The Bugle - Bugle 282 – Twas the Dick before Christmas

Episode Date: December 18, 2014

Finally, Andy and John put the best of the worst against eachother in a battle of international dickery Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Fucking ready. Okay, we are rolling. Ready as f***. Ready as f***. Here I go. This is a podcast from TheBuglePodcast.com The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world. Hello, Bugleers, and welcome to issue 282 of the Bugle, the audio newspaper for a visual world which has just won the prestigious Thing of the Year title in the Bugle Podcasts annual awards for a reticord 17th consecutive year.

I am the convener and sole voting member of the awards adjudication panel and his ultimate live in London where Christmas looms like a sausage and from New York City. It's the man who yet again did not show up to the awards discussion meeting, thus being unable to put the case for any of the other nominees for the thing of the year, namely his own TV show, The Environment, still bossing us around after all these years, the as-yet unpopularised discovery of a new form of whoop across between a holler and a yelp with a hint of the gas and an undercurrent of despair. James Rodriguez is gold for clambio against euro-going the world cup, sliced bread still

going strong, crummy and democracy and of course the British, magic royal embryo and its predecessors, the royal sperm and eggs. So the pupil is one, yet again, and so the man join him he is, the comedic cababstick himself, skewering the rotten nuggets of real news, and gag grilling them into the tasty teriyaki of truth, served with a side dish of a Serbic discussion. It's John Oliver. Best moment of the year for me, Rodgerie, gets his goal, and it's been a dark year.

There's been some troubling events, but what a strike. What a goal. To control it and to hit it so cleanly. I'm not going to say offsets, everything that happened in the world this year, but I think we all know that it kind of did. So hello Andy, hello, bugles. I experienced a rollercoaster of emotions over a particular story this week, Andy, because my sister sent me a link to a sensational story about the Christmas lights outside the Harrods store in London. The story was about the fact that the Santa had been fired and it then gone rogue, changing

the lights outside the store so they would read f*** off. At the storey. The storey which is beautiful in... That's the Santa. That is the storey. It's the storey. It's turning me Christian, John, as you speak. It's amazing.

You've got to stay with it. Stay with it. The story which is beautiful in every way, read, gaining access to a maintenance control room. The Santa who had just been fired was able to locate the chart and corresponding switches for Harrod's 10,000 external lights. Barricading himself in, he disabled the correct lights until he could spell out his feelings to Harrod's bosses and Christmas shoppers alike.

He was removed by security guards off an hour long standoff and handed over to police. He drunk the best part of two bottles of whiskey, said a spokesman for the iconic London store. And it's that kind of behaviour that got in the sack in the... HUNTSON Hudson has since been released on police bail. Night's bridge visitors were stunned. Honestly, I'm disgusted, said Irene Reider, 59 from Indiana. I was with my grandchildren.

We just got off the bus. I said, look everybody and pointed up to the lights. But you know what the lights said? They said f*** off. And that is not an appropriate message for a child, at least not at Christmas. Now, the thing I love about that last statement, Andy, is that it implies telling children to go f**king themselves is absolutely an appropriate message at other times of the year. So I was so excited, Andy, about this story.

And then I'll realise the date on the story was 2010. And then I'll realise that it was reportedly our hoax back then and hadn't actually happened. And then, even more importantly, I realised I didn't care if it had happened or not, it was an amazing story. And isn't that deep down what Christmas is all about, Tandy? Isn't the true meaning of Christmas an improbable story from an uncertain time that is so fantastic people decide to believe in it anyway.

For some people it's a baby in a stable but born to a virgin mother and a from me from now on it's a drunk Santa telling shoppers to go f**k themselves in lights. It's the true meaning of Christmas. Absolutely. In fact, if that story had been what had happened years ago, then frankly I thought I think the entire world would be Christian by now. Yeah, it's, yeah, exactly, it's not about whether it definitely happened, it should have happened and it could happen and I hope it does happen and in a sense it's no lights

the way for humanity in the future. This is Bugle 282. We held a competition amongst our many avian fans to name this episode. We have a very big following in the bird community and the competition was won by a very busy owl who was in a real hurry. He also named the episode Bugle 282. So we have, and this is for the week, happy Christmas. This is for the week ending Friday. The 19th of December, we're actually recording this on Wednesday the 17th of December. I believe the first ever Wednesday Bugle recording. So by the time you hear this bugle, as the world could have ended, it always had a problem having a two day lag before broadcast. Wednesday the 17th,. It's the 149th anniversary of the first ever performance in 1965 of a little franzy shoe but unfinished symphony written the early 1820s as so many things were at the time.

