The Bugle - Bonus Bugle - Last Post and 104

Episode Date: February 22, 2020

Andy introduces a recent issue of The Last Post with Andy Zaltzman and Alice Fraser, and a revisits a classic episode with John OliverSubscribe to The Last Post: http://pod.link/TheLastPost 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, Bugleers and welcome to Buggl issue 4141 subissue A. We're taking the week off this week for one or more of the following reasons.

A. Half term strok holiday. B. My final attempt to qualify for the GB Olympic freestyle skateboarding team. C. I'm announcing my entry into the Democratic Party presidential race. D. Joining an expedition to try to find the elusive third pole, it's out there somewhere, I know it's going to be way more commercial exploitable than either the north or the south. E, gardening leave, or F, some high level espionage that I really cannot talk about right now, suffice it to say that if it's true what everyone says about the Moscow map, I've said enough. Anyway, instead of a full bugle, what you're about to listen to is an episode of the last

post. The last post, if you've not heard it, is the first addition to our enormous, beautiful, new stable and is hosted by Alice Fraser. It's a daily satire show which has travelled across to us from a parallel universe. In this episode, Alice chats with a celebrity called Andy's Oldman about a crisis that has hit the city of London, a hidden tribe of ancient Britons has been discovered, underneath the city, and no one knows what to do about it. Hello, posters, and welcome to the last post, the final word on this, the most final of

worlds. And today is the 12th of February of the year 2020 Happy Birthday today in 1809 to both Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin twin originators of both the movie sliding doors and respectively the idea of evolution and a figurehead of the nation that holds the biggest number of intelligent design anti-evolution theorists on earth but only one of them has a car named after him. Do you know the rapper Chuck D took his name from Charles Dulley? It's really into birds, was he? Celebrations today include national club pudding day, a dish that most of us only know through the vector of fairy tales, and your guest today is Mr.

Andrew Zodzman recently back from his vivisection tour of the UK. Well, I don't think that his vivisection tour just had a few incidents on the roads with some slow learning badges. Yeah, well, it was that habit of yours of strapping blades to the wheels of your tour bus like Bodica. Well, that's what we voted for Brexit for, isn't it? Back to good British forms of transport. The bladed wheeled chariot being, of course, one of them. Coming up, we'll be talking all the biggest bigotry news in the under-London revelations, but first, some headlines.

In the news today, in the wake of Prime Minister Scott Morrison's Saturday afternoon announcement that Australia will be introducing new control measures that will see all non-Australians travelling from mainland China barred entry at the border, concerns arising that coronavirus-based Chinese racism is not a victimless crime, as proposed travel bans against Chinese nationals have come up against the reality of international economic interdependency in the fact that Chinese tourists bring in $12 billion a year to the Australian economy. The media is calling the ban unprecedented despite the fact that Chinese tourists bring in $12 billion a year to the Australian economy. The media is calling the ban unprecedented, despite the fact that we did have a wide Australia policy for a while. A quick sport story, Alessandro.

I know you're not that into sport, but the Olympics are, apparently, they're going to include online hate speeches, a demonstration sport in the 2024 Olympics in Riyadh. How will they score that similar to sort of rhythmic gymnastics? Yeah, I mean it's a mixture of technical merit and artistic impression and vitriol. But the thing is it's quite interesting because there's a lot of discussion about what sport shouldn't be in the Olympics and people say it's not really a sport, but it is global, it doesn't need high-tech equipment, such it's quite an equal sport for lots of missions. Everyone's interested even if they don't want to be. That's right, and

people would love to watch it. So, I mean, why have rowing, which has none of those things, rather than online hate speech? I mean, the thing that rowing does have is occasionally when they're standing on the pontoons in their suits, they will all get boners at the same time. Right. I mean, you used to do a lot of rowing, Alice. I did indeed. Take your work at that. And Mars Prison Colony, Warrisers, recently, Chase Bank has claimed a number of Mars convicts who have been freed have hacked into a bank from a small satellite orbiting Mars.

