Swearing at the Queen

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world

Hello buglers, welcome to issue 21 of The Bugle, the world's only audio newspaper as far as we're concerned, for the week beginning Monday, the 17th of March 2008, with me Andy's Ultimate in London and in New York City, USA, John Oliver.

Good morning, afternoon or evening, buglers.

Delete as appropriate.

I'm back.

I've cheated death.

I shook hands with the devil.

Now I'm stronger than ever.

I can never be defeated.

I think this means I'm technically immortal now.

Apologies go out if any of you had problems getting last week's bugle.

Apparently we had server problems.

Now there is a reason for this and that is that the British and American governments fear the bugle and the power of its satirical comedy and not only have they been trying to stop the bugle being broadcast via iTunes but they also kidnapped me last week, chained me to a radiator and stole all of my jokes.

But we are back.

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

This week a home electronics section including why buy a dog when a plasma screen television gives you so much more in return?

Does the internet chat room mean the end of the traditional stand-up argument?

And does the camera spell the end of traditional painting?

And also, in a special history pull-out in the bin, if Henry VIII had been alive today, would he have been dead by now?

Top story this week and be proud to be British.

Go on, try harder.

Even if you're not, at least try it, you you might like it.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown suggested this week a new holiday celebrating Britishness and on top of that encouraging school children to swear allegiance to the country every morning to combat a perceived slide in national pride.

There is no national pride in Britain anymore, Andy.

But for good reason.

We've lost everything.

We are the shell-shocked man walking away from the casino at five in the morning rehearsing what he's going to tell his wife.

We collectively have lost our shirts.

There's nothing left.

I'm sure this Pledge of Allegiance will achieve that far more effectively than such outdated and unproven methods as an adequate all-round education and specifically the proper teaching of history.

Lord Goldsmith, the former Attorney General who was in charge of this report, said, Yeah, I reckon what this country's errant youth needs is some half-assed bullshit like this.

That will get them on the straight and narrow.

So well done, everyone involved.

Lord Goldsmith said he favoured swearing allegiance to the Queen every morning, but would also accept maybe a pledge to Britain in general.

Now, there's no way people are going to do that, but there may be a compromise here, and that is swearing at the Queen every morning.

You really might get school children interested in that.

Turning every morning to face a portrait of the Queen on the wall and unleashing a volley of swearing.

We'd be good at it, it would be fun, it would engender a sense of community, and it would be an energetic piece of punctuation to start the day.

Besides, it's also basically taking the Magna Carta to its natural conclusion.

Turn to face the Queen.

You found a lot of people who are going to be Lord Goldsmith's report emphasised the need to strengthen British cultural identity, and this comes at a time when British cultural identity is under threat as never before from such factors as aggressive alcohol promotion.

There will be a ceremony in which all British teenagers will have to put on the football shirts of their respective country, sing abusive songs about World War II, and urinate into fountains, thus communing with generations of British hooligans before them.

Head teachers have led criticism of this whole idea, labelling the proposals half-baked.

And there's some echo of national pride right there, because that is the last bastion of Britishness, sneering at things.

That will be the last thing to go.

The day that we can't scoff at other nations, we've arranged that France will put a pillow over our face and hold it there until the twitching stops.

If their wrists are strong enough, that is.

It's like the fact that we mock Americans for whooping and cheering at things.

We now ridicule the very concept of enthusiasm.

That is how cynical we've become as a nation.

We find positivity laughable.

Yeah, in fact, the shadow justice secretary, Nick Herbert, described these silly suggestions as profoundly un-British.

Perfect.

This is as far as we're prepared to go, John.

A bit of bunting once a year.

That's it.

That's as British as we're going to allow ourselves to be.

He's absolutely right, though.

National pride is un-British.

The only time we can collectively justify facing a flag and listening to the national anthem is when we've just won an Olympic bronze medal in a women's two-person dinghy.

It's difficult to know what the government intends in the celebration of Britishness because part of what it means to be British is not being sure of what it means to be British.

