110 Per Cent Behind Musaharraf

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world

Welcome to edition five of the Bugle audio newspaper for the week beginning Tuesday the 13th of November.

The Bugle of course is usually available at the start of the week on a Monday, but this week actually actually begins on Tuesday.

It's something to do with the lunar cycle, it happens about once every 17 years.

This week will also end slightly later than normal at 4am next Monday.

I'm Andy Zaltzman in London and in New York City, USA, John Oliver.

John, how is the writer's strike going?

So are you able to do the show this week?

Well, that is a relief.

I should point out in order not to break the picket line, all of John's words this week have been written by a Zambian child.

That Zambian child has been working his behind off.

I can either talk with his words or through Morse code.

The best counterattack from production companies at the moment to this writer's strike has been regarding flushing a toilet saying that you don't pay a plumber every time you flush the toilet but

Let's say that your plumber had fixed it so that every time you flushed your toilet a hundred pounds came flying out the top of it.

I think that plumber would be entitled to five pence of that each time you flushed.

That's all I'll say about this strike.

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

This week the science section, including features on does gravity really work, fission or fusion, you decide, does anyone give a shit about copper sulphate, and how to use science to kill undetected.

Also in the bin the first in a special pull-out series, Teach Yourself Body Language, this week, Mastering the Shrug.

Top story this week, Pakistan!

Pvez Musharraf, after instilling emergency powers, has promised to stage elections by January the 9th of next year.

And I imagine that he put particular emphasis on the word stage.

Because there will be no freedom of the press, no freedom of association, or freedom of speech.

So this might be quite a minimal staging of a democratic election.

It'll be like a Brechtian production of the electoral process, stripped right down to its bare essentials.

Well, I for one cannot wait for the election in Pakistan, because here in Britain we missed out on having a general election here because it turned out that it was going to be too dangerous for British people to vote after dark.

So I'm going to get really stuck into the Pakistan election.

I haven't decided who I'm going to vote for yet.

So I'm just going to wait and see what the candidates have to offer me.

I will find a way to vote in Pakistan.

I'm not technically allowed to, but I think if I write to the right people, I'll get a go.

I think Musharraf, as a candidate, is going to offer you voting for him.

Oh, that's it.

That's it.

That's what he's going to offer you.

Well, that's quite a good agenda.

It keeps it nice and simple.

That's right.

And this could, this Pakistani election might become the greatest electoral sham since the Zimbabwe election recently where one township actually registered a 110% turnout.

You can say what you like about Robert Mugabe.

He is fighting the war against apathy and he's winning it.

Arguably winning it slightly too much.

Apparently George W.

Bush put in a phone call to Musharraf last week, John, asked him to relinquish control of the army.

This, of course, came from President Bush, the commander-in-chief of the U.S.

Armed Forces.

That's correct.

But what he actually said, let's be fair, Andy, what he actually has suggested is that Musharraf take off his uniform.

And his only problem, Bush, is with the uniform.

He just wants him to change into something else.

It's the uniform that Musharraf wears that keeps reminding Bush of his own pitiful service during Vietnam.

It's just nagging at a conscience that doesn't wish to be nagged.

I've actually got a direct transcript of that phone call between Musharraf and Bush, and it reads like this: John, Musharraf's dot.

You want me to relinquish control of the armed forces.

Yep,

right, and you, what about me?

Uh,

is there something you want to say, Pervez?

Uh, go on.

Oh, you wouldn't understand, George.

Try me.

Uh,

what else do you want me to do then?

Well, Pervez, I want you to stop curtailing human rights, stop detaining people without trial, that kind of shtick.

You know, stop trying to fill the Supreme Court with your own cronies.

George, are you taking a piss?

That's what really went on in that phone call.

Now, Musharraf is also claiming that he's going to clamp down on the internet, which means that any criticism of Musharraf might lead to listeners in Pakistan not being able to hear this.

Now, luckily, it is a cold, hard fact that the only thing government centers cannot detect is sarcasm.

So, here goes.

Oh, Musharraf is doing just a tremendous job over there, Andy.

