Money, Money, Money

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello world, welcome to issue 14 of The Bugle, the pioneering audio newspaper from Times Online, the week beginning 28th of January 2008.

What a week.

This threatens to be possibly one of the great weeks of 2008 so far.

Easily in the top four or five, I'd say.

I'm Andy Zoltzman in London in New York City.

It's John Oliver.

Hello Earth.

What a pleasure to be in your ears.

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

This week a section on space exploration with the mystery image of life on Mars which appears to show what might be a human form on Mars but is in fact clearly a small rock raising the intriguing possibility that there might be objects shaped like humans elsewhere in the galaxy.

There is apparently a comet that looks a bit like a dog from a certain angle, so truly exciting times for space fans.

Bottom of the bin is a token for the One Drink for the Price of Two promotion, which is part of a new campaign by the licensing trade to cut down on the amount people drink on binges.

So our top story this week, money, money, money, money,

money!

Are you still there, John?

Are you alright?

Yes, I am.

I'm here.

Sorry, Rick James came in for a second and just decided to lay down a fat track.

His stay was brief, but funky.

So is the world on the brink of an economic meltdown?

Now, in the interest of disclosure, let me point out that I know absolutely nothing about economics.

I've lived for 30 years on this planet, to elsewhere, and I still don't get it.

To me, economics is like the Dutch language.

I'm told it makes sense, but I seriously have my doubts.

Now the US Federal Reserve slashed interest rates to 3.5%, the biggest rate cut in 25 years and incredibly, the markets have stased a comeback for the time being for reasons that no one understands and that no one can explain.

Now, so they lost billions of dollars through wild speculation and in response they're giving $600 to each US citizen in tax breaks.

And that respectful gesture will be most appropriately delivered by posting $60 $10 bills into the top of the underwear of each American citizen, muttering, There you go, sweet cheeks, buy yourself something pretty and shut up.

Which I believe Mike Huckabee is suggesting in his election manifesto.

Yep, to great acclaim.

But across the globe, more than $5 trillion

has disappeared from the value of public companies in the first three weeks.

I'm no financial expert, John, but five trillion dollars.

That's uh that's that's a lot of money.

That is a lot of money.

Yeah, you could uh even given the exchange rate, that's still over a million pounds.

There you go.

Brokers want free market economics, no regulation and no government interference, unless that government interference is bailing their behinds out of trouble, in which case they want plenty of interference, sweet, protective interference.

Then they'd like to be left alone again to plunder the developing world before once again overstepping the mark and coming back to suck on the teeth of the Fed.

The Fed, Fed, of course, has slashed interest rates and it's been under huge pressure at the Fed, which might explain its below-par performance in the Australian Open.

There's a joke for tennis fans.

And only a selection of tennis fans.

The old economic saying is: when the US sneezes, the world catches a cold.

Well, the US seems to have sneezed so hard its economic balls have fallen off.

And now the world is looking down at its own balls saying, please don't leave me.

I don't really understand a number of aspects of global economics.

America is the world's leading capitalist economy, also

famously a big fan of Jesus America, who of course said it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

So it seems slightly odd that such a wealthy nation should be so Christian.

But I guess what they could say is that by perpetuating global poverty,

really helping the world's poor get through heaven's notoriously restrictive immigration policy.

That is a positive I've not heard anyone use yet, but I imagine that will come quickly now.

This may be playing into hands of candidate Mitt Romney, more of whom later, the multi-millionaire people in the US might feel they trust someone who's been successful in business to revive the economy if he does become president.

Head for the hills.

But in many ways, the world economy is already in recession.

The question is: will the recession be long and shallow, like an Olympic-sized paddling pool, or short and deep, like Danny DeVito?

Can you just explain that last comment?

Well, he's short and he's a very thoughtful man.

He's a fan of Camus.

Also, this week, the World Economic Forum was held in Davos, Switzerland, and it was a chance for the head of the world's leading companies to gather together, cackle like demons, roll around on beds of money, and maybe try a bit of snowboarding.