And that goes back centuries and I think the immigrants who are going to be made to make these pledges might see the irony in pledging allegiance to a nation that was largely responsible for destabilising the place they've just run away from.

I'm sure they will pledge that allegiance with a wry grin on their face.

It doesn't help either that we have a terrible national anthem.

God Save the Queen is an uninspiring musical dirge.

It is virtually made to be sung sarcastically.

If they really want us to be proud British citizens, as they claim they do, they're going to have to sit the Queen down and politely tell her that her song isn't going to be default number one anymore.

And I have a suggestion, Andy.

Yakerity Sachs, the Benny Hill music, Andy.

That way we wouldn't have to sing it, we'd just have to run around at top speed for a minute or so, chasing a woman in a bikini.

It would help both national pride and national fitness.

Come up with a better idea.

I think, John, were that to be implemented, particularly at major sporting events, Britain Britain would be basically undefeatable merely by distracting its opposition by doing a Benny Hilda hunt before kick-off.

It's kind of like the British hacker in many ways.

I think God Save the Queen as a song is responsible for the laissez-faire attitude that has made this nation so complacent, particularly about the Queen and her need to be saved.

We now just let the Queen indulge her lifelong hobby of extreme sports and also jumping her 1953 BSA Golden Flash motorcycle over a pile of chambermaids.

There have been hints that the national anthem will be updated.

It is, as John said, Britain's greatest embarrassment, particularly the unknown verses that no one really knows about, which include verses about killing Scottish people, which for the British National Anthem is a slightly touchy subject, also verses about what you should do if you find an injured bird in your garden, how to kill a bear with a standard kitchen fork, and what to do if you think your wife is having an affair with Napoleon.

These are all a bit outdated now.

But that's all we see is the first verse, by which time everyone has just keeled over and died of boredom.

You say it's outdated Andy but let me tell you this.

You take out that verse next week you're tempting fate Napoleon will be banging your wife.

Another thing that's a bit of a problem though is as I said what it means to be British because I think to English people what Britishness means is being English and to the Welsh the Scots and the Northern Irish what Britishness means is being English.

So

no one really fully understands what it means.

It's being English.

Right.

So we're all English.

We're all English.

Oh that's a relief.

That's a relief.

I I know our Scottish producer Tom, he's flicking me a big V sign as always.

Yeah, the good English V.

Proud to wield it.

Why don't you do a Scottish gesture?

Yeah?

Alright, he's giving me the Glasgow kiss.

In fact, we're so proud of our nation that the 300th anniversary of the Act of Union, which basically formed the United Kingdom as it is today, was celebrated with a stamp and a small exhibition.

That is how proud we are of our nation.

There are also plans afoot to change the treason laws in Britain.

To what is not yet entirely clear, but if they had half a ball, they'd change it back to how it used to be when it was written in Norman French and essentially said, you can't kill, conspire against, or wage war against the king and his family.

You also can't have sex with his wife, heirs' wife, or his unmarried eldest daughter.

That's right, you couldn't bang the king's wife.

The king put that into law, which makes makes me think that he was a bit worried about someone banging his wife.

Because that is an overreaction.

Surely there's no greater act of patriotism than to show the king how much you admire his choice of wife by banging that wife.

The penalty for this, Andy, was classic old British justice.

And it was, and I quote, to be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution and there be hanged by the neck, but not until they are dead, but that they should be taken down again, and that when they are yet alive, their bowels should be taken out and burnt before their faces, and that afterwards their heads should be severed from their bodies, and their bodies be divided into four quarters, and their heads and quarters be at the king's disposal.

And it took until 1998 and the Crime and Disorder Act to get the punishment further downgraded to life imprisonment.

1998!

Thank goodness I didn't try to bang Prince Philip.

I wasn't aware that deterrent was in place.

And now that I know that it definitely isn't, I'm probably going to bang Prince Philip.

