The Bugle - Bugle 250 – No one is madder than Obama…

Episode Date: November 1, 2013

...is about IT glitches with the launch of Obamacare.Plus why spying would have saved Jesus, Spain plans to jail all of the USA, church wangs and Vatican cricket.Happy 250 Buglers! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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After our two-week hiatus to Bugle 250. For the week beginning Monday, the 4th of November 2013. 2013 With me and exultzman Back in London and still in the Northern Hemisphere veteran of 249 previous full episodes of the bugle and joining me from New York the only other performer in bugle history to have appeared in 249 episodes of this newscast, it's John Oliver. That's right Andy, where you bring brass, I bring six drunk men in a pub rock band. Happy 250th anniversary Andy, it's one thing to effectively waste each other's time, Andy,

but to waste the time of people all over the world is truly an achievement. Congratulations, my friend. Oh, John, it's touching for you to say that. We had our sixth birthday. Well, we're away. Thanks for those who've said messages, goodwill messages or ill will messages on to. We're the sixth glorious years. I'm just amazing to think John, just six years ago. We were just two kids from the block with a dream that one way we could dance on Broadway

and you at least, or at least 98% of the way to achieve without a dream, if I'm just a little bit more. I'm geographically closer to it. I'm geographically closer. That's the only thing I've managed to get is physically closer. So what, I mean it's historic landmark, 250, historic landmark in Bugal history, which is of course the only form of history the world can truly agree on these days. It means John at 250 episodes, we are now 0.025% of the way to the big one millionth bugle. We are also the book and context. Almost, almost one quarter of the way to the 1,000th and third bugle.

And we are 18 bugles past the magic 232 bugle mark. We've done now 20 bugles for each of Jesus' 12 apostles with 10 left over for the waterwalking, wine wangling, corpse hassling, Hollywood style, moralising story telling, three times you deem Mr. Loinkluff model of the year himself. And if you played all 250 bugles, plus the various sub-ugles from the last six years, back to back to yourself whilst in an induced coma, you would wake up with an in-depth knowledge of advanced calculus and an unswerving fear of encyclopedias.

That shows you how long we've been around, John. You have a way, the kind of way with numbers that you have with words. You just refuse to obey the basic rules. It was Halloween last night here, Andy. Let's be fair, it was Halloween last night everywhere, but America really commits to Halloween. So this city, and indeed, the entire country, was absolutely awash with people dressed as slutty sharks walking alongside pugs dressed as Darth Vader. And now, we can all enjoy the glorious sight of the next few weeks of children walking around in incredibly dirty, thread-based Spider-Man costumes, because

they now understandably point blank refuse to go back to wearing regular clothes. Why would I wear a button down shirt when I could be wearing something that has sponge biceps and a mask? I could be dressed as a dinosaur right now mother, so frankly that sweaty holding up holds no thrill for me. It doesn't even have a cape lady. The gold posts have moved on what I'm willing to put on my body now. I will not set foot outside the door in anything less than a fireman's helmet. That's a fact.

I will not drop below that line. Now, Andy, I gather that you made an appearance on TV. Yeah. Last week as well. More specifically, you were caught in a crowd in Dubai sleeping through an international cricket. Now, for such a vocal defender of and champion of cricket Andy,

you don't make a great case for it by snoozing through it. Well, you say in a crowd, John, but this was the problem. There were almost literally no people at this game. So I was there with my, my Crick Info editor, and we went out from the press box to sit in the stands for a bit, soak up some of the non-existent atmosphere.

And it was a, yeah, one of those periods of play in Crick It Way, you know, not all the action is happening at once. So we say, and, you know, Somewhere between the beginning and the end of a game. You know, you know, someone between the beginning and the end of a game. You know, no, those kind of, you know, during those five days between the beginning and the end. And you know, I did, I did I confess momentarily, shut my eyes and, and lull my head

around, like a nodding idiot. And given that there was no one else in the crowd, the cameras at the other end of the ground, pick me out unerringly. And the commentator on the telly said, well, it looks like the Crick info boys are hard at work. And I woke up from this little micro snooze to a stream of abuse onto it. And it appears that me falling asleep

at a cricket match, gone as more public reaction than anything else I have ever done in my career. And that's that reaction. That's what I've been born with, I have taken that on board people, I've taken that on board. I mean, you've got paparazzi, Andy, that's basically you. That's right, let me live my own life.