They claim it isn't a victimless crime as it is only a matter of time before these criminals branch out from big-time bank crime to small personal annoyance crime when Spammers will catch on and we start having to feel emails from Alpha Centaurian Princes with implausible inheritances and cut-price sea alas from the dark side of Uranus. Hot signgles are in your quadrant of the galaxy and they want to chat. And that is your headlines for today. It's time for your classified ad. Now remember you can submit an ad by email to

the last post at something else.com. Smooth FM Easy Listening Radio has branched out to passive aggressive song dedications. Love, love song dedications, but have a heart full of loathing. Download the Smooth FM app and as it's uploading, make sure to clatter the dishes in your sink in a really pointed way and the intelligent app design will register your feelings and allow you to make dedications that say,

I love you, but Smooth FM Easy Listening Radio love love song dedications that say, I love you, but... Smooth FM Easy Listening Radio love love song dedications in passive-aggressive song form. What is it good for? Absolutely everything! Half a glass of water. And that is your ads for today. The Last Post! And your top story today, of course. It's all the newest news in the Under London news, Andy.

What has happened to London? Well, it's very dramatic, isn't it? And, um, we're talking about the transport issues the other day. And, well, clearly, it's got way out of hand now. And, um, yeah, I mean, the controversy of exactly who, who these people are, why, where they've been all this, have they been there, how wrong have they been them? And there's an awful lot of unsubstantiated rumors going around.

I mean, the argument that they are, in fact, the pits seems to have been born out by the delegation coming back with square-headed axes, but bronze iron axes. Yeah, but anyone can make an ax. I mean, how do you test for pic tissueness? Can you do a blood test? Is it, right, okay.

Well, that's, I mean, that was the British hieroglyph, wasn't it? And after an early surge in sort of unity among the British people in excitement about these new underlanders being potentially the solution to Brexit trade woes, Piers Morgan and Nigel Farage have once more sort of taken a step back and have decided that these are a threat to the sanctity of British people. Right. And there's bigotry, of course, surging up among among Londoners and and outside London who are not obviously part of this, but uh... Did the Victorians not when they were building the London Underground?

It's basically how they filled up all those museums with interesting ancient stuff. Was that some kind of deal they made with the pixel in the 1858 and 1660s when they were? I mean we do not have the documents it's all extremely worrying. I think because clearly they must have found, I mean there is this rumor, isn't it, that the Victoria line was already existing. People are now saying that was a pic, you know, a pictorial. Pickedish tunnel, yeah. Tunnel. And you and they were ready made tunnels with air shafts, and obviously they just described it to the will of God. But at the time the Victorians were very good at that and also ignoring things that they

didn't like. The thing that I'm really worried about for today's episode is the bigotry that's coming out, the fear, you know, and we saw this with the coronavirus people wearing masks around Chinese people, the man in Australia died while having a heart attack because people were too worried about the risk of infection to give him CPR. And now people are looking at but masks for their toilets, as though these pics are going to come up through the toilets and get their bottoms. I mean, it's a surge in these but masks and people are walking around in the streets wearing these ridiculous but masks. Well, it's sort of the

new Southern Cross tattoo, if you know that in Australia or whatever you guys, the George's and George's Cross thing, but now it's a butt mask. What have I been waiting for? I mean, because they obviously thought we're going to hold out to the Romans have gone, and then, but at no point thought, no. Well, it's possible that the Romans leaving, they realize that the Romans had left when Brexit happened. Right, okay, so it's a communication issue. Yeah, communication issue.

