Adults and Aliens

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello Buglers, welcome to issue 29 of The Bugle for the week beginning Monday the 19th of May 2008, which makes it just 472 short years since Anne Boleyn had her bonce lopped off by Executioner magazine's husband of the year, Henry VIII.

Hello from me, Andy Zoltzman here in London and in New York City, Mr.

John Oliver.

Hello Bugers.

I tell you, Andy, it's been quite...

I met Doug Fife this week, ex-Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, of course, during the Bush administration.

That's quite a job.

I think that goes without saying.

And he shook the hand, Andy, that touched George Clooney.

I had to shake his hand.

And I'm afraid that not only has the hand gone back to normal, I think it's got worse.

It's not just less handsome, I feel I've got some of the blood of innocent people on my hand now.

Was it not a great opportunity to hold out the hand as if you're going for the handshake and then go with the old twiddly fingers on the nose?

Maybe, that's it.

I didn't think of it.

It all happened so fast.

I just, all I was concerned about that he didn't mess up my other hand as well.

I need that hand.

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

This week, a self-sufficiency guide to help the global food crisis, including features on how to turn your living room into a battery farm for up to 2,000 chickens, how to motivate your garden vegetables without destroying their self-esteem, and how to grow your own caviar using a fairground goldfish and a contraceptive pill.

Top story this week.

Aliens.

And I don't mean illegal immigrants.

I mean actual aliens from outer space.

They don't have visas in every sense of the word.

Now, usually talk of aliens is confined to conspiracy theory websites and people shouting at traffic.

But this time, the Catholic Church have waded in on the issue.

The Pope's chief astronomer has said that life on Mars cannot be ruled out.

Now, there are a lot of things in that sentence to look at.

Firstly, since when has the Pope had an astronomer?

The Catholic Church has always had quite a slight a slightly frosty relationship with science.

The kind of relationship where neither side honestly thinks that the other one exists.

And just who is this Pope astronomer?

Is he just someone with a telescope essentially on God Watch?

Like the iceberg spotters on the Titanic.

He just stands on the Vatican roof all day with instructions to sound a horn if he sees God swooping down out of the sky.

Well, let's hope he finds as much proof of existence of his target as the iceberg spotters did on the Titanic.

Albeit hopefully not quite as late.

Perhaps the Pope is just into horoscopes.

Though Andy, the Pope was born on the 16th of April.

That makes him an Aries, of course, compatible with Sagittarius and Leo.

But, of course, Jesus was famously a Capricorn, which would make the Pope incompatible with Jesus.

Not my conclusion.

That's the conclusion of astronomers.

Go get angry with Galileo, Catholics.

Oh, you did.

The chief astronomer, Father Funes, I don't know if that's the correct pronunciation, he acknowledged that the Catholic Church, or Cathy for short, was wrong to be so nasty to the poor little Italian astronomy megastar Galileo 400 years ago.

But he did add that it is now time to turn the page and look to the future.

It's now time.

We can let bygones be bygones.

All that stuff with Galileo.

You know, I think, you know, time is a great healer.

And it's never too late to say sorry.

So that's some justice for Galileo's grieving relatives and admirers.

It wasn't until the reign of Pope John Paul II, nearly four centuries later, that the Catholic Church finally admitted he was right.

And on behalf of Galileo, I'd like to accept that near apology, Andy.

The fact that he died blind and under house arrest by the Inquisition is nothing.

What we've learned from this is that you will get your apology from Catholics.

You just might have to wait 400 years for it.

But better late than never.

It is the ludicrously belated thought that counts.

So hold out for a bit, Africa, because by 2408, you may be on the right end of a sorry for assisting the spread of AIDS card that you can stick onto your fridge.

You'll have fridges by then.

The question it does raise, John, is that if there are aliens, according to the Pope's chief astronomer,

that raised the question, did God make them?

And if so, were they prototype humans that went wrong?

Are we prototype aliens that went wrong, which I think is possibly more likely?

And in which case, was Earth his difficult second planet?

Or did he simply get de-morb happy after making us and start doing flashy stuff with long green tentacles and shiny feet?

Well, that's the point.

See, now, writing in the Vatican newspaper, the astronomer, Funes, or Funes, however he pronounces it, said intelligent beings created by God could exist in outer space.

Where does all this fit into the Bible, Andy?

Was this what God did whilst pretending to rest on the seventh day?

He was populating Mars on the quiet.

