The Bugle - After 443 years Sark finally gets democracy

Episode Date: January 21, 2008

The 13th ever episode of The Bugle, from 2008. Written and presented by Andy Zaltzman and John OliverThis is a classic episode from The Bugle, to support us, and to keep the Bugle alive and free of ads, please visit http://thebuglepodcast.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 support the Danciler Guard Reader. The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world. Hello, Bughlers and welcome to edition 13 of the Bughal the Week beginning Monday, the 21st of January, 2008.

The 13th Bughal will it prove to be unlucky? Will John and I still be alive at the end of the recording? Time will tell. Hello from me, Andy Zolksman in London and from John Oliver in New York City. Hello Bueglers hope you're all well although statistically I know that's probably not true. So as always with the Buegl the unique audio newspaper some sections do go straight in the bin. This week a commemorative three hour prose poem about the plane which nearly crashed at Heathrow last week.

What does a plane nearly crashing mean for us as a species? That's very much the subtext. I was under the understanding that plane did not nearly crash, did it actually crash? Well John, it kind of half crashed. It was a plane tinkle. In terms of, if you got a crash of symbols and a tinkle of symbols, this was very much a tinkle of a plane crash I'll be very interested to see if the passengers onboard that plane thought oh that was just a tinkel as it was smashing across the

run but some of them did apparently they just thought it was a bumpy landing I guess it is one of those what if stories and what if another plane had been crashing in the same place at the same time it could have got really nasty also in the bin a pop-up guide to have to choose the right allergy for your child. Top story this week and Bush's trip to the Middle East is finally over. President George W. Bush returned back to the United States from the Middle East this week. I presume that if he is coming back, there must be peace there now. So congratulations to the former most volatile area on earth. I hope you're enjoying your new fan piece and a busy thinking about what kind of thank you present to buy for Bush.

Well, it's wonderful news, isn't it, that's, you know, his Middle East tourist comes to end with thousands of years of God-induced grudges resulting one carefully staged managed whistle-stopping Stravaganza of attempted legacy creation. So well done to our stuffy but when you hear his his simple come on everyone sorted out message you wonder why no one's thought of that before. In one of his interviews there he said I'm sure people view me as a war monger, I view myself as a peacemaker. And to be fair to him, that is half true.

He's 50% right there, and that's already a step up from being 100% wrong. In a speech in Abu Dhabi Bush called on the Middle East to embrace democracy, and said it was the best way to defeat extremism, although recent history has shown that in fact, democracy is the best way to elect extremism. So that may well backfire. How do you think history will judge Bush's little jaunt around the Middle East? Well, he's already excited on that because he said this week

when history was written that it would judge America as having helped the world. So he's pretty much already decided on that by talking about current history in the past tense. Alright. Did he actually finish that sentence? America's helped the world dot dot dot. I can't remember. Yeah, it's right. To the brink of annihilation. Taken the world by the hand, walked it up to the edge of the cliff and gone.

Look, it turned out that bringing peace to the region wasn't the only reason for Jordan Condoleezer's exotic jaunt. He also wanted to, and I quote, jawbone, the Saudis, into lowering oil prices. It's very nicely put, because they responded to his jawbone, by not lowering their prices at all. It seems that in the complicated world of oil trade, you might need a fractionally more sophisticated approach than the classic jawbone. What is jawbone. What is jawbone in John? It sounds like some arcane sexual practice. I'm not qualified to say that, maybe it is. You live in New York, the home of arcane sexual

practices. That's true. I was presuming that it was just talking to them until they broke, but you're right, maybe I'm not giving enough credit, maybe it is an arcane sexual practice. And he was willing to go on with them and say I will and I'm not going to enjoy it but I will jawbone the Saudis for oil. Really? No one's jawbone to anyone since 1814. He made some interesting claims on his trip. He said that Iran threatens the security of nations everywhere. Now this was meant with a range of reactions going from, no it doesn't, does it are you sure and Iran? No you must be thinking of someone else. All the way to, I'm sorry George, what was