Well, I mean, that's a- We're not coming out to assure the Romans. Literally the EU left, including Italy, which carries Rome with it. Okay. And they must have read about it in a discarded newspaper and thought at last. Right. So I guess, yeah, because I mean, if the way you're working out is by over here in conversations

and the language, the change is not like the Romans left overnight, is it? No. So they wouldn't have, it's almost too slow a process, so we're not going to suddenly go back to speaking whatever we're speaking in. Well, people kept using bards and roads, didn't they? You know, so they didn't rid themselves of the shackles of Roman occupation entirely. I don't like the way that Farage has turned against them,

because I mean, essentially, he's been saying that unless you can prove that someone in your family personally dragged a blue stone from wilds to stonehenge, you're not really British. And yet, these people, I mean, they're more British than any of us in many ways. Well, this was the thing initially, we all thought that it was going to be like a new phase of unity online with people who were, you know, propicked and in this way of cultural exchange and for our seem to be very

pro-picked in their, in their Britishness, but he's taking a step back from that position and says, in fact, that he never trusted them. And he's always been wearing a butt mask even under his pants. And in many ways but they should be seen as an inspiration to us that you know in these kind of Brexit times that they've managed to maintain existence for thousands of years in you know complete literal darkness so and we can do it in metaphorical darkness they can do it in literal darkness we should see that as a well I mean I think the way that we will start broadly as a society to accept the pictures as part of us is when some of them turn out to be really really good at sports

we can bump up our national sports teams with them. Why would they really good at flame wars Andy when you were still in big sports? Yeah, It is possible. I mean it is a pretty sick burn to just disappear for a thousand years. It's tricky isn't it to say because you know the general trope of the insular xenophob is go back where you came from but clearly that's exactly where they as is generally the case. Exactly where underneath London, I mean. That's what they've always been. They don't seem to be wanting to come out anytime soon, or certainly not until we figure out some sort of treaty delegations continue to go in and come out.

But we're not being informed as the people, we are not being informed of these processes, very non-transparent process. And I think that's one of the reasons why people are getting so angry and so worried, particularly about their butt health. Right. I mean, it is a time of uncertainty and confusion, and I think this has really added to it in a very striking and unexpected way. Well, I've one of been poking Mars bars down the drain in order to appreciate them in case they turn out to be a hostile force.

What, so offerings of goodwill? Yeah, offerings of goodwill in the form of Mars Bank. Yeah, but I mean, I think it's something I think we should probably embrace it as a nation. Yeah, there's too much hostility in the world and I think, when you find a lost civilisation living under your own capital city, then your duty bounds to be true. Yeah, and isn't it the most British thing having an upstairs and a downstairs? Exactly, exactly. Just need some bells so we can summon up snacks from them. News is still emerging from the under-London city

that we are still figuring out how we're going to engage with or going across to our reporter on the scene, John Hastings, who is standing by to let us know all the latest development, John, what's going on down there? Alice is quite a time. I'm inside a weather spoon that's inside another weather spoon. Of course, inside a Predamanger cup, inside of an Argos dressing room. Renigel Farage has just announced that he is back to being pro-picked after being against the picks and then pro-picked. No one's really sure what's caused this flip flop, but we all know it's because of his Fishman heritage. Oh, what's that? He is now against the pics. No one's really sure what's caused this flip flop but we all know it's because of this Fishman heritage. Oh, what's that? He is now against the pics. No one's really

sure why he's here or what is going on. But Lord knows it's a delightful distraction from any quote unquote actual issues facing Britain. Well, certainly figuring out how to integrate these people into the societies is playing into Nigel Farage's opinion because he was all for them when he thought they might be Tory voters and now he's against them now that it's considered they might be a drain on the welfare system. You bring up a good point. Polish people all across the UK are rejoicing and that they are no longer the scapegoat for every decision conservative politicians have made.

The picks have already been blamed for a lack of employment and also arise in unemployment and also arise in hiring unemployment and also a rise in hiring within the United Kingdom. The NHS has already reported that they need more nurses and this is being blamed on the picked people's refusal to get into nurse costumes and just pretending to actually be nurses. The Matt is facing a rampant amount of strain because they're not sure if they're allowed to police underground based on a variety of treaties that were signed under Henry VIII that have been uncovered in the Pitch Society.

