Dead Hill Walking

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, Buglers, and welcome to issue 28 of The Bugle for the week beginning Monday, the 12th of May, 2008, with me, Andy Zaltzman, in a scorching hot London, and in New York City, John Oliver.

Hello, Buglers.

There's no way it's hotter there than it is here Andy no way that's just statistically no way.

Well it's damn hot here how hot is it in New York?

Bloody damn hot.

Really?

Yes.

That's a big claim.

Have you been

surfing?

No,

I just got back from Pasadena last night though.

I guess people are kind of inclined to doing things like that.

Did you not catch a few waves while you were there?

I didn't catch any waves when I was there.

I'm not sure I've ever caught a wave.

Did you drop a wave or not?

I don't think you drop waves.

I don't think you can do that with a wave.

I don't think you can bust a wave either.

Really?

I'm really not sure where your limitations are regarding what you can do to waves.

But I've certainly never busted one, dropped one, or what was the first one?

Caught.

Never caught one either.

In fact, this week's section of the Bugle that is going straight in the bin has a special summer section to commemorate the official beginning of summer.

And the features of the summer section are the hot summer activities for the year 2008, which includes sweating, sweating, panting, spitting and swearing.

Also how to get a great tan without going outside, the key is just don't wash.

Also what to do whilst you're being eaten by a shark, the key here is don't antagonise him by saying call those teeth.

They told me you could bite or I can swim but you can't walk.

Top story in this week's bugle and we have grave news.

Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign is grievously ill.

Friends, family and grieving financial backers are gathered around the campaign's bedside.

Reports from within the Gary Hart Memorial Campaign Hospice say that the campaign is, quotes, as good as dead and barely functioning as a real campaign anymore.

Staff at the hospice said, We've seen countless campaigns going the same way over the years, but it doesn't make it any easier.

Hillary Clinton has continued her slow, elegant freefall towards defeat, tugging away at the ripcords of primary parachutes in North Carolina and Indiana, both of which failed to inflate enough to halt her plummet towards failure.

And even her emergency superdelegate rocket boots look as if they're about to let her down.

She's become like the Japanese soldiers who fought on long after World War II had ended.

Hiru Onoda fought on for 29 years after the end of the war until his old commander, Major Tanaguchi, gave him the official orders to stop.

This could well happen here.

She could be campaigning long after Obama or McCain are sworn in as president next year.

The voices calling for her to pull out are increasing in number and volume, and they're now starting to resemble not so much critics as concerned boxing spectators screaming out, stop the fight, as someone gets repeatedly pummeled, throwing anything that even resembles a towel towards the ring.

Stop the fight!

Oh, for the love of God, stop the fight!

In fact, doctors at Democratic headquarters are urging Clinton to make the end as quick and painless as possible.

Perhaps a kindly pillow over the face, a caring vial of cyanide in its morning grits, a lovingly American baseball bat round the back of the head.

But sources close to Hillary Clinton suggest that she prefers to let it die a natural death on grounds of self-promotion.

How has this got so bad, Andy, that I actually feel sorry for her now?

This is one of the least sympathetic people in the country, and yet I just want to give her a hug.

Then, though, she goes and says something about how Obama can't get the support of working-class white people.

The moment passes, and I have to withdraw that hug offer, and she must remain unembraced.

Her campaign is now $25 million in debt, $11 million of which is her own money, which she has loaned herself.

And American democracy really is the biggest and the longest in the world, Andy.

It's also the most expensive, so it just has to be the best.

It's like art.

If it's expensive, it must be good.

The cost of becoming president is no longer the most mind-blowing statistic.

It's now how much it costs to lose.

That you can spend a billion dollars and still not be president.

It's just ridiculous.

I guess that just shows how far the dollar has been devalued.

But Clinton claimed after winning Pennsylvania a short while ago that the tide was turning.

And she was right, but sadly that tide proved to be the one at the edge of a small inland pond, slightly exacerbated by a passing pedal.

She also told supporters after squeaking a victory in Indianapolis last week that it was now full speed onto the White House.

albeit that was full speed on a two-legged donkey and the White House in question was in fact Jack and Meg White's house where the Clintons are taking on the white stripes in a behind-closed doors winner-takes-all triathlon of drinking, shrieking, marked for both volume and pitch, and caged wrestling.