that you said? It sounded like wolf, wolf, wolf. I think when history judges George W. Bush, it won't be so much as the boy who cried wolf as the man who promoted wolf the musical and promised us a theatrical extravaganza with a cast of a thousand animatronic dancing robot chickens and especially tuned Marlon Brando as wolf he also did even managed to fit in and the a $20 billion arm's deal whilst he was over there and I think you'll find that's actually in the rough guide tourist brochure for the Middle East don't leave without sealing a major arm feel. You just haven't had the whole experience otherwise. Local food and massive arms deals. That's the local flavour. I guess yeah it shows that Bush has got more than one strings his political bow because as well as

bringing peace to the Middle East he's brought a bit more potential war as well. So you've got to balance these things out. I'm sure it will work the history of the history and the illustrious history of selling weapons to despotic regimes. It's never backfired. Why will it start now? One interesting side issue that came out of this is that if he trace bushes root around the Middle East, it makes the shape of the ancient Egyptian hieroglyph for Hippocrite. And he's coming across as a bit of a political equivalent of Scrooge, John. He's been visited by the ghost of TV documentary's future and shown a horrific vision of what his legacy will be seen to be. And now he suddenly started trying to do something about it.

It's like a slightly twisted version of It's a Wonderful Life where Clarence The Angel would come down and showbush the future if he hadn't been in it. And then stand awkwardly, he went, sorry about that, it would actually have been a lot better had you never been born. What have you say about Bush in the Middle East? There is increasingly compelling evidence that his global drive towards democracy is chugging forward. The island of Sark, one of the famous channel islands between Britain and France, for those who have never heard of it, is to go democratic by the end of the year, ending 443 years of despotism on an island with a population of 600 people.

Sark has been under pressure apparently from the European Commission on Human Rights. Good to see they're using their time and resource as well. Great days for Sark, John. Well that's what I'm 418 out of the maximum 600 residents voted for democracy. And so that's right, they've waited nearly 450 years and only managed to maintain a 60% turn-out. This election took nearly 500 years to come around and 40% of them couldn't be bothered to get out of bed But you know it is a long way to get to the polling station seeing as the island is only two square miles Yeah, but you're not allowed a car John the current senior is that how you pronounce it senior? Let's say it is Michelle Beaumont it was being in charge for the last 33 years as not yet made it clear whether he will now be stripped of his

Remaining feudal rights those being that's he's currently the only person in sock who can keep pigeons and unspayed female dogs. Let's not eat. If they let him keep pigeons, they haven't finished this revolution properly. It would have been like if the Romanians had let Chow Chesgu keep himself alive. It's just not the same. Also, he has the right to all debories washed up between high and low tides. Is that true? He does, according to No Lettersource and Wookieed Pedia, this is the right which is quote, seldom enforced. Seldom's not never.

I would love him to stage a bloody coup now, Andy. Or they do a massive civil war. Like you say, there are no cars on the island. You should just buy himself a tank It could be the smallest dictatorship on the planet. Well, it seems to me to say this should be a coup because in 1991 A Frenchman launched a one-man invasion of Sark with a semi-automatic weapon But it failed and he was arrested after made the schoolboy military tactical error of sitting on a bench for a while It was a one man invasion. He decided he got up one more and he thought I'll invade a nation. Unfortunately I guess Sark has no oil reserves so therefore this is not a big story in the world. Otherwise I've got to feel it would have been quite a big one.

Yeah that's the way the media works. If we have any sock listeners, which I'm willing to bet we don't. But if we do, please do email in and let us know how democracy is going over there. Finally, good environmental news from the White House. At the White House, recently this week, admitted recycling it back up computer tapes of emails sent before October 2003. They released a statement a few minutes before midnight on Tuesday under a court imposed deadline to reveal information it refused to provide. And the email tapes could include information on the events which led to the leaking of

CIA agent Valerie Plains' name or indeed the War in Iraq. And this is a huge commitment to recycling. How dare people claim that the Bush administration doesn't care about environmental issues. They care so much, they're even willing to break the law. In fact, I believe this was a clause signed into the recent Barley Treaty. The US will meet targets for email deletion and document treading, all of which will be recycled out of all recognition. And if that doesn't get, polar bears balancing on slightly bigger pieces of ice I don't know what will.