Declaring states of emergency is always a great idea and had absolutely no catastrophic historical parallels.

Well done.

I'm thinking you are being a bit hypocritical on this because how much do you actually know about Pakistan?

Well, what do you mean?

Well, I don't think you know a great deal.

I'm going to give you a quick quiz to see how much you know about this country that you're criticising so roundly.

I've got three questions about Pakistan for you and we'll see what percentage knowledge you have about Pakistan.

Okay, try the gauntlet is down.

Question one: Which Pakistani took six wickets in the laws test of 1982?

Oh, I'm going to have to hurry.

It was Madassan Nazar.

Who was the captain of Pakistan when they beat England for the first time in the Oval Test of 1954?

Are all these questions about cricket, Andy?

It was Abdul Hafiz Kardar.

And finally, when Pakistan won the Cricket World Cup in 1992, who had their most economical bowling figures?

Bit of a surprise answer, this one.

So, your answer was yes.

It was Akib Javejohn.

That's naught out of three.

Would you not say those are questions primarily about cricket, Andy?

I guess you could look at them that way.

I will ask you a follow-up question to that.

Andy, do you know anything about Pakistan that isn't the capital city of it or something about cricket?

To be honest, John, no.

Andy, do you even know the capital of Pakistan?

I do, but only because cricket is played there.

There is a key problem, Andy, with combining military rule with an attempt at democracy, and that is that there's something a little bit unnerving about someone asking you who you're going to vote for while simultaneously holding a machine gun.

And the British are squeamish about guns, and that is because we don't have guns in Britain.

The reason being that the last time we had access to guns, we conquered two-thirds of the world's landmass and instituted slavery.

And hand on heart, I can't say that if we had guns, we wouldn't try and do that again.

I'd love to think we wouldn't, but I think we might give it a crack.

Yeah, but we've got rosettes instead, John.

And to me, going up to a polling station and seeing people with rosettes, that's even more sinister than machine guns.

It's like a psychological machine gun.

Is the story coming out of Pakistan now not yet another example of democracy which we have forcibly gifted around the world going badly?

And what part of the gift of democracy are these countries struggling to understand?

It is staggering ingratitude.

They've been very badly raised, these nations.

All children learn that when you're given a present by somebody, you should both write a thank you letter and pretend you like it, even if you don't.

Maybe play with it or wear it whenever you next see that person.

I would argue that the gift of democracy has not been quite as generous as it might first appear, particularly in Iraq.

All we really did was gather up all the millions and millions of unused ballot papers from the last British and American elections and dump them in a skip outside Baghdad with a lorry load of pencils and some rosettes saying the West that were left over from Crofts.

But they shouldn't have taken sponsorship from al-Qaeda.

I know money's money, but you've got to draw a line line somewhere, John.

No one wants to see a pooch with an anti-West slogan emblazoned across his furry chest.

Let us know what you think should be done with Pakistan, because, frankly, I don't have the foggiest idea, and it's not really any of my business.

John, what's your suggestion for Pakistan?

Well, let me just say before I suggest that, Andy, that in the interest of full disclosure, I'm in the very strange situation of having met Musharraf about 12 months ago.

He was a guest on the daily show.

We had to do the show behind bulletproof glass that day as a precursor to the trouble that was ahead.

Nothing says, Are you ready for comedy to an audience better than bulletproof glass?

But the bulletproof glass ran out at my part of the desk.

It covered Jon Stewart and Musharraf, and it did not cover John Oliver.

The only thing I can remember talking to Musharraf about was that afterwards

saying to him that he was very funny.

And to be honest, I regret that now because he's been a lot less funny since that point.

Maybe his sense of humour has just dated badly, like Benny Hill.

Other news now, and Britain is still reeling from last week's Queen's speech.

John, did the Queen make much of an impact stateside with her speech this year?

People don't really listen to the Queen, Andy, but they do like looking at her and

she's a very attractive lady.

As a point, I admire the patriotism in that comment, Andy.

What I don't like is the bass in your voice when you say it.

But I don't know about you, John, but I thought the Queen's speech was a disappointing effort from someone who's been Queen for well over 10 years now.

