The Bugle Guide to September

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Hello buglers and welcome to issue 4350 sub-episode B for back next week.

This is the second sub-episode of our summer hiatus.

Before we get into it, some very important information for you.

There are just 100 tickets left for our live show at the Leicester Square Theatre on the 26th of October, the Bugle 18th anniversary show.

But happily, there are a literally infinite number of tickets to join the live stream of that truly historic event.

It's on the 26th of October, as I said, 7pm UK time, adjust according to your place in the world.

Go to thebuglepodcast.com to buy your online tickets or live tickets and for more information about the event and to generally just feel pretty special about yourself.

We'll be back with a full bugle next week featuring Alice Fraser and NATO Green.

We've got Anuvab Powell and Tiff Stevenson the following week, Nish Kumar and Sarah Barron after that, and Josh Gondelman and James Nakise to round out September 2025.

We will have a show every week now until late November.

But now we're going to go back in time and look at Septembers from years gone by here in our official bugle history of September

edited highlights we're going to start in September 2014 back in the days when I was always joined by John Oliver

top story this week the march of the protesters how to save the earth by walking all over it and last Sunday there were huge climate marches all over this planet.

I don't know about any other ones, but this one definitely had some huge climate marches all over it.

And the biggest one, again, was right here in New York, Andy.

That's right.

The big apple comes through again.

When we do something, we do it eye-catchingly huge.

Whether it's a slice of cheesecake or a climate change march, we will do it on a scale that will make you think, how is that even logistically possible?

Now, apparently, around 300,000 people hit the streets of New York to try and focus the world's attention on global warming, which is interesting, Andy, were it not for the fact that every single day in this city, there are 8 million people on the same streets trying to focus the world's attention on the fact that they're fing walking here!

They're fing walking here!

Get your fingers in!

I'm walking here!

Was it anyone?

We're doing that every day.

We're doing that every day, Andy.

Was there anyone holding that up as a banner or not?

Well, I think that's the next step, isn't it?

Walk around with placards saying, I am walking here.

And somebody get me a quaffy.

and do you think it's worked because uh i was reading about this and i came to the conclusion that um the planet is one of those kind of things that's never fully appreciated until it's gone uh like a parachute or a justice system or a single scoop of ice cream or the concept of hope you know i i really like the planet john so i was i was pleased that new york is uh stepping up uh stepping up to this plate well the event's organizers here estimated the turnout was actually more than 300 000 making it the largest or one of the largest environmental related protests in the history of the US.

And at one point in the early afternoon, the march apparently came to a complete halt because the entire 2.2 mile route was full to capacity, meaning that at that point, it wasn't so much a march anymore, it was a stand.

It was the largest ever stand for climate change in US history.

And it really was an incredible sight to see people so energized over it.

There was even a minute's noise at one point.

But I can tell you who was not so keen on the whole thing, Andy.

My dog.

She really was not sure what to think about the thousands of people who were suddenly outside where she lives, banging things, blowing things and waving signs around.

I think that when she sees a protest sign, she really just sees a criminal misuse of a stick.

You can see in her eyes her thinking, take that placard off it, turn the pole sideways and put it in your mouth.

It's not rocket science and it feels great.

But also, is it not true that when you got that dog, how old was she?

She was just a couple of months old.

She's three.

Oh, yeah, just a couple of months.

And did you not buy her as a sort of welcome to the family presence a large number of shares in ExxonMobil as well?

I did.

I did because, you know, it made sense.

I was thinking about her future, Andy.

I think the other thing that she was concerned about,

I think she probably agreed with almost everything the protesters were marching for.

I just think there was undeniably a selfish part of her, which very much resented the fact that it interrupted her regular routine of taking a quiet early morning dump in the car.

And

it threw her off for the rest of the day.

I think you know, it's thinking about long term rather than short term, but when the short term's that important, you can see why she was pissed.

That's right, she had to change her emissions, and that's that's a strong message to take away from

so it's achieved some change, I guess.

But

it's interesting now that this has

there's been a it seems to have been a slight turning of the tides because generally expectations at these things are are pretty low on the evidence of previous summits.

