After 443 years Sark finally gets democracy

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, Buglers, and welcome to edition 13 of the Bugle, the week beginning Monday, the 21st of January, 2008.

The 13th Bugle.

Will it prove to be unlucky?

Will John and I still be alive?

At the end of the recording, time will tell.

Hello from me, Andy Zolksman, in London.

And from John Oliver in New York City.

Hello, buglers.

Hope you're all well.

Although, statistically, I know that's probably not true.

So, as always, with the Bugle, the unique audio newspaper, some sections do go straight in the bin.

This week, a commemorative three-hour prose poem about the plane which nearly crashed at Heathrow last week.

What does a plane nearly crashing mean for us as a species?

That's very much the subtext.

I was under the understanding, Andy, that that plane did not nearly crash, that it actually crashed.

Well, John, it kind of half-crashed.

It was a plane tinkle.

In terms of, if you've got a crash of cymbals and a tinkle of symbols, this was very much a tinkle of a plane crash.

I'll be very interested to see if the passengers on board that plane thought, oh, that was just a tinkle as it was smashing across the runway.

Well, some of them did, apparently.

They just thought it was a bumpy landing.

I guess it is one of those what-if stories, you know, what-if another plane had had been crashing in the same place at the same time, it could have got really nasty.

Also, in the bin, a pop-up guide to how to choose the right allergy for your child.

Top story this week, and Bush's trip to the Middle East is finally over.

President George W.

Bush returned back to the United States from the Middle East East this week.

I presume that if he is coming back, there must be peace there now.

So, congratulations to the former most volatile area on earth.

I hope you're enjoying your newfound peace and are busy thinking about what kind of thank-you present to buy for Bush.

Well, it's wonderful news, isn't it?

That his Middle East tour has come to an end with thousands of years of God-endorsed grudges resolved in one carefully stage-managed whistle-stop extravaganza of attempted legacy creation.

So, well done, George W.

Bush.

And when you hear his simple, come on, everyone, sort it out message, you wonder why no one's thought of that before.

In one of his interviews, there he said, I'm sure people view me as a warmonger.

I view myself as a peacemaker.

And to be fair to him, that is half true.

He's 50% right there, and that's already a step up from being 100% wrong.

In a speech in Abu Dhabi, Bush called on the Middle East to embrace democracy and said it was the best way to defeat extremism, although recent history has shown that, in fact, democracy is the best way to elect extremism.

So that may well backfire.

How do you think history will judge Bush's little jaunts around the Middle East, John?

Well, he's already decided on that because he said this week when history was written that it would judge America as having helped the world.

So he's pretty much already decided on that by talking about current history in the past tense.

Did he actually finish that sentence?

America's helped the world, dot, dot, dot?

I can't remember.

Yeah, that's right.

To the brink of annihilation.

Taken the world by the hand, walked it up to to the edge of the cliff and gone, look.

It turned out that bringing peace to the region wasn't the only reason for Jordan Condoleezza's exotic jaunt.

He also wanted to, and I quote, jawbone the Saudis into lowering oil prices.

That's very nicely put, because they responded to his jawboning by not lowering their prices at all.

It seems that in the complicated world of oil trade, you might need a fractionally more sophisticated approach than the classic jawbone.

What is jawboning, John?

It sounds like some arcane sexual practice.

I'm not qualified to say that.

Maybe it is.

You live in New York, the home of arcane sexual practices.

That's true.

I mean, I was presuming that it was just talking to them until they broke, but you're right.

Maybe I'm not giving enough credit.

Maybe it is an arcane sexual practice.

And he was willing to go over there and say, I will, and I'm not going to enjoy it, but I will jawbone the Saudis for oil.

Really?

No one's jawboned anyone since 1814.

He made some interesting claims on his trip.

He said that Iran threatens the security of nations everywhere.

Now this was met with a range of reactions going from no it doesn't,

does it, are you sure, and Iran, no you must be thinking of someone else, all the way to I'm sorry George, what was that you said?

It sounded like wolf, wolf, wolf.

I think when history judges George W.

Bush, it won't be so much as the boy who cried wolf as the man who promoted wolf the musical.

and promised us a theatrical extravaganza with a cast of a thousand animatronic dancing robot chickens and especially specially exhumed Marlon Brando as Wolf.