In fact, 55 years.

You'd have thought she'd have picked up some basic speech tricks in that time.

Maybe a couple of jokes at the start, just to lighten the mood a bit.

Maybe, you know, a quip about what she looks like, something about the crown or something.

Just engage the audience.

I thought it was just disappointingly flat, really.

Let me give any of our American listeners some background to what the Queen's speech actually is.

The Queen's speech takes place once a year, and it is written by the government and read by the sitting monarch.

So in this case, it's the Queen who reads it out in her signature shrill monotone.

Which is, of course, the way all words should sound.

It is the Queen's English.

Let's remember, if she wants it to sound nasal and boring, then nasal and boring it must sound.

And she delivers the speech while sitting in the grand throne of the House of Lords, really helping everyday people to connect with the message.

It's actually in the Commons, John.

No, it's not.

It's in the Lords.

She's not allowed in the Commons.

Is that so?

Are you sure about that?

I'm becoming less sure about it as I repeatedly make the point, but I think I'm right and you're wrong on that.

Do you want to look that up quickly?

It's being checked as we speak.

Now, what we could do is edit this tense moment out and just go, or we could leave it in so the listeners can feel the sense of unease as to who's going to be right.

Is it going to be who's going to be more British?

Is it going to be John?

Or is it going to be Andy?

I think it's going to be me, even though I've spent very little time in Britain.

I will just say, John, I'm very seldom wrong.

That is true, which is why I'm about to take even more satisfaction in the fact that you're going to be wrong now.

Do we have any word through yet?

All we can, we're still waiting for confirmation of whether the Queen goes to the House of Commons or House of Lords.

All we can say is that whoever turns out to be right is going to take that victory with very little grace.

That's absolutely correct, Andy.

I'm already planning my victory celebration, to be honest.

Oh, it's House of Lords.

There you go.

It's House of Lords!

Yes!

I am more British than you, Andy.

It's a disgrace you even call yourself a Brit.

You're basically French.

You're French, Andy.

Or Andy, to give you your proper name.

Bonjour, Andy, Sava.

Oh, boy, that felt good.

In the context of our

long-running disputes over various trivial facts, that is very much a consolation goal for you.

The day of the Queen's speech actually begins at 10am

when a group of beef eaters search the cellars of the houses of parliament, a tradition which dates back to the gunpowder plot of 1605 when Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament.

And this is the only time of year in which they search for gunpowder, so if you're planning to blow up the British Parliament, you should be fine as long as you don't do it on the day of the Queen's speech at 10 in the morning.

Guy Fawkes could not have picked a worse time.

The speech is designed to outline everything that the government will try and do over the upcoming year.

Unfortunately, Gordon Brown had already revealed almost everything that was in the speech, which rather stole the Queen's thunder a bit, and she must have been tempted to throw in some stuff herself.

My government are planning to put a dog on Mars by the end of the year.

That's what it says here.

Well, don't preempt my speech, then, Gordon.

This week, Tony Blair was paid apparently £240,000

for giving a speech in China.

And his one speech in China, the China Youth Daily newspaper, said the speech was, quote, like listening to some domestic county or city-level official.

Ouch.

That's pretty much a two-star review.

Ouch, take that, Blair.

That is more than he used to earn in a year as Prime Minister for giving one speech, which suggests that maybe we weren't paying him enough.

And if we paid him more, maybe he'd have done a better job.

It's an interesting point.

He was paid £240,000, which again to translate to our American listeners, is about £300 million at the moment.

It's another exchange rate joke.

So who'd have thought you'd get so many?

The Chinese media said it revealed nothing new, and I think that's a fair criticism.

I think for £240,000,

you really have to reveal something new.

Not necessarily something as important as the cure for cancer, but perhaps that you've got a dolphin tattoo in the small of your back.

Or that you can juggle three watermelons.

Something that people people didn't know before the average salary of a production worker in china is 1 300 pounds so to be fair all you need to do is work solidly for 200 years and you too could hire blair to talk to you for a bit in his speech blair said things like china is a very special country and has a special place in the heart of my family and you can't put a price on a statement like that andy you can put a price on it and the price is 240 000

and we were talking last week i think about what you could do if you had loads of money.