Bring your own chair.

Well, there's only going to be Meg and Hillary left standing at the end of that one.

But what happens when you owe donors so much, Andy?

Well, things like this happen.

Ardent Clinton supporter Harvey Weinstein reportedly threatened Speaker Nancy Pelosi with cutting funding to the Democrats if they didn't find a way to count the delegates from Michigan and Florida.

That kind of thing happens.

You get held to ransom by the executive producer of the nanny diaries.

There have been many signs of this doom ahead, though.

Hillary compared herself last week to the horse Eight Bells just before the Kentucky Derby, a horse who was second favourite.

Sadly, Eight Bells came in second and was then immediately euthanised on the track.

Unfortunate and yet prescient.

Well, there are very few politicians have...

quite such an amazing ability to do predictive metaphors of their own careers.

I think she should be praised.

I guess she's not really in demand as a horse pundit anymore.

Please, don't pick my horse, Hillary.

Don't pick my horse.

It's only young.

But so it is fizzling out a bit, the Democratic campaign, John, because there's quite a few primaries left, but they're all quite small.

And I think the Democrats really need to look at how they organise their campaign.

There's a real lack of drama.

I think they probably should have kept a few of the big stakes to the end to get a real showdown.

That's really what the fans want to see.

Yeah, her chances of winning do now look as remote as the chances of any candidate in this race being photographed at a rally without appearing to do a Nazi salute.

I guess it is quite hard to wave at a crowd or even gesticulate in any way without at some point looking like you're doing a Nazi salute.

And that is always the picture chosen.

I guess the key is to make sure that everyone standing behind you isn't also doing the same action.

That's when it starts to look suspicious.

Are you saying Hitler was just very badly misconstrued by photographers, Andy?

Yeah, yeah.

Anything out of context looks bad.

Albeit his was in context and looked bad.

And was bad.

And was bad.

Yeah, it didn't just.

It was really bad.

I'm not saying the waving was the worst side of his character, but it was yet another unpleasant one.

Things are decidedly more exciting in Zimbabwe, where opposition leader Morgan Svangarai has agreed to participate in Robert Mugabe's victory in the presidential election runoff.

Svangarai left Zimbabwe shortly after the first leg of the election.

Now, this suggests to me, John, that he doesn't really care, just swammed off on holiday before even finding out whether or not he'd won.

I mean, is that the kind of guy Zimbabwe wants in charge?

I don't think so.

I think the most striking thing about Svangarai is that he is talking like a man who's slightly confused that he's still alive.

I think everyone just assumed that he'd have been killed by now.

Every day's a bonus.

I'm surprised he's not parachute jumping, getting tattoos, and fulfilling his bucket list.

This final round runoff is like an election going into overtime.

Who's got the heart for the win?

Is it the grizzled campaigner who seems to be fielding huge numbers of illegal players or will it be the plucky young upstart?

Morgan Sfanger Eye is the ultimate underdog.

He's like the mighty ducks, Andy.

He just needs Emilio Esteves to coach him to an unlikely victory.

What you cannot learn from the mighty ducks is not worth knowing.

It picked up where Plato's Republic left off.

I can't wait, John.

And the tension is growing by the day.

It's sort of like waiting for an answer from a newly qualified doctor who dislikes awkward situations.

That's very much how the Zimbabwean public must feel.

The second round is now going to happen, although apparently there might be a bit of a delay before it does.

And big Bobby Mugabe, also known as the Harare headbanger, is still in there with quite literally a fighting chance.

But I disagree that Svangaroy was the underdog.

I think Mugabe was very much the underdog here.

And if he can pull it off, it would be one of the most extraordinary come-from-behind victories you could imagine.

Everything seemed to be stacked against Mugabe.

He had massive hyperinflation, 85% unemployment.

The economy has gone to pieces like a flimsy jigsaw in a fist fight in a cheap bus on a bumpy road during an earthquake.

Then there's the world record low life expectancy, and the agricultural sector is pretty much lying in the cold drawer with a tag around its big toe.

So people are starving like this in Motomorrow.

Then poverty is grinding like a 1990s South African opening batsman.

