After Iowa, only 302 days left to go

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello and welcome to the first ever Bugle of 2008.

It's issue 11 of the Bugle, that's not including issue 10A.

It's issue 11 for for the week beginning the 7th of January with me, Andy Zaltzmann in London and in New York City, John Oliver.

Happy New Year, world!

Happy New Year!

Although I realise in the current climate, that could sound a little sarcastic.

Yes, it is a new year.

We are all one numerical year closer to the annihilating chasm of death.

But on the positive side, some sections of the bugle, as always, are going straight in the bin, including a special eating supplement with new ideas on how to bite, chew and swallow a a range of foods from raw cabbage all the way to the latest celebrity chef recipe, Frightened Lobster in an abusive snout sauce.

Also in the bin, the Bugle's audio calendar.

Sadly, Tom, our producer hadn't heard about Britain adopting the Gregorian calendar to replace the old Julian calendar back in 1752.

There he is, still excited about Christmas.

Review of the year 2008.

So, Andy, I mean, I guess it's time now to look back on the year 2008 and

really try and put it in some kind of context.

How have you found 2008 to be?

Well, it's been low grade so far, John.

I had so many high hopes for 2008.

You know, it's the first year whose numbers add up to 10 since the year 1900.

So, I was really looking forward to it on those grounds, if nothing else.

But it's not started well it's been kind of like a football match when your star player has scored an own goal in the first minute and then been sent off for urinating on the referee that's how I see 2008 so far I thought the British and their tendency towards binge drinking really started the year as they meant to go on as a report told us that on New Year's Eve there was a call to an ambulance every eight seconds.

And what better way to ring in the New Year than with virtual self-annihilation?

You know, in history, Andy, early Babylonians would celebrate New Year by returning borrowed farm equipment.

The ancient Greeks would parade around with a baby in a basket to symbolise new life.

Hindus paid respect to their elders and sought their blessings.

And now look at us.

We're more likely to wake up in Nottingham General Hospital with a stomach pump in our mouth.

And that's a bad start of the year, unless your New Year's resolution was waking up in more hospitals.

In which case I stand corrected.

Good start.

All in all, John, with the year so far, oil oil hitting $100 a barrel, chaos around the world, the environment's already failed in its New Year resolution to be absolutely fine again.

Rail chaos in Britain.

Really, I'd give this year one star and I would advise anyone currently living in it to get out of it as quickly as possible.

What?

Just get out of the world.

Get out of the year and come back at the start of next year and hope it's a better one.

Well, like hibernation, is that what you'd advise?

Well, it's like if you're watching a bad film, you leave, and I think this should do with the same 2008.

Wrong Andy, I did not have that attitude towards films.

Any film, if I've started it, I will see that film through.

I will not be beaten by a film.

Even Teen Wolf 2.

Especially Teen Wolf 2.

And that was not a bad film, so I don't know, that's a bad reference.

Top story this week, and what could well become the highlight of the year is the big race to the biggest prize in world politics is underway.

By the end of 2008, America should have a 44th president.

Although, let's not count our chickens just yet.

The US election has begun.

The Iowa caucus was recently completed, and it is estimated that each candidate will have spent around $200 per vote in Iowa.

And by the end of the year, over $1 billion will have been spent manipulating the true will of the people.

That is platinum democracy, Andy.

America are about to get a lot of bang for their devalued buck.

So the race is on to become the forty-fourth US President and also the winner of a commemorative silver salva.

In the early running, Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee have been jointly elected Presidents of Iowa.

John, what signals does this give for the rest of the race?

Perhaps you can just inform me and everyone else in Britain who literally doesn't understand how this ridiculous process works.

What does this signify?

Actually, is there anyone in America who understands how it works as well?

Because there are 302 days to go, as we broadcast on the 7th of January.

302 days to go until the election.

That's 300.

Now, if you mention the number 302 to most British people, like me, they'd probably say, well, that's West Indian stylist Lawrence Rowe's highest test match score.

But

to other people, of course, 302 is, well, it's the year that Gregory the Illuminator was consecrated as the Patriarch of Armenia.

I mean, it's interesting to think what that sentence would have been before the invention of the internet.

It would have been just a pause.