He also did even manage to fit in Andy a $20 billion arms deal whilst he was over there.

And I think you'll find that that's actually in the Rough Guide tourist brochure for the Middle East.

Don't leave without sealing a major arms deal.

You just haven't had the whole experience otherwise.

Local food and massive arms deals.

That's the local flavour.

Well, I guess it shows that Bush has got more than one string to his political bow because as well as bringing peace to the Middle East, he's brought a bit more potential potential war as well so you've got to balance these things out I'm sure it'll work the history I mean in the illustrious history of selling weapons to despotic regimes it's never backfired why would it start now one interesting side issue that came out of this that if you trace Bush's route around the Middle East it makes the shape of the ancient Egyptian hieroglyph for hypocrite

And he's coming across as a bit of a political equivalent of Scrooge, John.

He's been visited by the ghost of TV documentaries Future and shown a horrific vision of what his legacy will be seen to be.

And now he's suddenly started trying to do something about it.

It's like a slightly twisted version of It's a Wonderful Life, where Clarence the Angel would come down and show Bush the future if he hadn't been in it and then stand awkwardly went, sorry about that, it would actually have been a lot better had you never been born.

Whatever you say about Bush in the Middle East, there is increasingly compelling evidence that his global drive towards democracy is chugging forward.

The island of Sark, one of the famous Channel Islands between Britain and France, for those of you who've never heard of it, is to go democratic by the end of the year, ending 443 years of despotism on an island with a population of 600 people.

Sark's been under pressure apparently from the European Commission on Human Rights.

Good to see they're using their time and resources well.

Great days for Sark, John.

Well, that's right.

418 out of the maximum 600 residents voted for democracy.

And so that's right, they've waited nearly 450 years and only managed to maintain a 60% turnout.

This election took nearly 500 years to come around

and 40% of them couldn't be bothered to get out of bed.

But you know, it is a long way to get to the polling station, seeing as the island is only two square miles.

Yeah, but you're not allowed a car, John.

The current seigneur, is that how you pronounce it?

Seigneur?

Let's say it is.

Michel Beaumont, who's been in charge for the last last 33 years, has not yet made it clear whether he will now be stripped of his remaining feudal rights, those being that he's currently the only person in Sark who can keep pigeons and unspayed female dogs.

Listen, Addie, if they let him keep pigeons, they haven't finished this revolution properly.

It would have been like if the Romanians had let Ceaușescu keep himself alive.

It's just not the same.

Also, he has the right to all debris washed up between high and low tides.

Is that true?

He does.

According to no no lesser source than Wikipedia, this is a right which is, quote, seldom enforced.

Seldom, not never.

I'd love him to stage a bloody coup now, Andy.

Or they're doing a massive civil war.

Like you say, there are no cars on the islands.

He should just buy himself a tank.

It could be the smallest dictatorship on the planet.

Well, it seems to me you should say there should be a coup, because in 1991, a Frenchman launched a one-man invasion of Sark with a semi-automatic weapon.

What?

But it failed, and he was arrested after he made the schoolboy military tactical error of sitting on a bench for a while.

Hold on.

It was a one-man invasion.

He decided, he got up one morning and thought, I'll invade a nation.

Unfortunately, I guess Sark has no oil reserves, so therefore, this is not a big story in the world.

No, exactly.

Otherwise, I've got a feeling it would have been quite a big one.

Yeah, that's the way the media works.

If we have any Sark listeners, which I'm willing to bet we don't, but if we do, please do email in and let us know how democracy is going over there.

Finally, good environmental news from the White House.

The White House recently this week admitted recycling its backup computer tapes of emails sent before October 2003.

They released a statement a few minutes before midnight on Tuesday under a court-imposed deadline to reveal information it had refused to provide.

And the email tapes could include information on the events which led to the leaking of CIA agent Valerie Plain's name or indeed the war in Iraq.

Andy, this is a huge commitment to recycling.

How dare people claim that the Bush administration doesn't care about environmental issues?

They care so much, they're even willing to break the law.

In fact, I believe this was a clause signed into the recent Bali Treaty that the US will meet targets for email deletion and document treading, all of which will be recycled out of all recognition.