I'm not just a piece of me. You vultures. Yes, I have been I stopped in Dubai in the way back from India and also I've been to Belgium for a couple of days on a little family breaks of been India Dubai and Belgium and it made me think about those different countries John if each of those three different countries we're naked man who'd been given £1,000 to get himself some clothes and smarten himself up. Well, India, what's a nation with obviously massive poverty, growing lower middle class and a reasonably affluent upper middle and a few, frankly, idiotically wealthy, creashes

at the top. So I think if India was given it this £1,000, then naked India, it would spend two pounds on a functional pair of socks, eight pounds on a reasonably smart tie, and nine hundred and ninety pounds on an unnecessarily flash hair cut. Now, it wouldn't question me to be an impressive hair cut, but it would also be extremely hard to stop your eye being drawn downwards,

and then back up, man, that hair is sensation, stop flicking it, it's making your things wobble. Come on, at least try to cover your testicles. Belgium, by contrast, would spend quite a bit of money on a smart shirt, some sensible trousers, a hard-wearing pair of trainers. Makes sense, yeah. A functional way to jacket, a smartphone

on a pay monthly tariff, a total upfront cost of 350 pounds. Okay. And it would spend the remaining 650 pounds on waffles. Well, Dubai would spend all 12,,000 off the £1,000 on surgery to give it the world's biggest man-made penis. Top story this week? Spying update! Everybody snoops. It's gone to the point now, Andy, where if you live anywhere in the world and the NSA is not monitoring your phone and emails, you should probably feel deeply hurt or, at the very least, you should check to see that you're still alive.

The reason we're still finding out about this is that Edward Snowden has been continually leaking away like a BP oil rig. Constantly with significant consequences and with no clear way to stop it, short of shoving a cork in the USB driver of his laptop. The latest revelations showed the NSA has been monitoring the phone calls of 35 world leaders, including Germany's Angela Merkel. The news of which is likely to have pissed off at least 35 people, including Germany's Angela Merkel. Although I will say Andy, monitoring that last one, I don't

really have a problem with it. I still think that monitoring the German leader, however dubiously, is significantly safer than not monitoring a German leader. And I think deep down, even though she's justifiably upset about this Andy, she can probably understand that. This is an outrage! What gives this foreign agency the right to tap on my personal phone? I cannot possibly let it...well, yes, we did do it. It was a long time ago, but... Well, when you put it like that, it was less than a hundred years ago.

OK, in your position, I would probably do the same thing. Probably. Got this is a very valid point, John. A German newspaper described the monitoring of Merkel's mobile phone as, quote, the greatest conceivable affront to which America presumably replied, come on, guys, you or all people should be able to see this in some kind of historical context. On the affront scale, George, it's not exactly not in the front, but it's also not starting a war on a front and then another front. Nothing about this is particularly surprising. I think everyone probably assumed that every country is trying to do stuff like this and the surprise is not so much that the US was successful, but that the president at least claims he didn't know anything about it.

Now, that seems bad in almost every possible way that you can explain it. It's bad if he signed off on it, and it's now been court, and it's also bad if he didn't sign off on it, and it's now been court not knowing about it. The president either comes out of this looking shady or incompetent and he's got a two-iter-menu of options in response to this. He's either going to have to eat an entire humble pie or an entire humiliation omelette and neither is going to be particularly easy to swallow. I guess the defence for America is to say something like, come on, it's nothing that George all well hadn't already made up in a novel more than 60 years ago. And also, the old classic, no smoke without fire defense.

But I guess given the existence of smokeless fuels, you do also need to check everywhere there isn't smoke, as well as where there is smoke, just to see whether or not there might be a fire there that is burning with an invisible flame as some fires do. So I think, I mean, that is America's defense, and you just cannot, you cannot be too careful. And also America is a Christian country would say,

well, if Jesus had only surveillance, Judas Iscariot properly, he'd still be alive today. Oh, that is a good point. Well, that is a persuasive argument, Andy. Now, the implication is that the president went nearly five years without knowing that his own spies were bugging the phones of world leaders. A official stated that the NSA has, and I quote,