Heroes, heroes to a man, John. They're like a real green piece. Where's the, where's their award? Where's the consistency Andy? Algo gets a Nobel Prize, they're getting nothing but snarkiness. I think Bush probably deserves at least a Grammy for this. Science now and buglers, it is always exciting to report scientific breakthroughs that people may have missed and this week we've had very much one of those occasions.

The scientists announced that they've developed a computer program which can translate the box of dogs. This is absolutely huge and I can only hope and pray that this project was publicly funded. The breakthrough came at the University of Hungary, great university. The computer attempted to identify words such as stranger, fight, walk, alone, ball, and play, and the computer got it right, a whopping 43% of the time. 43% accuracy. Is that enough, John? Is that enough? I mean, I know it's good enough for the British legal system in the 1970s, the USA Air Force and Steve Hormason, but I would say that that's not enough for science. It's plenty for science. So it does mean that even with this technology more than half the time you don't know what your dog is whoothing about But we may have found the solution to that in that we have an expert with us in the studio

Indeed we do we're John by the Emeritus Professor of Animal Translatic's from University College Nantwich Karen Hayley, Karen. Thanks very much University College Nantwich, Karen Hayley, Karen, thanks very much for coming in. Now we've been out interviewing a number of animals for the bugle this week. Could you possibly tell us what it is that they're saying? Yes, of course. Let's have a listen to this dog first of all. Please get that microphone out of my face. your puny little machine cannot possibly comprehend the complexity of my thoughts now throw me that ball and shut up Call it call a stoppy dog. Yeah, well, you know when there's a ball to be thrown You don't want a microphone in your face. We have another dog here. Can you let us know what this dog is saying? woof

woof woof woof Oh right just the standard woofing from that dog Seems that way yes, okay fine. That right, just the standard woofing from that dog. Seems that way, yes. Okay, fine, that's fine. Now we have a cat. Here, can you let us know what this cat is saying? Please drop the audio crossword, it's causing cat pain. What? If you care at all about cat, the audio crossword must stop now.

Ah, that's a good point cat. Absolute rot. I hold the entire feline community in utter contempt. What about, what is this elephant saying now we went to London to record it's the elephant? Stick it, Cat. I love the audio crossword. When you've learnt to stop looking your own area, your opinion will carry more weight. Bang on the banana, elephant. Absolutely bang on.

Elephants have famous really small brains, and I think that's the perfect example of it there. They may be small relative to the size of their heads, but they're still bigger than yours, whatever they be. This is from a chicken. Though I may be a mere chicken, he'd my clocks. The subprime mortgage crisis is about to cause a massive global economics lowdown. My fellow chickens in China wish to warn you that not even they may be able to pull you out of this one,

he'd our clocks. And I enjoy this comfort and companionship of living in a battery. In fact, I find the constant feather contact mildly arousing. Interesting that that very economically informed chicken was a battery farm chicken. Organic chickens really just tend to clock on about day-to-day seeds and pecking. Much more intellectual chickens you get in battery farming, although it's an awkward truth. It is. Well, it's like being you know hot-house together in in a university doesn't it you know a lot of exchange of ideas whereas the free range is wandering around on your own probably thinking about golf. To delve further into this we actually went down to Battersea Dogs home in London to find out what the dogs collectively were talking about. Karen can you talk us

through what they're saying in this extract here? Oh, oh, oh, whatever you feel on the right and wrongs are going to a war in a rap, I think you have to acknowledge that the drop search has been a success. Hold on there, Parker! The slight Madoxan in violence could have been caused by an enumer of factors, and let's not be too picked to attribute it to the surge. Oh, oh, I do insist on seeing the bad in the situation here. Don't, what that mean I'm not. Oh, you're going to be put down this week anyway. Hey, hey, settle down. They still fall out over the rack again. Hey, pause up who wants to go and lie down under the car while it's still warm, yeah?

