The Bugle - Bonus: Hot Rod, Dragster and a Tiny Revolution (4197a)
Episode Date: June 20, 2021Andy revisits some classic clips, including the Congressman's Penis and Hot Rod and Dragster, and plays a snippet of his chat with Tiff Stevenson for Tiny Revolutions - hear the full interview in your... pod feed now.We are funded entirely by you, the listener. Listeners who sign up via thebuglepodcast.com have long enjoyed the opportunity to get: mentions on the show (in the form of lies), merchandise and general sense of wellbeing for supporting this fine work of art. As of this week you can also support the show directly via Apple Podcasts. Our new channel ‘Team Bugle’ also includes The Last Post, The Gargle and Tiny Revolutions, shows which currently carry ads - but they will be completely ad free on this channel. So if you love The Bugle, and it’s siblings, then please support The Bugle via our website or Apple Podcasts where you can subscribe today.Buy a loved one Bugle Merch - COLD AND WET WEAVER T SHIRTS ON SALE NOW).The Last Post, keeps appearing here. Follow us on YouTube or Insta and see parts of this episode with actual video.The Bugle is hosted this week by:Andy ZaltzmanJohn OliverTiff StevensonAnd produced by Chris Skinner Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.
Hello, Bugleers, and welcome to Bugugal Sub-episode 4197A for actually it turns out we had to
take a week off this week, due to Andy not quite getting his diary right.
So instead, this week we have some lies about our premium level voluntary subscribers,
some information about a new way to support the Bugal and its stable of shows, a big old
chunk from one of those shows, Tiff Stevenson's tiny revolutions in which she interviews renowned
podcast host, cricket statistician, fashion model and stoical media influencer Andy's
latsman, and we time travel back exactly a decade to any guesses, yes, 10 years ago this
week, via the magical technology of the bugle archives.
We're all going to kick off shortly with some lies and ironically that is not one of
them.
Now the right to have a falsehood about you disseminated to the entire listening universe
is one of the things that marks the Bugle out from other podcasts such as My Strange
Fork in which celebrities remember misshaped pieces of cattlou from their childhood.
The ballad a new 153 part series trying to get to the bottom of a mysterious
dent in a ballad by the side of the road in a sleepy English town, and what if Dennis
Rodman had been a potato, fairly explanatory show that one on a damn good listen.
But anyway, as you know, the bugle is entirely funded by you, the listener and listeners who
sign up via the buglepodcast.com have long enjoyed through Donobox, which is basically
like Patreon, the opportunity to get mentions on the show in the form of lies, merchandise and most importantly, a general
sense of well-being and eternal beatific bliss for supporting this fine work of art, unruthlessly
factual historical documentation. But there is now another way of supporting the show
financially, a second option alongside Donabox through which you can of course make a one-off
or recurring donation of whatever vastness you want. Now as of this week you can also support the show directly via
Apple Podcasts. In brief it's an alternative way to make a monthly donation. Unlike Donabox you
won't be able to get special subscriber merchandise or lies on the show out of it, but you will get
to hear the full Bugle family of shows advert free. You subscribe simply by going into Apple Podcasts and searching for
Team Bugle, our new channel, Team Bugle, also includes the last post, the Gargle and Tiny
Revolutions shows which currently carry advertisements, but they will be completely ad free on this channel.
So if you love the Bugle and it's siblings, then please support what I guess I can now call
the Bugle Network, the via our website or Apple podcasts where you can subscribe today.
If you already support via Donabox there's no need to change these two options will continue
to operate alongside each other.
Anyway, before we hear more from me and Tiff on tiny revolutions, here are some lies,
as I said, about existing Bugle premium level voluntary subscribers.
David Park thinks that one of the unexpected upshots of space travel is likely to be that
people don't bother so much about kitchen refurbishment anymore.
You never see people having their kitchen done up in sci-fi films says David and I can
see why.