I'd have just been twiddling a pen.

302 days.

And now, how can America stand 300 days of electioneering?

In Britain, we get three weeks by which time the entire nation.

It's standing on a high ledge screaming, someone please just make the wittering stop.

Because America wants to enjoy its election, Andy.

It's like a fine meal.

You don't wolf it down in one go.

You have a little bite of something, have a conversation, enjoy another little bite of something, and then have another course.

Britain doesn't know how to do democracy, Andy.

John, that's a bit rich from someone who on New Year's Eve I saw look at a steak tartare with a mixture of fear and apprehension as to what the future held, and push it gently to the side of his plate.

Yeah, buglers should know that I went to Andy's house for New Year's Eve, and Andy likes serving adventurous food.

There are a couple of adventures too far for John Oliver there.

Steak tartare being amongst them.

It just needs cooking.

Anyway, when it comes to culinary adventures, you're very much Captain Scott's friend who said, I'll tell you what, guys, I'm going to stay on the boat.

Who lived to tell the tale.

But the Corker system is a little difficult to get your head around.

Essentially, neighbours gather together in town halls and often people's houses and talk for an evening before voting on their candidate of choice.

It's like selecting your leader with a tea party.

And I'm amazed that hasn't caught on in Britain.

What better representative sample of one of the most multicultural nations on earth than Iowa?

The mood of the nation set by less than 300,000 white Protestant farmers.

It's an up, close, and personal form of politics, this, Andy.

Candidates are forced to go to all corners of Iowa and New Hampshire and often go door-to-door campaigning.

This really separates the men from the other men.

How badly do you want to be president, Andy?

Will you sit through some 73-year-old man's diatribe against Mexicans and how the moon landing was faked whilst pretending to like his wife's homemade corn muffins?

Do you really want this job?

Many have fallen at this stage.

Roosevelt once proclaimed a homemade peach cobbler like eating a decaying pigeon before demonstrating exactly where the lady could stick her vote.

That took a lot of coming back from.

Well, he came back from it, John, and that's the important thing, albeit he never walked again.

It has thrown up some big shocks, though, the Iowa caucus, and the breakthrough candidate in recent weeks has been Mike Huckabee, who has struck a chord with his progressive ideas, amongst them the fact that he doesn't believe in evolution, thinks people with AIDS should essentially be imprisoned, and has equated homosexuality with necrophilia.

Is Huckabee going to have the funds to go all the way, John?

Because it does cost more, according to reports, to run a US election campaign than it would to send a life-size replica of Mexico to Saturn.

I believe that that's one of Tom Tancredo's promises if elected.

He's trying different formats in terms of gaining support like he was joined on stage throughout the Iowa campaigning by Chuck Norris.

Now you might be thinking, oh, well, there must be another Chuck Norris, maybe a professor of politics somewhere or a lesser-known senator.

There's no way he'd take a kung fu star on stage with him in a presidential primary.

Well, I'm afraid you're wrong.

It's that Chuck Norris from Way of the Dragon and Silent Rage, him.

I hear he is being lined up for a post as the Secretary of State, should Huckabee win.

Yeah.

Which, you know, he might just pack a

bit more punch than Condoleezza Rice.

Well, really?

You've spoken like a true man who has never seen Condoleezza Rice punch a wall.

Now, I was very sad to see that Christopher Dodd's campaign is already over.

What has he brought to the party?

Well, I mean, it's hard to say.

I guess the most memorable moment of Chris Dodds in the US election so far was that a fly landed on his head

during one of the debates and it stayed there.

And he's got very white hair.

Unfortunately, I can't even remember what he was talking about.

It's hard to see how anyone could come back from something like that in this day and age.

So much about image.

It just stayed on his head, this little fly, and whatever he was talking about at the time, he just just thought, oh, look, there's a fly on Chris Dodd's head.

Really?

And at that point, I thought, that man is never going to be president.

What chance does Michael Dukakis have this time?

I always thought he deserved a crack at the big one.

Well, yeah, I mean, as much chance as he had last time.

Is he still alive?

Dukakis.

Yeah.

Oh, well, I'll tell you what, Andy, do you want this to be the first challenge of the new year?

