The Bugle - Bugle 245 – Syria, too complicated for 5 year olds

Episode Date: September 6, 2013

Cheney, Pelosi and Kerry throw their opinions around on Syria, whilst the UK parliament withdraws from public like into a world of internet porn. Plus, Andy learns what 'twerking' is. Hosted on Acast.... See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Dancelaguard fans, you will be thrilled to know a book is coming out if you fund it via Unbound. We are publishing the Dancelaguard Reader by Alice Fraser and Dancelaguard, a glorious insight into the world of Dancelaguard, self-published romance maven, and online bestseller. If you would like to find out how to support it, go to thebugelpodcast.com. If we get enough support, we will publish the book. That's a real thing that's going to happen. Thebugelpodcast.com to a real thing that's going to happen. TheBuglePodcast.com to support the Danciler Guard Reader. This is a podcast from TheBuglePodcast.com.
Starting point is 00:00:44 The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world. Hello, Bugle! And welcome to Bugle Issue 245, the first Bugle of the 2013-14 Bugle season with me, and his husband freshly returned from a family holiday in Spain, where I taught the legs of dead pigs some lessons I will not forget in a hurry. I am live in London 2012, never forget. And joining me from New York after a traumatic disasterous week for British status in America, the British government falling victim to democracy and having to declare war on the US,
Starting point is 00:01:18 I think that's what happened all the way. Andy Murray, Hammers, like a tent peg in a resentful ditched husband's attempt to pitch his tent on the road outside his ex-wife's new home She shares with a millionaire tent peg manufacturing magnates and well that's specific most humiliatingly of all Britain's John Oliver sacked as host of the Daily Show after just two months in the hot seat in favor of some film director bad time for Britain. But he'd never be devoted on the bugle, not unless Chris worked on his singing skills and John learned some IT. So from New York, here he is,
Starting point is 00:01:51 the Musketeer of Murf, slicing the apples of abomination with his sword of satire to make the tart, tart, tart of truth. It's John Oliver. Hello Andy. Hello bugleers. Well Andy, I hope you had a nice relaxing break. I myself went to Afghanistan to do a USO tour over the break, which I'm pretty sure is whatever the exact opposite of a holiday is.
Starting point is 00:02:13 In fact, I think that might actually be Afghanistan's official tourist slogan. Come to Afghanistan. It's whatever the opposite of a holiday is. It all happened very fast. I finished the last day I showed the summer, went home to pack, and then flew to Kurgistan to get picked up by the military the next day. In the second most ridiculous thing I've ever done. The first most ridiculous thing I've ever done, Andy, is taste myself in Afghanistan for no reason whatsoever. Other than the soldiers saying to me,
Starting point is 00:02:41 I've got a taser. You can taste yourself with it if you like. And I was so jet lagged. You can tas yourself with it if you like. And I was so jet lagged. Before I knew what I was doing, I just tased myself in the leg. And you know what Andy? It actually kind of helped with my jet lag.
Starting point is 00:02:55 I definitely didn't feel drowsy anymore. It might be the perfect treatment for jet lag for someone who is a complete idiot. It's hard to describe the sensation really. I guess I'd say it felt like however you would describe the feeling of teasing yourself in the fucking leg. I think the Germans have a word for it. They usually have a word for that kind of thing.
Starting point is 00:03:15 Leck and Tarzan. Or yeah, something like that, I'm guessing. I'm gonna, how was that? Did you feel it made you more athletic or? Well, you know, it definitely, I mean, it made you more athletic? Well, you know, it definitely, I mean, it made me more athletic for about a second because I jumped extremely high and then ran extremely fast.