The logistics would be an absolute nightmare and unless they really get on top of light
speed warping or whatever it's called, you'd have to load up your spaceship with alternative kitchen designs before you even blast it off.
It just isn't happening.
Justin Edwards finds the various meanings of applause a continual distraction in life.
You can clap to say, well done, says Justin, or to say, do well, or to say, hurry up, or pay attention,
or make sure this music stays in this exact rhythm, please.
That is far too many different possible meanings, say, hurry up, or pay attention, or make sure this music stays in this exact rhythm, please.
That is far too many different possible meanings, continues Justin. When an audience uploads
at the start of a show for example, I often think, oh no, I've missed something really
good, but when a sports crowd uploads, I'm always annoyed that the players don't immediately
stop what they're doing and listen to what the grownups are about to tell them. I'm very
confused.
Rowena McMullen is disappointed by the evolution of squirrels, or as Americans wrongly call
them squirrels. They've got so much going for them points out Rowena, terrific problem-solving
skills, a responsible attitude to long-term investment, a strong visual brand and impressively
springy legs. I can't help thinking that they really could have been someone species-wise
if they'd bother putting a bit more effort into evaluting and a bit less effort into nibbling, although of course there's no reason the two can't go together.
Rowing it concludes, I just think they've got the balance wrong, and if they ate bigger
mouthfuls, they'd probably get bigger too, which would help.
Of the many words that Nicolette Hardinger would like to see come into common parlance,
perfumance is right up there to describe someone or something that does something aromatically
impressive.
Nicolette's site's as an example, that's terrific perfumance from the chef,
which you could say when a particularly fine smelling plate of food arrives at the table.
Nicolette would also like the word bar loss to emerge as an alternative to rip off,
being the opposite of a bar gain.
Inspired by the multi-use magnificence of the Swiss army knife,
Elsa Dunbar has been working on a design for a Swiss Army ladder. For a start, his Elsa, I don't think enough people carry ladders
with them full stop. I personally never leave home without one. And amongst the additional
features on my new Swiss Army ladder are a leaf blower that flips out from the right-hand
side, a parasol that pops out of the top, and a fishing rod in case you ever need to go
fishing in a pond the other side of a large wall.
And finally, David Halker would love to have antlers.
I think antlers would be so useful for the human heads as David, I'm not especially
combative so it's not about having an inbuilt set of cranial weaponry, but I think they'd
be so useful for hanging stuff on hats, gloves, skars, charging cables, pack lunches in bags,
donuts, unused headphones, you
name it.
I reckon on a windy day, you could even rig up a system of sales tier antlers and use
them to get you extra speed on a bicycle or scooter as well.
That concludes this week's lies.
Now as promised, something from the Bugle Stable of Podcasts.
On tiny revolutions, Tiff Stevenson has interviewed amongst others, some or all of Armando
Inucci, Rich Hall and Cleopatra, Queen of all the Egypt's.
Well, two of those, to be precise.
And to that list of illustrious guests, this week Tiff, like Inquistadora herself, added
me.
So let's talk about how the Buegel about first of all, because there's such a legacy
in podcasting, I guess, in terms of what you were doing there, like the earliest sort
of people that I can think of that were doing podcast in the UK, is sort of you and John
doing the bugle?
Yes.
Well, to be honest, it wasn't a grand plan to think, oh, here's a new medium that can be really great
for comedy, we should do something.
We were offered a deal by the Times to do,
I think it was 13 episodes,
and they basically just gave us a blank canvas.
But the idea was that, you know,
we had to have a transatlantic feel to it
with John who'd been doing the daily show for just over
a year in America and me in Britain. And obviously because we've both, we'd worked together
for years before John went to the daily show, we'd done live shows together, we did a couple
of radio series together, that it was a really great thing to do, particularly
for me because he obviously was working on the world's leading satirical comedy show,
but at that point there was not a great deal going on in my career, but when John went
to do the daily show in 2006, we'd been doing two series for Radio 4 which had both been cancelled and we was
just about to do a two handed Edinburgh show at the stand and John was off at the daily
show job.