Is Dukakis still alive?

What, do we want our listeners who have outsighted Dukakis, can you confirm whether or not Michael Dukakis exists?

No, this is me me and you, Andy.

Man oh man.

Dukakis, alive or dead.

Your call.

Call it.

Like, heads or tails.

I think he's still alive.

Okay, I'll take dead.

Right, Tom the producer.

Come on.

Is on the job.

Hold on.

I don't want to be saying, come on, Dukakis.

Cork it.

What's the news?

Dukakis living

or buried?

He's alive!

No.

Dukakis, very much.

Still breathing in oxygen.

Aged 74.

doesn't look a day older.

Bad start.

Bad news for John Oliver.

Good news for the Dukakis family.

So, if there's anyone else in the world of world politics you'd like John and I to speculate on whether or not they still exist, just email into thebugle at timesonline.co.uk and we will trivialise the lives of people who've achieved far more than either of us ever will.

But of course, in 2008, it's not just America that is enjoying the fruits of democracy.

It's the year of the vote around the world, but it's not started very well.

The Pakistani election has already been postponed.

The outcome of the Kenyan election is being very vigorously disputed.

All in all, democracy is taking an old-fashioned shoeing all around the world.

The Malaysian health minister has had to resign after being caught

starring in a pornographic video.

The Honduran foreign minister has quit after being caught drink driving.

John, do you think there will still be any democracy by the end of the year?

Well I think democracy is going perfectly well around the world Andy.

That is if you're watching the West Wing and not the news.

Otherwise it is a typhoon of shit.

It's not looking good for democracy at the moment.

I mean Benazir Bhutto was assassinated of course with seemingly depressing inevitability.

Although in terms of the investigation, it's good that the British police are now involved.

Musharraf made a request to Scotland Yard for a team of detectives and his request was granted.

We've actually performed similar services to Pakistan in the past with investigations over the assassinations of Prime Minister Ali Khan in 1951 and Matatsa Bhutto in 1996.

Neither case has been fully resolved.

So it's nice of Pakistan to give us another chance, presumably under the third-time lucky principle.

Well, yeah, although three strikes and we are out.

And it's also good as well that Pakistan has remembered in this time of crisis the role that Britain played in leaving it in the mess which it currently faces.

So it's only right that we should

play a part in trying to fix at least a small part of that mess.

You could say that of almost any nation on the earth though.

Andy.

Kenya,

that was ours.

That was ours.

This is the worst thing since declaring independence.

We left that in a real mess as well.

But the PPP is now being headed by Bhutto's nineteen-year-old son, who is currently a student at Oxford University.

And teenagers do think they can do anything.

This will be an interesting experiment into whether they're right or not.

Do you think you could have united a turbulent country at 19, Andy?

Well, John, I was a student at Oxford when I was 19.

And

to be honest, I struggled to get myself dressed in the morning.

So I think running a country would have been a big task and probably a task that I would have done half-dressed, if at all.

To do that, you know, certainly would have been a great thing to have on your CV.

Yeah.

I see here under other experience that you pulled Pakistan back from the brink of chaos.

Do you have any other hobbies?

But you know, you sign up for all kinds of things when you first get to university, don't you?

Join the film society, never really watch any films.

I signed up to be leader of Pakistan.

So, in terms of democracy, perhaps we can turn to the success story of Africa for a smooth, simple election.

Whoops!

No!

Opposition leader Mr.

Odinga refused to tell people to calm down in Kenya, saying, I refuse to be asked to give the Kenyan people an anesthetic so that they can be raped.

Which is interesting, I suppose.

Lucky then that he's not being asked to administer a rape anesthetic to his people.

He's just being asked to tell them to calm down.

Should the issue of rape anesthetics ever arise, now we know what his position is.

But for now, a simple calm down will suffice.

Has he ever worked as a doctor?

What a maverick one.

Other African nations look to Kenya to set an example.

And with Angola, Malawi and Ghana all set for elections in the next 18 months, months, Africa's already unstable future is looking even unstablier.

And the Foreign Office in Britain finally warned against non-essential travel, plunging hundreds of holidays into chaos.

And that's the real tragedy, of course, here, Andy, that rich white tourists won't be able to chase after a leopard in a jeep.