You know, some expectations for anything useful coming out of it.

About the same as the expectations of a one-metre cube of lead that's just entered a wobbliest dessert competition.

But John Kerry, the U.S.

Secretary of State, has promised to put climate change, quotes, front and centre of American diplomacy.

I think, you know, it's always been front and centre, very much like a pair of glasses on a boxer's face, in that it is most likely the first thing to get knocked off when things get tricky.

You know what?

I think there probably has been a changing of the tides.

Probably something to do with the rising of the f ⁇ ing tide all over the earth.

But the New York rally was actually just part of this global protest that included events in 156 countries, including Afghanistan, the UK, Italy, and Brazil.

In Brazil, the famous statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio had environmental slogans and a green heart projected on him and 5,000 marchers turned out.

Again, that doesn't seem that impressive a turnout for Brazil.

I'm pretty sure you could get 20,000 Brazilians to turn up to something if you just promised them they could watch a man kick an orange.

I mean, seriously, 20,000 people for that handy.

You could get 50,000 if you told him he was going to try and kick the orange into some kind of net.

And it's not like they don't have serious environmental problems in Brazil.

First, Rio is in Brazil and Brazil is on the earth, so they have pretty similar concerns to the rest of us there.

And even at the local level, there is huge controversy over there at the moment over a golf course for the 2016 Olympics which is being built in a nature reserve and it's it's hard to know where to even begin to unpack that sentence first golf is evidently and unnecessarily coming back to the Olympics after a much needed 112 year absence that is ridiculous and the only way they can make it even more ridiculous seems to be building an entirely unnecessary new golf course in an environmentally protected area in some of Rio's last public green space.

What more, Andy?

What more majestic a sight is there than watching a rare bird fly majestically out of a protected Rio woodland, only to see it's decapitated by a flying Callaway golf ball hit by an overweight six-year-old businessman from Florida on vacation.

It's the circle of life, Andy, just like Elton squawked.

Well, I think you're reading this wrong, John.

It very much depends on the type of nature reserve it is.

And a lot of sports have to change and modernise when they are accepted into the Olympic family.

Golf clearly from now will have to build all its courses in nature reserves but

to make the sport more exciting these nature reserves will be populated by apex predators.

Now you cannot tell me this would not make golf a significantly tiger versus tiger as God intended.

The language used at the UN

after the climate march has been strong, but of course the UN specializes in non-binding strong language, Andy.

They've created some of the best sounding suggestions in human history.

Banky Moon said humanity had to act because, and I quote, this is the planet where our subsequent generations will live.

There is no plan B because we do not have planet B.

No plan B.

Speak for yourself, Moon.

That is nothing but a failure of imagination on your part.

What about moon colonies?

Floating ecodomes?

Everyone living underground in warrens.

I'm not saying any of those are plausible, andy but he didn't talk about plausible plan b's he just said plan b's also i'm going to call bullshit on it jonah but just in this same week india has put a satellite into orbit around mars becoming the fourth nation to do so at a cost of just 45 million pounds that is a bargain for a mars trip to put that in context that is enough to pay the daily minimum wage to about round about 45 million indians um to only one day so that makes it a bargain or to put it another way it's the cost of a toilet seat in billionaire mukesh ambani's billion house in Mumbai.

Either way, a bargain.

But this, John, is the first step to India setting up a colony on Mars.

I can't think that might have focused on other more important national problems, such as the inability of their batsmen to construct a proper test match innings.

But anyway, let's not be judgmental.

And furthermore, scientists have discovered a cloud-free atmosphere on a distant planet the size of Neptune.

the smallest exoplanet ever to reveal its chemical composition, John.

It's got water vapor on it.

This suggests that we could live there.

This is the get out of jail free car that Ban Ki-moon is so studiously ignoring.

A new planet we can take over.

Currently designated HATP hyphen 11b.

It's not a great name for a planet, but you know, we could fund the whole expedition by selling the naming rights.

Also, it's only 124 light years away.

Now, that's no biggie.

I reckon light probably isn't as fast as it used to be.

These things get old and out of shape.

It's about one quadrillion kilometers away.