Starting point is 00:03:31 We definitely hurt a lot. I think that's just, I mean, it didn't Justin Gatlin do that in the US athletic throttle? I think I could get close to you, saying, but if I just kept teasing myself in alternate legs for 100 meters. The audiences for a USO are a little different because for a start your audience
Starting point is 00:03:51 is usually heavily armed over there and believe me, nothing sets a carefree tone for comedy more than every single audience member having an M4 on their person. It's the ultimate heckling away. Having hearing a clip shoved into a machine gun because that sound really says, this gig could be over a lot sooner than you've seen to imagine it. One gig, I was standing on the back of a truck in an open tent, and behind the audience I could see
Starting point is 00:04:16 fueled up helicopters in front of the Hindu Kush mountains. It's not a place that's seen much stand up over the years, Andy, but it turned out to be a surprisingly great place to do it. I met some incredible people over there with some even more amazing names. I met a man called Captain Hefty, whose name wrote checks that his personality easily cashed. I met a woman called Captain Power, and I swear this is true. Someone called Sergeant Slotter. That man had three career options ahead of him, Andy. A professional wrestler, a soldier or a stripper. And trust me, he could have been successful at anyone
Starting point is 00:04:52 or all three of those. So, well, welcome back. How was Kurgistan as well, was there much when we got there? Kurgistan was the nightlife like. Well, I tell you how Curgistown was Andy. It was seemed nice. You know, there was a great statue of Lenin there, which for some reason they didn't take down. And I thought I was quite a nice experience until I got home and news broke that there was the bubonic plague.
Starting point is 00:05:18 It burst. It's Curgistown, exactly where I was. So, you know, that made for a couple of days of thinking, oh, I've got a tickly throat, is that how it starts? Actually, I flew, I flew from Geek to Geegandhi in Black Hawk helicopters, and it's only in flying over Afghanistan
Starting point is 00:05:35 that you realize what an impossible task winning a war there is, because it's not a coherent country, it's just a series of uninhabitable hillscapes. Within 20 minutes, you can have flown over desert mountains and something that, if I knew better, I'd have sworn was actually the surface of the moon. Because the temperature there tends to fluctuate quite quickly
Starting point is 00:05:53 between violently hot and death inducingly cold. Afghanistan is often referred to as we know as the graveyard of empires. It's where Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, and even the British, and the British back when it meant something, bit off officially more than we could chew. And it suddenly hits you when you're flying over it. That if America can't do it with Chinook helicopters,
Starting point is 00:06:13 F-16s and up-arded Humvees, I don't know how the hell Hannibal thought he could do it. In the middle of winter, crossing the mountains with 37 fucking elephants. At one point, I was standing in a valley. This is true. And an American soldier pointed to the entrance to the valley and said, that was where in the 19th century,
Starting point is 00:06:30 16,000 British troops had entered the valley. And by the exit, there was only one left alive. And he was allowed to live so that he could go back and tell people what had happened. And I'm guessing what he said, Andy, was, hey, Chaps, good to be back. Lovely to see everyone. Listen, quick points, but important points, I'm never going back to Afghanistan ever again and if any comes in the future, have half a brain, they'll do the fucking same.
Starting point is 00:06:56 Yeah, that was a lesson that we have rather surprisingly chose not to learn. So, well, welcome back, Bugles after our welcome back to you. Bugles whilst we've all been away. I've been counting down the days to the show with a better millennium mysohofeat to run in London, satris far. Nice, the 21st of September, except the middle Sunday. And thanks to only Bugles who have already booked tickets at sohofeat.com and sent in their satirical requests. And to the rest of you, what are you waiting for?
Starting point is 00:07:26 The world is burning and you're just sitting there. This is Bucal 245, 245, the number of times Christopher Columbus. Toaster Cohen, in his heads or tails, should I stay or should I go coin-toss challenge with King Ferdinand, the second of Castile, to decide whether or not to set sail across the Atlantic in 1492. He really didn't want to go, but finally, with the words, what do you mean best of 491? You've had 245 tails in a row,
Starting point is 00:07:51 now getting the f***ing boat ringing in his ears. Off he went. Weep beginning Monday 9th of September, 2013 on this day. The night of September in 1776, according to Wikipedia, no lesser source. The United States was officially named the United States from a list of possibilities including Doodland, Funktopia, the Indypen of Rukovor, some North Korea. Definitely missed opportunities. And this week's section in the bin, as always a section of this audio news by going straight in the bin, has strictly come dancing begins another season of Celebrity Prancing in Britain. We look at one of the other big celebrity shows hitting the screens this autumn, hit squad
Starting point is 00:08:33 in which teams of stars plan executes and try to get away with an assassination of a prominent politician. We have exclusive behind the scenes access as the girls team that's Canadian singer Carly Ray Jepson, former American Olympic head, Tatlain Champion Jackie Joyner Cursey and British TV property expert Sarah Beanie, attempt to bump off the mayor of Bogota. Whilst the boys team fashionista Gokwan, French actor Jean-Yuzion Glad and former CIA boss Porter Jay Goss plot the termination of polar explorer Randolph finds. Oh, it's good to be back. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP B Oh! One for all you full collots fans out there. The drumbeat for war. Or at least a tacking Syria is getting louder and louder Andy with,
Starting point is 00:09:32 President Obama beating the drum of war like it's a Neil Perth solo. One for all you rush fans out there. Look, yes. Yes, this is a glib way to start talking about Syria, but frankly, you have to find a way to lighten this up. Well, you don't have to, but I choose to.