Their story is not being told here, and I intend to tell it.

The Foreign Office advice triggered a rush of radio phone ins in Britain about to what extent travel insurance would cover this lost holiday.

And it takes real bulls to hold a phone in about safari travel insurance the day after children have been burnt to death in a church.

Real bulls.

Pope appoints exorcists.

In other news, the Pope has ordered his bishops to set up exorcism squads to combat a rise in Satanism.

Who said the church wasn't relevant anymore?

The Vatican Chiefs are so concerned at the

perceived interest in the occult.

They are fighting occult with occult.

Just to go on and get everyone's feet back on the ground, just believing in good old-fashioned Jesus Christ again.

Each bishop has been told to have in his diocese a number of priests trained to fight demonic possession, and that is a relief because it's a good deterrent.

It's like a burglar alarm.

It just deters demons from trying to possess you.

I believe he's going to demand that every town has a vampire slayer as well.

Good for him.

The Vatican's exorcist-in-chief, Father Gabriel Amorth, lamented the fact that, and I quote, you have to search high and low for a properly trained exorcist.

That is so true.

But they're very hard to come by a good exorcist these days, John.

I looked through the yellow pages the other day because we thought for a while that

our little daughter might have

been possessed by the devil, it turns out.

She just had a cough.

But we're trying to get an exorcist.

There's no independent board that regulates exorcists in Britain.

You know, they've all got these fake certificates.

You don't know who to trust anymore.

I would like the Catholic Church to go further than this and set up online exorcisms and a kind of NHS direct style exorcism phone service from a call centre in Rome.

Do you think they could talk you through your own home-based exorcism then?

Just saying, well, just waggle some rosemary around and chant.

Yes, kind of like an emergency tracheotomy, which we've all done at some point or other.

So I don't think an exorcism can be that much more difficult.

Father Gabriel also went on to say, thanks be to God, we have a Pope who has decided to fight the devil head-on.

That is a pay-per-view I would pay to view.

The Pope versus the Devil.

In a cage match, two things enter, one thing leaves.

It's just been so much trash talking over the years, though, hasn't it?

Centuries and centuries.

I wonder if the Pope's getting a bit cocky, though, now that he's signed up Tony Blair.

I mean, big money transfer.

I know Blair is kind of like Beckham joining LA Galaxy.

Yeah, he's at the end of his career, but he's still a big name.

Yeah, he's big.

And

he's just been a a bit jaunty since then.

Bugle birthdays!

And this year, 2008, it's happy 60th birthday to the National Health Service.

Oh, happy birthday!

Many happy returns!

Amongst the planned celebrations are a celebrity concert at which world's famous stars of pop and rock are singing special songs about their experiences with the NHS,

including Elton John's hit single.

I went to see my GP with back pains.

Turned out I had an abdominal cyst.

It's to the tune of goodbye, Yellow Brick Road.

John, what are you getting the NHS for its birthday?

Well, I've already bought the NHS a present, Andy.

I've bought it my taxes again this year.

It's a bit samey, but it seems to like it and need it.

I bought it a digital photo frame.

You know, one of these things you get where you put circumpoets favourite x-rays

on a little rotation.

That's nice.

But yet, 60 years old this year, Andy, just five years from its inevitable forced retirement.

And it doesn't look 60.

It looks 104.

Has it really been 60 years since Nibevan held the NHS in his arms?

What a proud father he was that day, Andy.

And how proud he'd be now of his decaying, crumbling, underfunded child.

People have queued up to wish the NHS well.

Actually, I think many of the longest queues were for vital surgery, but I'm sure they wish the NHS well too.

In fact, they might wish it well the most.

NHS

still in American sports parlance batting over 500 in terms of saves to deaths.

As long as you've got more than a half chance of coming out alive from a hospital, I think we'd all take that, John.

I think you'd take that.

And amongst famous people to have used the NHS are Mick Jagger and Ian Botham.

Of course, not just the NHS celebrating birthdays.

In fact, Joan of Arc would have been 596 yesterday had she not died 577 years ago.

So happy birthday, Joan.

Happy birthday, Joan.