Plus, if you did manage to make it to the polling station, there was a pretty good chance you'd be be dying of AIDS anyway.

So everything seems stacked against him.

Who is going to vote for the man who has overseen the decline of a country to that extent?

Plus, when you throw in the fact that in the first round of voting, Mugabe lost conclusively.

Well, if he can actually win in these difficult circumstances, it would be an extraordinary achievement.

It takes a special kind of leader to pull that off, John.

Super special.

You know what?

You know what, Andy?

You're right.

I've got him all wrong.

He is the underdog.

He's like the Jamaican bobsled team in cool runnings.

There are huge concerns over widespread voter intimidation including beatings and killings outside the major townships.

At the moment villagers are not being allowed to pick up grain without an official membership card of Mugarby's party.

It's the ultimate loyalty card for any supermarket.

One man after being given a beating by Mugarby's goons on suspicion of not having voted for him and Incidentally, I just don't 100% believe that Hillary Clinton would not do that if she could definitely get away with it.

I'm 98% sure she wouldn't, but that still leaves a very nervous 2%.

But the the worst part of this story is that he was given a certificate to show that he'd received his beating and told to present it whenever someone else wanted to beat him as proof that it had been done.

The paper even had a date stamp and the signature of the leader of the group.

And

this really throws up a number of questions.

Were the goons on a quota bonus system?

Was this like a loyalty card?

Receive 10 beatings and on your 11th one, you're let off free?

Or was this like Mugabe certificate of Quality?

Do not accept beatings from any imitators.

It does also suggest that the beatings probably weren't very good if you need a certificate to prove that you've been beaten.

I mean, in the old days, John, when people knew how to beat people up properly, you know, you could tell someone had been beaten just from looking at them and hearing them whimper.

Oh, stop romanticizing the past.

Live in the now.

Myanmar news now, is it good news or is it bad news?

Well, of course it is.

God continued to punish the poorest nation on earth for reasons best known to him or her.

They must have done something, Andy, or else he's acting like a colossal dick with some very racist design flaws in his creation.

There are big concerns over the government in Myanmar refusing to let international aid workers in to assist or even just to observe.

And it's hard to guess at their reasons for this maverick political move.

Maybe, one, they have a very dark sense of humour and they think this is a very funny practical joke.

Two, there's a problem of translation and whilst the world thought they were saying no you can't come in, seizing aid trucks at airports before they can be distributed and holding foreign emergency workers at gunpoint, this is in fact a traditional Burmese greeting for thank goodness you're here.

Our people are suffering.

Please get to work immediately.

Three, they are allergic to assistance and being within a hundred miles of Médecins Saint-Frontière makes them come out in a rash.

Or four, they slept through the cyclone and haven't quite realised what happened yet.

But yeah, the junta are complaining about Western interference in what is essentially the private Burmese matter of letting their own citizens die in the privacy of their own private country.

And, you know, their attitude is it's none of our business.

General Than Shui's basic policy is to say on behalf of his country, it's now called my Anmar, not your Anmar.

So that's basically why he doesn't want to let anyone in.

It's sort of like a Jehovah's Witness unplugging a blood transfusion into someone else's ill child, then explaining to the doctor that, well, it's not my child, but it's not your child either.

Well, John, British and American governments don't recognise the junta's official 1989 changing of the name from Burma to Myanmar.

The Bugle's official position on this is to use Myanmar, but with a snort of derision tacked onto the starts, kind of Myanmar.

Or actually to lighten the mood a bit by calling it my grandma.

That's the other alternative.

You know,

they need a bit of laughter over there.

Actually, to confuse things, the first known written name of the country from the 12th century was spelt Murmur,

which is,

I think, you know, makes either version acceptable if you're really sticking to the roots of the country.

Visa applications for workers from the World Food Agency and Médecins Saint-Frontière were held up as the office in Myanmar had gone home for the weekend.

You know what, Andy?

I don't want to pass too much judgment here, but if your country is in the midst of a humanitarian nightmare, work the weekend.

Work the weekend.

You may have promised to take your wife and kids out to the park, but I think they'll understand.

I think you'll get a pass on that one.

In fact, do you know what?

I'm going to go even further, Andy.