I know it was until three weeks before that, I can't quite remember.
And also we found out that my wife was pregnant so it was all in the space of about three
or four weeks so it was a time of considerable upheaval.
So the bugle started the following year
and we would just offer the deal
and to do this show and
the idea of sort of forming it like an audio newspaper.
And in fact, in the early days,
it was more, I think we did it more in sort of sections
like a Sunday newspaper.
And it's become a little looser over the years.
And the podcasting world was considerably smaller then.
So it was, I think, easier to make a bit of an impact,
particularly as John had already caught up profile
in the States from the Daily Show.
And we were hosted by the Times,
which so they paid us to do it,
so we could devote the time to doing it, which was very rare in podcasting, I think, in those days
to be paid to do it. So we treated it like a radio show and we would try and write a good
show every week. And within a few weeks, even when we only had a few thousand listeners,
I started to notice that people would come up at live shows and say, I've listened to your podcast, which, you know, I don't quite a bit of radio
for stuff with much bigger audiences and they never really...
No one said that.
Well, it hadn't really translated into live audiences in the same way.
Right.
Because people consume podcasts in a different way to radio.
And I think that's one of the reasons that it's been so hugely successful as a medium,
not just for comedy, but it's a very personal medium. If you start listening to it,
you listen to it in a more committed way, it tends to be actively listening to it, rather than
the radio being on in the background. Obviously, now, a lot of radio shows become,
And obviously now a lot of radio shows become or are podcasted by the BBC and other people that that that started to
become more of the case with radio as well, but at the time it was clear quite early on to me that this was a really
fantastic medium for comedy, not just because with the audio you can be really creative quite easily. You can make things sound amazing in a way that making things look amazing on TV or any kind of visual medium is a lot harder. And so it was a great blank canvas for us the times, you know,
didn't never interfere with what we were doing. And I think actually in time they probably
forgot that we were still
doing it because the person commissioned it and moved on. So we had four years with them
before they ushered us onwards. But yeah, that was, yeah, I mean, it that slightly saved
my career to be honest because we're going absolutely nowhere at the time. And I think
my stand-up would probably stagnate. I think I've been working
with John in doing live shows for two or three years and for that to just sit just sort of ended
abruptly because he got the job in the state that left me slightly floundering around thinking,
well what do I do now? So the bugle was your savior. It was to a large extent I think.
The bugle was your savior. It was to a large extent, I think.
Yeah.
Did you set out to make it as a political and satirical?
So you wanted to do an audio newspaper,
but was that your intention?
Did you have, did you sit down and kind of,
both of you go, right, we wanted to do this, this,
and this, or we wanted to speak truth to power,
or we want to be silly, we want to, you know,
did you, did you sit down and
kind of hash that out with each other? Not really. Not really. That was basically the way we'd
done comedy together and individually, really, anyway. So it was really just a guess, an expression
that the radio series we did, I don't think all the department on radio for with Chris Addison that was a real mixture of politics and silliness
and live shows as well. We've tried to blend that and I think that's quite an effective
way of doing political comedy if you levered it with nonsense or you present a serious
point in a ridiculous way. And you know, you see that John has sort
of carried that on through his stellar career in America. So yeah, the view was really, we'd
both done, you know, topical political comedy for several years. So it sort of made sense to
do that. And again, you know, if it was just banging on about politics for 40 minutes,
And again, you know, if it was just banging on about politics for 40 minutes, it might get a little heavy. So we always tried, and that was the nice thing about the format of it
being loosely a newspaper meant that we could throw in sport and, well, even a cryptic
crossword in the early days. One clue a week, long-les may remember Some real long game happening there for you one
That was this week but 10 years ago was a different time and the world was a different place
Well, it was the same place but not as old and with some similarities to today's world one of which was that in Syria
Things were going very very shitly indeed. Hello, Bugglers! Welcome to issue 157 of the Hot Rod and Dragster show, still
officially known as the Bugal. But John, we need a bit of rebranding. We need to
superp up the Oliver Zollerman brand and Hot Rod and Dragster. I mean that's that's that's a strong double egg no
that is. Which one am I? Well you are hot rod. Okay I wanted to be dragster.