It's a a bit of a hike, but they used to think it was a long way from London to Edinburgh, and now we are umbilically joined forever.

And it's four times the width of our home world, which just to me makes it sound like four times as much room for parties.

So this is the future, John.

We have a plan B.

President Obama in his speech said nobody gets a pass on climate change to the stifled guffaws of the companies in the background sitting behind him.

Oh, this guy's hilarious.

We don't get him.

Oh, carry on.

Sorry, sorry.

He then went on to say, we recognize our role in creating this problem.

We embrace our responsibility to combat it.

I think he might be wildly misusing the word embrace there.

It's a pretty reluctant embrace of that responsibility here in the US, to put it mildly.

It's really the kind of embrace you give to someone who you wish would just f ⁇ ing go away.

In fact, America embraces the responsibility to end climate change the way a wrestler embraces another wrestler.

It might look affectionate if you're not really watching them closely, but if you pay closer attention, he's actually trying to choke the other wrestler unconscious.

And also, you know, it's all been arranged way in advance, so there's nothing you can do about the end result.

This was the first World Leaders meeting on climate change for five years since the 2009 meetings collapsed in what can only be described as hilarious political slapstick.

Five years ago, no point rushing back into these things.

And we had 120 different government leaders, each making a four minute speech.

I for one cannot wait for that DVD box set to come out.

That is going to be absolutely unwissable.

But of course they were all overshadowed because one man who is not a government leader made a speech and he is A famous and B pretty and that man of course was Leonardo DiCaprio who said this.

He said you can either make history or be vilified by it.

A statement which I'm sure certain prominent 20th century European despots would strongly argue with, having proved that it's possible to both make history and be extremely vilified by it.

Yeah, he spoke to the UN Leonardo DiCaprio sporting a beard.

And you know an actor is serious, Andy, when they put their beards on.

Facial hair obscuring an objectively perfect face is a clear request to be taken seriously.

Leonardo DiCaprio is clearly saying, I know you cannot be trusted to focus on anything other than my boyish skin and chisel charm.

So I will temporarily cover that up with unkempt whiskers until you have listened to what I have to say, which you will, for you know what lies beneath these bristles.

Respect my face, but do not be distracted by it.

That's what he's saying, Andy.

He addressed the delegates saying, I pretend for a living, but you do not.

And I guess, I get what he's trying to say there, Andy, but I honestly don't think he's giving global politicians the performance jobs they do.

Absolutely.

They can put in some pretty self-serving performance skills once in a while.

He also said, because the world's scientific community has spoken and they have given us our prognosis, if we do not act together, we will surely perish.

Which does suggest that if we do act together, we will not perish, John.

DiCaprio is offering us the immortality of his own youth.

Yes.

What a hero.

Let's trip back another four years now to September 2010.

Here I am once again with John.

Top story this week, Poperpalooza 2010.

And well, well, well, the Pope is on a whirlwind four-day tour of the UK as we speak and he's playing all his greatest hits.

And he's been a set list of classics like God Bless You and Peace Be Upon You, as well as sing-along lighters in the air favorites such as I was not personally aware of any institutionalized child abuse in the church and encores like, no, you absolutely cannot wear condoms.

He knows what his fans have come for, and he's not going to let them leave disappointed or indeed guilt-free.

That's right.

That is correct, John.

The earthly representative of Santa Claus is in London.

As I speak, John, in fact, listen very carefully.

I'll just put my microphone in the air a bit.

Can you hear it?

A bit popey.

Just, I mean, he's about 10 miles away, I think.

He's in Twickenham's at the moment, coming to central London.

You just feel that bit of holiness coursing across the uh well you should feel a kind of very violent burning sensation on your forehead.

Yep, yep.

This is a major visit, though.

What's the atmosphere like over there, Andrew?

Well, I've not really left the house, John, for fear of being cast into a pit of eternal damnation by mere proximity to the Magic Man himself.

But

I'm only the second reigning pope to visit these shores, John.

Yes.

The second.

They really won't won't let that whole splitting off the Anglican church thing go, will they?

No, it's the first visit by a pope since 1982 when Pope John Paul II nearly impregnated the runway at Heathrow Airport.