And if that doesn't get polar bears balancing on slightly bigger pieces of ice, I don't know what will.

Heroes.

Heroes to a man, John.

They're like a real green piece.

Where's their award?

Where's the consistency, Andy?

Al Gore gets a Nobel Prize.

They're getting nothing but snarkiness.

I think Bush probably deserves at least a Grammy for this.

Science now.

And buglers, it is always exciting to report scientific breakthroughs that people may have missed.

And this week we've had very much one of those occasions because scientists announced that they've developed a computer program which can translate the barks of dogs.

This is absolutely huge.

And I can only hope and pray that this project was publicly funded.

The breakthrough came at the University of Hungary, great university.

The computer attempted to identify words such as stranger, fight, walk, alone, ball, and play.

And the computer got it right a whopping 43% of the time.

43% accuracy.

Is that enough, John?

Is that enough?

I mean I know it's good enough for the British legal system in the 1970s, the US Air Force and Steve Harmerson, but I would say that that's not enough for science.

It's plenty for science.

So it does mean that even with this technology, more than half the time you don't know what your dog is woofing about.

But we may have found the solution to that in that we have an expert with us in the studio.

Indeed we do.

We're joined by the Emeritus Professor of Animal Translatics from University College Nantwich, Karen Haley.

Karen, thanks very much

for coming in.

Now, we've been out interviewing a number of animals for the Bugle this week.

Could you possibly tell us what it is that they're saying?

Yes, of course.

Let's have a listen to this dog, first of all.

Please get that microphone out of my face.

Your puny little machine cannot possibly comprehend the complexity of my thoughts.

Now, throw me that ball and shut up.

Quite a stroppy dog.

Yeah.

Well, you know, when there's a ball to be thrown, you don't want a microphone in your face.

We have another dog here.

Can you let us know what this dog is saying?

Woof.

Woof.

Woof.

Woof.

Oh, right, just the standard woofing from that dog.

Seems that way, yes.

Okay, fine, that's fine.

Now we have a cat

here.

Can you let us know what this cat is saying?

Please drop the audio crossword.

It's causing cats pain.

What?

If you care at all about cats, the audio crossword must stop now.

Ah that's a good point cat.

Absolute rot.

I hold the entire feline community in utter contempt.

What about what is this elephant saying now we went to London Zoom recorded the elephants?

Stick it, cat.

I love the audio crossword.

When you've learned to stop licking your own dairy air, your opinion will carry more weight.

Bang on the banana elephant.

Absolutely bang on.

Elephants have famously small brains, Andy, and I think that that's the perfect example of it there.

They may be small relative to the size of their heads, but they're still bigger than yours will ever be.

This is from a chicken.

Though I may be a mere chicken, heed my clucks.

The subprime mortgage crisis is about to cause a massive global economic slowdown.

My fellow chickens in China wish to warn you that not even they may be able to pull you out of this one.

Heed our clucks.

And I enjoy this comfort and companionship of living in a battery.

In fact, I find the constant feather contact mildly arousing.

Interesting that that very economically informed chicken was a battery farm chicken.

Organic chickens really just tend to cluck on about day-to-day seeds and pecking.

Much more intellectual chickens you get in battery farming, although it's an awkward truth.

It is.

Well, it's you know, it's like being hothoused together in a university, isn't it?

You know, a lot of exchange of ideas, whereas the free ranger ranger is wandering around on your own, probably thinking about golf.

To delve further into this, we actually went down to the Battersea Dogs home in London to find out what the dogs collectively were talking about.

Karen, can you talk us through what they're saying in this extract here?

Hold on, hold on!

Muscle!

Whatever your view on the rights and wrongs of going to a war in Iraq, I think you have to acknowledge that the truth surge has been a success.

Hold on now, Parker.

A slight reduction in violence could have been caused by any number of factors.

Let's not be too quick to attribute it to the surge.

Why do you insist on seeing the bad in this situation here?

Don't look at me like that.

Oh, you're going to be put down next week anyway.

Hey, hey, settle down.

Let's all fall out over a rack again.

Hey, pause up who wants to go and lie down under the car while it's still warm, yeah?

That has completely changed my view on canine behaviour.