That has completely changed my view on K9 behaviour. They must have CNN pumped into their kennel 24 hours a day and that involves some background reading because that's not just received opinion from those dogs. Karen, thank you very much for fascinating glimpse into modern science. You're welcome. And now the Bugle Legal section, some wonderful stories in the world of law this week. In particular, a Sri Lankan man, DP James, has been released after 50 years on Ramam's without going to trial. He was arrested in 1957 for stabbing his father, sent to a psychiatric

hospital, and forgotten about. For 50 years, apparently he didn't understand the legal system, so he never complained Which only goes to show you must know your rights. It is crucially important He has however now been released on bail that is on bail They didn't just let him go they demanded 50,000 rupees That's 235 British pounds or approximately35,000 or approximately $50,000 USD. Kaboom, it's the first exchange rate joke for a couple of weeks, I think. It's true. They're like Italian army jokes, they'll just never go away.

On bail, just in case he goes out and stabs his father again. He's now probably dead by natural causes, father. And finally in our law section, the Diana Inquest, latest, well, it's like the plot of a great who-done it in which no one done it other than velocity and Gallic road culture. And a wall. It's touched on various tedious and irrelevant issues. I wonder what else the Inquest is going to cover John. I want to know whether we'll find out through this inquest issue, such as Wasdiana, planning to have the buffet breakfast the next day or room service.

I guess from what we know of her state of mind at the time, she might have preferred the flexibility of the buffet breakfast and the greater volume control you get with that, rather than the luxury of room service and the greater volume control you get with that rather than the luxury of room service and the possibility of cold toast that comes with it. Yeah, there are conspiracy theorists around that Prince Philip had ordered in a breakfast for her from outside, not poisoned it, just ordered it in, trying to make a fat. It does make you nostalgic this whole foragege on for the days when the royal family could just bump each other off without anyone batting an eyelid. Absolutely. And you know, you just kill one of your family and just say, well, that's

just the way the cookie crumbles. That is just what happens in history. Surely, legally, if it comes to it, the royal family could just cite a historical precedent. Yeah. There must be somewhere in law, just the fact that, yeah, what Regina versus Regina, they were slaughtering each other years ago, and everyone was perfectly happy with that. Yeah. Why change a winning formula? Prince Philip, according to Law of Butler Paul Barrow,

there's no chance that he could have been behind the plots, but he has bumps off a number of other people, including Robert Kennedy, Paul Potts, that was following a dispute over a game of dominoes, Brian Jones, Janice Joplin, Jimmy Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and John Bonham. He just hated 60s and early 70s rock music and people whose names involve for letter J. He wasn't just a talker, he was a doer. But he got away with it because everyone was concentrating on his racist comments. It's the perfect crime. Now it's the emails page of the bugle and this

week email inbox has been inundated with a concerted campaign orchestrated it's seen as by a Liz Henley from Buckinghamshire to have the 22nd of January declared John Oliver and Andy Zoltzman day. We don't know if this is a compliment or A threat but thanks anyway Liz and all your friends who have asked the 22nd of January Which has been dubbed the most depressing of the year right and also a check on wiki pedea and very little of significance happened On 22nd of January in history apart from the death of Queen Victoria, who Liz says, my personal hot-y from history. I love a woman in black woof. I have to say as well, the pictures and statues of Queen Victoria make that a very hard argument to win. Yes,

although if you are a breast man, John, she would not have let you down. I think I felt something moving more stomachs. That's just a fact. Oh, I'm a different man as the man I was before I heard that sentence. That's a year dot for me, Andy. Everything changed. People say they always remember where they were at certain moments in history. You know, the assassination of JFK, the funeral of JFK,

the opening of JFK airport, and of JFK, the opening of JFK airport and the premiere of Oliver Stone's controversial film Natural Born Killer. But for me, I will always remember what I was when you made a lute comment about Queen Victoria. Well, I went lute on, I was merely saying that we should celebrate her achievements, not only as a state's woman and monarch, but also as a woman. I don't even often clear Jacobs on the lines of this campaign for John Oliver and Andy's ultimate day being the most depressing day of the year. And she says, hello John, hello Andy, I have a special request for you to my best friends