so many eavesdropping operations underway that it wouldn't have been practical to brief him on all of that. Well, that is the opposite of reassuring, Andy. Listen, if we were going to start telling him everything we're doing, that he might not be comfortable with, we'd be in the over-val Office all week. I haven't got time for that. My daughter has a softball game on Thursday, and he hasn't got time for that either. He's busy. Malia's got the flu. I know that for sure, because I've been listening to his phone calls. The White House moved quickly to deny that it was actively monitoring Merkel's phone. The White House spokesman, Jay Cardi, a man who has one of the worst jobs in the world said, the president assured the chancellor that the United States is not monitoring and

will not monitor the communication of the chancellor. Okay, that's good, that's two out of three. He doesn't seem to be missing a crucial tense there. Is not monitoring good, will not better? What about did not? What about did not? What about that? Because that's like being asked in a murder trial,

did you kill that woman? I'm saying, put it this way, I am not killing her now, and I will not kill her in the future. I think that RTC question, I'm afraid to go now. The scale of it is extraordinary, John. There's a, I read that the NSA monitored 60 million Spanish phone calls in a month.

That is two million phone calls a day. That is half a million phone calls per working hour in Spain, John. That is, that just seems too many. Too many. It is amazing. There's a selection of stories. The Angela Merkel story was broken

by the German newspaper, Despegel, which is German for the Spiegel. They reported that from back in 2002, Merkel's calls were either recorded or monitored by NSA officials. And how would the president not have been aware of that? Surely at some point he must have asked if they had any information on how Germany might be about to vote in the U.S. resolution, and his voice had said, not sure, but Merkel's definitely ordering a pizza right now so take that into account.

And he's clearly said, okay, that seems like a very personal piece of information, gathered in a way that I have absolutely no interest in uncovering. As you say, it didn't stop there. The French newspaper Le Monde, which is French for the Monde which is French for the Monde, ran a story that the US government had monitored millions of

phone calls in France and the next day El Mundo, the Spanish newspaper meaning the Mundo, reported as you say that the NSA tracked tens of millions of phone calls texts and emails of Spanish citizens all of which apparently went quiet for four hours in the middle of the day. I'm agreeing with you Andy, I'm saying the Spanish like to now. They love a snooze Andy, almost as much as they love being chased by bulls. In fact, when they're being chased by bulls, they're thinking about snoozing. When they're snoozing Andy, they're dreaming about being chased by bulls. That's just a fact. That's a spain fact, Andy. You give them a red blanket and they'll be torn about whether it's a wave in an abul or curl up underneath it.

Spain fact. For those of you who've not read any Hemingway, that's basically his entire urv summed up. The editorial in El Mundo, the Mundo, said, the massive spying on Spanish citizens requires a strong response from the authorities. The foreign ministry should raise a formal complaint. Mariano Rahoy should join France and Germany in their initiatives. And as early as Monday, the public prosecutor should denounce the NSA

for violation of the privacy of millions of Spaniards, which is punishable by up to four years in prison under Article 197 of the Penal Code. So hold on, Andy. It's spain-frenning to put the entire population of the United States in jail for four years. I'm not going, Andy. I can't sleep that much during the day.

I feel sluggish. I feel sluggish, Andy, if I'm not that hard. Desight. I feel sluggish on the upon that, that hard. Um, desite, in German news, desite, of course, means delingering sense of national guilt. It's, it's high time for Obama to honour his promise of transparency. When you say hi to I would say arguably, it is too late for him to honour that promise of transparency, John. That'd be like a waiter in a restaurant honoring his promise of a glass of house white after first serving a glass of house bleach it just seems too little too late and another this was another glorious quote from the German press the Angela Merkel's phone. It said her mobile phone is her control center

Which does sound really like a line from a German love poem The the tens of millions of phone calls emails more is it in Spain We're just between December more is it in Spain, would just between December 2012 and January 2013, with the monitoring apparently peaking on the 11th of December, what the f*** were they trying to find out, Andy? Were they willing to want Spanish children were going to be getting for Christmas? Did they just want to make absolutely sure that Santa Claus wasn't giving little Pedro some depleted uranium?

Now, a side note to these revelations was interestingly, traditionally, the US and four other countries known as the Five Eyes don't spy on each other. The Five Eyes group, the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. First, there's no way that everyone on that list doesn't spot on each other anyway. But secondly, a much more importantly, how the f*** did New Zealand get on that? They're on big. Well, they just think, look, New Zealand is mainly sheep hobbits and elite rugby players anyway.