According to the WEF's motto, it is committed to improving the state of the world.

Although that is from a logo of businessman who is laughing as he says it.

Now, was Bono there?

Of course, Bono was there.

And as it was going on, Bush called for a kickstart for the economy in a speech.

And as soon as he'd finished the speech, the Nasdaq plunged 300 points.

That is not a great vote of confidence in someone.

That's a tough response, Andy.

I've had bad gigs.

I know you have, Andy.

But have you ever had a gig so bad that the world nosedive towards economic Armageddon?

I did do this one gig at the comedy store in Manchester, where, at best, I I struggled, and at worst, I abominated.

After that, it was tough times across Europe as shares plunged, and

businessmen just generally looked out of high office windows and thought, should I?

This crisis began when US mortgage companies made hundreds of billions of dollars of inappropriate loans to individuals with poor credit histories.

And these debts were then somehow packaged up and sold on to financial institutions around the world who then sold it on to pension funds and hedge funds.

So we still don't know where these bad debts are and where they are concealed in the financial system.

These debts have essentially run away from home, Andy.

We need to put pictures of the debts on milk cartons or have world leaders hold a tearful press conference to plead with the debts to come on home.

That they love them.

They're not angry.

They just want to know they're safe.

So if you have seen a debt bad or otherwise wandering around the streets looking for scraps in bins, bins please do report it immediately to thebugle at timesonline.co.uk further to the current economic storm around the world uh the french bank society general uh managed to lose seven point one billion us dollars three point seven billion pounds

and four point nine billion euros in the same fraud poor old society general they only have seven hundred billion dollars worth of assets under management left so having lost seven billion dollars due to one trader who was apparently on an annual wage of around about seventy grand a year and wasn't making any personal money out of this, making it one of the most spectacular but pointless crimes in human history.

It's incredible.

This man defrauded the bank to the tune of seven billion dollars and yet they're still announcing this year a profit of six hundred million.

If you can lose seven billion and still turn an annual profit, you are quite simply earning too much.

It is amazing that one man did this alone though.

This is a great time for the French.

And it's very few times you can actually say that.

Last week we talked about the French man who tried a solo invasion of Sark.

This week a lone French man nearly topples a national bank.

This is an incredible time for French mavericks.

If they could team up together, France would be devastating.

No, that'll dissipate it.

Do you think so?

They all have to work alone.

I think the problem is they're doing too much together.

The French could be the most powerful people in the world if they all kept themselves to themselves.

Resignation news now and Peter Hayne, the work and pension secretary, has resigned after becoming bored of people telling him to resign.

In his resignation statement he said tearfully, I just want the wittering to stop.

Now I hope to be able to get on with my job without being told to resign from it whenever I so much as sharpen a pencil without telling the Queen in writing.

And also because the police became involved and you can't expect to run a government department whilst having a confession beaten out of you.

So Hain has resigned and inevitably has been linked to the vacancy as Kevin Keegan's assistant at Newcastle United.

Disastrously for the government, on the very same day that the work and pension secretary Peter Hayne resigned, the Welsh Secretary Peter Hayne also resigned in solidarity with his colleague.

Peter Hayne and Peter Hayne's resignations were the first from Gordon Brown's cabinet.

Peter Hayne should have stayed.

Let Peter Hayne resign.

£100,000 donations went undeclared.

What's I mean, how would that go down in America?

Presumably, American reaction would be be £100,000.

What he didn't declare the budget for the parasols that go in his cocktails.

Man, that's harsh.

That's true, though, because now I think I've now been here slightly too long to take this story seriously.

Because £100,000, I just think that's quaint.

Isn't that quaint?

He's resigned over £100,000.

This is blockbuster politics over here, Andy.

You couldn't get anything off the ground with £100,000.

That's a low-budget indie politician that no one's ever going to see.

I did some sums, John.

I worked out £100,000 could buy buy you a 17-second long presidential campaign.