I mean, that is all the latest happening there down at the edge of the central line. I'll say I hate to interrupt you, but Milo Yananopoulos and Tommy Robinson have just arrived and declared the Pitch people to be the greatest threat to ever face Britain ever since the invention of alcohol and train delays. It's very, oh Gary Barlow has arrived and just announced that he's forming a take that spin off group called take picked. Lord knows their benefit concert will be formed soon. Let's all hope earplugs reach us quickly. Thank you so much for that. Later, on the scene, John Hastings, you'll be there all week. I hope you're all right. I know you have not been sleeping because you've been giving us coverage 24 hours a day,

but we will see as this news emerges and we'll talk to you again tomorrow. I look forward to it, Alice. Now if you excuse me, I'm going to have what's known as an open eye-sleep, which is where I stare forward into a bare light bulb and try not to soil myself. There's no time for your letters to the editor today or rather they were so full of bigotry and fear about the underlanders that none of them are worth speaking. But we'll have more letters tomorrow when we come back. Thank you for listening to the last post today. You can listen again tomorrow.

If you have not done so before, please tune in to our previous editions. They go back for about ten years. Your guest today was Mr. Andrew Zoltzman, Andy, have you got anything to plug? Well, it depends on my first ever underground gig in London goes. You're doing an underground gig. Is this with the jazz or? Well, it's a mixture of comedy music and cabaret for the for the pics. It's a bridge building exercise and if it goes well, put out a recording for public sale. Bridge building or tunnel building? and if it goes well, we'll put out a recording for public sale. But I don't know what I'm doing. But I don't know what I'm doing. Just don't know what their sense of humor is.

Because I mean, obviously, British sense of humor is a core British value, and it hasn't changed since the dawn of time. But you do think, you know, has been living underground for 2,000 years as a civilization changed what you find funny. I imagine it probably must have done. Probably must have done. Well, we have to wait for them to send a delegation out. So far the delegations have all been one way. But I'm looking forward to seeing you coming out the other side. I still haven't seen a picture of a picked. Well, ironically. Ironically. Yeah. I mean, they just draw themselves, right? I think so.

Drawing themselves. You can find me on Twitter or Instagram at a liturative ALITERATIVEE. And my tickets are on sale for Kronos. on themselves. to you again tomorrow. We'll be back next week, until then, goodbye. Top story this week, and while the 11th of February 2010, it was a very special 20th anniversary this year, commemorating an event that shook the world, and event people couldn't really believe was actually happening, a shock whose aftermath reverberates to this day. Mike Tyson was knocked out by Buster Douglas.

And on the undercarb that day, Nelson Mandela was let out of jail. He must have thought what power I have in these fists I'm not Mike Tyson out. Next thing we know Nelson Mandela is walking down the street. So what were you doing on the electric debris in 1990? That is interesting. It's not like Nelson Mandela's release became one of those where we used moments. So everyone remembers what they were doing when he took those first steps for freedom. Personally, I remember watching it on my parents black and white TV in our

kitchen, and I was at that age where not only did I realise that this was a major moment of history for the world, but I also knew this was probably going to delay lunch. I was old enough to understand the gravitas at the moment, not quite old enough to handle that gravitas in an appropriate manner. How long is this sandwich gonna be delayed, you think? Are we talking 30 minutes or up? Because if so, I'm gonna try and eat a biscuit on the sly.

What's it all I was doing? I was being born. Oh no, sorry, I'm mixing myself up with Princess Ayabint Alphysal of Jordan. No, what I was actually doing, John, of course, it was a special day for me as well. It's my ninth birthday, and I was very excited. I was wondering why everyone was making such a fuss about an old man on the telly when it was my special day. And I vowed that I would compensate by forming an all-girl supergroup and winning five Grammy

awards. I'm not hangin' on a mix of myself up with Kelly Rowland. No matter what I was doing, John. I was a 15-year-old boy, John, with a South African father whose some of his family had strong links. They had NC and you, Nelson Mandela personally. And I was a buzz with anticipation, John, at that time. It was, I mean, not really at Mandela's release, but the fact that the West Indies, the England