They must have CNN pumped into their kennels 24 hours a day.

And that involves some background reading, because that's not just received opinion from those dogs.

Karen, thank you very much.

Fascinating glimpse into modern science.

You're welcome.

And now the Bugle Legal section.

Some wonderful stories in the world of law this week.

In particular, a Sri Lankan man, D.P.

James, has been released after 50 years on remand without going to trial.

He was arrested in 1957 for stabbing his father, sent to a psychiatric hospital, and forgotten about for 50 years.

Apparently, he didn't understand the legal system, so he never complained.

Which only goes to show you must know your rights.

It is crucially important.

He has, however, now been released on bail.

That is, on bail.

They didn't just let him go.

They demanded 50,000 rupees.

That's 235 British pounds or approximately 50,000 US dollars.

Kaboom.

It's the first exchange rate joke for a couple of of weeks, I think.

It's true.

They're like Italian army jokes.

They'll just never go away.

On bail, just in case he goes out and stabs his father again.

He's now probably dead by natural causes, father.

And finally, in our law section, the Diana inquest.

Latest.

Well, it's like the plot of a great Whodone It, in which no one done it.

Other than Velocity and Gallic road culture.

And a wall.

It's touched on various tedious and irrelevant issues.

I wonder what else the inquest is going to cover, John.

I want to know whether we'll find out through this inquest issues such as was Diana planning to have the buffet breakfast the next day or room service.

I guess from what we know of her state of mind at the time, she might have preferred the flexibility of the buffet breakfast and the greater volume control you get with that rather than the luxury of room service and the possibility of cold toast that comes with it.

Yeah, there are conspiracy theorists around that Prince Philip had ordered in a breakfast for her from outside.

Not poisoned it, just ordered it in.

Just trying to make her fat.

It does make you nostalgic, this whole Farago, John, for the days when the royal family could just bump each other off without anyone batting an eyelid.

Absolutely.

And, you know, you just kill one of your family and just say, well, that's just the way the cookie crumbles.

That is just what happens in history.

Surely, legally, if it comes to it the royal family could just cite a historical precedent yeah there must be somewhere in law just the fact that yeah well regina versus regina they were slaughtering each other years ago and everyone was perfectly happy with that yeah why change a winning formula prince philip according to uh loyal butler paul burrow there's no chance that he could have been behind the plots but he has bumped off a number of other people including robert kennedy poll potts that was following a dispute over a game of dominoes brian jones janis joplin jimi hendricks jim morrison and uh john bonham He just hated sixties and early seventies rock music and people whose names involve the letter J.

He wasn't just a talker, he was a doer.

Well, he got away with it because everyone was concentrating on his racist comments.

It's the perfect crime.

Now it's the emails page of the Bugle, and this week our email inbox has been inundated with a concerted campaign orchestrated, it seems, by a Liz Henley from Buckinghamshire to have the 22nd of January declared John Oliver and Andy Zaltzmann Day.

We don't know if this is a compliment or a threat, but thanks anyway, Liz and all your friends who've asked.

The 22nd of January, which has been dubbed the most depressing of the year,

and also they've checked on Wikipedia and very little of significance happened on 22nd of January in history, apart from the death of Queen Victoria, who Liz says, my personal hottie from history.

I love a woman in black, woof.

I have to say as well, the pictures and statues of Queen Victoria make that a very hard argument to win.

Yes, although if you are a breast man, John, she would not have let you down.

I think I felt something move in my stomach.

That's just a fact.

Oh,

I'm a different man as the man I was before I heard that sentence.

That's year dot for me, Andy.

Everything changed.

People say they always remember where they were at certain moments in history, you know, the assassination of JFK, the funeral of JFK, the opening of JFK airports, and the premiere of Oliver Stone's controversial film Natural Born Killers.

But for me, I will order where I was when you made lewd comments about Queen Victoria.

They weren't lewd, John.

I was merely saying that we should celebrate her achievements not only as a stateswoman and monarch, but also as a woman.

I had an email from Claire Jacobs along the lines of this campaign for John Oliver and Andy's Altzman Day being the most depressing day of the year.

And she says, Hello, John.

Hello, Andy.