That's probably true, isn't it?

So you would really have to get your message across quickly and decisively.

That wouldn't be on network television.

That would only be in a state.

He could run for president for 17 seconds in Arkansas.

He could get someone to put out some chairs for a caucus.

British party politics, John, in your absence, as clearly you were holding it together, has now boiled down to an unappetising soup of bickering over which party is cheating most and most naughtily over party funding, and superficial scripted squabbling between the Prime Minister and the opposition leader, which is breaking records for political vapidity and covering the entire parliamentary system in a slurry of opportunistic audio.

There, I've said it.

Nice sentence.

Thanks, John.

Someone had to say it, not necessarily in those words.

Middle East update now, and there are currently 1.5 million Palestinians trapped inside the Gaza Strip.

And a very interesting story happened this week when those Gazans managed to get out and flock to Egypt on what was essentially an explosive shopping trip.

The border was blown up with explosives and cutting equipment.

It really sounds like a bad 1960s Michael Caine film.

And

tens of thousands of Palestinians surged from Gaza into Egypt.

They went shopping.

And this is actually incredibly...

Good news.

No one got hurt.

This was people power at its best.

Blowing up a wall, no no one gets hurt and going, right, who wants to go shopping?

Egypt has become the shopping mall of the Gaza Strip.

I think it's consumerism gone mad, John.

Well, I know the fence was down, but to illegally cross a border just to buy luxuries like basic food and essential medicine, well, it makes you sick to the very pit of your stomach.

You think the consumer culture has gone out of hand in the Gaza Strip?

Yeah, yeah.

They should just take what the Lord has provided for them, namely a massive blockade.

The rationale behind Israel cutting off food supplies to Gaza.

What is that rationale?

I've not been quite able to put my finger on it.

I mean, they haven't been explicit, really, with it.

It's basically to stop the rocket attacks.

They are trying to stop food getting in so people don't have the strength to hold rocket launchers.

That seems to be

what's going on.

Starvation generally does calm people down historically.

The US election has been

We'll be introducing new bugle listeners around the world to the illustrious group of men and women who next January may be ruling over all of us.

At least until the Chinese take over sometime in 2011.

And our opening piece is on Mitt Romney, a Republican frontrunner and potentially disastrous 44th President of the United States.

Willard Mitt Romney was allegedly born in 1947.

A tall story to me in Detroit, Michigan.

It was a dangerous birth as doctors had to perform an emergency operation to remove a set of silver spoons that were wedged in his mouth.

Thankfully, they removed most of them and he went on to live a full privileged life.

His father's cousin played quarterback for the Chicago Bears from 1925 to 1929.

I'm not saying he caused the Wall Street crash by stopping playing, but I am saying that when he stopped playing, Wall Street crashed.

Romney's great-great-grandfather was a man called Parley Parker Pratt, who was born in 1807 but is now, tragically, dead.

Parley Parker Pratt, winner of the 19th century's most alliterative name, was, unlike actor Steve McQueen and Indian politician Gandhi, an influential Mormon.

He is thought to have been the world's first game show host with his hit touring stage show, How Many Wives.

Now, Mick Romney is a rich man.

He is part owner in companies that have given a great deal to humanity, companies such as Dominoes and Staples.

People will always need bad pizzas and adequate stationery.

And tapping into this fundamental human need has given him a personal fortune of over $250 million.

Romney or the Michigan Minotaur as he is known by his fans as a result of his predilection for living in mazes and eating virgins won his home state of Michigan recently in what was described as a make or break primary for him.

But it was never going to be make or break and I'll tell you why he has a personal fortune of over $250 million and when you're that rich you get to decide when anything is over.

He can keep campaigning long after the election is lost if that's what he wants.

That's what happens when you're rich.

That is exactly the kind of stuff you can do.

And this tactic did, after all, work extremely well for the 43rd president.

And that joke is now into its final year of existence.

We'll all miss it when it's gone.