We know what they're up to. It's not just the US, which has been caught bug handed in the last few weeks. Russia apparently gave out bugged goodie bags at the recent G20 summit in St. Petersburg. They reportedly gave out free zip drives with software on them which was designed to download the user's information and send it to intelligence agents at the Kremlin. Now here's the thing about that, Andy. If you get given a free zip drive from Vladimir Putin, and you put it in your computer,

you are a fucking idiot. That's like being giving a headache pill from Silvio Polescooney. Don't put it anywhere near your mouth. There's likely to be a lot more to it than meets the eye. Apparently Putin said in an interview recently that Edward Snowden, of course, who started

all of this, that Edward Snowden himself could feel safe in Russia, although he then said that he found him a strange guy. Why could that be a wonder? It's the weird thing. He flinches every time I'm around him, and he continually refuses the offer of my free zip drives. So, I'm how Snowden viewed in America now, Johnny? You know, somewhere I guess between,

for a few people as a hero and quite a lot of people as a traitor, and who should be, you know, strung up old fashioned style. Like a cross between Lee Harvey Oswald, Trotsky and France. That's very much. I guess he had a whistle to blow John and he's tilted it. That whistle actually turned out to be a f***ing great ocean liners foghorn and the tune that it has played has been the police's 1983 smash hit stalker pop classic, every breath

you take and every move you're up has made America has been watching it. Every conversation taped, every email scanned, every stool passed has been analysed somewhere in a laboratory in Langley by some extremely demotivated CIA operatives, have dreamed of assassinating and conveniently elected Latin American nut jobs, but are instead sifting through shit for no reason. That's what America's been reduced to, John. Dark days,ctdays for the land of the free. Amongst the people that America spied upon, not just the 35 world leaders,

but also the future Pope. What? Yeah. I was reading this. Probably some rabbis as well, for the sake of balance, definitely some Muslims. Brian Wilson, the Beach Boy. I think he says Beach Boy extraordinaire. Yeah. I think they just wanted a heads up on the long awaited Smile album before it came out.

Bill Bella Chick coached the New England Patriots. He was snooped on the did the White House leak the Patriots' offensive strategy before the 2011 Super Bowl defeat to the New York Giants. And when we haven't heard otherwise. But the Pope John, the current Pope of the year, Pope Francis, during the Conclave in which he was Pope picked, they snooped on him, John. Well, I guess if you're going to wear hats that can conceal a satellite dish, what the f*** do you expect?

And the snooping revealed that the Cardinals were on, in the Conclave, were on very relaxed first name terms with God, surprisingly informal, calling him Ian on several occasions. Um... ... Health care update now, and well Americans have always seen health as a frontier to conquer, Andy. Pushing cholesterol scores beyond what medical science thought

was humanly possible. But with your affordable care act, or a barmer care starting to get rolled out, the idea is that that might, and perhaps should change it, a well-intentioned, if complicated law, but that's what happens if you take a simple moral idea and let lobbyist the shit out of it

before handing it back to you. Now, unfortunately... Oh, isn't democracy fun? Oh, before handing it back to you. Now, unfortunately. Oh, isn't democracy fun? Oh, God, it's so depressing. Unfortunately, the new website, the government, is set up to sign up on insured Americans onto the new exchanges has been a mess. Now, look, I'm no computer whiz, Andy, which is obvious,

because I just use the term computer whiz, which is a phrase you would usually find in the confused vocabulary of a grandparents. You're a computer whiz, can you get onto the YouTube and print me out my hernia medication? Now, people have tried to log on to healthcare.gov, have been confronted with an error page, filled with question marks, and in coherent data,

again, Andy, I'm no expert, but that just doesn't look good. Has the website been hacked into by the Riddler? Is our only hope that some tech-savvy Batman will crash through the ceiling and save us all? It's just, it's a true mess, Andy. Again, it will be able to do great things if this website will f**king work, if it seems it fucking won't and I cannot understand Andy How this could have happened they knew this rollout was going to be critical and now the the screen looks like the entire website as a Virus because some idiot with access to the mainframe down downloaded porn which Does seem like an internet that has Joe Biden's thing? All over it.

Right. I think you could have phrased that slightly differently, John. Now, imagining Joe Biden's fingertips all over something. But I think I look at this in a more positive way, John. Yeah, it's a very clearly, very divisive controversial policy. And the last thing that a bar board of wanted was for everything to go smoothly. That would have just looked like show boating

and rubbing Republican noses in it. And it has, of course, proved controversial the Affordable Care Act, usually the belief of many Americans that care is already affordable for those who can afford it. Yes. And are therefore worth caring for. I mean, right.