I believe the French claimed that Joan of Arc's death was, in fact, a birthday celebration, if I'm wrong.

It was.

Blow it out, Joan.

Make a wish.

Now, your emails.

Thank you for continuing to send in a cavalcade of spectacular emails, from which here is a selection.

Gabriel Reed sent in perhaps the most alarming email we've received since the last edition of The Bugle on the subject of hotties in history.

Can I just state that this does seem now to have, as I feared at the time, acquired a momentum of its own.

Brace yourselves, listeners, for what Gabriel has to say.

I would like to bring up for your consideration a hottie from history that I think is often overlooked.

Margaret Thatcher.

No, come on, no way!

Not so much the whole package, brackets, which I might add wasn't too shabby, but just a single part of her.

It was too shabby.

It was too shabby.

John, I think you're allowing your dis disagreement with her political policies to overshadow an objective assessment of her womanly virtues.

But just a single part of her, rights, Gabriel.

Her elbows.

I was one of those lucky enough to see her sunning herself at Burlingap Beach in nineteen eighty nine.

And I can honestly say she instituted a poll tax in my pants.

What what a run of absolutely reprehensible mental images to place into people's minds.

Gabriel, I hope your parents are proud of you.

But in honour of all of you who've sent in your hotties from history, next week we will be beginning a special Pirelli-style calendar of hotties from history at the suggestion of Tom or Pritchie.

No, we won't.

No, we will be doing that.

We will.

We won't be doing that.

We will.

That is something we won't be doing.

It's something we will be doing.

So if you've got any recommendations for who should be Miss January or Mr.

January, let's keep this open.

Do Do send them in.

All right, let's do that.

That does sound fair.

Mr.

and Mrs.

January, we'll do this all year.

Also, technically, we can't allow Thatcher because the hotties and mystery are supposed to be dead.

Otherwise, it's creepy.

For those of you who have written in with great concern that John was caught on YouTube smoking a cigarette, we have checked the offending footage and it remains ambiguous to me, John.

It's not ambiguous.

It's not ambiguous.

It was absolutely not smoking, Andy.

There is nothing in my hand.

I can't believe we're getting dragged down.

If you freeze it, you'll see there's nothing in my hand.

I'm just miming a cigarette due to a point I was making.

It was probably a good point about something, statistically.

And you've usually backed those up with mimes of smoking.

Yeah, because if I ever make a good point, I mime smoking.

It's just a reflex.

If you make a really good point, do you go for the big cigar or maybe a pipe?

Absolutely.

I go for the big cigar, and if I make an incredible point, of course, it's the pipe.

Right.

What about the hookah?

Do you ever get that out?

I've never made a point that good.

Testify.

Love the word hookah.

We'll never know one way or the other whether John was or wasn't working until

maybe.

Well, let's see if you've died of lung cancer at some point in the next 80 years, and then we'll judge.

Okay.

So keep listening.

My favourite email, Andy, was the first and only supporter of your audio crossword.

It says, Dear John and Andy, as a loyal bugle listener these many weeks, I'm deeply concerned about the future of your pioneering audio cryptic crossword.

It seems that John is not very keen on continuing the crossword into 2008.

It does seem that way, because that is the case.

I'm not keen on doing it, but please let me tell you what the audio-cryptic crossword means to your listeners.

Well, it means nothing anyway.

It means everything, John.

It does not mean everything, it means literally nothing.

The bugle in its current form is all things to all people.

It's weird.

I can't even read out the compliments, they make me feel weird.

If you were to eliminate the audio-cryptic crossword, however, the bugle would be all things to only about 99.872% of all people.

For the remaining 0.128% of us, well done, the bugle would be incomplete.

If it would make John happy, you could move the crossword to the straight-in-the-bin section.

That would make me happy.

That way, those of us who still want to do the crossword could pull it out of the bin, brush off the audio coffee grinds, and work around the stains.

Andy, keep up the good work.

Sherry Garfio from Denver.

Oh, doesn't that excite me?

Thanks for your support, Sherry.

Thanks for your support.

Not only am I going to stick with the audio-cryptic crossword, but I'm thinking of expanding it and introducing an audio Sudoku as well.

This, finally, time for one quick email.