So, reasons he could be president.

Firstly, Romney ran the successful 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Winter Games, which he reminds people of constantly by talking of things in gold and silver medal terms, as well as banging cowbells and hurling himself down mountains on a tray.

And if voters are unsure, all Romney Romney needs to do is whip out America's 2002 ice skating gold medalist Sarah Hughes and announce to the world: vote for me or I will kill this woman.

Incidentally, Sarah Hughes is Jewish, arguably the greatest Jewish skater since Henry Kissinger, who of course invented the triple salco.

Second reason, Romney is rich, white and male, which would make him fit in nicely to a wall of presidential portraits.

But there are some reasons why Romney couldn't be president.

He famously told an extremely funny story involving a time that he strapped the family dog in a carrier to the roof of the family car before embarking on a 12-hour trip.

Oh man.

Before realising that saying you want strapped a dog to the roof of your car is less a punchline than it is a confession to a state crime.

Luckily, there are 250 million reasons that that never went to trial.

Another reason Romney can't be president?

He's a Mormon.

Surely not even America could elect a Mormon.

So far in his campaign Romney has been criticised both for being Mormon and for not being Mormon enough.

Opinion polls are now suggesting that if he can achieve 38% Mormonity, he will win over both sides of the Mormon debate and will soon be in possession of the keys to Air Force One for him and the innumerable first ladies he would have if he were the cartoon Mormon neutrals want him to be.

Now he is widely viewed to be the candidate all other GOP candidates dislike the most, which perhaps explains his current popularity with voters.

John McCain said of him, never get into a wrestling match with a pig.

You both get dirty.

and the pig likes it.

However, if you do get into a wrestling match with a pig, here are the steps you should take.

One, sack your manager.

If he's arranging fights against farm-noid animals, he's probably not the right man to run your wrestling career.

Two, get the crowd on your side.

The pig is a big unit, but craves popularity and feeds off the energy of the crowd.

Make the pig feel alone, and tactically, he will break down.

Three, don't try to beat the pig at his own game.

He'll want to spend most of the bout rolling around in his own excrement and occasionally eating swill.

Don't follow suit.

You're better off keeping the fight technical.

Use the pig's own weight against him, and once you've got on top, close out the fight by killing, skewing, and slow roasting your opponent over an open fire.

Serve with applesauce and a taunting glug of Chianti.

How did this profile of Mitt Romney become advice on how to fight a pig?

That's what happens in an election campaign, John.

Expect the unexpected.

Ladies and gentlemen, when you think of America, you think of a number of things: hot dogs, Chevrolets, Cadillacs, and this man,

the American.

That's right, it's the return of the legendary Ask an American section.

How you doing?

Welcome back to the show, American.

Thank you guys very much for having me.

I'm very excited to be here as usual.

You know, things have been hectic lately.

Why particularly hectic?

You know, a lot of things going on in America right now, and I just have to focus on, you know, the home, the home turf.

But I'm psyched to be back.

By the way, yeah, psyched, that means like excited, you know.

Oh, right.

It's like American.

It's an American expression.

Oh, I thought it was that you were psychologically ready.

I thought it it made it both.

It actually has dual meanings.

Oh, good, good.

Um, so, Andy, do you want to kick straight off?

Yeah, the first question for the American comes from Jody Major in Kent, who asks, when I was at school, we were paired off for a project with American counterparts as pen pals.

My American counterpart's first question was whether we in Britain had electricity or not.

This question was made more absurd by the fact that I was emailing her.

In light of this, I would like to ask the American when it was he found out that we do in fact have electricity in Britain.

Jodi, that is a good question.

But first, let me tell you this.

Here's what's misleading about your question.

You call it a pen pal, yet it's through email.

So, first of all, you should really call it an email pal, and then we'd all be on the same page here.

And maybe your American friend wouldn't be so confused.

So, first of all, first mistake is on you.

But if you say the same page, if it's on email,

you say we're on the same screen.