So does that mean also, given that you're not allowed to sexually consort with the wife of the heir to the throne, that anyone who consorted so with the late Princess Diana should have been hung drawn and quartered?

By which I mean

they could all have been hung drawn and quartered.

That's quite a list.

Was that your name bleeped out in there?

I'll sue you, John.

Former New York Governor Elliot Spitzer has resigned after being linked to a prostitution ring.

This was a spectacular fall from Grace.

In fact, it was a plummet from Grace straight towards an open lion's mouth.

Whilst tugging on the release string of his backup parachute.

The now disgraced ex-governor of New York was at one point known as the Sheriff of Wall Street for his pursuing of dirty dealing in finance.

Now he's to be permanently known as that guy who spent $80,000 on whores.

Just goes to show how quick nicknames can change, Andy.

It's interesting though that whenever this story was reported, it always described these prostitutes as high-class prostitutes, in some cases even world-class prostitutes.

But I think that's quite reassuring.

At least the guy was playing top dollar.

And I think if he's prepared to make sure his Wang gets the best available service, then he's probably going to do the same for the state that he's supposed to be governing.

If Elliot Spitzer can't do his job without spending $5,000 an hour to boost his ego, that's not his fault.

That is the fault of the people who elected him without first taking the time to ask him whether he needed the assistance of top-end courtesans to function.

Andy, the greatest country in the world should have the greatest legislators in the world who should be banging the greatest prostitutes in the world.

If he wants to have a political style that relies so heavily on moral grandstanding, then at least he's having the decency to research what it's like to be immoral.

There is nothing more hypocritical than a squeakier than squeaky clean politician standing up on a special plinth and giving an eye-watering speech about how important upstanding moral values are without having the decency and courage to consort with hookers, deal Class A drugs or take bribes from the mob.

That is the very least they could do.

Otherwise, they'd be no better than the Pope telling us not to play snooker.

Good point.

And

in a now almost unsurprising twist, he had also campaigned for much harder penalties for men who use prostitutes.

And like you say, does this not make him a great lawman though, Andy?

He managed to set legal traps that would ensnare men like himself.

Men who had themselves designed these legal traps and then got caught in them.

Men like himself who had set traps so well that even designers of those legal traps like men like himself could not wriggle free so well designed were those laws.

He must be so proud and ashamed of himself.

This story is both the reason he was and now isn't governor.

It's incredible how often these powerful men turn out to deeply desire that which they rail against the hardest.

We had it here recently with Larry Craig, who repeatedly supported homophobic legislation before the whole knock-knock who's there, Larry, Larry who, Larry Craig, cannot please touch your penis in this airport bathroom incident.

But he's not alone, John.

He's not alone.

Noam Chomsky, the arch enemy of the American right, actually goes to bed every night cuddling a little woolly Donald Rumsfeld that his granny knitted for him.

And Shami Chakrabarty, the head of the human rights group Liberty, keeps 750 slaves chained to a giant radiator in her garden shed and makes them write out her speeches in illuminated text.

It's clearly true, whenever someone is railing hardest against something, you can bet they're either doing it or about to.

All I'm saying is, don't be surprised if one day George Bush straps a bomb vest to himself and heads for an Afghan marketplace.

And in other resignation news, Admiral William Fallon, the commander of the US Middle East forces, has quit.

He's recently made controversial statements suggesting that invading Iran would be silly and that the US has taken its eye off the ball in Afghanistan.

I repeat, these are allegedly controversial statements rather than bald statements statements of fact.

He's made the naive, unpatriotic mistake of suggesting that diplomacy might be preferable to conflict in Iran, to which a Pentagon insider responded, he might as well have put some Stars and Stripes underpants on and set fire to himself.

He was known to have been heavily against the bombing of Iran due to the lack of credible evidence, to which the president reportedly said, That's a lovely thought, little girl.

Why don't you paint me a picture of it and stick it to my fridge?

So who do you think is in line to succeed Falanjon as head of the US troops in the Middle East?

The concept of chaos.