Maybe he just put his pillows under his duvet in a body shape so people thought he was resting.

It's a classic move.

Perhaps Earth was just God's normal job and Mars is God's long-term weekend project.

Mars is God's shed.

It's a shed he's not doing a great deal with, John.

It's an absolute mess.

It's just red.

Father Foon said the search for forms of extraterrestrial life do not contradict belief in god and the official vatican newspaper headline for this article was aliens are my brother are you kidding me come on catholics you've got to make it harder to make fun of you than that that's just giving it up too easily i guess that's from the book of luke i may be mistaken it's been a while Now one key thing here, Andy, is that if God did indeed make man in his own image, we may have to change some stained glass paintings.

And Michelangelo might need to have a second crack at his ceiling.

You need to have little green men all over the Sistine Chapel.

Well, who's to say that aliens aren't just fat babies with wings?

In which case, Michelangelo was bang on the banana.

Fat babies with wings.

That's basically all he painted, isn't it?

I've got to say, Andy, if there is a judgment day, that is going to come up.

When St.

Peter for the prosecution is standing up, you have just given him exhibit A.

Fat babies with wings.

Down you go, Mr.

Zoltzmann.

Fat babies with wings.

Sounds like something Idy idiot Army might have ordered in a restaurant.

And that has just sealed the deal.

What's the best way to cook a baby's wings?

Oh no, no, basically you've got your chicken wings on the side.

Oh really?

That was a side order.

Sorry, I misunderstood our mean there.

So well, thank goodness I wasn't a waiter in that regrettable restaurant.

And it's not just in the Vatican City that aliens exist, it's in Britain as well.

Classified reports of UFO sightings from the last 30 years or so have been released by the government.

And they showed that the number of reports of UFO sightings doubled after the release of Steven Spielberg's sci-fi docudrama Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which was released in 1977, coincidentally, the very same year that the Bugle's very own John Oliver was released to a fanfare of publicity.

That's right, Anne.

It does suggest, though, that a film influencing how easily we are convinced that we're seeing a UFO does suggest that as a nation, we are extremely dim.

It also seems slightly odd, John, that a lot of these reports seem to have come from policemen, which suggests that they might have targets that they're trying to meet for a number of UFOs reported.

And it does raise the question: why aren't they out there solving real crimes?

That so speaks someone who has never done a day's police work in his life, Andy.

I think they just battered confessions out of Frisbees.

Eight documents have been released so far, with another 200 to follow.

And these incidents were clearly taken seriously enough to have been locked by the MOD though

many of them were reported by very old people or people who had been drinking heavily occasionally both.

Now one document reveals the experiences of a 78 year old man who alleged that he met an alien beside Basingstoke Canal in Aldershot, Hampshire in 1983.

He said he went on board the craft giving a detailed explanation of it before being quizzed by the aliens about his age.

He was then told, you can go, you are too old and too infirm for our purpose.

Andy, I I hope he turned straight round and told them to go f themselves

how very rude there is no worse alien than an alien without manners you might be able to get away with that kind of impudent behavior in the deserts of New Mexico but that simply will not wash in basing stoke good day aliens I said good day

a woman in Lincolnshire said that she saw a globe-shaped object in the sky emitting a light bright enough to read a book with.

I would suggest to her that that light was the sun.

Apparently, there have been over 10,000 reports since 1950 of UFO sightings in Britain, although the vast majority, well, let's say all of them, are attributable to a mixture of easily explainable natural phenomena, IFOs, and barking mad and pissed people wasting the Minister of Defence's time.

And for American UFO fans, Donald Rumsfeld apparently once thought he saw an alien, but then realised it was merely the unfamiliar sight of someone smiling at him.

Well, Dennis Kucenich admitted he'd seen the UFO during one of the presidential debates, and his presidential campaign ended soon after.

It was a doozy.

He is not even trying to appear like he cares anymore.

He's already got one ass cheek on a rocking chair in Crawford.

He'll ease the second one on in January and will live obliviously ever after.

In the interview, amongst other gems, he stated that he had given up golf in solidarity with the soldiers in Iraq.

Now, there may have been many people who have argued that he should have given up his job due to Iraq, and he seemingly haggled them down to temporarily ceasing golfing.

Does his contempt for human life know no borders, Andy?

Will it roam free until the end of time?

Well, I think it's a remarkable sacrifice.

You know, people give up all kinds of things for Iraq, their lives, for example.