It was a pun.

It was a pun.

It's a plan.

Oh, that's right.

Nice try, Andy.

You can't trip him up when you try to log in.

It's good to be back.

I thought you guys were on my side.

Anyway, second of all, about electricity.

I think everyone here is well aware that England has electricity.

You guys stole it from us.

Whoa.

It's an invention that we came up with.

The world then caught on.

I mean, of course, you stole it from us.

You tried to make it your own.

Your plug sockets are those stupid little holes that none of our things fit into, which doesn't make any sense to me.

I mean, ours are slits.

Why would you want holes in your wall when you could have slits?

It just makes more sense.

Yet another thing that the Americans came up with.

You know, we come up with all good inventions that make the world hum.

Like, say, cars,

planes,

boats, you know.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Hold on a second.

I can't let that last one go through.

Why is that?

Boats.

Yeah.

You didn't invent boats.

You were invented by boats.

You're talking about like the old wooden ships, those things.

I'm talking about nice boats.

Like the kind of boat you can zip around the lake, water ski off the back of, you know, maybe pick up some chicks.

What are you going to do?

What are you going to bring like?

A Spanish war galleon out to the Jersey shore for the weekend?

What are you going to do?

You know what I'm saying?

I'm talking about like a nice boat.

Francis Drake picked up more chicks on his boat than you've had hot dinners.

That might be true, but I could beat him in a race any day of the week.

And I could pull skis off the back of my boat.

The next question is from Dave Hyde, who says, after only 12 months, it seems the American owners of Liverpool Football Club are about to sell up and leave.

In that short time, they have promised not to finance a new stadium through risky loans.

Attempted to finance a new stadium through risky loans, publicly humiliated a world-class manager by admitting trying to replace him, and done nothing nothing but cause chaos and instability and turn the fans against them and they are still likely to make a huge profit from the sale of the club if your american was to purchase a british sporting institute which one would it be and what changes would he make to it i don't really understand anything that you guys have said to me with that question uh there's really a lot of like pops and clicks i didn't really get much of it but uh i could tell you this just to answer very quickly i would never buy something that's not American, especially at that scale, because it just doesn't make sense.

I mean, If you want a quality product, it better say made in the USA on it.

It's just kind of a rule I like to live by.

And that goes with clothing, automobiles, obviously.

I don't want to bring up boats again.

I know how sensitive everybody gets.

You know, anything good usually is made here in America.

And as far as football clubs go, I'm assuming you're referring to soccer, which is what we call it here.

No, don't say that.

Don't say that.

I know people hate that word, but look, it's a good word.

We invented it.

We had that word first.

Well,

we had football first, though.

No.

The good kind.

No, you didn't, though.

You don't even make your ball out of pigskin.

That makes very little sense to me.

Why would you not?

I mean, what's better than pig skin?

You know, you had so much of it lying around from all the bacon we're all eating.

Just use it for sports.

Just use it for sports.

You've got to give him that handy.

Yeah, you've got to get it.

I mean, we're like the Native Americans in America.

We let nothing go to waste.

We make lacrosse sticks out of whale blubber.

Nothing goes to waste here.

Nothing.

That could be the most inaccurate thing you've said so far.

Nothing goes to waste in America.

My response to David Hyde Pierce over there would be, don't buy anything unless it says made in the USA on it.

And, you know, I don't really understand the rest of the question.

Although, m most of your clothes are probably made in China.

I guess.

All I know is they say made in the USA.

Oh, I think so.

I mean, we own a good amount of China, so it's really the same thing.

It's really the same thing.

At this point, we own so much of the world that wherever it's made, it's kind of still made in the USA.

You're in for a very unpleasant surprise in 10 years.

I think, John, that answer shows perhaps why Liverpool fans are slightly sceptical about the extent of American influence in their soccer club.

So Andy, do you have any other questions for them?

I do have a question for the American, and that is, who do you want to win the presidential election?

I get this a lot on my late-night drive talk show.