birthday is next Tuesday January the 22nd. Liz also mentions a number of other random days check your batteries day which is the 9th of March and cook something bold and pungent day the 8th of November. So if there are any days you'd like to see other than John Oliver and Andy's Holtzman Day then then then do email us in the bugle at times on line.co.uk. This email comes in from Corey Tomkins in Michigan was a bit disheartened this past Monday while listening to your show, when John made the claim that one Jesus Christ travelled

to Bethlehem via helicopter. I found the historical inaccuracies in this comment astounding and felt that I must reply to correct this frighteningly careless mistake. It is well known that Jesus flew in economy during his plane flights to and from Bethlehem. And I believe the plane was in the control of Pontius Pilate. Oh, what a joke! Oh, one bounce, four. What a joke! Well-documented continues, Corey, with copious amounts of empirical evidence.

Is the final supper on flight 316 on Jesus' way back to Jerusalem, consisting of packets of honey-roasted peanuts and each apostles own choice of carbonated beverage. There's a good email here from Lauren Parker from Queen's University Kingston, Ontario. Dear John and Andy, I've recently been accepted to participate in an exchange program with the University of Bath, and I hope to get some tips on getting used to living in the UK. For example, I've heard of a chip-buttty sandwich, and I fear that it's actually a common food. Please God tell me that it's not. We share your fear. If you want to retain the

vote in Britain, you must have chip butties once a day. We suggest that you make a will and eat a lot of salad before you come here. She actually has a nominated with a potty from history Pierre Trudeau, Canada's 15th Prime Minister. He gave us our charter of rights and freedoms, wore sandals in the House of Commons, and even once pirouetted behind the Queen, all this while being a certified sex bomb. If he's not a historic hotty, I don't want to know what it is. That's all very well. I'm not going to allow that nomination for Trudeau as a hotty from history. On the grounds that, that history is too recent. I can co- with that.

I believe that is almost a hotty from current current affairs and that is simply beyond the pile. That's a different calendar. This email comes from Nicholas Davies who writes a question for the American who we're hoping to have back in next week. Why is America renowned for being obese? When you have the world's greatest sauna in death valley. Instead of universal health here, couldn't the government just ship the fat people to Death Valley for a fortnight every year? John, any of the candidates in the election are going to be bold

enough to go with that as a policy. I don't think so, but the thing is I do think you know lots of them are starting to resign now, that resigned from the campaign and it just seems a really low way to go out just saying oh I'm not in it anymore you may as well come up with something absolutely crazy like that. Go out on a high. Just say, I also propose, and I haven't mentioned this so far in my campaign, that we bus fat people to Death Valley for two weeks a year. I hereby resign my nomination for President of the United States.

Do that. Come up with something good. Come out in style. Exactly. Or come on. for President of the United States. Do that! Come up with something good. Exactly. Or, come on, ritual Roman style suicide. What are the two? So if there are any policies you'd like to see and obviously losing candidates suggest email them in. The bugle at TimesOnline.co.uk.

The best of the rest of your emails will be rounded up in the Bugle blog, which is entering week three of its short but heroic life, also on the Bugle page at www.tonsonline.co.uk, you can get access to the full print edition of the Bugle and the audio cryptic crossword so far with all the clues, including this week's coming up later in the history of mankind, Kevin Keegan is back as manager of Newcastle United. Pay attention, American listeners, this is a genuinely fantastic story. It is an appointment purely from the heart by the board of Newcastle