And here's another thing that would be great to add to the list.

You could pay for an ex-world leader to come to your house and give you a meaninglessly vague compliment.

Ding-dong, Nelson Mandela's at your door saying, hello, you have nice eyes.

Bye.

It's interesting what former leaders get up to after they

either take their leave of office or have their office forcibly taken from them, as happened with Blair.

I understand George W.

Bush, John, is all set to be the most inactive ex-president in American history, for which I guess we should be thankful for small and belated mercies.

That's right.

Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, and even his dads have had a career in politics of some sort afterwards.

And Bush has openly stated that he just wants to go to his ranch in Texas and sit down for a while.

And think about what he's done.

More other news now.

And King Juan Carlos of Spain has told Hugo Chavez of Venezuela to shut up at a summit of Latin countries.

Dick Hugo is having another rant at fascists.

He loves to rant.

In many ways, he lives to rant.

He's having a real go at the former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar.

And King Juan Carlos leant over and said to him, why don't you shut up?

Which is really international politics at its sparkling best.

Chavez, he really is something special.

We should enjoy him while he's still around before he's bumped off by the CIA.

He is very much the Roger Federer of entertaining politicians.

Chavez responded by saying, Yes, the king is a head of state like me, only I've been elected three times with 63% support, and then moonwalked around the chamber.

So, listeners, who would you like the bugle to tell to shut up on next week's show?

Do email in who you'd like us to tell to shut up and why.

The three best answers will receive that shut up, which will be delivered to their targets live next week.

And the email address is thebugle at timesonline.co.uk.

Consumer section.

This section of the Bugle this week is to outline the various food scares and recalled dangerous toys that are blighting the planet at the moment.

Of course, we have the recent shock news that bacon will 100% kill you.

That's right, turns out us Jews were right all along.

Yes, it's tasty, but God is not a fool.

You say us Jews there, Andy, but I certainly have never met not only a Jew, but a person who eats as much bacon as you.

John, I'm really trying to understand how you savages live and build bridges between our warring communities.

Don't mock that.

Well, that's something you seem to be trying to understand between bread at least once a day.

Splash of ketchup.

Isn't that just what Jesus wanted, Andy?

Does that negate the bacon, the splash of ketchup?

I don't know.

It's been a long time since I've read the Bible.

I believe in some cultish parts of the church, ketchup on a bacon sandwich does symbolize

the blood of Christ.

So is there any food left in the world that won't give you some horrific life curtailing illness?

Is even oxygen still okay or will that kill you eventually as well?

Here are some food scares for you to spread around.

Sausages will almost certainly ruin you unless you eat them whole.

Tomatoes will give you a brain disease unless you eat them alternately with slices of mozzarella.

The Italians have known this for several years.

If you eat more than 100 kilos of parsnips in a 48 48-hour period, you will hallucinate that you are an atomic bomb.

Milk is dangerous if drunk directly from a cow.

Do not eat bread whilst drowning, it will swell up inside your stomach and make your death slower and more irritating.

Cigarettes do not cause cancer provided you do not light them.

And do not consume shards of glass, they can cause Alzheimer's as well as internal bleeding.

So, in short, by all means, eat, but do be aware, you will also die.

In other consumer news, China has continued to threaten the lives of American children.

After it emerged last month that toys imported from China often featured lead paint, which children obviously were then going on to lick because they're children and children lick things, especially toys, especially toys that smell like lead, came the news this week that 4.2 million toys have been recalled.

Aqua Dot bead toys were found to contain a coating which, when metabolised, becomes GHB, a date rape drug.

Good Good for them, Andy, because, you know what, I thought lead poisoning was as bad as it was going to get.

That was as much as we were willing to risk children in giving them ludicrously cheap toys.

But now, date rape drugs.

And who'd have thought that you would ever hear the words children's toys and date rape drugs in the same sentence without the words have never had any connection to between them?

Well, I'm not sure they're the first to do it though, John, because, I mean, I've forgotten large parts of my own childhood, and I'm now starting to wonder, was there something fishy going on?