Electing the president is one of the largest, if not probably the largest responsibility in the world.

That's true.

Because when you elect the American president, you're really electing the president of the world.

Okay, so

there's a lot on our shoulders because we know that our leader kind of ends up running the world.

Which, look, we're fine with that.

You've done a great job so far.

Well, thank you.

And I'll tell you this.

I'll give you a clue.

I don't know exactly, and I don't want to tip anybody off out there because, you know, we like surprises.

I'll give you an idea.

He'll most likely be a man.

Most likely be white, and he'll definitely hate you people.

That's what I can imagine.

How you doing?

And,

you know, when you have a lot of responsibility like that, if you're going to be tough on America, all these people out there, they say they hate America, the terrorists, they want to kill us.

You have to understand, if you understood how we looked at the world and the responsibility we have to the world, the world to us is like a little baby, you know, and we have to take care of that little baby.

And if people realize that that's how we view the world, I think they would hate us less.

On recent evidence, you've been giving that baby some fairly tough love.

He's kind of Victorian-style parents and going, hey, the kid tries to bite your hand, you've got to knock him in the head every now and then.

Some of my parents said to me, I think I turn out pretty good.

Sometimes

if a baby's crying,

maybe you should pick it up and cuddle it rather than put it in a different room, but I'll ignore it.

It all depends on your philosophy.

And right now, you know, our kids are doing stuff.

They're like, you know, sneaking out after curfew.

You know, they're like, you know, they're coming home late.

Your daughter, right now, her daughter,

she's, you know, banging the football captain in the back of my car, my car.

You know, I lent her my car.

I got a minivan.

I got to deal with that.

You know what I'm saying?

And I'm not sure that we've lost the metaphor and now gone into an extra

life.

I'm just saying, you know,

you're dealing with slutty people and you got to sometimes knock them around.

Well, thank you very much, American.

It's been an explosive return to form.

Always a pleasure to spend some time with you guys.

And hopefully, we'll see you very soon.

Oh, I can't wait.

Yeah, great.

So keep your questions for the American.

Coming into thebugle at timesonline.co.uk.

Don't forget also to go to the bugle page at timesonline.co.uk slash the bugle, where you can access all the back issues of the bugle, whether you've missed them or just want to listen to them again, as you all should.

Also, you can get the print edition of the bugle.

You can get a PDF downloadable of the legendary audio cryptic crossword, for which there has been considerable support from you listeners, for which I'm eternally grateful.

And John is frankly disgusted

You can also get the bugle blog Summarizing the rest of your emails that don't make it into the show and also new up last week the hotties from history slideshow where you can vote for your mr.

Stroke Miss January from the selection available yeah, and I have to say I was sceptical at the start I've seen the slideshow and I'm a complete convert.

It is incredible.

We will be adding to the slideshow so you can see incredible hotties like a statue of Bismarck, which really makes you feel something deep down inside you that have long been dormant.

Granite Pecks.

And now it's time for your emails.

We've had an email in from Dan Hancocks helping us to explain how caucuses work.

He writes, I want to help you so much understand how caucuses work that I actually got out of my bed in late December and went all the way to Iowa from Ballum in south London to go to a caucus.

The twisted Victorian parlour game I witnessed there did not help explain things, I'm afraid.

It was absolute chaos.

381 people walked into the canteen of the Iowa City Senior Citizen Centre, stood on plastic chairs shouting at each other for four hours, rearranged themselves at apparently arbitrary intervals, and by the end of the evening, the arrhythmic dance of democracy was apparently complete.

Well, thank you, Dan, for that update.

That is why we must export this form of government around the world.

Democracy is dead.

And this email came in from Monique Superville.

Brackets, yes, that is my real name, she claims, somewhat outlandishly.

She also claims even more outlandishly to be from a nice part of New Jersey.

And she writes, Dear John and Andy, thank you for creating the crack cocaine of podcasts.

