader in history to be heckled and satirised by a piece of 12th century architecture.

Interestingly with the Leaning Tower of Pisa, if you play White Snakes, here I go again at the right volume, the tower does actually do a bit of a boogie.

It wiggles its third and fourth tiers.

It's barely perceptible.

It's only about a one centimetre wiggle.

But it just can't help it.

It's like one of those dancing cans of Coke you used to get in the 1980s.

I'll tell you, Andy, I defy any object to not rock out to that.

Yeah.

Going down the only road, Avamano.

Your emails now, and this one comes in from Gabe Weinreb, who writes, Hi, I'm 12 years old, and to avoid reading my full name and therefore suffering the possibility of child abductors knocking on my window in the middle of the night, whispering, I'm your mother's friend.

She told me to tell you to climb into my truck.

I will call myself Gabuski.

Yes, I'm Jewish.

Oh, wow.

What a 12-year-old.

That is an outstanding start to an email for a 500-year-old.

Well, John, the key words were at the end there.

Yes, I'm Jewish.

There's a reason we were chosen, John.

There's a reason.

He continues.

I am, was, a passionate supporter of the Hillary Clinton campaign and still subscribe to her newsletter.

Now that the primaries are over, I don't feel guilty in sharing this information with you.

During the Super Tuesday period of the primaries, I was asked at least three times a day to contribute to her campaign.

Today, more than a week after she officially conceded, I am still harassed by her asking for contributions every day.

Hillary Clinton, leave the Jewish children alone!

It's got to stop.

Have you learnt nothing from the history of the 20th century?

You make me sick, Clinton.

You're a hero, little Gabe.

A hero.

That's all the time we've got for emails this week.

Do keep your emails and hotties on history flooding into thebugle at timesonline.co.uk.

And next week we will include more of them as long as I don't get carried away writing another story about Mickey Paintbrush.

Sport news now, and Tiger Woods has won the US Open on one leg.

And I tell you what, Andy, I mean, I really feel that Tiger Woods's acceptance speech should have just been looking down the camera and saying, hello there, my name's Tiger Woods, and I am better than you at golf.

And by you, I mean all of you.

Everybody.

I'm better than all of you at golf.

It must be an interesting feeling to be better than 7 billion people at something.

I mean, do you think you're better than 7 billion people at anything, Andy?

I do make an incredible Carbonara.

Hell of a claim.

And I'm sure most Italians would have a problem with that.

Well, they might have a problem, but, you know, if they've got a problem, come to my house and out-carbonara me.

In fact, Buglers, do email us in if you think you're better than 7 billion people at something.

We'll take your claims and we'll judge them accordingly.

For those of you who missed it, Tiger Woods, the prominent golf club owner and user, won the US Open in a play-off against Rocco Mediate, recently voted the 45-year-old sportsman who sounds most like a cloud formation.

He beat Cumulo Nimbus, the Venezuelan golfer, who was disqualified because he sounds exactly like a cloud formation.

Anyway, Woods won in his first tournament since undergoing major knee surgery, hobbling around the 91 holes eventually took, and prompting accusations from the South African Ratif Gusen, or as he's known in his native country, Ratif Hausen, that Tiger was faking his injury.

Woods responded to this accusation by revealing that not only was his cruciate knee ligament as cabanost as a Polish sausage, but that he also has a double stress fracture in his leg.

Gusen responded in turn by going a bit red, mumbling something about it being only a joke and running away crying to his caddy.

Because Woods had kept the full extent of his physical problem secret, only now do we know the full true story behind this remarkable win.

Woods, who had arthroscopic surgery on his left knee in April, was in obvious pain from the first first T of round one.

Towards the end of his first round, to make matters worse, his right foot came clean off while he was lining up a tricky eight-footer for par.

During a second round, Woods had to have a kidney transplant after slicing a drive at the 12th, and then played the entire third round seconds after undergoing a triple hip replacement.

He shot an eagle and a birdie on the last two holes, despite being gored by a vengeful Ernie L-supporting rhinoceros.

As Tiger struggled to hang on to his lead in the final round, he went down with pancreatitis caused by an unraped bunker.

And then his playing partner Lee Westwood hooked a three-wood which tore through Woods' abdomen and gave him an unscheduled and messily executed appendectomy.

Woods, however, soldiered on and managed a crucial bird at the 18th, despite an eagle sent by Zeus ripping his liver out after the semi-retired and now absent-minded Greek god overheard the 14-time major winner muttering that he was on fire.

Zeus thought that Woods had stolen fire from the gods again and was going to give it to Phil Mickelson.

An overreaction, yes, but rules are rules.

At the start of the fifth day playoff, a steward accidentally sliced Woods' head off with a quiet please sign, but such is Woods' competitive spirit and psychological hold over his opponents that, even after being severely electrocuted when he accidentally plugged his six-ine into the mains when pulling off a miraculous recovery shot from the heavy rough at the 14th, he still managed to win at the first extra hole, despite spontaneously combusting when a spectator took a photograph on his backswing.

What a player.

And now we reach the hallowed section of the bugle which was once occupied by the much mourned audio-cryptic crosswords.

In whose place this week we have a multiple-choice quiz against yourself, the right side of your brain versus the left side.

Answer this question first intuitively and with feeling, and then answer it again rationally and objectively.

If your logical left side of the brain wins, give yourself a jacket.

If your random right side wins, give yourself a poncho.

And the question is this: which of the following books actually exists?

A.

Crunch, Crunch, Clang, an Inside History of Intrafamilial Royal Cannibalism by Henry Duke of Gloucester, published in 1929.

B.

Through England on my knees, a brass-rubbing odyssey by B.

Lewis from 1977.

C.

Say that again and I'll fing nut you, a history of pub brawling by Professor J.

H.

Silmington, 1991.

Or D, In Praise of Corporation Tax, a collection of poems by the staff of PricewaterhouseCoopers from 2004.

So answer that question logically

now

and answer it intuitively now.

And the correct answer in both cases was B, Through England on My Knees, is a genuine book, as given to me by my sister for Christmas.

So that brings this slightly sprawling edition of the Bugle

to a tearful close.

It's been a pleasure talking to you.

Do keep your emails coming into thebugle at timesonline.co.uk.

And we will back

with more outright bullshits next week.

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.