I mean,

was Action Man after something that he said he wasn't after?

This is all part of a broader Chinese scheme to undermine the Western economy by poisoning and probably killing all of our children, so that China can become the world's top nation by 2050 when, according to the book of Revelations, the world will end and whoever is the world's leading country at that point will be declared the overall winner of the game.

This is always the time of year where various dangerous dangerous Christmas toys lists come out and I'm afraid there are some products that are being recalled for this Christmas so if you have them pen and paper please take the following down.

The Lego Guantanamo unfortunately has a flamval Kerran piece which is very easy for young children to swallow.

That's dangerous for a number of reasons.

Another product recall the defence manufacturer British Airborne Violence Incorporated are recalling their Hades Fulminator attack aircraft after safety tests show that the plane can on very rare occasions result in the deaths of innocent civilians or if inappropriately used annihilate dissident tribes.

BAV insists that the Fulminator which can fire up to 45 Kabuminator seek and maim rockets in a minute and is one of Britain's best-selling military exports, a real favourite with despots around the world, they insist it is safe for routine legitimate killing but any rogue states which possess the aircraft are encouraged to return it to BAV as soon as possible.

This is more bad news for the struggling warcraft and slaughterage slaughterage sector, which has been struggling ever since the Germans stopped causing a massive world war every 25 years.

That was the Bugles Consumer section, giving blind eyes sight.

Now, unfortunately, the Ask an American section has had to be postponed for another week.

Last week, you may remember, it was due to illness on the part of the American.

This year, the American is moving house, I'm afraid.

He's moving house today and tomorrow, so he's unable to answer your questions, but he will be here next week to answer them.

John, it started to look like he is avoiding these questions, realizing quite what the rest of the world wants to ask America.

And also, is another question.

Could you not just grab one of the more than 300 million other Americans available to you in America to answer these questions?

Andy, you don't understand.

Are they all moving house?

That's right.

This American is completely representative.

Last week, all Americans were ill.

This week, all Americans are moving moving house.

It's like musical chairs.

It's a traditional day that you don't understand or know about.

There was, in fact, a letter from Jose Ivan Garcia to the American.

Says, how are you holding up?

You being sick now for a month raises some questions about American character.

Are Americans really up to the task of comedy-stroke warfighting?

Or do you just sign up and then send them Mexicans?

Is he in America at all?

Regards Mexican?

I mean, I'm not going to answer that because I'm not an American, but we will certainly get the American to answer that next week, and he he might answer that with the necessary use of some bleeps.

So, instead, we'll go through some of your letters, some of which were left over from last week due to a technical problem.

And do keep sending them into thebugle at timesonline.co.uk.

Here is an interesting email from Mark E.

Dear John and Andy, my name is Mark.

I'm 17 years old and have leukemia.

I believe that al-Qaeda is the root cause of my illness.

The following is how I believe it happened.

One day when I was riding the bus, a Middle Eastern man sat down next to me, and sure enough, about a decade later, I was diagnosed.

Coincidence?

I think not.

Is this the first documented case of such an incident?

Please let me know.

Well, Mark E.

Thank you very much for your both funny and tragic email.

And we will investigate.

I don't think that has ever happened before.

What I would say to Mark E there, Andy, which would make that letter a lot less tragic, is that if you can write a letter that funny, and Mark E clearly can, you can easily kick the behind of leukemia.

There's one here from Paul Hennell which says, Dear the buglers, you mentioned that global warming, terrorists and the environment and God have become international scapegoats.

And I was wondering how this affects the top excuses chart.

Where do blaming video games, rap music, the parents, junk food, the dog ate it, drugs, teenage pregnancy, society, binge drinking, same-sex couples or my grandmother died fit in now?

Also, your Where Now for Humanity question is silly.

The answer is obviously Bournemouth.

What is top of the excuses chart right now, John?

What would you say out of that lot?

Well really the top of the excuses chart at the moment, as we've heard, is moving house and being ill.

That's America's excuse for everything, not only not turning up to answer questions, but also for the war in Iraq.