Be kind of at me that's mine. And either dragsters ultimate. That's me life in
London. Top story this week freedom we won't let you down freedom though
actually we might let you down freedom.
In fact, we are definitely going to let you down, let you down.
Middle East, I'm rising up, date now.
What's that?
I don't know that song.
George Michael?
Yes you do.
Yes you do, Andy.
It's a George Michael classic.
Oh, it's my song.
When you say you don't know a song like that, you lose musical credibility, Andy.
Not everything is Bon Jovi and Boni M.
I'm flattered by the suggestion that I had musical credibility before that.
If it helps, it was Robbie Williams' day, you're so low-single as well, Andy.
I was it.
Yeah.
Right.
Now, Chris has lost musical credibility by going the other side of knowledge.
Anyway Andy, freedom! That was the cry of William Wallace Braveheart, surely before the British
taught him limb from limb. And if you think about it, in many ways he got his freedom
Andy, as we generously liberated these extremities from the oppressive ties of his torso. And did
he say thank you, did he f********ing just died the ungrateful scot?
Well that cry of freedom has been sounding out across the Middle East over the last month with similarly brutal results
It's like the dictators of the world once went to a hypnotist show and the hypnotist told them that if they ever heard the word freedom
They should clock like a chicken and open fire on their own people
what
We in the rest of the world have been trying so hard to ignore what is happening
in Syria, Yemen and Libya as much as we can.
It's like that amnesty technique that adults sometimes use with children.
I'm going to turn my back and when I turn back around, I want to see a stable democratic
government here.
Except this time, whenever we turn around, it's just Gaddafi flipping the burden pointing
at his own bare ass. I guess the big takeaway is it does seem that we are currently in a
lot more wars than we're giving ourselves credit for. We're running a pretty impressive
number of explosive physical discussions with countries in and around the Middle East.
Well it's pretty messy situation in Syria.
President Assad has certainly living up to the first syllable of his name.
And of course, it's hard to know exactly what's going on
because the Syrian government has refused to allow most of the foreign media access to the country,
although it did say that the bugle could go in.
But fortunately, I've been busy this week and John's a chicken. So grow up, here I go over there. So once again,
the United Nations John has sprung into action like a coiled doughnut and has responded
to the unfolding catastrophe in Syria by debating with itself whether or not to tell Syria
that it's being a bit naughty. Now, understandably such extremely strong words have caused a split in the
unsecurety council. Sorry, the UN Security Council and Brazil, China and
Russia have said that they're worried about hurting Syria's feelings at a time
when it's really not feeling very good about itself already. Brazil suggested
a compromise whereby any resolution is delivered to the Syrian government in
the form of a video of kids juggling footballs on the beach at Rio de
Janeiro. China has offered to deploy 2000
peacekeeping infantry troops but only ones made of terracotta. And Russia wants
to air drop vodka over the entire country to help it drink its way through
its problems. How countries always fall back on what they know best in times of
crisis. We in Britain we've offered to send in Vierilin. Well, we'd again don't
know where, don't know when, but there is a possibility that it might be
in a few years' time in the hake.
In Syria at the moment, there is clearly a
looming humanitarian crisis on a very depressing scale
of all the global cities that you do not want
to be living in at the moment.
The town of Jiziya Al-Shagua is right up there.
In real estate terms.
Is it worse than time?
It's hardly. I think it is Andy. Really? In real estate terms. It's only... I think it is, Andy.
Really?
In real estate terms, it's very much a buyer's market there.