Right.

It's going to be given an official admiralship.

Admiral Chaos, it's going to be called.

I heard a rumour that Joe Torre was in line for the job, the former New York Yankee Supremo.

He's reported to be bored of the major leagues and wanted to see if his trademark hangdog jowls can bring priests to the Holy Land.

And also an outsider is Brian Ashton, the Underfire England rugby coach.

He's rumoured to have accepted that he really doesn't know what he's doing on the rugby field anymore and is keen to see if he can get the Middle East to do some instinctive unrehearsed peace dealing under pressure.

Well, good luck with that, Ashton.

If you're going to try that, at least pick the right type of negotiators.

It's no use asking them to negotiate off the cuff and then getting Jamie Noon to hammer out the details of a ceasefire.

That's one for our American listeners.

Other news now, and the Middle East.

Bush announced this week that he is sending Vice President Dick Cheney over to the Middle East next week.

Wow, it just got worse for those poor, poor bastards.

Bush said his goal is to reassure people the US is committed to a vision of peace in the Middle East.

And their goal is not to shudder every time he speaks.

It seems a slightly curious tactic of bringing peace to the Middle East to send Dick Cheney there, of course renowned for his involvement in wars in the Middle East.

I guess maybe what he's trying to do is create a kind of atmosphere of humour bordering on hilarity, that laughter is of course the best medicine.

And if the entire Middle East is pissing itself that Dick Cheney has been sent to bring peace, then maybe they'll all learn to get along.

It's not clear if Cheney will go to Iraq on the tour, but it will be a shame not to, as it is the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq this week.

Happy birthday, war.

Hope you have a wonderful day.

Here's to many, many more years ahead.

Blow out the candles and make a wish.

You wished for civil war, didn't you?

Oh, ah, don't tell me or it won't come come true.

Happy birthday.

I think you're being a bit harsh on the Iraq war there, John, because it's only five.

It's only turning five now, so it's really still only small.

I mean think what you were like at the age of five.

I know when I was five I committed all kinds of hypocritical human rights abuses so you know we shouldn't get on our high horse.

That's all I'm saying.

Budget news and budget fever has rampaged through Britain like the flavour of red pepper through an airline meal.

There was no getting away from it this week.

Kids were skiving off school to listen to the budget, crammed round their radios in their tree houses and dens.

It's that unique budget day feeling.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer Alastair Darling was criticised for the budget being dull, which is a bit like a boxer complaining about his opponent socking him one in the chops.

I think if a budget is ever exciting, that is really the time to worry.

Unlike most people in Britain, I don't really care what happens in the budget, as long as he doesn't slap an extra 2P on the price of a bag of dried apricots.

Smokers and drinkers have been hit hardest, as usual, which is a bit unfair because most teenagers don't even have jobs.

So,

how are they expected to fund their habits?

It's also brought in some controversial moves: a tax on swearing, a retrospective education tax.

So, if you feel you've used something that you learnt at school or university in your everyday life, you have to send the government £10 in the post.

And also, to dissuade people from living on into their 80s and 90s at great expense to the state, there is now a one-off windfall tax rebate of £80 to anyone who dies before the age of £80.

So that's positive news.

But in global economics news, stock markets fell yet again as Wall Street realised that the emergency measures banks used to combat the credit crunch had merely papered over the cracks, which were cracking even more underneath.

I'm no economist, Andy.

We both know that.

But I'm starting to get the idea now that we're heading for economic meltdown.

I don't even know what that means, but I have a strong inclination that's where we're going.

But it's interesting again what Bush is doing.

When the Clinton staff left the White House, they supposedly took the W off the keyboards because George W.

Bush was coming in.

That must be already guaranteed to be the funniest practical joke of the 21st century.

Bush, by contrast, is leaving the global economy and the American economy in a state of total chaos, a furious world angry at his wars, etc., etc.

So if his staff were to remove all the relevant keys off his keyboards, they would have to remove all the letters of you stupid.