Starting point is 00:09:50 Now, all of a sudden, America seems intent on, at the very least, airstrikes and at the very most airstrikes on Syria. And you might think, why now, this humanitarian crisis has been going on for over two years, more than 100,000 people have been killed. Two million refugees have fled Syria to neighboring countries. And the international community has proven its ability to be laser-focused in its determinates to ignore everything that's happening over there. Why this sudden concern for the welfare of the Syrian people?
Starting point is 00:10:18 Well, it all comes down to chemical weapons, not so much having them. Any country worth its salt has them, but using them. Chemical weapons are not supposed to be used, they're ornamental, they're like a garnish, they're supposed to make your other weapons even scarier. And this current flashpoint comes down to an alleged attack on civilians in Damascus, Suburban, August 21st, in which 1426 people were killed over 400 of which were reportedly children. The White House claims that Bashar al-Assad is responsible for the attack, which Assad claims that he wasn't, and that either there was a naturally occurring siren rainstorm
Starting point is 00:10:56 somewhere, or that the civilians must have somehow done it to themselves to make him look bad. And that might sound ridiculous, Andy, but it's actually what some Syrian officials are almost suggesting, arguing that the opposition will behind any such attacks and that they would encourage to do this by the West. Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mechdad claimed it was attacked by the rebels to turn around the civil war, which he said they were losing. And that's a classic move, Andy. They gasped themselves, playing the long game. It's just like during the Battle of the Somme Andy when we must have gassed ourselves to prove
Starting point is 00:11:28 that we could take a punch. It made sense then and it makes sense now. It's all pretty depressing, you've honestly suggested I was away in Spain for 10 happy news three days prior to that. I've been concentrating on the final test match of the England Australia ashes theory. So I'd basically had almost three weeks away from any form of reality. And I'll return to self-sile civilization on Wednesday to basically find that not only was Syria
Starting point is 00:11:55 about to explode internationally, but that British politics had been tearing itself apart like a masochistic fox in a pack of hounds outfit underwhelming. Was now teetering on the edge of its biggest international crisis in years. There is a general sense that a happy and harmonious solution to this whole shabang is about as likely as Elvis Presley making it through qualifying for next year's World Snooker Championships. Even if he is still alive, he'd be 79.
Starting point is 00:12:22 So even if he has been locked in a snooker hole for the last 36 years, he's almost certainly passed his best. As bad as as challenge President Obama to present evidence that the Syrian government was involved in the Damascus government attack saying, those who make accusations must show evidence we have challenged the United States and France to come up with a single piece of proof. And look, I'm not a UN weapons inspector Andy and I'm sorry if I ever suggested that I won one but I guess the evidence is probably at the very least Fullfold for that um want the piles of dead bodies with no visible wounds to the fact that the sad wanted to do it Three the fact that we had the capability to do it and for the fact that no one fucking did. That really does point the finger of blame at the very least in his general
Starting point is 00:13:08 direction. A barma claims that the world must act and that this is a red line that Syria has crossed, although, again, to be fair, America has in the past been a little wriggly on the exact shade of red that wouldn't necessitate a response. When a sad was previously accused of a camel attack, all of a sudden the red line looked a lot more pinkish. It would definitely had a significant rosy hue to American eyes. Well, also, I mean, there's been a lot of this talk of this red line. And, you know, because they're already being chemical attacks
Starting point is 00:13:39 during the two years of the Syrian conflict, suggestions by you and your reporters that both Assad and the rebels may have perpetrated. So where is this red line? As you say, arguments have where the line was red or just a really dark, orange and a strange light. Or as the very size of the Russians and the Americans and the Chinese, and the British rifle through their paint catalogs,
Starting point is 00:14:01 to decide exactly what color the line was, burnt CN-align, a raw Hawaiian sunset, a Leninist brick, or a blushing priest line. Perhaps even a verminous, Tomatista, a squashed and dilution puppy, a rampaging water melon, or a tuberculotic rat mucus line, maybe even the classic, unless we have this in our living room, the chaffed mountaineer's testicle line. When what exactly is that exactly is red, John? What is?