To put it in delicately, there may be some unexpectedly open plots of land
to build on there very soon.
The problem is that 120 Syrian troops were reportedly killed there
over the weekend in protests,
and the authorities have made it clear they will act decisively
and forcefully to restore control and just to be clear about quite how chilling that statement
is. When President Al Assad acts decisively, things get broken. When he said he was going
to change the TV channel decisively, he ordered tanks to open fire on his television set,
then board himself a new plasma screen that was preset to the channel he wanted instead.
In the army, are now advancing on Gisrael's sugar after what it claims is the lethal attack by rebel protesters on government troops.
Which others have claimed was a lethal attack by government troops on government troops who didn't want to launch a lethal attack on rebel protesters.
And it's left many fearing a repeat of the 1982 hammer massacre when the current president's father ordered a scorched earth policy resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of his own
people.
But still, John, these people should count themselves lucky.
They don't know how good they've got it.
Being fired on by their own military, handed from their homes, having their electricity,
water and food supplies cut off, because at least they did not have to go through the
sole shatter in trauma of applying for loads of Olympic tickets
but not getting very many of them due to overwhelming public demand and the random nature of a balloting system.
Oh, I am sorry.
But it's time we're in Britain.
I'm sorry Andy.
We need to rise up John.
We cannot sit back and take this kind of oppression any longer.
What about our human rights, John?
What about my fundamental right to pay over the odds to what's minor sports I have
bitually have no interest in?
Where is Amnesty International now, John?
It's all gone f***ing quiet.
Sobsire, there are loads of Arab nations,
but there's only one London Olympics.
And for too long, people selling sports tickets to us have told us how to live our lives.
But no longer Britain. Rise up, let's lay our own eggs, will our own spoons and hold our own people's
Olympics. Even if the OOC's armed forces try to stop us and the government suppresses
the foreign media from reporting it. We have to take a stand, John. These people in
Syria are, they are frankly eating a very friendly omelet. But I can't compare it with
what we in Britain have been through this week.
BELL RINGS
Well, that almost brings us to the end of this week's sub-buegel.
We will be back next week with a full bugle.
There are a few more weeks off coming up here and there
during which we will put out the bugle live review of 2020,
just in case you were missing that absolute shithead of a year.
But before we go, also from 10 years ago,
there was a story to gladden the heart of nominative determinists everywhere, as Antony Wiener's
wanger made the news, and sparked this literary masterpiece, with which we will leave you until next week.
Goodbye. The Congressman's penis, of course, was John Grisham's as yet unpublished debut novel,
and I'm delighted to say that we've got exclusive serialization rights.
Oh boy, here we go.
It was penis.
Chapter 1. It was 4.30am.
Sound of a dog barking, rent the Philadelphia skies.
Mickey Stantonio opened a resentment-filled eye.
In dog, he's wet, stretching his arms and throwing his nose-y doggy alarm clock at the
wall.
The dog barked again, bulls frouted since St Antonio.
That was actually a real dog.
I'm gonna have to burn myself another alarm clock.
St Antonio stood up on his bed and bounced up and down shouting, whee!
Until he fell awake.
That's better he chundled.
Good morning Mickey St Antonio,, Pia, he created himself.
Ha ha, he's the accent slightly changed from the beginning here.
It seems he got a house, yeah.
Yeah, I'll stay with it.
Yeah.
Hugging himself like the long-lost friend he was doing,
shelf.
He looked at his bed, his empty, empty bed.
Oh my God, where's Janet, the whisper to himself.
Oh yeah, he you remember she left me
12 years ago and emigrated to Namibia. Stantonio removed and insinuated his pajamas,
bedsheets and teddy bear. No trace of him will be left in this one star boot take motel.
He put the kettle on. Took it off again and chuckled to himself. That put in the kettle on my
head. Jog really works better once someone else has said put the kettle on before I in the kettle on my head, Joe really works better once someone else has said, put the kettle on before I put the kettle on my head.