I'm going to suggest working through lunch as well.

I'm not saying don't have lunch.

I'm just saying eat at your desk whilst you're processing vital visa applications.

You can put in for the overtime later, if you have to.

More news now and British terrestrial broadcaster ITV has been slapped on the ass with a £5.7 million fine for being naughty with viewer phone invotes for some of its inexplicably popular prime-time shows.

Now, some of you might think that premium-rate phone lines promising people a chance to be on television are merely one or all of the following: A, an entirely justifiable tax on the gullible, B, a much-loved part of British broadcasting tradition, as proved by the fact that so many of our highest-rated shows have offered their viewers the chance to be fleeced on the phone, C, a metaphor for life, or D, financial Darwinism in action.

But ITV chairman Michael Grade admitted that Britain's biggest commercial broadcaster had perpetrated a serious cultural failure, which, looking at the majority of its output, is also ITV's company slogan.

It costs me £1.2 million every year.

But I do it because I love democracy.

This is what we fought some wars for.

So I can express which 19-year-old glorified karaoke singer I want to have a brief year in the music industry before being chewed up and spat out by the heartless system.

And I choose you, David Archuletta.

I love the way you sing about Phoenix you cannot possibly have experienced.

You connect with a song, David.

Um, David, uh, ah, sorry, I've already forgotten your surname.

And finally in news, American billionaire tycoon V.

Ransford Hafskowski has announced the launch of a new religion.

He said at the launch, whilst dressed in a special spangly cape and wizard's hat, we are offering our customers and believers a world record guaranteed 25 days off work a year.

We've got a special day for pretty much anything, and you can take them when you want.

He was also promising a sin bin, whereby all sins can be atoned for by sitting on a special bench for a few minutes, looking glum and shaking your head.

And a 100-day guilt-free naughty spree for the first 200,000 applicants.

Havskovsky, who began making his fortune selling parachutes to indecisive lemmings, before moving on to selling meat wholesale to the French catering trade, quite literally flogging dead horses.

He later became known as Johnny Megapux on the back of a clever scheme that involved selling nucleuses and very small knives to the North Koreans.

And now, after the success of his Afterlives for Atheists franchise, he is branching out into a full religion, the first such project since American football legend Dan Marino's ill-fated quarterbacks for Zeus effort hit the buffers yesterday afternoon.

It's good to get these things off your chest.

Bugle birthdays now, and Israel is 60.

Happy birthday, Israel.

Oh, happy birthday, Israel.

Many happy returns.

I guess whether you're celebrating this by firing your fireworks vertically or horizontally will depend largely on which side of the religious fence you're trapped.

Because it does seem that some of the Palestinians are a little bit chippy about being turfed out of their land, surrounded by walls, yada, yada, yada.

But come on, you know, it's a birthday.

Can't we all just be happy for Israel for once?

60, that's.

Come on, it's Israel's special day.

She's princess for the day.

Anything she wants today on her special day.

Well wishes have been sent in by literally some of the world.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, bugle favourites, sent a birthday message from Iran saying, well, something about Israel being a decaying corpse.

But I'm sure it was just one of those humorous birthday cards, Andy.

Comically insulting.

Bit of fun.

Bit of harmful fun.

And a message, a birthday message also came in from Jesus saying, happy 60th birthday.

I haven't been keeping too close a watch on what's been going on over the last 2,000 years.

I've been working on my backhand.

But I presume that it's been a smooth, enjoyable time for the Jews over the years.

Here's to another 2,000 years of fun, JC.

So it's nice that he remembered as well.

That's right.

Of course, the Jews do believe that Israel was promised to them by one or both of God in the Bible and British man Arthur Balfour in 1917.

Balfour had skills.

And it's interesting, actually, that Britain left the land that had previously been promised to Britain by Britain.

They left in 1948, and the modern nation of Israel was born.

The next day after Britain had left, five different countries invaded Israel.

That is classic Britain.

And I'm sure our response at the time was, by gosh, we've only been gone 12 hours and already the place has gone to shit.

1948 is a very busy year for Britain skipping away from places, leaving intractable conflicts behind them.

It's the same year that we left Burma, interestingly.

Oh, there you go.