But war affects us all in different ways.

And, you know,

for a soldier giving up their life, that's part of their job.

For a president, giving up golf is in many ways more of a sacrifice.

He said, I don't want some mom, which is beautifully put, some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander-in-chief playing golf.

I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best I can with them.

And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.

Here's my concern, Andy.

In a way, has he not let the terrorists win by doing this?

But in his defence, many great men have given up their favourite sports in wartime.

Churchill gave up beach volleyball and Alexander the Great gave up ice hockey and you know what a puckhead he was.

Well yeah he has caved in because the terrorists don't want us to play golf.

And there's a reason for this John.

How many terrorists have ever won a major championship?

There had been quite strong rumours about Ian Woosnam being a front for the FARC rebels in Colombia, but he's always denied it and I'm not going to argue with the lad.

And Colin Montgomery's got close as well.

He's got very close.

We all know who he's working for.

Tamil Tigers.

Our British leaders don't give up their sports that easily.

When Francis Drake saw the Spanish Armada hoving into view in the English Channel in 1588, he finished his bowls game, John.

He did not cave in.

He made a joke about the Spaniards and fishing quotas.

Then he finished his bowls game, which I believe he won three sets to one against an ancestor of the three-time world champion, Tony Alcock.

Bush could learn from the example of great British leaders like that.

It really helps you think clearly and plan important military and political decisions.

In fact, Phil Mickelson said that whilst winning the US PGA in 2005, he formulated complete plans for an invasion of Mexico that he claimed would definitely work and also, quotes, only require about 10,000 ground troops, a couple of choppers, and a B-52.

But he didn't even stop there with his first ever internet exclusive interview, which incidentally on this showing should perhaps be his last.

He also defended his opposition to the Kyoto Treaty on Climate Change, saying, I could have supported a lousy treaty and everybody would have went, oh man, what a wonderful sounding fellow he is.

But it just wouldn't have worked.

I don't think you want your president trying to be the cool guy.

Oh, Andy, how does he retain his capacity to hurt?

That could be the biggest success of his two years in office, that after eight years of relentless disappointment, he can somehow still turn your stomach.

It's not his fault he was elected once.

He's been in Israel this week.

President Bush gave a speech in the Knesset to mark Israel's 60th birthday

and a bus pass for that country.

And he he took a swipe at Barack Obama, claiming he was appeasing Iran.

Now, you'd have thought that giving a speech in a nation where the tactic of shoot first field questions later has proved somewhat counterproductive.

That he might not be quite so dismissive of a bit of George Orr before war, war, war.

But also, also, with Neville Chamberlain, you know, he gets a lot of criticism for appeasement, but he was really the set-up pitcher, and he set it up for Winston Churchill to close it out and get the save.

Also, appeasement was giving things away, it wasn't talking to them.

I don't think anyone's suggesting, I don't think even Obama is suggesting that we give some of the Czech Republic to Iran.

Unless he is, in which case, let's hear him out.

Bush was also in the Middle East because Olmert there has a 5% approval rating.

5%?

Israel is not a big country, Andy.

Some of that must be his family.

5% is incredible.

King Charles I had a better approval rating than that, and we chopped his head off.

President Bush says Ehud Olmer is a frank and honest man, although it appears that the courts may disagree with that claim.

Olmer has spent most of his time in office saying no I didn't repeatedly.

But in fact he was down as low as 3% which suggests that he's turned the corner and it's now heading back up towards respectability.

And it must be nice for Bush to spend a bit of time with a leader with a lower approval rating than himself.

Well, it must be incredible.

It must feel very strange for him to not be the most loathed man in the room.

Although internationally, I still think he's got it.

And there were also rumours emanating from this meeting that America might have a pop at Iran before the end of the year, which by total coincidence is when Bush is facing compulsory redundancy.

That really is sticking a fat envelope in the intray for your successor.

It is hard to think of a ruder way for Bush to leave office than invading Iran, short of painting the White House pink, gutting the inside and turning the entire building into a disco.

That would just be copying Lyndon Johnson.

Ludicrous economics news now, and Zimbabwe has issued a $500 million banknote.

At the beginning of April, they issued what was then the largest denomination banknote at a paltry $50 million.

That is one month ago.

What can you buy for 50 million bucks these days?

A half-decent holding midfielder?

Well, not even that in Zimbabwe.

You can buy about half a banana.

They've actually also given up releasing inflation figures after it reached 165,000% a few weeks ago.