Starting point is 00:14:27 That's a lovely color. It warms up a room, that, doesn't it? And also, what colors were the lines marking out the slaughter and maming of tens of thousands of citizens by fair, honorable and largely pain-free, conventional weapons? And this placement, if you say, of millions through strategic but non-chemical
Starting point is 00:14:42 and therefore, gentlemanly state terrorisation, there's some very oddly coloured lines in this conflict. Syria is becoming a particular flashpoint due to countries using it as a vessel through which to essentially piss each other off. It's now not just a civil war, as it serves as a proxy war with Iran, Hezbollah and Russia taking sides against Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Sheikdoms and America. Russia and President Putin has been very critical of the US saying that Secretary of State John Kerry lied in his testimony this week.
Starting point is 00:15:11 He said, he lies openly and he knows that he lies. This is sad. Now, here's why that suspicious Andy. Judging by his face, I don't think Vladimir Putin even has the capacity for sadness anymore. In fact, I think the only time he might even approach sadness is whenever he suspects that he might just have been happy. That's the only time he gets even close.
Starting point is 00:15:34 President Obama has opted not to take executive action on Syria and has chosen to ask the permission of Congress first instead, probably less out of a desire to follow the exact letter of the US law and more to say, look, if I'm going to eat this shit pie, you can at least all have a slice of it with me. He's attempted to reassure those doubters by saying that any military action would be an a quote limited and proportional. Essentially, he's having to reassure people in Congress that the strikes will basically do nothing.
Starting point is 00:16:06 You know, they won't suck us into a war, they won't remove us sad, and make us accountable for the consequences. They'll basically be pointless. In fact, if it makes you any happier, the missiles will be empty, or they'll just have a little flag that comes out the end which says bang in funny letters. Even when so far as to describe it as a shot across the bowels of the Syrian government, rather than trying to tip the balance against it in the conflict. It's just a warning shot, Andy.
Starting point is 00:16:30 We're just going to aim the missiles slightly over their head or in front of their feet to make them dance. That's all we're going to do. This isn't the great tradition of the international response to the Syrian crisis, which should immediately have been a situation as complex and awkward as a teenage hydra with a poncho for chopping its own heads off But for whatever reason the UN's previous resolutions to try to force us that into line have not worked Resolutions ranging from now now now via come on simmer down I I and I mean really all the way to the one that nearly broke in resolution 2065
Starting point is 00:17:03 and none of those none of those have have worked. And this is, this is why now the governments have been, I mean, trying to force themselves into action, David Cameron, British Prime Minister recalled MPs to vote on whether Britain should give military support to an American, American strike. And he lost the vote, which was the first time in 300 years that the government has been defeated on a military action decision and in those 300 years we've taken a fair amount of military action that gives it some kind of context and we have the now traditional site of sites and sounds of politicians opportunistically accusing their opponents of political opportunism, Cameron accused the MPs who voted against British intervention of failing to quote, take a stand against the gassing of children. And then he said that Britain will be one of the leaders
Starting point is 00:17:50 despite this vote in bringing forward plans for a peace process for Syria. Thus, I guess, taking the kind of stand those MPs who voted against him, presumably thought was a better way of standing. And it's all, one is, I think it, to be honest, John, I chose a very good week to be away on holiday because I think I would have smashed at least three television here. Yeah. Had I been here. In response to the UK losing that vote or David Cameron losing that vote, the US said it would continue to consult with the UK who are, and again, they're quote, one of our closest allies and friends going on to say, buses, close and balls, close and actual balls.
Starting point is 00:18:30 David Cameron is in his attempt to convince Parliament, talked of the evidence that the US has of the chemical weapon destroy. The problem is that having America say we have evidence of chemical weapons, rings a little hollow than it once did after that whole colon powerlin is prop and fracks bottle of the UN shaboggle.