There's some linguistic pyrotechnics going on there. I guess technically, grammatically, they're almost right. It's just that's definitely not the point. The president called a press conference, where he said, no one is matter-than-me that the website isn't working as it should, which means it's going to get fixed. So is that how the White House is going to operate now, Andy? Everything gets sorted out just as soon as the president gets angry about it. Like some kind of legislative hulk.

Obama mad! Obama smashed complicated coding problems with fist. Now new website work! I imagine quite a lot of American news channels just cut that statement off. After no one is mad at me as well. Yeah. So, how are they going to fix this? Well, the White House has claimed that they're going to attempt on, I quote, a tech surge to tackle the problem, which perhaps isn't the greatest choice of language ending to use in the circumstances. Maybe, just maybe, don't use a word which is synonymous with

a rack, because initially they were describing the website problems as a glitch and now they're essentially describing it as the Iraq war. Let me guess, when you launched the website you thought you'd be greeted as liberators. You're going with the website you have not necessarily the website that you want. And they attempted to explain it further by saying they're bringing in some of the best and brightest tech experts from inside and outside the government. Again, I'm sorry, the best and brightest. So now it's Vietnam as well. Well, the rest of you talking boys going to be, don't worry, we are going to Nagasaki this issue. This website is our alamo, but in a good way.

We can hear you, the rest of the world can hear you, and the people who knocked this website down will hear from all of us soon. There is so much misinformation around now about the Affordable Care Act and what it actually does. And so much of the problem with those misperceptions could all be sold straight away if people could just log on to this website.

And now they're announcing an option which directs users to sign up by phone. So that's the best solution. Giving up and going with a different technology altogether. Why stop there, Andy? How about if America's one-hours insurance, they just write a handwritten letter on fine parchment, attach it to the leg of a pigeon,

throw it in the direction of Washington and just hope for the best. I've just logged on to the website, actually. and it's just a big page saying mission accomplished. So, I'll go on now. And in fact, that's a quality reference Andy, it's a good joke but it just makes me sad. In fact, I heard John Boehner talk about it, it's more on saying he tried to log on yesterday to healthcare.gov. And he said, all I saw was an animation of Barack Obama shooting George Washington in the face

with a water pistol full of pus. LAUGHTER But Republicans have repeatedly tried to derail the healthcare law. And they seem to be trying to now use this technical glitch as a way of delaying it. Still further. And I seem to have the same attitude towards the health care law, as Wiley Kiyote had towards Roadrunner, at least before their final emotional rapprochement when Kiyote was termally ill in a hound hospice, contracting gangrene in the leg wound sustained when Katerpalting himself

into a cliff. A tearful Roadrunner said after coyotes passing, I came to respect while as an adversary, I admired his ingenuity, even if I questioned the source of the funding for his equipment, which seemed at best suspicious and at worst obviously linked to either drug cartels or major terrorist groups who wanted a willing guinea pig to test out potential new equipment. Whether while knew the provenance of his many lethal devices, which were one they no doubt bring pain and destruction to many, I do not know. I preferred to credit him as an enthusiast, passionately devoted to the art and craft of predatory killing in an inhospitable desert habitat.

Wiping it here from his beak, Roderone continued, whilst I could not call while a friend, in many ways he became the touchstone by which I judged myself, my defining nemesis. He was the Napoleon to my Wellington, the Rodic to my Federer, the Italian prison system to my Burlusconi. For all our differences, he made me the road runner I am today.

Coyote himself is said to have embraced vegetarianism and Buddhism in his final weeks, finding his manager said, an inner peace that had eluded him throughout his time as a slaver and carnivore in the wild. I can't believe we've done this 250 times. I can't even remember. It's so meaningless. I can't even remember what that bit began as.