United and in a era of sport where it's governed by finance and business. This is a kind of romantic appointment that really gives football a shot ride up its ass where it frankly needed it. It's one of the great sports in comebacks and the possibly only rival by Jesus the famous water polo player who physically died and then came back to life to of course win the all-bethlehem water polo title. Well in fact we did ask what sports you thought Jesus would be good at last week. Garath Caradig suggests that Jesus would be a hot tit for water skiing roll and water polo. The man doesn't even need skis, he writes, confident, bordering on cocky if you ask me,

little dig at the prominent Christian Messiah, and Bobby Kukols gives us some reasons why Jesus can't play rugby. His headgear is illegal, he's only got 12 men, which is only when he can't play rugby union. Of course, 12 men plus Jesus would make a very solid rugby league team. The goalposts give him flashbacks. At what point was Jesus crucified on an H-shaped cross? He can't support a hooker, nice pun. He's got holes in his hands. His dad would fix the games. Would he? Hasn't he got better things to do? And he's dead. Is he Bobby? Is he Bobby? A lot of people around the world would disagree. Another great comeback in the world of sport is Tony Blair. He wants to come back as EU President. Oh god.

Finish the job he started on Britain. Well done, Keegan. The bugle wishes you the very greatest absolute thing. I am a bit concerned about one aspect of this, John. And that is the lack of opportunity for foreign managers at any premiership club outside the big four. How are the promising European managers supposed to get a job in the premiership now when it seems to be sewn up with local managers?

I think it's absolutely appalling. News from the Australia tennis open. Tennis riots. That's right. Tennis riots. This is an incredible commitment to who looking is a handy. And as a British person, I appreciate that. To riot at a tennis match is extremely difficult. There's something about the monotonous rhythm of a ball being hit backwards and forwards, the metronomic sopper of thick sound which is like being hypnotized, it's like being lulled to sleep and to

whoologonize under those conditions is extra ordinary. I really think there should be more riots at tennis matches, it would really give it a lift. And Snooker as well, I think that's, I think there should be more rights at tennis matches. It would really give it a lift. And Snooker as well. I think that's, I think we'd all pay to see a Snooker match. Just going on sedately, whilst there was absolute carnage in the background. One of my favourite sporty moments, Andy, is when we went to see Jimmy White against Rodeo Sullivan.

Do you remember that? Oh, yeah. And people were shouting, come on Jimmy, come on Rodeo. And there was a pause and you screamed, come on Snooker. You were right that day. And you're still right now. Great, highlight of my career. And finally in sport, a piece watch update

from the world of ice hockey, there was a game in the Russian league between Akba's and Tractore, which featured a fight that went on for so long that they stopped in the middle for a football match. We might be bringing peace to the Middle East. It appears that there is no hope of peace in ice hockey. And now we are on to the award-winning audio cryptic crossword section. How many more? How many more are they? Just give me a number. Well how long is a piece of string is it three no it's 17

clues long those who are skeptical about the audio cryptic cross i do you might want to think about the book of revelations in the bible which is clearly just a collection of cryptic crossword clues pieced together by a board sub editor for example great haw who sit if upon the scarlet beast that's clearly a crossword clue bab Babylon the Great is fallen. Now the word that clearly means it's an anagram and it's become the habitation of devils. So it's probably an anagram of Babylon the Great meaning somewhere where devils live. And also to make war against him that sat on the horse. Do you think it's blasphemous to imply that the Bible is basically a cryptic crossword? No, just revelations.

Revelations is fair game, John. Really? You don't think something to have a problem with that at the purly gates? Even the post. The crossword, of course, it wasn't. Even the Pope basically thinks revelations is a novelty calendar. So this week's clue, brace yourselves, it's 20 down, it's six letters long and it's really a clue that shows how they're different perspectives on the people we view as celebrities.

One man's hero is another man's dustbin. And the clue is this. Greek God or a chicken from Italy, question mark, six letters, 20 down. There you go, John. Can you get that one? No, I refuse to get it. Go back to school on this time, pay more attention. So do tune into the Buegel next week where there will be a food section, the return of Ask an American, so get questions in if you want to ask you anything. And the start of profile pieces on all the main presidential candidates. And the Buegel prediction this week is that I will not be alone in not doing my tax return

in time for the 31st of January deadline. You like the spring finish with the tax return, don't you? I like the chest throw for the line. I like the dip for the tape. So thanks for listening and we'll let you again next week. Keep your emails coming in the Vuegal at times online.co.uk. Goodbye. Stay strong. What? I don't know. next week keep your email coming in the google at times online dot com dot uk goodbye stay strong what