Starting point is 00:18:49 In fact, that evidence now rings so hollow, it basically echoes back at you. Even though that evidence is clearly real. Yes, it's a kind of, yeah, the old boy who promoted wolf the musical scenario. Exactly. I mean, this is a classic question of history, history repeating repeating on itself with the acid taste of half digested failures of the past, chundering their way back into the world's throat and producing one of
Starting point is 00:19:13 the more noxious global belches of recent times if I may stretch and I'm necessarily metaphor. So if you state John Kerry here has been leaving the charts for war, though he himself has some personal baggage to check in that he might have to pay for. Kerry praised us, sad, as recently as 2011 as being a very generous man, saying, well, I personally believe that. I mean, this is my belief, okay? But President of Sad has been very generous with me in terms of the discussion we've had.
Starting point is 00:19:41 And when I last went to the last several trips to Syria, I asked President Assad to do certain things to build a relationship with the United States and sort of show the good faith that would help us to move the process forward. That is so bumbling, Andy. It's almost like, as he was saying it, he was thinking, oh shit, this sentence is really gonna come back
Starting point is 00:20:02 to fight me if he starts gassing his his people in the future isn't it? Oh shit. And this generosity, the Kerry speaks off me, what's that about? It's not like a sad picked up a dinner tab when the two of them went out to dinner with their wives is it? Oh, oh actually, it could be exactly that. Because a photo emerged this week of all four of them having dinner together in a restaurant in Damascus in 2009. I am guessing that he and a sad were fighting over the check at the end and a sad would say no no no no no please John please let me get this. This dinner is going to come back to haunt you in the near future put your money away. It's the least I can do John. Let's not fight over this this we'll be fighting over much more important things in the future do not insult me John my treat my treat much has
Starting point is 00:20:50 been made here in the US of not wanting Syria to be like Iraq and of course it isn't it's not like Iraq at all in Iraq the evidence of weapons of mass destruction didn't exist in Syria the chemical weapon evidence is all over the fucking floor as well as in the lungs of 1,500 people. I mean, it can't be hard to understand the exact differences, as you mentioned Andy, between chemical warfare and warfare. Seeing as most both methods seem to end with piles of bodies surrounded by justifiably angry people.
Starting point is 00:21:21 It's like we're somehow able to draw a distinction between the horror of chemical warfare and the honour of traditional gentlemen's massacres. Why can't us sad just have the class to fire a series of missiles at his own peoples and then shoot anyone who attempts to run away. You know, behave with some etiquette when it comes to an illegal mass slaughter. Come on boy. So now President Obama must convince enough of Congress to let him get involved in his nebulously defined military intervention with no clear mission focus. Shouldn't be too hard. No, it's not like he doesn't have support.
Starting point is 00:21:53 The problem is that one of the main proponents for intervention is John McCain, and he was caught on camera during the hearing playing video poker on his f***ing iPhone. When asked about this, McCain said, as much as I like to, and always listen in rapt attention, constantly to the remarks of my colleagues over a three and a half hour period, occasionally I get a liiiiicle board. Oh, I am so sorry, Senator. I'm sorry we were boring you by discussing sending US military into combat in Syria.
Starting point is 00:22:25 Something you yourself have been pushing for for over 12 fucking months now. There's something even more galling about the fact that he was playing poker on an iPhone too, Andy. Because it was an iPhone, he had access to all world knowledge in a device as small as his hand. He could have looked up, say, the history of Syria, the breakdown of religious tensions there. He could have googled what an alawait is, or he could have just typed in America and Middle East into Google, and I guarantee
Starting point is 00:22:55 he'd have got a few interesting results. But no, he didn't have time to do that, because he wanted to wait to see if he flopped an ace on the river to give him a flush. He didn't even need to ask John Kerry any questions. He could have just asked Siri in his phone. Siri, can you guarantee that the US will not be drawn into a larger, longer conflict? Of course I can't, John. This is fucking warfare.