This was from Derek Crosby, and he writes, Dear gents, who do you think would win in a fight?

A tag team of Benjamin Disraeli and Ian Paisley, or a tag team of Stonewall Jackson and Abraham.

I'm very much going with the Disraeli-Paisley team on the ground.

Oh, interesting.

Paisley is the only one still alive.

So do keep your emails coming in.

The bugle at timesonline.co.uk.

And because so many have been coming in, we will be instituting a bugle blog to accompany the podcasts, which will contain the best of the rest of the emails that we didn't have time for in the show with our responses to them.

So keep them coming in, thebugle at timesonline.co.uk.

Sport now, and it's the start of a new year, and Europe is all aflutter at the prospect of it being a European championship year.

The European Football Championships will happen in Switzerland and Austria in the summer.

Who do you think is going to win, John?

For me, it's got to be England.

I know it's Michael England ruling my head, but surely, with such a talented group of players and a really good new manager in Capello, they're going to be very hard to beat.

It's got to be England, Andy.

I'll be supporting England wholeheartedly from over here.

England for Euro 2008.

Don't listen to what the critics say.

Believe in your team.

We can't naysay at this stage.

They can do it.

What other predictions do you have for the sporting year?

Well, in terms of the next sport to be rocked by a drug scandal, cricket.

Andy, I think cricket is going to be rocked by a drug scandal.

I think it's going to turn out they're all on tranquilizers.

Watching Jack Callis bat.

Jack Callis, he just seems overly calm.

So I think the average level of strenuousness of denial will rise to a record level of 2.3 landises.

That is the new official unit of measurement for

how strenuously you deny taking drugs.

And I think

the Olympics are really going to push that up as well.

Also, in the Olympics, I think one thing we can confidently predict is that Britain will give a flying f about rowing for about two days.

Correct.

Let's hope in 2008 that the Miami Dolphins can go one step further than they managed in 2007 when they choked so close

to their historic season.

History beckons and as always it's just

one thing to get there, it's another thing to finish it off.

And the Dolphins sadly won a game.

I hear the NFL so encouraged by the Bugles' championing of the Miami Dolphins that they're introducing playoffs for the worst teams in the league next year.

That's a good idea.

They're going to have a shit bowl on the day before the Super Bowl to work out who is the worst team.

Phenomenal idea.

It really should be a bowl of shit, the prize as well, that the franchise owner has to hoist over his head.

And now it's time for the aforementioned Bugle Audio Cryptic Crossword section, a section which has won more awards than the lot of you put together in the audio cryptic crosswords field.

The more eagle-eared listeners amongst you will have noticed that in issue 10 of the bugle we actually repeated a clue from earlier in the series.

This was due to a technical error in which the last five minutes of the last recording were wiped off the tape before.

No one has told us they noticed.

I think people were probably a little embarrassed to say, hang on, guys, we already had this clue a few weeks ago.

They probably thought, look, it's Christmas.

They're probably having a terrible time feeling awfully guilty about it.

Let's not rub it in.

People don't care.

How more clear can it be?

No one wants the audio crossword.

John, the audio-cryptic crossword is like freedom, John.

You don't appreciate it until it's gone.

You don't know how intimate it is.

Try me just for one week.

So, anyway, here is the clue that you should have got last time.

Pay attention.

And that includes you, John.

Have you got any of them right so far?

I haven't even thought about it.

Methinks the lady doth protest too much.

It's 25 across.

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

And the clue is: working on time leads to headless Blair being overthrown and facing justice.

2-5.

Your cynicism tires me, John.

And finally, the Bugle forecast.

This week, a fashion forecast.

I predict this week we're going to see a lot of people wearing trousers.

Trousers are really going to maintain their comeback.

They're going to, you know, they're a solid item of clothing.

Very seldom let you down.

Well, I think we're going to see a lot of flip-flops around.

In the winter.

One ironically.

Well, that's it for the first bugle of 2008.

So we'll be back next week.

Keep your emails coming in to thebugle at timesonline.co.uk, particularly those hotties from history.

No, not particularly those.

Anyway, it's been a pleasure talking to you.

Bye.

Goodbye.

Goodbye, everybody.

And

maybe a preemptive hello for next week.

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.