Haven't we been wonderful parents?

That's right, 1948, and of course, there has been the world's longest-running continuous conflict in Burma that's been going since 1948.

So, well done, Britain.

Well, I think we can really give ourselves a pat on the back for that.

Um, so it was a very busy year, 1948 for Britain.

No wonder we couldn't beat Don Bradman's all-conquering Australian cricket team that summer.

Too much on our minds.

Rematch, rematch

goggles on now, it's the Bugle Science section.

And in another birthday, the internet is 15 years old.

So it's nearly old enough to look at all the sordid images in itself.

And perhaps the best thing to do is to take a moment to imagine what life would be like without the internet, Andy.

You know, there'd be no bugle for a start.

Well, I don't know.

There would be a bugle.

That is unpalatable food for thought.

There would be a bugle, but it would just be me and you having an expensive telephone conversation.

That's true.

But it would just be that, because all our chats historically have taken the form of a loosely structured audio newspaper.

That's just the way we roll.

But it's better this way.

You can't deny that.

That is better.

Also, Andy, without the internet, you'd have essentially no facts in your head.

That's not true.

I'd have a lot of facts.

They would just all be about cricket.

No, well, that, yeah, but nothing else.

I'll put it to you that you've reached the stage where without Wikipedia, you are nothing.

You'd just be rocking backwards and forwards in a chair, staring blankly out of the window.

John, that kind of information is not supposed to be public domain.

There are 165 million websites now with 95% of them featuring cats playing pianos.

The internet is the ultimate democracy, Andy.

Its very invention is a sign of how far humans have come and yet its content shows just how far we have yet to go.

The only thing we seem to all be able to agree upon is that cats playing pianos is both funny and adorable.

It's the one thing that binds us together.

Surely even the terrorists can find cats playing pianos funny, Andy.

If we could just get to

see that that is what America is.

It's a cat playing a piano.

Quite a fat cat, yes, and playing the piano quite badly, certainly, but a cat playing the piano nonetheless.

Really?

Because it does seem that from most of the reports in the newspapers that 95% of the internet is only cats playing pianos if cats playing pianos is a metaphor for naked ladies.

So Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the internet, is in fact more responsible for the aggressive dissemination of naughty pics of the female species than anyone since God made Eve so damn hot in the first place and got the whole ball rolling.

But it's quite interesting, I think, John, that the internet, one of humanity's most amazing achievements, which has utterly transformed the way we communicate, has, like all technological advances, been used principally for the transmission of pornography.

Now a lot of people say this is symptomatic of the distorted values of the modern era we live in, but in fact it's always been this way.

For example, when people first discovered that by scraping grass off a hillside, they could make pictures out of the chalk underneath.

Their first thought was, wow, this is great.

Let's make a man with a massive wang.

Then let's do two nuns with a horse.

What do you mean, nuns don't exist yet?

Well, we'll just do the horse.

What is the tangible impact the internet has had on the world, Andy?

Well, this week, a local council employee in Japan was punished after it was discovered he'd accessed porn websites at work more than 780,000 times in nine months.

His habit reached its peak last July when he surfed for porn more than 177,000 times during office hours.

That works out at almost 10,000 pages a day or more than 20 each minute he was sat at his desk.

In fact, that is one every three seconds.

And that's working straight through lunch and probably working late at least twice a week.

If he could just harness that work rate into a non-porn capacity, he could be an incredible employee.

So, bugle listeners, do you like the internet?

Email us in with which you prefer out of the internet, life in general, or dogs.

You can't have more than one.

One of those three.

The other two must die.

And some pretend science now.

A man has claimed that he grew his severed finger back using some magic dust.

Scientists claim, no, he didn't.

He clearly didn't.

The man has hit back saying, did so.

The scientist responded, come here and say that.

Come into my lab, waggle that finger in my face, and tell me it grew back because of magic dust.

The man retorted, all right, where's your lab?

The scientist replied, it's on an industrial park outside Cambridge in England.

The man said, Oh, I'm sorry, that's tricky.

I live in America and I'm busy.

The scientist said, Oh, how very convenient.

The man replied, losers, losers in lav coats.

And the scientist concluded, little sod.

This man cut his finger off when putting it into the propeller of a model aeroplane.