Starting point is 00:23:18 You have all people should know that. Okay, thank you, Siri. Oh, and by the way, John, what was that Sarah Paglin pick about? Was it pure desperation or complete stupidity? I said thank you, Siri. And if you got bored, John, now in, in what a three hour debate, well that's, didn't that mean he's spent years in solitary confinement, didn't he? What he did. How much poker did he play with himself there? I was quite impressed by the fact that he was just totally an utterly unrepentant. And it made me think that maybe it was kind of justified because maybe there can be no better mental preparation for a crisis like Syria than poker, a game of deception, some
Starting point is 00:24:01 skill, a reckless disregard for financial consequences, and above all massive luck. Such a serious job, only with absolutely no chance of winning anything, and instead merely hoping to minimise your losses and leave with your dignity, wallets and trousers vaguely intact. But I like the way that he just ballsed it out as if he's been caught reading a copy of in-depth analysis of the religious tensions in the twenty-first century Middle East, a bit of a surprising new book from pop-style at Taylor Swift, but fair play, it's good she's encouraging the teen market to take
Starting point is 00:24:32 an interest in the geopolitical affairs that will shape the future of their planet. I certainly can't wait to read controversial baseball star Alex Rodriguez's eagerly awaited new research paper recalibrating American expectation in the post-post-cold-war economic era. There was another inexplicable moment where Nancy Pelosi, minority leader of the House, delivered a mystifying speech in front of cameras after meeting with the president when she revealed that she had consulted with her five-year-old grandchild about potential estros. She said, and this is an exact quote, my five-year-old grandson, as always leaving San Francisco yesterday, he said to me, me, me, my name, me, me, war with Syria. Are you, yes, war with Syria, no war with Syria? And he's five years old. We're
Starting point is 00:25:19 not talking about war, we're talking about action. Yes, war with Syria, no war with Syria. I said, well, what do you think? He said no war. I said, well, I generally agree with that, but you know, they've killed hundreds of children, they've killed hundreds of children there, and he said, five years old, were these children in the United States? And I said, no, but they're children wherever they are. Now, two key, that's right away there Andy. One, what is Nancy Pelosi discussing child slaughter with her five-year-old grandchild? And two, what is Nancy Pelosi's grandson,
Starting point is 00:25:53 such a heartless, isolationist, awesome. Oh. Who clearly doesn't care what happens to non-American children. You know what, I'm gonna say this, I'm not comfortable saying it, but I think it's the right thing to do. Nancy Pelosi's five-year-old grandson. It's about to... It's about time someone took that...
Starting point is 00:26:12 Down a peg or two. Sorry viewers. So we're in this weird, weird situation now, with the President lobbying Congress for permission to do something he doesn't technically need their permission to do, and putting us in this strange limbo, strikes have been delayed, yet still seem likely, but the thing about airstrikes, Andy, as we know, is that it's all about the anticipation anyway. This is essentially tantric intervention from America. Delay and delay the air strikes until you feel like you can't hold them anymore. And then boom, Damascus is a complete mess.
Starting point is 00:26:53 LAUGHTER And I was probably not helped by the fact that this weekend, there's the G20. Yes. The G20 summit, the G2020 of course, a regular feature on the bugle over over the over the years, of course some dispute of what the G20 actually is as we've discussed on previous previous bugles. Some suggestions that it is G20 an excerpt from the renowned jazz saxophonist Kenny G's influential academic paper
Starting point is 00:27:23 entitled Suggested New Value Values for Letters in Scrabble, G20. he renowned jazz saxophonist Kenny G's influential academic paper entitled suggested new values for letters in Scrabble. G20. He also suggested that Kay should be worth 10 and SA and X five each with no points for any other letters. They are set to be some of the Iceast conversations at this G20 summit since Captain Scott tried to persuade his buddies that a silver medal was a solid result and that dying on the way home was all part of the fun. So, it's... And I think we need to put this in some kind of context as well, John, for what it means
Starting point is 00:27:56 to the people of this country here in Britain and America. When I got back on Wednesday from my holiday, I'd really had almost no news access, obviously quite a lot of complicated and massively depressing things to catch up on. So I went on the BBC News website and I looked at the column of the most red stories. Thinking that clearly this is the issue that is really getting the British people exercised. It's an issue that everyone must have some view on. And the most red story was Miley Cyrus defends VMA performance. Now I thought what could this be that has so peaked the interests of the British News Reading public? As Cyrus finally
Starting point is 00:28:38 come off the fence with some stridently leftist views about healthcare and used her VMA performance whatever that is, something I think something I think in a London museum that's been renamed off for it turned out that Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were involved in a 20-year meniser 12 with a plummet called Mike. Did you know that has Cyrus Wade into the series debate? We're doing a corporate gig to the viral marketing association by suggesting that the West undermine us sad with carefully targeted YouTube clips and internet memes highlighting to the Syrian people the benefits of not being governed by
Starting point is 00:29:09 a psychologically unstable puppet with a hereditary posh on for slaughter. Maybe, how's the Billy Ray Cyrus of the 21st century become the latest celeb victim of the new VPL, VMA, visible moccasin abrasions where the overuse of ill-fitting slippers leaves an indentation around the ankles. No, it wasn't that. It wasn't that John. She had twirked. Now, here's a question for any bugleers who like me, not familiar with what twirking is. Here's a multiple choice. What is twirking? Is it a toilet working? A curse of the mobile age when even a toilet break? Is it an opportunity to send some emails or edit a PowerPoint presentation? Chris, please.