I knew that someone would eventually make a podcast that could create psychological dependence.

I didn't guess that it would come from Britain.

Now, Monique, I'm not sure we should take this as a compliment.

You're suggesting that our podcast can ruin your personal family lives and lead to your premature death.

As well as just causing social problems on a scale far beyond the imagination of most journalists.

I feel really guilty that we've created this monster.

Although, the bugles should be listened to in dens.

Just ideally not crack dens, just a den you make yourself.

Look the dens you make as toddlers.

There is a vote for Hottie from History from Danny Harkins, who says, Chancellor Otto van Bismarck, surely, not for his looks, you understand, purely for his real politic and unification through war techniques that is so lacking in today's modern politicians.

Bismarck is a hottie amongst hotties.

Hitler without the lack of conviction.

Now, there are many criticisms you could levy at Adolf Hitler.

Many, many criticisms.

A lack of conviction is not one of them.

In many ways, if he had one quality, it was real conviction.

Another slightly surprising suggestion for hotties from history comes from BC Woods in Aberdeen in Washington state, who suggests Mother Teresa comes first to my mind.

Uh-oh.

This benevolently beautiful hottie from history gave peace and succour to thousands of those who would have died cold and alone were it not for her intervention.

This makes her an absolute babe in my mind.

Oh boy.

Oh boy.

Do keep your emails flooding in to thebugle at timesonline.co.uk and don't forget to read the Bugle blog with the best of the rest.

Bugle Sports!

Baseball in a controversial move, the Minnesota Twins franchise is to play next season under the new name of the Portland Twins, after the Twins owner, Carl Polad, bought the city of Portland and moved it to Minnesota.

Polad said, I've always liked Portland, but I wanted my team to stay where it was, so this seemed the best solution.

Portland is now located 20km south of Minneapolis, and its former site in Oregon is to be turned into a sanctuary for Bears who've got the blues.

Results now.

Dying, Bobby Fischer won, Boris Spassky nil.

Another win for Fisher over his old adversary, who has failed to outlast the Americo Icelandic Grandmaster and Weirdo.

Spassky seemed to have the upper hand after having a stroke in October 2006, but failed to capitalise on his advantage.

And Fisher pulled off an excellent victory with a clinical variation on the old classic kidney failure gambit.

Spassky immediately challenged Fischer to a rematch, which Fisher declined.

And in fox punting, Oxford beat Cambridge, propelling themselves down the Thames with a long pole at a leisurely pace on their fox for five hours without falling in.

Cambridge, despite having a slightly more buoyant fox, drank too much pims, capsized their fox, and were disqualified for drowning the fox without the use of the regulation trumpet.

Next week in sport, the Super Bowl and the Six Nations rugby.

And now it's time for the much lauded and globally supported audio cryptic crossword.

Thank you very much to all of you who've sent in messages of support.

Are you sure some of them weren't sarcastic?

None of them were sarcastic, John.

Let's just get this over with.

This week's clue is nine down,

and it's a clue that really touches upon the dangers of tinkering with the natural order of the universe.

It's 14 letters long.

Two of the letters are A, but I'm not telling you any more than that.

And the clue is this: hold the flowers, they bring the dead back to life.

And finally, a bugle bugle prediction, which is a meal forecast for Tuesday.

Breakfast, light, requiring mid-morning snack.

Lunch, heavy, veering gluttonous, snooze, tea and biscuits, perking up slightly, then dinner, tasty, fattening, heart attack, good.

So that's all from the bugle, issue number 14 this week.

Thanks for listening if you've made it this far.

Unless you tuned out at the audio cryptic crossword, in which case you don't deserve to hear it.

You don't deserve it.

Bye.

Cheerio!

Hi, buglers, it's producer Chris here.

I just wanted to very quickly tell you about my new podcast, Mildly Informed, which is in podcast feeds and YouTube right now.

Quite simply, it's a show where me and my friend Richie review literally anything.

So please come join us wherever you get your podcasts right now.