So the way it came off and the way it grew back were both equally weird.

Model aeroplanes and magic dust.

Are we absolutely sure that this man is not three years old?

Did he get a magic bean which grew into a beanstalk as well?

The regenerative dust comes from the University of Pittsburgh and Dr.

Stephen Badilak calls it extracellular matrix, though the man who had his finger cut off prefers to call it pixie dust, which is true.

He calls it pixie dust, which is essentially calling Dr.

Stephen Badilak a pixie.

I mean...

How old is this man?

Does he think that doctors live in trees and go to work on moonbeams?

It's not that I don't want him to grow up.

I want to be like him.

That's the problem.

This isn't contempt, it's jealousy.

In other sounds like it's made up science news, scientists have alleged that tomatoes could have properties which could stop cancer.

Now, is this how far we are away from curing cancer, Andy?

All those billions have gone into research attempting to stop it.

And all we've got is now a doctor pointing a tomato and saying, have we tried one of those?

I'm guessing that cure for cancer is not coming.

They're going to start pointing.

What about pineapples?

Yeah, but I'm not saying it's likely.

I'm saying, have we tried it?

No, well then try it then.

What about ham?

Your emails now and this comes from Jed Daly.

Dear John and Andy, as a native Arkansan, I take umbrage at Andy's suggestion that Arkansas should be pronounced the rhyme with Kansas.

There, I've done it again.

Even a cursory examination of the United States Order of Statehoods, writes Jed, would reveal that Arkansas

became a state some 25 years before Kansas.

By all rights, Kansas should therefore be pronounced Kansaw, as we were clearly here first.

Yes.

Well,

I think that merely proved my point.

Furthermore, the official pronunciation of Arkansas was determined by a vote in the state senate, and as we all know, democracy is never wrong.

Absolutely.

So you're wrong, Andy.

The American people have spoke.

You're wrong.

I'm right.

You're completely wrong.

Well, you say I'm wrong, John, but we had another email from Timothy Fry

who says that I'm at least partially right about the pronunciation of our Kansas.

And John partially right.

Stop saying that.

Stop saying it like that.

It sounds ridiculous.

You're giving British people a bad name.

It's like Americans saying Edinburgh.

Well, yeah, I'll call this a revenge attack.

Leicester Square.

That's exactly the same.

Anyway, Timothy Fry continues.

Hence, John and the American can, at least partially, go to hell.

There, take that.

As a man who grew up in Kansas, he continues, near Arkansas City, and who now lives in Oklahoma, I can speak with some authority on this topic.

Yes, some.

The pronunciation of Arkansas that you used does occur frequently throughout southern Kansas and northern Oklahoma.

And those...

I know we've got a huge following in those places, John, and I was really speaking to our bugle listeners in those two benighted countries.

The day we start listening to people from Oklahoma, Andy, is the day we may as well just give up.

There's an email here from Nick Richardson who says, Dear John and Andy, let me begin by saying I love the show.

Good start to an email.

Always good.

Always good.

Good start with a compliment rather than an insult.

Although, to be honest, either do get our attention.

He says, I'm not sure if

it's the funny or the accents, but you're doing something right.

About three months ago, the bugle supplanted NPR's Talk of the Nation as my go-to podcast when getting in bed.

Sure, the dulcet tones of Neil Conan are a great lullaby, but nothing compares to the Queen's English when it comes to putting me to sleep.

Look, he's probably already asleep now, but f ⁇ you, Nick.

Wake up, you f ⁇ er.

Oh, he's awake again.

Good.

Not to mention, he says, the effect of your verbal stylings have on the hotties over here.

As per usual, what gets them excited makes me drowsy.

Basically, your grace anatomy.

Good point.

He goes on to say, it didn't stop with NPR.

Since I began listening to your program, I've steadily abandoned most forms of American media.

The New York Times for the BBC, Saturday Night Live for Monty Python.

And the other day, I found myself watching my beloved Boston Red Sox and thinking, hmph, this game is a lot like cricket.

They almost got it right.

I've never even seen a game of cricket.

And I used the third person to refer to Americans.

They not we.

Which brings me to my question, what is happening to me?