I have a special request for you to my best friend's birthday is next Tuesday, January the 22nd.

Liz also mentions a number of other random days.

Check Your Batteries Day, which is the 9th of March,

and Cook Something Bold and Pungent Day, the 8th of November.

So, if there are any days you'd like to see other than John Oliver and Andy's Altzman Day, then do email us in thebugle at timesonline.co.uk.

This email comes in from Corey Tompkins in Michigan.

Was a bit disheartened this past Monday while listening to your show when John made the claim that one Jesus Christ travelled to Bethlehem via helicopter.

I found the historical inaccuracies in this comment astounding and felt that I must reply to correct this frighteningly careless mistake.

It is well known that Jesus flew in economy during his plane flights to and from Bethlehem.

And I believe the plane was in the control of Pontius Pilot.

Oh, what a joke.

Oh, one bounce for.

What a joke.

Well documented, continues Corey, with copious amounts of empirical evidence, is the final supper on flight 316 on Jesus' way back to Jerusalem, consisting of packets of honey-roasted peanuts and each apostle's own choice of carbonated beverage.

There's a good email here from Lauren Parker from Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario.

Dear John and Andy, I've recently been accepted to participate in an exchange programme with the University of of Bath and I'm hoping to get some tips on getting used to living in the UK.

For example, I've heard of a chip butty sandwich and I fear that it's actually a common food.

Please God tell me that it's not.

We share your fear.

If you want to retain the vote in Britain you must have chip butties once a day.

We suggest that you make a will and eat a lot of salad before you come here.

She actually has a nominated for the potty from history, Pierre Trudeau, Canada's 15th Prime Minister.

He gave us our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, wore sandals in the House of Commons and even once pirouetted behind the Queen, all this while being a certified sex bomb.

If he's not a historic hottie, I don't want to know what is.

That's all very well.

I'm not going to allow that nomination for Trudeau as a hottie from history on the grounds that that history is too recent.

I concur with that.

I believe that is almost a hottie from current affairs, and that is simply beyond the pale.

That's a different calendar.

This email comes from Nicholas Davies, who writes, a question for the American, who we're hoping to have back in next week.

Why is America renowned for being obese when you have the world's greatest sauna in Death Valley?

Instead of universal healthcare, couldn't the government just ship the fat people to Death Valley for a fortnight every year?

John, are any of the candidates in the election going to be bold enough to go with that as a policy?

I don't think so, but the thing is, I do think, you know, lots of them are starting to resign now, that resigned from the campaign.

And it just seems a really low way to go out, just saying, oh, I'm not in it anymore.

You may as well come up with something absolutely crazy like that.

Go out on a high.

Just say, I also propose, and I haven't mentioned this so far in my campaign, that we bus fat people to Death Valley for two weeks a year.

I hereby resign my nomination for president of the United States.

Do that!

Come up with something good.

Exactly.

Or a ritual Roman style suicide.

One of the two.

So if there are any policies you'd like to see an obviously losing candidate suggest, email them in.

Thebugle at timesonline.co.uk.

The best of the rest of your emails will be be rounded up in the Bugle blog, which is entering week three of its short but heroic life.

Also on the Bugle page at timesonline.co.uk.

You can get access to the full print edition of the Bugle and the audio-cryptic crossword so far with all the clues, including this week's coming up later in the show.

Sport!

And in one of the greatest comebacks ever known in the history of mankind, Kevin Keegan is back as manager of Newcastle United.

Pay attention, American listeners.

This is a genuinely fantastic story.

It is an appointment purely from the heart by the Board of Newcastle United, and in an era of sport where it's governed by finance and business.

This is a kind of romantic appointment that really gives football a shot right up its arse where it frankly needed it.

It's one of the great sporting comebacks, Andy, possibly only rivalled by Jesus, the famous water polo player, who physically died and then came back to life to, of course, win the All-Bethlehem water polo title.

Well, in fact, we did ask what sports you thought Jesus would be good at last week.

Gareth Keradig suggests that Jesus would be a hot tip for water skiing rather than water polo.

The man doesn't even need skis, he writes.

Confident, bordering on cocky, if you ask me.

Little dig at the prominent Christian Messiah.

And Bobby Kuchols gives us some reasons why Jesus can't play rugby.