Is this still the Obama case actually? Oh, it is. I mean, not really. It started as that and ended up with something completely different. Thereby, functioning as a satire on a barmer care itself. Bugle feature section now and 250. Well, as we trumpet at the start of the show, this is a truly historic, historic bugle. A landmark in the history of human creativity, I would say. Probably right up there with the 250th ceiling Michelangelo painted, which is I think

in his spare room at home. The same number of vehicles now is the number of Vladimir Putin's in a special giant set of Russian dolls that Vladimir Putin had made as a good luck in your new job present for Dmitry Medvedev when he succeeded Putin as president of Russia in 2008. There was one tiny, tiny Medvedev in the middle weeping a single tear. Also the same one of the Beatles as the Rotic Dream, Silvio Berlusconi has had about Joan of Arc since we first broadcast in 2007.

And then a number of times during the final painful hour of his life that Colonel Gaddafi thought to himself, one of the following thoughts, relax. I'll get you for this, yes, to be fair, I had this coming out, on balance, I'm still winning on aggregate. This is going to look bad on the tele. Oh, we've all had a bit of fun. Let's calm down and talk things through.

And, oh, what the heck? Oh yeah! I've been lying to myself too long. Now, 250, obviously, is a very important number in maths and history. 250 million years ago, to this day, life on earth was almost wiped out in the Permian Triassic Extinction Event, coincidentally the name of a band I was in at school, and also

coincidentally a particularly concise review of Smurf 2. That was, believe it, the New York Flabbergast magazine. Informally, the Permian Triassic Extinction event was also known as the Great Dying, which was also a term used for John's My Gig at the Picture House in York in 2000. Wow, that's that is fair. 250 years ago, Little Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, age 7 composed his first ever rock opera called Slymy Bert. It was a rhythm and blues tinges romp through the life of a garden worm, pre-minusant of the yardbirds. 250 bugles ago, this happened. Number one, Monday October the 15th,

2007 with me and his ultimate here in London and in America, John Oliver. Hello and the hello world, but most importantly, hello and the thanks John. 250 minutes ago, in London, this happened. Ah, ah, ah. Ah, ah. Ah, it's a bugle Friday. And 250 seconds before we started recording, at the Bugle Recording Studio in New York, this happened. Good morning, Mr. Oliver Sir. Good morning, Wendell. Thank you, Mr. Oliver Sir.

Would you like your duck now, Sir? Yes, please, Wendell. Shot, Mr. Oliver Sir. Shot. Wendell? Sir. Cough Wendell. Of course, Mr. Oliver Sir, it would be my honour.

Thank you, Wendell. I'm now ready to record. Your emails now and I mean it seems somehow fitting Andy, that's when we're celebrating the 250th anniversary of nothing, that we received an absolute avalanche of emails about an overhead photograph from a Christian science society church in Dixon Illinois which I mean look there's no uh there's no easy way to say this. Their church, one of you is from above, very objectively looks like. I penis and balls with a penis dog legging left.

Yeah, I mean there's no more accurate way of describing that. It says, I mean it says, in some of the descriptions of it say that, you know, from a certain angle, the church from above looks like a giant phallus complete with bulls and bushy pubic hair. Any angle it looks like that. Any angle, it looks only like that. It is, it's an act of God is what it is and they yeah well God God invented the uh Drungle Rogan sluggards so exactly so exactly so it's it's really a tribute to him yeah or yeah and God God God is love and love can be can be transmitted via the penis

so I mean who are we to who are we to argue with them So I mean who are we to argue with them? I mean that's about, but thank you to those, I believe probably around about 75% of all buglars of emailed or twittered that link to us. I think you know us slightly too well. And a lot of you have also emailed in the story of the Vatican forming its own cricket club. Steven I. Tucker was one of those, did Andy Christian John in descending order of interest level in the story. The Vatican has formed its own cricket club that hoping to take on a church of England 11 and it will use starts our chosen Chevs Talmudic Test Series. Test matches in the Talmud are similarly incomprehensible and lengthy,

and cricket doesn't require much athleticism, so we Jews ought to be half decent, right? At the very least, I expect high quality, beautiful coverage, digging up little known facts about the overlap between cricket and religion. For example, the suitability of Jesus and the apostles for different fielding positions. And I don't know know you have to sit nowadays You know he might not take all the catches is probably as handling has gone downhill a bit off Get on splitter he cost us a lot of market share and Historical crickets who could have been nuns and vice versa wealth. I mean

Yeah, I'm think mother to reason, I said, would have been a terrific little, terrific little spin, Bell or Ricken. And possibly even a Nuns tonne pun run. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no time for that. No, no time for that, no time. But it's fascinating, I mean, I've always thought. It's an amazing idea, yeah.