He admit it, drinking a cup of cold and unbrewed tea.
Just then he saw something in the middle of the table.
He approached it cautiously.
Shit, he said.
What the f*** is this?
It's wooden, flat.
Seemingly with no writing or distinguishing marks on it.
Go hang on, that is the middle of the table.
But hang on, what's on it?
Stan Tonyo, the 48-year-old private investigator, distinguishing marks on it. Go hang on, that is the middle of the table. But hang on, what's on it?
Stantonio, the 48-year-old private investigator,
table tennis official, Nardo, an erstwhile owner
of a five-foot-longer Johanna,
reached out to pick up the unexpected pass.
What the fuck is Dersi repeated?
He opened the box.
His eyes widened.
His eyes widened each other in amazement
of what lead within.
Shit, I'm a pineapple tree, he growled can't be can it it can it's a congressman's
penis but he growl which congressman and which of his penises how about to take
this down to the lab and have it checked out 20 minutes later Mickey
Stantani O'Pay I was sitting in his favorite cafe, Manopausal Brenda's on 13th and Gucci,
before him on the table set two coffees,
and a penis. So, so Mr. P.N.S watch out, that's your story,
open sentence, that Tadio casually flicking a bacon racking into his mouth.
The penis lay motionless on the table, Stantonio
thumbed an egg he fist on the dispassionately for microsoft's.
That's your game, is it penis?
I wanna know who's penis you are.
Why you're not on that person anymore?
And how you came to be in my hotel room?
There was a tambour of desperation in Stantonio's voice that morning.
48 divorced, broke, lonely.
And what a congressman's penis staring him in the face of a pro-played
of grits.
This wasn't the life he signed up for when he joined the force back in 58.
And the last thing he needed today of all days was to have to take fingerprints off a congressman's
penis.
He stood breakfast, leaving his solitary sausage, understandably untouched on the side of his
plate.
He had his flaws as a man, at Mickey's Danzennial.
But he also had a sensitivity to the feelings of his dining companions.
What is happening?
Come on, penis! We're gonna get to the bottom of this!
Stantennial.
Wait. Wait!
Stantanio went to flirtatious kiss at the chef.
Apologised, to explain to him, he thought the waitress was still at the till and promised
it would never happen again.
He picked up the penis and it was just to put it back in his glove.
It's just about to put it back in his glasses case.
When, where?
Said the penis.
There's something you should know.
I'm all ears, said Stantanio, instantly realizing the biological inaccuracy of his claim,
even as the words were still warm and wriggly in the mouth.
The penis took a deep breath.
What I'm about to tell you is gonna make what the gate looked like a f***ing Taiwanese
kid's nativity play.
Awesome said Stantonio.
Wait till I tell Brenda about this.
She's gonna come crawling back to me like a slice of cheese
the penis fixed Antonio and Nea
I'm not just any congressman's penis. I'm the penis of congressman and at that moment a shot rang out
Stantonio jumped behind a coffee machine and held his hands together to form an imaginary pistol and prepared to return for ten fire
Another shot, a
door slam, a car revved, Stantonio emerged. Kapowl, Kapowl, Kapowl, he shouted as he gave
himself covering fire while running back to his table. But the penis, the congressman's
penis, gone. Man, that is seriously annoying, he said. Someone knew that penis was here and I wanted it back.
Why?
Chapter 2 next week.
Oh, Andy.
What, mate?
Here's the thing.
Here's what you deserve congratulations particularly for that because it's been a
week of Anthony Wiener penis dealt here And you've managed to tell the one thing that
has not been told. Oh, excellent. I'm desperately wanting to read the rest of this.
Now, Andy, when you say chapter two next week, I mean, are you going to deliver chapter two next week?
I don't know, John. I don't know. I'll guess that depends on the response.
I'll leave it open to your listeners.
I guess the bulls in Antony Wiener's call.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the hot rod!
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