The man loved runways, Andy.

What started with just a peck on the tarmac could so quickly escalate into some very vigorous dry humping.

This is it is an amazing visit this.

I believe it is the first time that the royal family has invited the pontiff for an official state visit in five centuries.

It's It's pretty impressive.

There was a great bit of footage of the Pope just before he left Italy on board an Air Italia plane speaking on a microphone, very much looking like he was doing the in-flight safety announcement himself.

Please look to your left and to your right to locate your nearest safety doors.

Now, look towards me and realise that you're on a plane with the f ⁇ ing Pope and there is no way that God is going to let this plane crash.

Please relax and enjoy your flight.

Well, it's understandable that the Royal Family has not invited the Pope.

John, this dates back to

when Henry VIII thought that Clement VII was looking at Anne Boleyn in an unholy lustful manner.

So it's understandable they've been reluctant to open that door again.

That's right.

It goes all the way back to Henry VIII first saying to his wives, it's not you, it's me.

I think we should try some time apart.

And when I say we, I mean your head and your body.

So

any visit like this requires a very deft, diplomatic touch with the inherent tensions available.

Sadly, the visit got off to a bad start before it had even begun when a senior papal advisor said that arriving at Heathrow Airport is like entering a third world country.

Presumably, that is not a compliment, Andy.

He didn't mean one of those state-of-the-art third-world airports with giant plasma screen departure boards, elegant water features, indoor monorails, and three-story Cinnabons.

Cinnabats?

Cinnabons, Andy.

What are they?

They're a fixture of American airports.

Cinnabons.

Yeah, you can get a cinnamon roll, cinnamon bum.

Oh, right, I see.

I thought it was like some Jewish thing.

No, it didn't work.

So a trust between a synagogue and a, I don't know, a James Bond theme park.

Well, I would patent that very quickly, Andy.

But I thought when he said that, he was actually...

Got open Saturdays.

I thought he was being pretty complimentary.

Because, you know, I haven't travelled to Heathrow for a few years now but when I last travelled there it wasn't like the third world John it was like the seventh circle of hell

so I think describing it as the third world says they've made some major improvements.

The cardinal who made these comments was apparently unable to make the trip to the UK after he was suddenly taken ill.

And I'm guessing that the Vatican doctor was instructed to make that diagnosis to him.

Cardinal, how do you feel?

I'm actually feeling fine.

No, you're not.

You're feeling like you don't want to get on a plane.

No, I'm very much looking forward to the trip.

No you're not.

You're coming down with a nasty case of shut your fing mouth.

The best thing you can do is drink lots of fluids, stay exactly where you are for the next four days and shut your fing mouth.

But instead of doing that, the Cardinal doubled down on his comments, claiming that he was actually referring to Britain's immigrants.

Oh, that's much better.

Everybody calm down.

This is a huge misunderstanding.

I was just being racist.

Are we good now?

Well, Well despite this, 70,000 people apparently turned up to the mass in Glasgow yesterday, John.

That's the biggest live audience any touring character actor has drawn in Britain for years.

But still well down on the 1982 Pope who was much, much better Pope.

Much for my money, you know.

Just he had that.

He had it.

He had that X Factor.

Yeah.

You know,

he was like the Jimi Hendrix of Catholicism.

By X Factor, do you mean cross?

Oh yeah, that's what they call it, isn't it?

Yeah.

But

his audience has gone down since 1982, clearly.

And it shows if you don't keep up your touring momentum, you've got to keep coming back and bringing up the crowd.

You're right.

Doesn't it?

We basically did exactly the same material as John Paul II did in 1982.

But I know the crowd of big outdoor gigs do want to hear the old favourites, as you say, but he's got to freshen it up.

You have to freshen it up.

It's hard to know what was really going on with these Cardinals' comments, Andy.

Is the Vatican really that stupid?

Well, that is entirely possible.

In fact, it's borderline probable.

Or are they, in fact, diabolical geniuses?

Is this just a clever cup and ball distraction trick to try and make people in Britain forget that they're actually supposed to be angry about child abuse scandals?