Starting point is 00:29:57 It's working B, a baseball term, referring to the little views tactic of getting a runner on first base to distract the picture by clocking like a chicken. It was pioneered in the 1930s by Pincher on a sanctum-owned twerk who played variously for the Boston Red Sox, the Houston Herneus, the St Louis Weirdos, and Miami Crotch before winding down his career in the minor leagues with the Bakersfield nudists. Is twerking sea a woman writhing her scantily beclothed buttersteerials up against a man's trouser-enhibited grunch? Or is it D? He calls it more hospitalisations than any other activity. Twerking is the Sithing her scantily beclothed, botter stearials up against the man's trouser-enhibited grunch. Or is it D? The cause of more hospitalisations than any other activity.
Starting point is 00:30:29 Turking is the process of removing a recalcitant lid from a jar of jam, or beetroot, or whatever other shit comes in jars these days. It's a combination of the twist and the jerk, the twerk often accompanied by the grimace, the in and the swear, and results in approximately 150,000 global muscular injuries per day, 76% of which result in hospital treatment, 44% in a full face of jam, and 13% in death. Well the answer, John, are you are you are you are you familiar with twerking? Of course I am Andy, my living the United States of America is my right to twerke. It's a bit like daggaring isn't it? What's Daggering?
Starting point is 00:31:05 Is that what Daggering I think is like a Jamaican dancehall version? Right. So it's obviously the beetroot thing I'm guessing, right? Well, is that similar to booty clapping? Ah! Boogie clapping, of course, played with Gloucestershire in the 1920s, very fine legspin' roller. It was sea, it is, it is.
Starting point is 00:31:22 That's what she did. And that is what the British public cares most about. Miley Cyrus and her curiously placed Batute. So take that people of Syria. Parliamentary porn news now and a report came out this week that over the last year there were, and this is reportedly true, 300,000 attempts made to access pornographic websites at the houses of parliament.
Starting point is 00:31:54 I don't even know where to begin with this, Andy. First, I mean, let's start with 300,000. That's a lot. That's around a thousand a day. That's either a thousand people being distracted a day or one person being incredibly focused, just not on the thing that they're supposed to be focused on.
Starting point is 00:32:12 Secondly, three thousand attempts. Now, if anything, that's even more pathetic to me. If you fail in an attempt to access pornography online, you are a dangerous individual. Because you can access pornography online. You are a dangerous individual. Yeah, because you can access pornography online without even trying. You literally can do it accidentally. It is actually hard and not to access pornography online
Starting point is 00:32:33 than it is to access it. The full breakdown of the figures are incredible. Apparently in November, there were 114,844 attempts to access website's classes pornographic, but just 15 attempts. In February, what happened there Andy? I know that February is the shortest month, but is it also the least sexy? Is it the lack of daylight?