They've just given up.

Now you can see the reaction to the Bank of England's prediction that inflation in Britain will hit 3.7%

at some point.

And that's been enough to make Britain soil its collective financial underwear.

And people in Zimbabwe must just be scoffing at us with total derision.

It's good to know that there is an amount of percent inflation where it just becomes irrelevant.

You just got to have the balls to push through to the other side.

Go through the tough times into the point where money is just a thing of the past.

So to commemorate this fantastic achievement by Zimbabwe, we have a Bugle quiz, and we will be giving away a made-up banknote officially signed by the world dictator of your choice.

And you have to answer this question correctly.

What is the highest denomination banknote ever officially issued?

Was it A?

the 204 million ruble note issued by Peter the Great to celebrate winning the tallest man in Russia competition three years in a row.

Each million rubles represented a centimetre of Peter's winning height.

Only one of these notes was ever printed, and the massive Tsar paid it to himself in prize money.

Was it B, the 500 billion lira note?

It is rumoured that a suitcase full of these rare notes sank to the bottom of Lake Como in 1938 when Benito Mussolini capsized his pedalo whilst trying to impress racing driver Alberto Ascari's new girlfriend.

Was it C, the 100 quintillion pengo note issued when Hungary went naught crazy after the end of the Second World War?

The Soviet army later forced the locals to use more decimal points or face immediate execution?

Or was it D, the 1 trillion Ugandan shilling note ordered specially by Idiar Min in the mid-1970s so he could make the world's richest origami pigeon?

A, B, C, or D.

Do email your answers to yourself, and if you get it right, then you can draw yourself a banknote and sign it from a world dictator of your choice.

And now, a special bugle adult section.

Oh, yeah.

You have to be 18 to listen to this part of the bugle, or at least have ID suggesting you are.

Oh, yeah.

Oh yeah.

Yep, this section comes in the week when it was revealed that 75% of Canadian women have humped in a tent.

That one in three American mothers has had or is having an affair.

And it is 46 years to the day since Marilyn Monroe made a mess of JFK's trousers just by singing happy birthday to him.

Talking of Marilyn Monroe, Andy, a Marilyn Monroe sex tape.

hit the market a couple of weeks ago.

Jimi Hendrix has also had one emerge.

And there does seem to to be a new craze for sex tapes of long-dead celebrities.

And have no fear because there is a glut of them coming out.

Other emerging sex tapes are Queen Victoria and Prince Albert having sex on the back of their speedboat.

Now, this is interesting historically for two reasons.

One, it's a fascinating glimpse into the private life of the longest-serving queen.

And two, it casts serious doubts over when we currently believe the speedboat was invented.

Also, coming out, actually, is a previously unseen section of the Bayer Tapestry, which shows William the Conqueror in a lap dancing bar celebrating his victory at the Battle of Hastings.

Oh, that's adult.

That's adult.

There's reportedly an upcoming video of Cleopatra getting off a horse in an ungainly fashion without any underwear on.

There was some paparazzi there, unfortunately, to carve it straight into a rock.

And

the internet is currently awash with videos of Hotty from history, Joanna the Mad, pole dancing.

Oh, yeah.

She was just trying to pay her way through college, Andy.

Yeah.

It's interesting that this craze for

sex tapes of famous people from the past does seem to have coincided with the global phenomenon that is hotties from history.

That's right.

I think we are both

in credit and in debt for that.

How much are you going to have to pay to see Jimi Hendrix

in action, so to speak?

I don't know.

I don't know.

Actually,

I haven't got that far.

I actually hadn't clicked on the.

I don't really want to see Jimi Hendrix having sex.

I mean, say it's, I don't know, say it's £15,

$30.

I don't know, that seems reasonable to see

Jimmy.

Is it Rigs?

Here's the thing, Andy,

that is the same price as his Voodoo Child album.

And I think he'd rather that you listen to his seminal work of rock genius than watch him bump.

Yeah, I think you're probably right.

I mean, he was basically redefining the boundaries of music, and you can get that for basically a Fiverr.

So I'd imagine that he was probably okay at pleasuring the ladies.

I don't know how one qualifies these things, and we're both showing Andy as inherently repressed British men.

And the more we talk about adult issues, the more we are kind of regressing into a Victorian...

I don't know how one may rank oneself as an admirer of the female form.

Or indeed,

who would make that decision?

In the words of F.

Scott Fitzgerald,

I believe.