You shouldn't use cupping balls as

true in a sentence,

I'll take that back.

There was no way, though, that the Queen, the Queen, the big Q, Andy, Q units, there was no way she was going to let that kind of comment go unchallenged.

So she broke out some of the Windsor family's trademark passive aggression.

Apparently, remarking to the Pope when he arrived that he'd arrived in a rather small car.

Oh, shit!

Have a taste, Benny!

You just got queen slapped!

She did not just talk shit about your Pokemobile!

That did not just happen!

You just got royally served!

You got put in your gold-plated place!

The interesting thing that the Pokemobile has been souped up a bit for this visit.

It's been fitted with satellite navigation with directions

given in a booming voice of God and in Latin.

Also has wireless internet so the Pope can tweet blessings whilst driving around.

And on Sunday at the famous Silverstone Racetrack, Britain's top twenty Pope impersonators are going to race specially souped up Pokemobiles at speeds of up to 175 miles an hour.

Well, here's the thing.

It's strange you say that, Andy, because

thankfully there was at least some British subjects on T V over here who seemed to be a little more impressed with the Pope's choice of wheels.

Because there was a reporter who was talking to some Scottish school kids, one of whom

said to the reporter that the Popemobile goes 150 miles an hour.

The reporter was stunned, partly because of the speed in question, partly because of the confidence with which the kids spewed the pseudo fact, and I guess partly because he just didn't want to be the one to break the child's heart by telling him that's not necessarily true.

Why can't we just let children have their innocence for a little longer, Andy?

I remember you telling me that you'll never forget the day that your parents told you that the Pope couldn't fly and that he didn't in fact come through the grille of your air conditioning unit every Easter to leave chocolate eggs to thank you for killing Jesus.

Well I found out that he couldn't fly when I dropped him out of a window.

He flapped, but he did not fly.

But it has been quite a controversial uh visit uh here, John.

And I I did a g a gig last Monday for the uh British Humanist Association uh part of their protest protest, The Pope.

They must be thrilled about this trip.

Well,

yeah, I mean, it's given them something to get out of bed in the morning for, I guess.

But

I will say thank you.

I'm a huge fan of the British Humanist Association, particularly after one of them, and fortunately I didn't get to meet him properly, gave me a bag with three packets of biscuits and a card from the British Humanist Association Buglers, and a photograph of Florence Nightingale playing cricket.

Very good.

Almost an icon, if you will, ironically.

We're going to jump forward almost a decade now to September 2019 when I was joined by Tom Ballard and NATO Green.

Top story this week, the Middle East.

Well

we keep returning to the Middle East like a dog returning to its long-lost vomit over the 12 years that this show has been in existence.

Tom and NATO, I've just appointed you both the Bugle Middle East correspondents.

So

just

the Saudi-Iran squabble at the moment, drone strike on a Saudi oil installation, dispute over who was responsible.

I mean, how much of you enjoyed this, Tom, as a neutral, Middle East neutral?

Very neutral.

I describe it more as a row or a bitch fest.

All right, two major Saudi oil installations were attacked by missiles and drones.

Saudi Arabia is like, it was was Iran.

And the US agrees it was Iran.

And Iran was like, no, it was the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

And the Houthi rebels are like, yeah, it was totally us.

And then one guy from Saudi Arabia was like, well, I guess it could have been the Houthi rebels.

And the rest of the Saudis were like, no, Iran.

And the US was like, damn fing right, it was Iran.

And now Iran has to lip-sync for its life.

And I'm like, girl, you ain't that fishy.

You better watch yourself and stop acting like you're the biggest bitch in the Gulf, okay?

I've been watching a lot of RuPaul's drag race up lately, so that might have influenced my coverage.

But this does seem to be more squabble, more talk of war, which we're all about here at the Bugle, Andy.

We're always banging the drum.

There's been mounting pressure on Trump to take some military action against Iran, not just sanctions.

He's being frightfully coy, saying there's plenty of time to do some dastardly things.

It's very easy to start, and we'll see what...

Dastardly things!

Okay, thanks, President Riddler from 1960s Batman.

Thank you for the vague heads up.