And we're delighted to announce that we at the people have discovered the musical score for how Shoei intended the symphony to end here here performed exclusively by the Bertie Schnazzles with its memorial Philharmonic Orchestra. 17th of December also marks the date of the ancient Roman satanelia festival to mark this. Chris is wearing a frankly unnecessarily revealing toga. I'm pretty sure they were supposed to extend below the waist. The festival was famous for its role reversal to where servants would boss around their masters, and everyone would sort of take the opposite

of their usual social position. So today, I have been having a celebrity breakfast with Kenya West, the Dalai Lama, Hillary Clinton, and the embalmed corpse of Charlie Chaplin. Whilst John has been wondering if there's anything he can do to boost sluggish ticket sales at a small arts end to gigging in a town he's never heard of, and wondering how many types of tea you can have in a single day without getting a little

bit ridiculous. Happy Saturday, everyone. This is the last full bugle of 2014, meaning it's the last full bugle of the international year of various things. It's been the international year of crystalography. And this year's bugles do actually form a crystal if you transform them into atoms in some way or other. It's been the international year of solidarity with the Palestinian people, not quite as many people have gone on board with that one as they've done, and the international year of family farming, which I have thoroughly

embraced and I have just enjoyed a bumper harvest in the Vegpatch in my garden. I managed to grow a couple of uncles, some second cousins on a granny, so that is Christmas dinner, all sorted. And as always, the section of the bugle is going straight in the bin. This week more of the bugle audio advent calendar, 19th of December. Seriously, on a fucking donkey, the whole fucking way, she. Best stuck at Doopet, you're the one who didn't want

a home birth, ready to go, and if you say the word. 20th of December. I feel awful, Josie. Yeah, you look like a space opera, Boeing, Boeing, Boeing. Hey Mary, look at my six pack. Now look at your massive one pack, priceless. You're not helping, Josie. Not my kid, not my problem. Yes, problem. That section in the bin. Yes, problem. That section in the bin. BABY I was probably expecting three or four entries, but incredibly within days we had been hit by an electronic tsunami of self-loathing. It was truly both heartwarming and slightly horrifying to receive so many emails from people all over the planet, all making it passioned and well-documented pitches for why their

nations had been the most emphatic penis of the previous seven days. There was ultimately, though, something deeply uplifting about so many people being so anxious to call bullshit on themselves. These emails, I think, could either demonstrate humanity's hope or its ultimate doom, Andy. Either way, they were very entertaining. Yeah, this is the contest we've all been waiting for the my country, Tizadik, can reigning champions of the UK be knocked off top spots? Now, the year John has been scarred and gouged by a frankly unusual

preponderance of what might be charitably described as extreme levels of national naughtiness. And not just nations, terrorists, viruses, and Putin's the world over have frankly left a lot to be desired, but this award is not about megalomaniac leaders or pseudo religious franchises or diseases being... It's about nations being dicks, and that is a very important differentiation for the purposes of this competition, albeit a differentiation, fraught with legal technicalities as the international criminal court in the hate would no doubt testify. And above all, it has been about you, Buglers, as John said, sending in your nominations for your own country's dickish behaviours, holding up the mirror to the face of your own

countries and saying to those countries, can you not see that massive sky even inflicted all over your own face? Many of the countries which are the biggest dicks, of course, don't always allow people to email British American podcasts to report on my dick issue. So the list of entries might not be quite as exhaustive as it could be, but still, here it is. The Bugle My Country Tizzardic Award, seconds out out round two. And we start with Mexico. Mexico makes a very good case and default being one of the strongest, spiciest dick nations on the globe. Its

dickiestness level is Moicaliente Andrew. So we had an email from Sam in Mexico who wrote, my country is a dick because it's a slaughterhouse, one of the most dangerous places in the who wrote, last thing, he says, if Andy loves penguins, as John is horrified by the vision of abuse doughnuts, how is it that you are not discussing the shocking news of penguins being sexually assaulted by first seals? It's really troubling. You can check it on the BBC Cheers Sam. Now, I have to say Andy, it's a rare email that can begin talking about the assassination of journalism Mexico, and then end a couple of sentences later discussing the sexual abuse of penguins by seals. I don't know if he's arguing that Mexico is the biggest dick or that seals are the biggest dicks or that Mexican seals are hypothetically the absolute worst. Just for the record, just to take a slight tangent early on here, I took Sam's advice and I did

check the story of the BBC, and it turned out to be appallingly true. Seals were spotted sexually assaulting penguins by Nico DeBroin of the mammal research institute at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. And he argues DeBroin that the increasing number of cases of seal on penguin sex crimes suggest learnt behaviour on the part of seals. And he says, seals have capacity for learning, we know this from their foraging behaviour, for example. But if this is learnt behaviour, we really can't think of what the reward may be for these young males, other than perhaps learning that these birds are an easier target to practice their copulating skills.