Starting point is 00:32:55 I thought if anything, that might help. And what does November have? The February doesn't. Is it the fact that it comes on the back of Halloween, which is now basically, and it's skewed to dress as a slutty traffic come? Or basically a sexualised anything? I don't know. I don't know. I guess January here, at the end of January, is when you have to fill in the sexual sexment tax return and maybe just the mere thought of anything that possibly involves activities
Starting point is 00:33:26 related to human procreation just seems worthless in a joyless universe. So, um, I mean, who are these parliamentary porn dogs, these democratic dirt-fiends, these governmental grilled gorkers, these representative regarders have launched these House of Commons hardcore horn crankankers. I mean who exactly is doing this? And why they're not running our country, John? I mean is this the only way that they can run the country? Well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well,
Starting point is 00:34:01 well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well using a pornograph. I mean it's extraordinary that I believe didn't I think John Logie Baird He did leave his original at pornograph invented after the invention of the television to To the hazards of parliament since when it's been
Starting point is 00:34:17 It's been a problem. It's been a big problem. Church. You'll church. You'll deliver most of his speeches whilst looking at porn That's why you only did it over the radio He listen very carefully. You can hear a kind of magazine page turn and then there's a goodness. We'll fight them on the boat. Come on now. Lazy master. Well, it's not the truth is, it's not yet entirely clear who exactly was accessing the
Starting point is 00:34:39 pornography. It may not necessarily be MPs or peers as around 5,000 people work on the parliamentary estate, but even if it is the other workers, Andy, I think that might make sense in a way. They have to work around members of parliament all day, every day, who can deny them a momentary escape into pornography every now and then. It might be that the only way to tolerate working around such arsels is to look at a bunch of arseholes instead. It also shows how prevalent pornography is becoming in mainstream media. See, the extent where, actually, if you play episode 213 of The Bugle Backwards,
Starting point is 00:35:17 it sounds like Angela Merkel and Theodore Roosevelt doing the deed in a museum full of stuffed animals that Roosevelt had shot and in between their groans of carnalistic rapture discussing a long long-term restructuring of the European economy. But I mean, it's just mainstream now, isn't it? And there's been some debate as well over whether internet pornography needs to be included in school, sex education to better prepare youngsters for the absolute tsunami of filth they will inevitably be exposed to. And these things have changed very rapidly.
Starting point is 00:35:51 I know when I was at school, I went to a private school in Kent, South of London. Sex education at my school basically involved nervous coughing, singing in the national anthem, and a three times life-size wicker statue of Mrs. Thatcher in bondage keeping wheeled around the school cricket pitch on the night of the summer solstice before the school's horniest boy was sacrificed in it. So that does need some updated. Your emails now thanks for all the emails you've sent in over the summer. This one came in from Steve in Boston, dear Chris Andy and John, in order
Starting point is 00:36:25 of how likely you are to have your leg blown off by an exploding T-shirt gun. Wait, what? I thought I'd get your attention, John. Yeah, got it's gotten. He's been in America too long. Got in this. Not on his at not a word. It is an abomination. A while back back you guys were speculating about a T-shirt gone arms race and reacting with the light when a taco cannon able to fire wrapped on tacos across a gun room with unveil that some Godforsaken festival in the American Southwest. Well I have bad news, it turns out there is a dark side to unrestrained military spending. A student from the University of Arkansas as we or as we in the Northeast call it the 13th grade. Zing! Oh, suffered a leg injury from an exploding
Starting point is 00:37:10 T-shirt cannon. I don't know if this will leave to a celebrity driven campaign against T-shirt cannons, like we saw in the whole mind. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no Could make another trip to Australia and do another gun control, please. That is incredible. Well, I mean, you've got to be careful with T-shirt counts. Hold on, let me immediately take that back. You don't. The whole joy of them is they're indiscriminate use. Listen, one person, hurry their leg, is not enough, Andy, to stop that kind of fun. That's not a feminist, I mean, what noble way to get injured. No, it's the applying.
Starting point is 00:37:43 You're basically going to Valhalla. That's... As long as you don't mind spending eternity with some very rough-looking Nordic Vikings, go for it. Well, due to us overrunning again, and the utter misery of global news, We're going to wrap it up there. For this week, Bugleers, we'll be back next week with Bugle 246. In the meantime, I will see you all at the Soho Theatre from Monday to Saturday for the next two weeks for my show. And you can see John back in the ranks on the daily so we used we used to do ceremonially have some badges ripped off.
Starting point is 00:38:27 Yeah that's good. Change is a full change of the guard and and then that you know I do I put a sword either side of his shoulder I think I thought I was about to kill him, he knows happening. So we'll be back next week until then Bughlers I'll do check out our SoundCloud page SoundCloud.com slash the hyphen bugle Don't forget to take out your voluntary subscription at the buglepodcast.com where you can also get our merch And we're hoping to have some more some new lines of failure. Is that they said technical partners? Yes In the hopefully not too distant not too distant future. So um, bye bye Bye and to all our Syrian listeners good luck and so on in the hopefully not too distant future. So, um, bye bye. Bye!
Starting point is 00:39:06 And to all our Syrian listeners, good luck and sorry. Yeah, all the best. All the best. That's as meaningless as what we're about to do to you. you

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.