Ooh, I just can't wait to see what japes and drone strikes you get up to.

I'm sure that whatever it is, it will be ever so delicious.

That's a glorious.

Mate, how did you know that your president had the word dastardly in his linguistic golf bag?

I think probably he has famously has very

short-term memory, so somebody must have said it literally two seconds before he said it, and then that was like the last thing he heard.

I'm a little bit surprised.

I mean, Trump, this is going to be a challenging diplomatic situation for him because, as you know, Trump is famously racist and prior to this

was not aware that Saudi Arabia and Iran were different things.

Just thought it was like a lot of brown people and that was all he had to, he wanted to bomb probably,

and

that was all he needed to know.

So he's going to have to really get into the weeds on it.

Obviously,

from an objective point of view, it's not ideal to see Saudi Arabia and Iran

politically prodding each other in the chest like two drunken men on different stagdos at the same nightclub realizing they're both engaged to the same woman.

And as you said, you know, I mean, was it the Houthis?

Was it Iran?

Was it a surprise package?

Ecuador?

Ooh!

I mean, they've not been mentioned.

You know,

it's often, you know, strange that Leicester City won the Premier League.

Who knows?

Maybe it was Ecuador that bombed that oil installation.

Was it a prank by the TV show Impractical Jokers?

Was it maybe Elon Musk attempting to accelerate space travel by provoking another world war?

It sure as fk worked last time.

I think on my list of things that I wanted to see this year,

it did not include

Saudi Arabia and Iran squabbling over a strike on a Saudi oil plant.

It didn't.

It did not.

England winning the Cricket World Cup, that was on there.

Okay.

Britain having an Au Bijin as Prime Minister, that was on there.

It has not yet happened, but I am still hoping.

But a spiral of provocation and recrimination in the Middle East, not on my list.

Well, apparently Trump discussed the Iran situation on the phone with your Prime Minister, with Boris Johnson, and the two agreed on the need for a united diplomatic response.

And I tell you what, Andy, if there's one thing Donald Trump and Boris Johnson are good at, it is making things united.

If you want things like responses or democracies to really stay united, really stick together like Velcro covered in glue, get Donny and Boris on the case.

Clockwipe to number 10 in the White House simultaneously releasing conflicting diplomatic responses, one of them encouraging Saudi Arabia to sexually molest Iran and the other demanding that Islamistan apologize for the war on Christmas.

It's coming.

I think we should just embrace the fact that a war at Iran is coming.

Let's lean into it, Andy.

It's been ages since we've had a good war, apart from the million culture wars that occupy every single second of every single day.

I'm talking about a proper war.

I haven't seen someone pull down a statue in finging ages.

And quite frankly, I'm fing sick of it.

Quite frankly, Andy, if someone doesn't torture a brown person in a far-off land in my name for no good reason whatsoever, pretty bloody soon, Andy, I'm going to feel ashamed to be a red-blooded member of the Western world.

Let's go over there and accomplish the f out of that mission, baby.

Sorry, but it's all right.

I mean, you're very much a pin-up boy for the alt-right these days, Tom.

Andy, are you going to sit there and let Tom call Boris Johnson your prime minister?

He's not mine.

Well, I mean, to be honest, you know, he's all of our prime.

He belongs to the world, Boris Johnson.

He is a metaphor for the dangers of letting your democracy rot from the inside.

Mike Pompeo jabbed the finger of Blaine very firmly into the eyeballs of Tehran, saying this was an Iranian attack.

It's not the case that you can subcontract out the devastation of 5% of the world's global energy supply and think you can absolve yourself of responsibilities.

5% in one oil.

Does that not seem like a f of a lot for one

oil?

I mean, has anyone thought of maybe trying to just spread that out a bit more, not leaving so much of the world's energy supplies tied up in one facility owned and run by a theocratic dictatorship.

I mean, I'm no expert on the global oil industry, but what are we going to do, Andy?

Name one alternative energy source to me other than oil.

You know what I mean?

It's not like it's just flinging around the air or beam to us directly from a giant gas like, you know, nearby every single day.

I mean, could you just incinerate stray kittens?

No,

we need to burn the old dinosaurs.