Come like Hugh Grant.

In other adult news, three lesbians are suing a lesbian organisation over the use of the word lesbian.

That's right.

A man from the Greek island of Lesbos is not at all happy that ladies who like ladies have stolen the name of his island due to the ancient Greek poetess Sappho, who variously lived in the 7th and 6th centuries BC, was certainly a lesbian with a capital L and may or may not also have been a lesbian with a small L.

The islanders say if they are successful in this legal fight, they will start to fight the word internationally.

Who has the right to call themselves lesbians?

Is it all the gay women in the world or is it 100,000 reactionary Greek islanders?

Or is it in fact both of them?

Because gay women are not counter-suing Andy.

They're happy for the island of Lesbos to keep using the term.

It's good brand association for them.

Lesbos is a beautiful island, presumably full of lesbians.

But even if this gentleman, Demetrius Lambrew, who's leading this case, even if he wins his legal battle to ban the use of the word lesbian to refer to such ladies, a quick search of the internet confirms that he has got his work cut out, if he wants that to apply across the globe.

He said in this claim that the international dominance of the word in its sexual context violates the human rights of the islanders and disgraces them around the world.

He says it causes daily problems to the social life of Lesbos's inhabitants.

I doubt that.

In court papers, the plaintiffs allege that the Greek government is so embarrassed by the term lesbian that it's been forced to rename the island after its capital, Mytilene.

Now, usually, Andy, this kind of level of repression can only be there to mask latent desires.

There is only one rational explanation for this outcry.

The entire Greek government is gay.

They should just admit it.

Come out of the closet and enjoy the gay lifestyle they so deeply yearn for.

Stop wasting everyone's time with these ludicrous court cases.

Over the last couple of weeks, Miley Cyrus, the poster child of Disney, has come in for huge criticism for a supposedly sexualised photograph from Annie Leibowitz, which showed her wrapped in a sheet with slightly tussled hair.

Just a few things with this quickly, Andy.

One, Miley Cyrus is 15 years old, so really for pedophiles without the courage of their convictions.

And two, it didn't look sexy, it just looked lazy.

She looked like she was late for her paper round.

And Hugh Hefner claimed that the Furah shows how schizophrenic America is about its sexuality.

Wow.

When the voice of reason is coming from Hugh Hefner, a man who built his own grotto, we have to be worried.

And in fact, Andy, Playboy is now losing money.

Playboy Enterprises Inc.

posted a quarterly loss last Tuesday because of weaker publishing and domestic television revenue and forecast more trouble.

during the year.

Now, this really is bad news, Andy.

Playboy is the economic canary in the coal mine.

Recession may may well be on its way if only we'd have this pornographic bellwether before the wall street crash history could have been very different how is uh how is hugh by the way john he's still fine you still in touch with him he's no i've never been in touch with him but if you say that john but i was with you at hugh hefner's 75th birthday party i completely forgot about that in london well it was one of his 75th birthday parties i think he was on a tour of the world having birthday parties everywhere and uh i should explain for intrigued bugle listeners that the company that manages John and me were doing the PR for Hugh Hefner's 75th birthday tour and we got, as a result of this, invites to his birthday in London.

And I think it's fair to say, John, you and me are no strangers to looking out of place in social situations.

But I don't think we've ever looked quite as out of place as we did at Hugh Hefner's 75th birthday party.

All I remember about it, Andy, is lasting about half an hour before I got extremely depressed and left.

Well, what I remember about it is making the mistake of also inviting my wife to come along to the party.

And when I said to her, darling, you're the best looking girl here, she slapped me hard in the face.

It was then, Andy, that I knew that that relationship was destined to last.

More adult news now, and Starbucks, the coffee giant and purveyor of inedibly dried bagels at Stansted Airport in 2002, has unveiled a slightly altered version of its mermaid logo, which shows a bit more boob.

Because nothing screams, I want a cappuccino louder than a topless half-woman, half-fish with what looks like a nasty tail injury.

Now, inevitably, John, where there's bear flesh, there will soon be a religious group complaining about bear flesh, on the grounds that God made Adam and Eve and the Tabard to cover them up.

And no, not even Factor 50 will stop you burning in hell.

The Christian group in question called The Resistance, working out of San Diego claims the logo quotes looks like a prostitute.

Now John I'm no expert on prostitutes but whilst driving home late at night across Tooting Common in south London I can safely say I have never once seen a mermaid nervously lighting a cigarette under a streetlight.