Why do I suddenly identify more with British culture than American and this brings me to my accusation it's all your fault isn't it you're broadcasting anti-American pro-British propaganda backwards at inaudible frequencies while I'm sleeping stroke having sex in an attempt to poison my mind against America aren't you well aren't you

yes we are incidentally there is absolutely no way that anyone is having sex whilst listening to the bugle

it's too dangerous if you are contemplating attempting to have sex whilst listening to the bugle it can't be done we can't apart from during the Hotties from History section, I can imagine

people getting carried away.

It can't physically be done.

We are, if nothing else, an excellent form of birth control.

Apparently.

Which is why Catholics everywhere should be listening to us.

Apparently, staff at Madame Two Swords, since the Hotties from History section began, have complained about increasing the civil society.

Don't extend that thought tourists.

I hope you're proud of yourself.

33 years old.

And

pissing on Madame Two Swords' great legacy.

Her waxy, waxy legacy.

Hottie's from history now, and we have a nomination from Emma Lennox, who nominates a woman she describes as God's own pin-up girl, the beautiful Pope Joan.

That's right, this woman was so hot, she broke through the frat boy ranks of the Vatican City, despite being a woman pretending to be a man whilst inconveniently pregnant.

As his special representative on earth, God obviously wanted this bible-licious babe on speed dial, and who can blame him?

After centuries of self-flagellated strotums, Joan's well-bonded chest and presumably manly features would at least warrant a divine booty call or two.

Stand back, Ratzinger.

Those come hither, eye holos, do nothing for me.

With Pope Joan, it's femme crust time.

Looks like the Catholic Church has finally turned me gay.

It's what it wanted all along, Emma.

Sam Knox from Washington State, USA, says, I'm casting my hottie from history vote for Emile Erlenmeyer.

Anyone who could create such a central piece of scientific equipment must have been a hunker-hunker burning phosphorus.

I can't think of anything better than a roll in the hay with one of those flasks, a bunton burner, and a big chunk of palladium after five or six bottles of nitrogen-cooled bud-like lime.

Oh, the pleasure.

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

Sport now, and it's the final weekend of the Premiership football season in England.

John, who I can't see anyone other than Chelsea or Man United having won it by the time this is broadcast.

Well, never say never, Andy, football's a funny old game.

And just don't be surprised if Luton comes screaming through to take the prize that philosophically is rightly theirs.

But interestingly,

clubs apart from Chelsea United might have any chance of winning it this year, mathematically.

But the interesting thing is that apart from Arsenal and Liverpool, the rest have exactly the same chance of winning it next year as well.

So really the Premiership is the capitalist's dream, the illusion of competition with the guarantee of dominance.

Exactly.

Exactly.

It's just what Bill Gates dreams of every night.

Sure, you can all have a go.

Oh, that is a lot of money.

Audio cryptic crossword time now, and it's the penultimate clue in the world's greatest audio cryptic crosswords.

I realize that the impending end of this is tragic and glorious news to some and some of you.

I just can't let myself believe it yet

in case you snatch it away and add another clue.

Well, I can always add a lot of time.

I'm trying to get optimism in check.

I can add another crossword.

I can easily do another one.

That's not happening.

That's not happening.

There's no new crossword.

This is it, Andy.

You had your chance and you blew it.

I haven't blown it, John.

It's been the greatest cryptic crossword in history in the audio format.

You're just trying to make it longer by talking about it.

This week's clue is eight down, and ironically, it's also eight letters long and this clue really gets to the heart of what it means to be a worker in a family-owned business and it's this New England soul singer appears in the afternoon and gets a job he's not really qualified for because of who his daddy is.

Ah, it's an ongoing workplace injustice.

Eight letters

and Bugle forecast time now and the forecast for next week is whether or not the Bugle cryptic crossword will in fact end.

My forecast is please, yes.

Please let it be over next week.

My forecast, John is that

like the life of Jesus, it never truly ends.

It's now there in the world and it will always live on in people's hearts and minds.

But like the life of Jesus, hopefully, most people can ignore it.

Well, if the cryptic crossword has more than a billion followers in 2,000 years' time, then

you'll be very much laughing on the wrong side of your dead face.

Bye-bye, buglers.

Bye buglers.

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.