Right.

I've always said that.

That's my catchphrase.

I believe a man of the Saudi Arabian government described the attackers their 9-11, which, it could be argued, the original 9-11 was theirs as well.

And they really are having two bites of the apple there.

So, I mean, who do we believe on this?

Do you believe Saudi Arabia?

Do you believe Iran?

Do you believe Donald Trump?

I mean, it's like deciding whether to share a remote Airbnb with Hannibal Lecter, Freddy Krueger, or Donald Trump.

It's not an easy choice.

Also, in the Middle East, the aftermath of the latest Israeli election is rumbling on.

Still unclear who will be Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the reigning champion or opposition leader Benny Gantz, who I think had some hits in the 1950s with his big band.

I forget.

Netanyahu Netanyahu is attempting to forge pacts with

religious politicians and far-right ultra-nationalists.

I mean, that's in terms of reassuring phrases you could hear at this difficult time.

That is, again, that's low on the list.

As the Beatles sang, all you need is love.

And religious fundamentalists and right-wing nationalists holding a balance of political power in Israel.

He's, of course, Netanyahu still.

batting off corruption scandals like wasps at a picnic.

Quick bit of advice for Netanyahu, don't just try to bat off the wasps.

Try to stop smearing yourself head to toe in honey and maple syrup.

Israel had a choice between two fantastic leaders.

They had a choice between the right-wing racist who has several corruption charges against him and the slightly arrested right-wing but still pretty right-wing racist who has several war crime allegations against him.

They were so simple that they couldn't be bothered coming up with more distinct names.

You have a choice between Benjamin or Benny's.

Such freedom to choose.

I'm as free as a Palestinian living living in Gaza.

Whee!

Oh, look, it's love.

God promised it to us, Tom.

It was a pretty wild campaign.

At one point, Netanyahu promised to annex large sections of the West Bank if he was returned as Prime Minister.

And Benny Gansi, opposition leader, responded to that not by saying the classic attack line, hey, that's illegal and bad, but rather opting for the alternative classic, stop copying me.

The two major parties in the Israeli election genuinely argued over not over the merits of the idea of illegally expanding the state of Israel into the West Bank, but over who came up with that idea.

I look forward to Prime Minister Ganses taking a tougher stance against Palestinian protesters.

Stop hitting yourselves.

Stop hitting yourselves.

Stop hitting yourselves.

All right.

Tough crowd.

I don't know.

Cut it out.

It's tough out there.

Well, I'll tell you whose idea it was in the first place.

God!

It was God's idea!

And to complete our definitive history of the month of September, we're going to finish up in September 2012, just a few short weeks after London 2012.

Here I am, once again, with John.

This last two months has basically featured Mitt Romney insulting everyone.

When he insulted the Olympics, British people were up in arms.

Little did we know that we would only be the first line on the back of his Insult Tour 2012 t-shirt.

They should actually get some of those t-shirts made, Andy.

Insult Tour July 2012, Britain and Poland.

August 2012, poor people.

September 2012, Latinos, veterans, old people, Jews, Palestinians, people in wheelchairs, and at least 47% of the American population.

I can't wait to see what his October tour dates are, Andy.

He is coming for you, the Amish.

It's very difficult for Romney to be seen to share the concerns of ordinary Americans.

I guess the closest he can claim to have come to understanding the difficulties faced by ordinary Americans stems from having seen the looks on their faces when he sacked them.

And that's possibly not quite enough, John, to see him through.

I mean, I guess it's a tough situation that he can either claim with this video taken at this expensive fundraising day.

He can claim that he didn't mean it, in which case he looks like a feckless tool to say anything to anyone if he thought it would benefit him, which actually isn't actually a bad quality to have as a president, or he can claim that he did actually mean it, which just makes him look like a.

So

I guess maybe he's just appealing to core Republican voters.

I don't know.

Well, he's hit back at the video saying that he stands by its contents, although he admits that his sentiments were not elegantly stated.

But here's the problem, Andy.

He's never sounded more comfortable than he did in that video.

He's notoriously a stiff man who has struggled to emotionally connect with people.