The founder of the Resistance group, Mark Dife, suggested that Starbucks might as well rename itself as Slutbucks,

which I think is a bit of a logical leap, but I think we would all agree that would brighten up high streets around the world.

And he added that the woman is actually a siren, not a mermaid, which in Greek mythology lures people to them with their beautiful songs and then kills them.

Kind of an early-day Kelly Clarkson.

And in many ways, this is very similar to Starbucks, who

lure people.

That is a reference I simply did not expect to come from you, Anne.

Do you even know who you're talking about?

Or did you just type that into the internet?

Do you know who Kelly Clarkson is?

You don't.

You don't know.

Not really.

Is she the same as Leanne Rhimes?

No, she's not the same.

As good as.

Adult horse news now, and the world's leading stud, Sadler's Wells, is being retired.

The horse described as the best sire Europe has ever seen is to cover mares no longer.

And don't forget, this is a continent that has seen a lot of horses humping a lot of other horses.

There are literally hundreds of winning horses that call Saddler's Wells daddy horse and and wait expectantly by the stable door for the birthday sugar lump that never comes.

Now, in his prime, John, Sadler's Wells was banging about 200 mares a year at a tasty £200,000 per hump, making him at £40 million a year the world's best-paid prostitute.

Now, when asked what he'd attribute his success to, he said that he just had an uncanny ability to nay a mare into the hay and give her a damn good killering.

And now he takes his phenomenally potent Equine nadges into retirement, citing fatigue and the unending bump and grind of being a stud horse.

Bugle emails now, and Andy, we've got one here from Kerry Ahern from Temple Terrace, Florida.

And she says, Dear John and Andy, admittedly, I know next to nothing about British politics, but after just watching an NBC nightly news segment on the newly elected Mayor of London, I must ask, did you guys just elect Gary Busey?

Well, John,

I'm going to have to ask you first, from the point of view of British listeners who is Gary Busey?

Well Gary Busey was and I guess slightly still is a film actor here who has gone and I know you enjoy this term batshit crazy.

Well apart from the film acting bit then it does sound like yes we have basically just done that.

You are absolutely right Kerry.

You might not know much about British politics but your instinct is outstanding because that is exactly who we've elected.

So congratulations Mr.

Busey and good luck running London.

Another email from Chris Richards in Needham, Massachusetts, and he says, Dear buglers, I was very happy to hear the return of the American during last week's podcast.

However, it was at this point that I noticed John has retained his British accent and refuses to speak in the normal, correct American accent.

Oh boy,

you have my full attention here, Chris.

Now, if he just moved to New York last week, this could be excused.

Although last time I visited London, I received nothing but acceptance to appreciation from you, Brits, Brits for having the common courtesy of using your regional expressions and putting on my best Dick Van Dyke circa Mary Poppins impression.

Seeing as how you have lived here for a while I must insist that you start sounding more like Hugh Laurie and less like Eric Idol.

Hugh Laurie sounds English.

He's faking it for you yanks.

He says, below is a sample of something us typical Americans say in day-to-day conversation.

And he's written a little passage down here for us to practice American accents with.

So I'll take the first one, you take the second one, and I think he can he'll soon see why, sonically,

we are incapable of sounding American.

Okay, here we go.

Two weeks ago, I took the elevator from my apartment down to the building's underground parking lot.

I walked past the hood of my car to the trunk, which was full of half-eaten French fries and empty bags of potato chips, and took out my gasoline siphon hose.

That's a pretty good start, John.

It's terrible.

After stealing a gallon of gas from a neighbouring core, I got into my hummer and drove to the local war to down a few ice cold pud lights and watch my favourite football team, the New England Patriots.

Andy, uh Andy, are you a private detective from the 1920s?

I am, yeah, actually.

Sounded perfect to me, Andy.

So uh Chris went on to say, please practice the above paragraph in your spare time or while on air.

I expect that next week we'll be treated here in two distinct dialects, one British and one regular.

Also, on that note, Andy, keep up the good work.

Your diction is perfect.

Cheers.

Well,

let's wonder if that is true after hearing what you just did to the American accent.

So, do keep your emails and hotties from history flooding into thebugleattimesonline.co.uk.

And the latest hotties from history will be rounded up in a special hotties from history bugle blog at some point in the next six months.

Hopefully, sooner than that.

Bugle sport now and yes, this week it's the one we've all been waiting for.