test series, was about to begin, about a week later. And it's really the first time in my young life that England will be taking on the Caribbean joints with an outside chance of not being whipped like a naughty egg white. So I was excited, I was very excited, I was very excited, obviously it was exciting to see Mandela released as well. I remember as I watched the moments events unfolding momentously on the tally, although I of course had a color television because I'm from a much better family than you. What are the iconic moments? The 20th century. A potent symbol of human progress, a beacon of hope to the disenfranchised people of the world. I remember I as my father, does this mean that England can place a laugh'll have to get a cricket again. Big friend of the family of

course, big Nelson. Welcome round, Shay Zoltzman, any time he wants, doesn't even have the book of table. Like most physicists do I have. Wow, that is, he's very nice Andy, that's a big offer. Yep. It was great news for South Africa 20 years ago, even better news for all of humanity. Sorry less good news, I would argue for cricket Andy. The best news of all. Being for Big Nell himself, who managed to deliver a speech of superhuman restraint after being released after 27 years, in that it somehow incredibly

didn't start with the words, what the f*** was that about? Seriously, what the f*** was the last 27 years about? I'm gonna need some answers, because I'm pissed off now! Pissed? Holy s**t, that was a long time! I mean, that was a really long time. As part of the celebrations, this week, they re-enacted in South Africa, Mandela's walked to freedom, and when I first read that headline, Andy,

I had a horrible split, so I thought they might have jailed it again, just so they could re-release him, because that would have been a very nervy moment for Nelson. Yeah, sure, I am, I'm going to get in the cell, but let's just be clear, this is a re-enaction right. It's just, it's definitely a re-enaction. It's just, the last time you got me in here, you left me here for nearly three decades. Well, I don't think I am thumping on about it. I don't think I'm actually doing that. Mandela, who's now 91 or 64, if you don't count the years that were stolen from him, attended a special session of Parliament where he heard President Zuma deliver a tribute. And President Zuma said in the two decades since the release of Medeba, which is Mandela's clan name,

our country has changed fundamentally. President Mandela united this country behind the goal of a non-sexist, non-racial, democratic and prosperous South Africa. And those are very noble thoughts, Andy, beautifully expressed, but they do ring a little hollow coming from a man who's been charged with rape, racketeering and corruption, who's been married five times and who's just had his 20th child. 20 children, Andy, he's also said that gay marriage was a disgrace to God and that when growing up a homosexual would not have stood in front of me I'd have knocked him out.

What I'm saying is, President Zuma actually achieves the impossible. He manages to make you appreciate Nelson Mandela even more. But it'd be fair he did do the whole speech without marrying or impregnating anyone. So that's true. Yeah he's learning clearly. It does prove what an incredible man Mandela is, the dignity and grace he's shown as a symbol of hope for our stroppy species. I think looking back we can now all agree that apartheid was definitely a bad thing. Yeah I think we're at that point. Roomed. Very very. It was very, very... It was in polite.

It was a time for amazing change for the world 20 years. On the space of a year we had the end of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of apartheid, Nels Mandela Freed, and Canada re-discovered after lying dormant and undetected for 35 years. It was all happening. At this week also marked the 31st anniversary of the Iranian Revolution. Although had the events following the election of June the 12th last year gone a slightly different way, they might have been mocking the 7-month anniversary of a different Iranian revolution instead.

And response to the anniversary, the government in Iran rallied hundreds of thousands of their supporters onto the streets to dissuade opposition groups from doing anything stupid like saying anything out loud or gathering in groups larger than one. Apparently security forces in around were armed with tear gas live rounds which they were firing into the air and apparently paintballs to mark the protestors. That system and the US solely designs to make right control more fun for the security forces involved. First, they let them ride around on motorbikes, hitting people with sticks, and now they give them paintball guns. I don't know, Andy. Paintball guns on a motorbike, that is attempting job to apply for.

Let me make this clear. I do not agree with what they're doing over there, but even I have my limit. All I'm saying is, if I'm not here next week, you will know where to find me. I guess it is once again blurring that increasingly fine line between systematic oppression of political opposition and stag weekend. In Turan, a huge crowd hit the streets to listen to bugle favourite Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It was the latest stop on his crazy tour and I used this opportunity to you've guessed it, attack America in the West and who can play me, Mandy? You don't go in front of a crowd that big and not play your greatest hits. It's like the Rolling Stones not playing Brown Sugar. It is not the time to try out your new stuff. Know what they came there for. In fact, he could have just started railing

against the West and then held his microphone out towards the crowd and let them finish it off themselves. Join in if you know the words, wave your lighters in the air. Now wave the American flag into those lighters. Now wave those flags in the air again. Terran, you've been great. I'm outta here. You're talking like a man who now has bigger crowds at his gigs than he did when he lived in England.