Look what you've done.

Taking keys off a keyboard is one thing leaving the world on the precipice of armageddon is a whole other yeah saw that one out

your emails now and we've had an absolute deluge of diagnoses for john's illness of last week john do you actually know what was wrong with you well there's a lot of armchair doctors out there uh no i don't because i didn't go to a a normal chair doctor right but we've had some quite interesting diagnoses that suggests that you you were wrong about it being exhaustion.

Brian Martin from Ajax in Ontario.

I'm forced to conclude that John is, or rather was, since he is most certainly dead by now, suffering from the Black Death.

Apparently, that adorable little homeless rat he brought back to his apartment last week was in direct contravention of the no-vermin clause in his lease, and it wasn't so harmless after all.

I base my diagnosis on the feeble quality of Mr.

Oliver's whinging during the podcast.

Oh, come on!

In addition to his not looking at all well in his recent appearances on the daily show,

if Mr.

Oliver's doctor has taken to seeing him dressed in a large bird's head mask and a full-length wax covered coat, the diagnosis is confirmed.

Well, Anna's diagnosis is this.

Dear John and Andy, it is democracy.

It is trying to sprout in John and is obviously not taking.

I'm afraid the only cure is to sit for 24 hours in front of a constant stream of attack ads.

This will cause the democracy to run screaming into the night and all will be well.

Then she says, or it could be syphilis.

But it definitely looked like democracy to me.

And I like the near certainty with which she said it could be syphilis.

Joe in Chicago has another theory.

He writes, I specialise in diagnosing from afar.

And obviously what John is suffering from is a persistent vegetative state.

How else can you explain his disdain for the cryptic crossword?

Good point, Joe.

Good point.

There is no other explanation.

Hotties from history now.

And this one comes from Eliza in St Andrews in Scotland.

She would like to nominate the Roman Emperor Octavian as a hottie from from history.

She writes, Is there anything sexier than absolute power over the known world?

I think not.

Octavian may have been uptight as hell, but he was probably incredibly kinky.

That is tarring all ancient Romans with the same perverted brush.

Probably rightly, but anyway.

It's always the one who make laws rewriting the definitions of marriage who tend to have the dirtiest minds.

Just look at the Republicans in Congress.

Plus, after he changed his name to Augustus, so much more moanable than Octavian, you see.

You thought about this too much, Eliza.

He had the foresight to name the hottest month of the year after himself.

Coincidence, I think not.

An email coming from Sierra Leone now.

That's right.

Sierra Leone is from John Fielding, and it says the vote must go to the divine Florence Nightingale, whose hotness was not diminished by her unfortunate accident when she dropped a bedpan on her foot and was thenceforth known as the lady with the limp.

Kashlam!

Puns from Sierra Leone, the first draft to Kanye West single.

It's great to know that years of civil war in Sierra Leone have not completely wiped the pun out from that country.

That's great to see.

This one comes from Alan Ward.

He writes, Hi, Bugle.

I have to say, why has Genghis Khan not been voted as the hottest hottie from history?

Just look at the facts.

He had 20,000 grandchildren, so he must have been superhuman, conquering most, if not all, of Asia from the back of a horse, then fertilizing hundreds, if not thousands, of women as he went.

I think it must have been his charisma and charm that got the females going, not the fact that he had just killed thousands of people and might kill them as well.

History has it wrong.

He is the very epitome of virtue and an inspiration to all men.

Genghis Khan, good nomination.

Sport!

England is conquering Europe, not for the first time, although this time using the medium of football and not leaving a trail of devastation in its wake.

There are four English teams in the last eight of the European Champions Cup, John.

Is America excited about this?

Well they're excited the fact that's nearly a democratic majority Andy.

I reckon if we get more than 50% at any point of the competition we really do deserve to be kings of Europe once more.

But these aren't just any four teams John.

These are four of the richest eight teams in Europe.

Now statistically what are the chances of four of the richest eight clubs being four of the best eight teams left in the competition?