That's now the excuse that they were ill at the time.

And in a way, they've just moved house temporarily.

Finally, this one is from Katie McNabb on the subject of Catholic-fired power stations, as mentioned previously on the bugle.

She writes, A friend of mine is responsible for deciding which power stations to turn on at various points in the day.

Among her responsibilities, she has to decide on the most appropriate materials to maximise efficiency: gas, coal, hydro.

Your recent broadcast reminded me of our golden energy-efficient past, so I made the suggestion that she consider Catholics as an alternative fuel source.

She has taken this to her managers, and they have decided to go ahead with the trial.

A carbon-neutral future seems on the cards, although it will mean invading Brazil at some point in the future to secure larger numbers of Catholics.

So, thank you all for your fantastic emails.

I'm sorry we don't have time for all of them, but we'll put as many as we can up on the website and do keep sending them into thebugle at timesonline.co.uk.

Bugle sport now, and the week's sports news on this side of the Atlantic will be dominated by the build-up to England's biggest football match for many years, Israel versus Russia, on Saturday.

A massive game for England.

Can England's much-lauded golden generation finally step up to the plate and cheer Israel on to a result against Russia?

Well, John, it's become a must-not-win at all-costs game.

So, what tactics do you think England manager Steve McLaren is going to go for?

Is he going to stick with trying to watch it in his living room whilst pacing up and down and swearing at his dog?

Or will he try to surprise the Russians by going out for a round of golf to take his mind off the game and then phoning his wife for the result later on?

What do you think?

I think what McLaren will do, because he's a supreme tactician, Andy, he'll go and listen to the game sitting in his car, sitting motionless in his car with a hose

in through the window.

Possibly, and that way, if the result is good he'll just sit there honking the horn in celebration and if the result isn't good he will just drive at full pace into his own house

but it's interesting as well with Wayne Rooney getting injured again such a bad time just a few days before this crucial match between Israel and Russia.

He's going to have to watch the game with his ankle heavily strapped but it could provide another chance for Peter Crouch to go down the pub with some mates and watch it on the big screen there.

So big chance for Crouchy to really get stuck into the big Israel Rush again.

Certainly get a good view Andy because he's very, very tall.

Euro 2008 fever has gripped the nation, John.

Fans have been going out and buying as many Israeli products as possible, regardless of the ethical qualms over the Palestine issue, in an effort to boost the Israeli economy and hence indirectly help the confidence of the team in whose hands their hopes and dreams now rest.

So I speak for all England fans when I say, come on, Israel.

In other sports, fans of total and utter fighting were left disappointed at Mindless Mayhem 24 on Saturday when the two stars of unregulated pugilism negotiated a peace accord before their final climactic fracar.

Danny Chainsaw Fists McGonagall and Ivan Mendeleev, the Moscow mutilator, agreed that violence solves nothing, signed a treaty which acknowledges both men as the joint meanest and nastiest in the super-aggressive temper division, and they then read some poems to a packed but mystified crowd at the Nantwich Bone Exchange.

And our quick result.

Fishing in the European individual final, Jim Paxlebury of Hull beat Juan Ignacio Muchabuena from Valencia by landing a £22 trout.

However, overall Spain beat the UK by 1.2 million tonnes to 900,000 tonnes and remain European commercial fishing champions.

And now it's time for the Bugles unique audio cryptic crossword.

This week's clue is two down.

It's six letters long and it's in many ways a moving tale about how nature and technology don't always get on.

So six letters, snooty little dog loses his head around computers.

Think about it.

Now we try to end each bugle with some forecasts for the coming week, be they share tips or weather.

This week a breakfast forecast.

These are our breakfast predictions for the week.

Andy.

Well, British breakfasts are likely to contain an average of 0.8 eggs.

This is going to be a cereal heavy week, although towards the end of the week, an increasing number of mushrooms will be used.

And I predict a global return to running out and slaughtering your breakfast.

A bloodthirsty but heart-pounding start to the day.

That's all from the Bugle this week.

Keep your emails coming in.

Thebugle at timesonline.co.uk.

Goodbye from London.

And goodbye from the USA.

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.