He's celebrated by cranking up his nuclear grandstanding, you know, why not? Which is country's birth, they won't treat himself. And the world will respond it by giving Iran as a present in return, the threat of sanctions. So it's been a happy day for everyone. I mean a happy day for everyone. Ha ha ha. Other news now and Tom is leaving the country on Sunday. Yeah, it's a petrol... Petula walk out from Tom and his family.

Bloody emigrant. Bloody emigrant. He's putting his bat under his elbow when he's walking. I'm not waiting for a decision. I'm resigning. Well you're not though. You're not. I'm not waiting for a decision. I'm resigning. Well, you're not though. You're not. You're resigning for one week.

For one week, it's a protest that I think will carry a lot of message. You're resigning from Britain. I'm resigning from Britain. Yeah, from the Bugle. It's time to go. It's just too wet and cold here. The long and the short of it is that Tom is emigrating to Australia, where he will continue to do the bugle from two weeks,

meaning the amount of space the bugle that is about to cover is just spectacular. We're going to be doing this in three different continents. We are truly into continental at the moment. It's not like I'm going to be doing it on different days. Tom is going to be doing it on Saturday in Australia. And you'll be doing it on Friday morning in New York. It's absolutely ridiculous. It's a great sign of how far technology has come. You can do something this stupid. Well, emigrate to Australia. No, that's not the issue. Your technology has had no help at all in this emigrating. It's a very stressful process. That's you? Yeah, that's the right thing. You can tell you what, you sound like me in Hawaii top.

There's that base to your voice of, oh God, give me strength. Well, John, you've emigrated before. What do you miss most about Britain? That's a good question, Andy. Do you know what? Minced pies. Yeah, they don't have minced pies here at Christmas,

which seems to me ridiculous. So some minced pies? Yeah Christmas, which seems to me ridiculous. So some mince pies? Yeah, not not not me then, you know. Uh, yeah, well thanks a lot. Yeah, I mean you giving you with a mince pie in your hand, Andy. But what about the times we used to play computer football together instead of working, and we had a deadline coming up so I mean nothing. No, I do miss that, Andy.

I do miss that. I do miss you deliberately trying to get players set off. God, you loved that didn't you? Little of it didn't. You loved it, you loved the two-footed challenge. What is it about people I work with moving to another f***ing concert? I think it was a message to you.

Oh, I was gonna think of a message to you. Oh, and you guys, that's heartbreaking. You know what I mean? You just must be driving people away. The trouble is Andy, you need to useies and some deodorant to be honest. Yeah, I think both Tom and I just cannot bear to be in the same time zone as you anymore. Yeah, we do this go, you know, you could have gone, done that by going to France, done. That's not going bad.

That's the last six months of the year. So Tom is leaving this country and it's lowest, Deb. Maybe not it's lowest. I guess in Dicton by the Normans, wasn't great. Or when the Vikings were giving us the old Wambam, thank you Wamb, only without the thank you bit. Or when the Black Death was wiping at half the population of the 14th century,

that can't have been much fun. We got kicked in the balls by the Romans as well, Andy. Don't forget that. And the old civil war that ripped this country apart, ended up with a King Charles Bengpholster who was version of the old one-head, no-head's trick. Or when it looked like Germany might sneak the second world war that was probably a lower ebb.

No we have had lower ebbs but the point is he's off. He's off. He's taken his Australian wife and his English daughter with him. Don't say that. And he's off. Zoom. I will be back very soon on the end of a phone tired out of my mind. Yes, speaking to you.