They're depressingly high.

That is something which America would support.

That is capitalism in action.

That shows that the system works.

To me, John, it shows that competitive sport is dying before our very eyes.

Of course, some whinging bleatmongers complain that hardly any of the players, managers, coaches, owners, and tactics are English, and that English football is suffering because of it.

But I would say that this shows this...

But I would say that this shows what a sizzlingly amazing nation England is.

We realise that we don't have the sporting capabilities to beat the best, but we know how effective a self-perpetuating plutocracy can be, and we're not afraid to use it.

So we've carried out a superb piece of delegation.

England's decline as a nation can be traced to when we started to throw too much of our energy into sport.

So, by delegating the actual, tedious, hard graft of playing and winning to our minions from overseas, we English can concentrate on the important celebration phase of football and also save millions of pounds of taxpayers' money teaching children to play and enjoy sport when, realistically, hardly any of them are ever going to make the grade.

Well done, English football.

Olympics news now and China's foreign minister minister has strongly criticised anti-China forces that he says are determined to politicise and polarise this year's Beijing Olympic Games.

It's strange how often these anti-China forces turn out to be human rights groups.

It is an uncanny correlation, isn't it?

What have human rights people got against China?

It's starting to look like a vendetta.

I don't think they're so much anti-China as they are pro-human rights and that really backs them into a corner on the whole China issue.

It's interesting that the Olympics basically has been reduced to an obvious scheme by governments to make the international community forget about appalling human rights records.

It's clearly working for China.

It's going to work for London.

Who cares about detention without trial when you can watch a Romanian girl not fall off a plank of wood for fear of being beaten up by a 50-year-old man?

I don't.

I'm prepared to overlook it.

And it also worked for Australia.

At the very moment that Cathy Freeman crossed the line in Sydney in 2000, the then-Australian leader John Howard was personally signing the death warrants of 50,000 Australian children who'd shown insufficient interest in sports.

But as long as the trophies and the medals keep flooding in, Australia just doesn't care.

And great news for the Czechs this week as Martina Navratilova has reclaimed her Czech citizenship after abandoning it for United States citizenship years ago.

Fantastic news for the Czechs who now, I believe, receive all her retroactive Grand Slam titles.

Congratulations, Czechs.

You are great tennis players once more.

Do you think this will lead to further American sport stars defecting at the first opportunity and protests at the Bush administration's actions around the world?

Yeah, and alter the Czechs as well.

That's how to do it.

You can't dilute it by going here and there.

Everyone has to become a Czech citizen if protests now.

I think this really reflects badly on America as a country, John.

All I will say is, you don't get Tim Henman changing nationalities at the drop of a hat.

Point made.

And now it's the audio-cryptic crossword.

Strap in, folks.

This clue is 12 across.

It's five letters long.

And it really explores how cynically commercial opportunities are exploited.

And it is this.

King of computing heads east and south to find things that inevitably crash and disappoint children.

Bugle forecast now.

And this week it is a Nostradamus forecast.

How many Nostradamus forecasts are going to come true this week, Andy?

I think two forecasts are going to come true this week.

One, his forecast forecast that France is going to dissolve

this week.

He's very clear about that.

And secondly, his forecast that a man with a pointy head will become World Badminton champion.

I think it's only one this week, and it's going to be the one about metal birds shooting fire out of their beaks.

Well, let's see who's right.

I'm confident.

Very confident.

We're away for Easter next week.

Thinking of that.

And he's going to take some very, very important time to think about what his people did to Jesus.

Well, he was guilty.

We've been through this before.

So next week, there will be special audio DVD extras, bits of the bugle, that were not able to be broadcast on the grounds of insufficient quality or insufficient time.

Let's be honest.

But there's something for you bugle obsessives to listen to

as you wonder whether or not Jesus is coming back this year.

And if so, does he like chocolate rabbits?

So do email us thebugle at timesonline.co.uk.

Bye.

Happy Easter.

Jesus is dead.

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.