His headgear is illegal.

He's only got 12 men, which is the only reason why he can't play rugby union.

Of course, 12 men plus Jesus would make a very solid rugby league team.

The goalposts give him flashbacks.

At what point was Jesus crucified on an H-shaped cross?

He can't support a hooker.

Nice pun.

He's got holes in his hands.

His dad would fix the games, would he?

Hasn't he got better things to do?

And he's dead.

Is he Bobby?

Is he Bobby?

A lot of people around the world would disagree.

Another great comeback in the world of sport is Tony Blair.

He wants to come back as EU president.

Oh, God.

To finish the job he started on Britain.

Well done, Keegan.

The bugle wishes you the very greatest of success.

I am a bit concerned about one aspect of this, John, and that is the lack of opportunity for foreign managers at any Premiership club outside the big four.

How are the promising European managers supposed to get a job in the Premiership now when it seems to be sewn up with local managers.

I think it's absolutely appalling.

News from the Australia Tennis Open.

Tennis riots.

That's right.

Tennis riots.

This is an incredible commitment to hooliganism, Andy.

And as a British person, I appreciate that.

To riot at a tennis match is extremely difficult.

There's something about the monotonous rhythm of a ball being hit backwards and forwards, the metronomic, sopporific sound, which is like being hypnotised.

It's like being lulled to sleep.

And to hooliganise under those conditions is extraordinary.

I really think there should be more riots at tennis matches.

It would really give it a lift.

And snooker as well.

I think that's.

I think we'd all pay to see a snooker match just going on sedately whilst there was absolute carnage in the background.

One of my favourite sporty moments, Andy, is when we went to see Jimmy White against Ronnie O'Sullivan.

Do you remember that?

Oh, yeah.

And people were shouting, Come on, Jimmy, come on, Ronnie.

And there was a pause, and you screamed, come on, snooker.

You were right that day.

And you're still right now.

Great.

Highlight of my career.

And finally in sport, a Peace Watch update from the world of ice hockey.

It was a game in the Russian league between Akbars and Traktor, which featured a fight that went on for so long that they stopped in the middle for a football match.

We might be bringing peace to the Middle East.

It appears that there is no hope of peace in ice hockey.

And now we are on to the award-winning audio-cryptic crossword section.

How many more?

How many more, Andy?

Just give me a number.

Well, how long is a piece of string?

Is it three?

No, it's seventeen clues long.

For those who are sceptical about the audio-cryptic crossword, you might like to think about the Book of Revelations in the Bible, which is clearly just a collection of cryptic crossword clues pieced together by a bored sub-editor.

For example, Great Whore who sitteth upon the scarlet beast.

That's clearly a crossword clue.

Babylon the Great is fallen.

Now, the word that clearly means it's an anagram.

And has become the habitation of devils.

So it's probably an anagram of Babylon the Great, meaning somewhere where devils live.

And also to make war against him that sat on the horse.

Do you think it's blasphemous to imply that the Bible is basically a cryptic crossword?

No, just revelation.

Revelations is fair game, John.

Really?

You don't think St.

Peter might have a problem with that at the Pearly Gates?

Even the crosswords, Oltzmann.

It wasn't.

Even the Pope basically thinks Revelations is a novelty calendar.

So this week's clue, brace yourselves, is 20 down.

It's six letters long, and it's really a clue that shows how there are different perspectives on the people we view as celebrities.

One man's hero is another man's dustbin.

And the clue is this:

Greek god or a chicken from Italy?

Question mark.

Six letters.

Twenty down.

There you go, John.

Can you get that one?

No, I refuse to get it.

Go back to school, and this time pay more attention.

So do tune in to the Bugle next week where there will be a food section, the return of Ask an American, so get questions in if you want to ask him anything, and the start of profile pieces on all the main presidential candidates.

And the Bugle prediction this week is that I will not be alone in not doing my tax return in time for the 31st of January deadline.

You like the spring finish with a tax return, don't you?

You like to chest throw for the line.

I like to dip for the tape.

So thanks for listening and we'll let you again next week.

Keep your emails coming in.

The bugle at timesonline.co.uk.

Goodbye.

Stay strong.

What?

I don't know.

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.