I'll probably be on the same level as you guys. I just can't. I just can't. I'll just have your little girl keep her English accent. You think we can at all even meet at Tom? Just wait till you get to Australia. It's going to seem even more frustrating. Well, you've robbed me of my Friday night, destroyed my social life and the family friends

have moved on without me. Yes, I'm just waiting to see what you're going to do to me in Australia. Well, so much more to this mission, Tom. So much more. I'm going to completely break you. Yeah. Love Guru T. That's, that's what I'll do it. Buegel features action now and it's Valentine's Day on Sunday. Oh yeah. Yeah. Valentine's Day on Sunday. Oh yeah! Yeah! Valentine's Day on Sunday, the 14th of February. And it's been marked by a very controversial story here, Johnstonus, yet again torn Britain apart at its very scene, which a primary school in Somerset has banned pupils

from sending Valentine's cards to each other to save them the, quotes quotes emotional trauma of being rejected. Oh dear. I think it's a very bad move and because it is important that children at the earliest possible age have their hearts trampled to the ground and their souls crushed. Yeah, it's a character building and he sets them up for the real world they're about to enter. They need to learn how to deal with a rejection because rejection, John, to me is the beef mince in the bologna's of life without hit it lacks depth and texture And I think as a nation we are bad at dealing with the rejection ever since the Empire said that's it It's over Britain. I've had enough and Britain replied. I can change just give me another chance

I'll probably sort exploit you again. You're f***ing grateful, bitch. I think the best Valentine's Day card I ever had, Andy, I think I was around nine years old and there was a girl who gave me a card which wasn't it so much affectionate as it just had a ten point breakdown. Why do you not like me? And there was ten ten point argument, which is pretty advanced for a nine-year-old, to which my only response could be, I just don't see the point of view yet. I didn't even know yet at that point. I just don't get the point. Where is she now? I don't know. I actually can't even remember a name, Andy,

isn't that sad? Well, if you're listening? I tell you what, I did like that. I tell you what I would like to know, Andy, the first girl I ever loved was I was five years old. Sarah Constable. All right. And I loved her because she had blue glasses, I remember, and very shiny black sandal shoes. Okay. I thought both of those things were very cool.

You shallow bastard. I was ahead of my time in terms of how vapid I was. Now, personally Andy, I'm not a big fan of Valentine's Day, but even I wouldn't take it as far as Saudi Arabia, who on Thursday, launched a nationwide crackdown on stores selling items that are either red or heart shaped or in any other way allude to Valentine's Day, which is banned there. They've officially banned it. Red coloured or heart shaped items are legal apparently other times of years, but as very fortunate as they become completely contraband in Saudi Arabia.

Boy, they never cease to surprise with just how intolerant they are. I don't particularly like the day either, but easy. I think this thing about rejection, a learning to accept rejection is very important. John, because I've learned to deal with rejection. I've got rejected a number of times. I've got rejected when I applied for a job to be a sub editor for potato processing

international magazine, back in 1997. I wasn't even good enough for that. But how differently my life could have turned out if I'd got that job? You'd have been great at it. You'd been the best potato processing writer of all time. I firmly believe that. But I just think by now, you know,

I might have been able to move sideways and work on its sister publication, Potato Storage International, that was launched in 2004. Please, guys, please tell me that isn't true. Please tell me that isn't true. These guys are going places, John. Now maybe then I'd have been looking at one of the publishing houses other marquee titles such as Asia Pacific Baker or European Baker. Who knows? But why not? You've cried more than too many times, Andy. I don't believe these exist.

By now I could be the Randolph Hearst of business to business trade magazine specialising in the starchy foods industry. But instead I had to settle for showbiz. Max Mather rejects and is John, offered to do a free encore at the comedy store in Manchester December 2002. That was rejected pretty voluptly. And unanimously. Yeah.

Polite Recursor the England cricket team rejected. Fully costed plan to get my school to launch a nuclear weapons program rejected. Apparently the last chemistry teacher tried it and ended up blowing half a Kent. And a demand for a state immunity from prosecution in return for information about who killed the Queen Mother. So all I'm saying is learn to live with it.