But in that video, for the first time I've ever seen him, his shoulders were relaxed, he sounded completely at home, and you realize that is where he's truly happiest.

At dinners where each person is paying $50,000 and you get to whine about poor people.

As a result, his poll numbers have been sinking like a lead octopus and his popularity has not just gone through the floor, but he's personally kicked it down the stairs into a special dungeon.

It does seem, John, that socially Romney has the delicate touch of a Randy rhinoceros in a china shop full of figurines of hot lady rhinoceroses.

And he's about as empathetic as a vicar at a funeral jumping up onto the edge of his pulpit, wearing a replica Grim Reaper kit, sticking his arms in the air and shouting, Woo!

You're dead!

Ah!

Ah!

Ah!

You can't breathe, you can't sing, you can't do a fing thing.

Ah!

Underground!

Underground!

You're lying in a book, said you're going underground.

Underground!

Where's your pals gone?

Where's your pals gone?

Stand up if you're not a corpse.

Stand up.

If you're not.

You're cold, you're stiff, your family's quite miffed.

You're dead.

E-O-E-O-E-O,

home to the cemetery you go.

You were someone's grandad, they're crying tears of woe.

But you'll be gobbled up by worms, or else you'll decompose.

E-O-E-O, Ee.

Rickabutis, Rickabutis, holy, ooly, holy.

Amen.

We will now sing him number 216.

You're dead and you know you are.

He's like that vicar, John that is what he's like

and you may just have made the next funerals that all of us go to a little awkward but I know what I should not shout now so I should definitely not shout that even though every pulse in my body wants me to

the point is campaign season has begun and you'd all better brace yourselves for six weeks of premium grade bullshit I'm talking platinum nonsense and it can get a bit confusing at at times.

So, let me help you.

You're going to see and hear a lot of things over the next month and a half that sound a lot like lies.

And you might find yourself wondering about how the hell these campaigns can get away with some of them.

But the truth is that not all lies are the same.

There is a hierarchy of lies.

Some are allowable, some are not.

There's actually a scientifically measurable scale of fibs that ranges from utter and total bullshit, that's the worst, and descends down through Whoppers, Whoppers Junior, lies, white lies, and Santa.

Now, that last one, of course, is the most acceptable form of lie available.

It's a lie to children to help make the world a bit more bearable, like the tooth fairy, where we lie to children by saying that a magic fairy is going to leave you money under your pillow for your tooth, rather than telling them the actual truth, which is, of course, that a tooth fell out of your head and one day everyone you know will die.

White lies.

The tooth fairy, that's basically been the foundation of the European economy

White lies that's the that's the next step up are lies that people will look the other way for things like you know padding out your CV to get a job and claiming or not claiming fart ownership stuff that everyone does Actual lies are lies that could really hurt somebody stuff like she's just a friend or the facts in a Texas textbook a whopper junior is a big lie but one which no one really cares enough to do anything about something like I'm sorry officer but um that hobo was dead when he climbed into the boot of my car as far as the police are concerned on one hand yes someone is dead on the other hand it's just a hobo then you have actual whoppers a lie big enough that the collective unconscious accepts something like at multivitamins or anyone can be president and then finally there is total bullshit something that is completely devoid of anything resembling a fact but that is still somehow hugely entertaining think of something like an oliver stone biopic where you find yourself thinking wow I'm pretty sure that Lyndon Johnson did not strangle John F.

Kennedy to death, but I definitely enjoyed watching it.

And where did Paul Ryan fit on this scale done with his claim to have broken the World Marathon record?

Yeah, well, I guess, you know,

that would probably come around the...

Yeah,

that would probably go down, you know, around your Whopper Jr.

Right.

Around there.

That and the fact that he also said he had 6% body fat.

Which, yeah i mean that's a lie but who gives a shit

thank you very much for listening don't forget to buy your tickets to the bugle 18th birthday live stream live show at the leicester square theater as i said earlier on just about a hundred tickets left to come to the event physically in person in 3d an infinite number left for the 2d live stream live version so do join us for a truly historic occasion 18 years of pure unadulterated hogwash see you then and we'll be back next week with Alice and NATO until then goodbye

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.