I mean, you know, St Peter's Cricket Club, it's got Indian Premier League franchise are written all over it, John. There's, you know, the big money, 20 over a side league that is transforming a game of cricket in slightly alarming ways. I mean, you can see the Vatican getting involved in that. John McCarthy, who's Australia's ambassador to the Vatican, described this as St Peter's cricket club as an example of sporting diplomacy, which would present the opportunity to play against Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs.

And of course, cricket, John, has a long and proud history of bringing peace to dispute, tautious areas, as the almost ethereal zen-like calm of India, Pakistan relations contestive are. Exactly. I play cricket against St. Peter's cricket club once and the night ended with one of St. Peter's failing, trying and failing to pull to Estonian lesbians in a bar in Brighton. It might not have been the same team. All right, yeah. I mean, was he wearing a casak on a miter or? He wasn't the most fashionable of men.

Alright. What's the thing that I think could be most interesting, Andy, any cricket match between the Vatican of the Church of England, is the opportunity for some world class sledging right there. What part of a regional sin don't you understand, you idiot. You get an out next ball and then you go and strike to hell, you f**king heretic. Also, how do you get the Pope out, Andy, when he's infallible? Oh yeah. I feel like you get him absolutely plum-legged before wicket, make a big appeal to the

un-pie. He puts his finger up and the Pope says, hey, put your f**king finger down, read the rule book. Not the cricket rule book, the Bible, I'm in fallible mate, I'm still in, I'm still in. So I try to get Java and me and that LBW in Pakistan in the 1980s. That's a niche reference for our American fuglers. Go and use the internet. Father Theodore Mascaranus, an Indian official at the Vatican's Council for Culture,

said that although the Pope is not a cricket fan, he said, I'm sure that cricket will be another thing that he accepts as part of his openness. Well, John, that would make him unquestionably my all-time favourite Pope. If the Pope embraces cricket, I might even consider getting my drone nozzle reattached and embracing Catholicism. It's the problem, Andy. The Vatican easily has enough money just to temporarily canonise the greatest cricket players in the world. Just get ready. There's Cardinal Tendulka coming to a cricket pitch near you. And finally, this one came from Lucy, who writes, dear Andy John and Chris, in order of who most resembles a newborn baby.

That's both a compliment and an insult to all of us. Since the birth of my first offering, sorry, my first offering, I don't know, it's about you know, if you're into human sacrifice, I'm going to judge you. Since the birth of my first offspring a few weeks ago, I've been listening to whatever the collective noun is for a lot of bugle podcasts, being as it is in the top recommended podcasts in the laugh while you lack take section of the NHS Scotland baby book. I really hope that's true, but I fear that is a lie. Always going well until the baby heard bugle 247, an Andes philosopher's button run, where

upon he released an unprecedented tsunami of vomit, covering all clothing and soft furnishings within a two meter radius, moments before the health visitor arrived to witness the sodden aftermath. Whilst I admit that my baby's physical and emotional experience is a chiefly a response to the smooth or otherwise transitive milk from nipple to nappy. This gastric emptying event was of such a scale and ferocity that I can only conclude it demonstrates a severe visceral intolerance of puns. I will have to report this to the GMC and suggest you warn owners of susceptible neonotes to put down plastic sheets in advance of further pun runs to avoid further lactic accidents. Yours, Lucy and Leon, PSC's fine now,

he's cuddled up and gone to sleep. So there we go, that's, you know, if, you know, he's not my target demographic. Couldn't give a shit mate. Couldn't give a shit. Let him peak. Do get your emails coming into info at thebugelpodcast.com. Don't forget to celebrate the 250 episodes you've had for free to take out your bugle voluntary subscription at thebugelpodcast.com where you can also get the merch for which there will be, imminently, some new additions, hopefully, not in time for Christmas. I think it'll be a shame to

sell our commercial copy book by actually releasing these things at a useful time, but sometimes soon might be a bag and a hoodie. I can't give away any further information than that. So well that's it for this week's 250th bugles. Great to be back. We'll be back next week as we embark on the next phase of bugling from 251 to 500. It's now seems a long way away. It sure does. A long time. Let's just try and get to 266 again. I'll take 252 at this point. Bye! Bye, bye! Andy, over the last three and a half years, I've actually sourced every single one of

Andy, over the last three and a half years, I've actually sourced every single one of those sound effects before.