If we are Manchester United or Chelsea fans, which neither of us is, so realistically it's the one that a few of you might have been waiting for for a couple of weeks, but most of you probably couldn't give a flying shit about.

It's a great day for Britain, John.

the first all-English Champions League final.

We have proved once again that if we put our minds and our collective wills to it, there is nothing nothing we cannot achieve as a nation if we hire in people from around the world who are better at it than we are.

Is there much excitement in America because of the Glazers owning Manchester United?

No.

No?

That's bad.

Absolutely none.

It's a tax write-off.

But following the violence that

marked Rangers win in the UEFA Cup over Manchester Police, will Chelsea and United's fans be able to take on the Russian police in Moscow?

Now, it's always a tricky place to win, John, as Napoleon Napoleon and Hitler would both testify vociferously.

It's hard to hooliganise in Russia.

Hitler tried it a long time.

A long time he gave it a go with his unruly thugs, but they were beaten back.

And I don't know if Manchester United and Chelsea are stronger than the German army in World War II.

We'll see.

My favourite sporting story of the week, Andy, was LeBron James's mob coming on court during the Cleveland Cavaliers Boston Celtics match and shouting at Kevin Garnett, prompting LeBron to turn around and scream at her, sit your ass down.

Now, I must have watched that about, I guess, on average, about five to ten times a day since it happened on YouTube.

And this is part of a long tradition of people's moms getting involved in sport, Andy.

Sugar A.

Leonard's mom was once furious with how much Thomas Hearns was hitting her son in the face.

So she got into the ring and she knocked him out with a flying uppercut.

Then Moon walked out of the arena in triumph to Tina Turner's Simply the Best.

So this is not without precedent.

Another thing happened in boxing when Henry Cooper knocked down Cassius Clay in 1965 I believe, which was a bit of a surprise at the time.

The reason for that is that Cassius was distracted by his mum turning up at the arena shouting at him to go back home and tidy his room.

Also, it was rumoured that during the 1990 World Cup semi-final shootout, Gary Lineker was so nervous about taking his penalty that he sent his mum out in disguise to take his penalty for him.

And she scored, confidently.

I'm not sure with LeBron James though.

I think he's probably big enough to fight his own battles, especially if those battles are on the basketball courts and involve lobbing a big ball through a hoop.

And now

a truly historic moment in the history of humanity and podcasts.

It's happening.

It is happening, John.

This is the last remaining clue in the audio-cryptic crossword.

John, for me, as we look back now on the glorious glorious history of the audio cryptic crossword, I think it kind of provides a link between the ages.

The age now of the bugle being almost 30 editions old and back when it was just a tiny little podcast in arms.

Really, Andy, I see the glorious history of the audio cryptic crossword in the same way as I see the glorious history of the Third Reich.

A terrible idea which was rammed down people's throats for far too long.

I would see it as a triumph for persistence, doggedness, and the value of standing up to pressure from the other side of the Atlantic.

I think the audio-cryptic crossword really is a shot across the bows to American imperialism.

That's how I see it.

Anyway, the final clue is this.

And it's one that you should enjoy, John, because it's got a bit of literary element to it.

I know how much you love your books.

It's thirteen across.

It's nine letters long, split into two words of four and five.

And it is this.

What Beckett might have his characters do to chivvy things along today,

contact Almighty before it gets off topic.

So, how do you feel, Andy?

It's over.

Well, I feel like

Captain Scott and Amundsen rolled into one.

I mean, what are we going to do?

Are we going to give the answers away next week, or are we going to start with something new?

Oh, I could give one answer away a week.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Nice try.

Well,

I guess we'll give people a little time to come to terms with their own personal grief at the end of the audio cryptic crossword, and then maybe when a dignified time has passed, we'll post the solution on the web page timesonline.co.uk slash the bugle

and bugle forecast now to wrap things up and this week's forecast is on who will be the democratic vice presidential candidate and john my money is on bill clinton he is available at 150 to 1 uh on a betting website admittedly it's a bit of a long shot but those are tempting odds and if i was a really really rich man i would put on loads of large different bets totaling around about 30 million pounds just to get some chatter started.

In which case, if you're going to do that, Andy, I would go for the forecast of Abraham Lincoln as VP.

That is a dream ticket.

Well, one of us has got to be right.

So, thanks very much for listening to the bugle.

Do join us again next week.

Bye-bye.

Have a delightful week.

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.