And that, Andy, makes it even worse. Seals are just using penguins for f***ing practice. How is that supposed to make the penguins feel other than emotionally and probably physically crushed? And I can frankly never look at seals in the same way again, Andy. I used to think they were hilarious, but now I can't think of them as anything other than sexual predators to penguins. All I can see in my mind is a hungover seal, waking up in the morning next to a penguin,

looking over, honking, oh no, and trying to slide away on its stomach before the penguin wakes up. Seals, unlike Bill Cosby, Andy, they universally beloved and naturally funny, but that has covered up some absolutely unforgivable behavior in the past. Seals. Seals. Seals of Mexico. A dance is older time itself. There was another email from an American living in Mexico called Sydney T highlighting how the government has apparently been basically spiking peaceful protests with violent people to make the protests less peaceful. And it's an email that concludes rather delightfully. In conclusion, Mexico is one gigantic

throbbing grotesquely veined dick. Yeah, I mean, it depends how drunk you are when you're looking at your atlas, but I guess it's got to touch with that about it. The next nominee is for the USA and this comes from Morton in Norway who complains that. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, Morton. Hey, Morton. Yeah, you deal with your Norwegian ship before you pick on the greatest country on God's Earth.

Well, this is a very valid point, John. Morton has complained about Michigan passing legislation, allowing emergency workers to opt out of treating critically ill-gave people if it goes against their religious beliefs. But listen up, Morton, this competition is not about snitching on other people's countries. It is about shopping your own nation. Exactly. Even if certain states in those other people's countries have basically made it legally acceptable

for an emergency worker to say, no, I'm going to let this one die. And I think God is going to be pretty pleased with me on this one. It is a win-win situation. This is not your call, Morton, from your economic point of make-mom. From your economic powerhouse

with your rock-solid public finances and your comprehensive welfare provision and your eye-wateringly expensive bottled water and you increasingly uneasily relationship with the concept of immigration and your massive sense of excitement that Andy Zoltzman will be appearing in Oslo at the Crap comedy on the 24th of January. It's not your call to make, Morton. Besides, we also had Norway nominated by Kager and Maria Ortona, and I'm sorry if I've

pronounced that massively wrong, and this email goes like this, okay, Norway may not be the first country that springs to mind when Dixor mentioned, but this past year, it's been acting like it's pretty keen to get a place in this competition. Here are a few examples of how, if you'll pardon the pun, hard, it's been trying lately, nice to see so on through that one in early on.

Norway's newly elected Conservative government recently passed a national budget, which includes wealth tax cuts and abolishes inheritance tax giving a wealthiest, a total of a 6 billion crore tax reduction, that's around half a billion pounds, with Norway actually literally the world's richest country, the Norwegians benefiting from this budget are in the world elite of the world to do and who pays for this present for the prosperous, to find axes, tax cuts, their government acts, chooses to fall on and slash the pitiful monthly benefit reserve for parents and families in the poorest percentile, many of whom are single parents surviving on their mega incapacity benefit from the national insurance scheme.

While this Norway is what we all fought the Cold War for, to enrich the rich, to win wealth, the wealthy and to infer to further impoverish the already poverish I think. Anything else would be dishonoring the memory of all the people who would have died in a global nuclear conflict had it actually happen, and that includes me potentially. So I find that deeply offensive that you should have for a normalised Udduk country for this. You also add that it's also been a bad time in this country, which is basically, as you say, one the world lottery for Syrian refugees. The spacious, wealthy, and sparsely populated Norway has grudgingly accepted its international obligation to take in Syrian refugees a staggering wave of a full 1,000 Syrian refugees has been accepted

in 2014 compared with neighboring Sweden equal in size but not in petroleum wealth who have taken nearly 30,000 refugees from Syria this year as Syria has had a bad year. How many is that in a row? Three or four? I think they get to keep themselves in a three in a row. It's definitely a hatchery. But wait, there's more. Continues the email, Norway is disordifying the UNHCR's recommendations by refusing to take in their minimum amount of refugees, undeniably a dickish move. And the dick does not stop there. It keeps on dickishly moving, nor I also overalls the UNHCR's selection criteria by adding its own exclusively Norwegian screening, excluding anyone with a physical handicap or psychological trauma.

That's right, they will accept a tragically small number of war refugees and then refuse anyone who's a hurt or be traumatized by war. So that is f*** you Norway. That is quite a strong, that is a strong, strong entry. This early, what the Vikings did was unforgettable. Unforgivable and... That's not gloss over that.

...unapologised for. Let's not... Truly awful things, the email concludes. Without further ado, we give you Dickus Maximus Norwegus. So, thank you for that, Khajir and Maria. Poland being a dick news now, and thanks to an email from David Onbe, we now know that a town in Poland

has been a real killbass sausage of a dick over the proposed mascot for children's playground. Officials in Tushnin, a town about 90 miles south of Warsaw, ruled out Winnie the Pooh as an appropriate mascot due to the fact that he is, and I quote, an inappropriately dressed bear of dubious sexuality. Wow, okay. Okay, I think they get a few things confused straight off the bat there, Andy. First, there's nothing dubious about Winnie the Pooh sexuality. He'll go after anything holding a honey pot. That's a fact. He's a hound when it comes to the honey. That's a second fact. The reason this story came out is that there was an audio recording of the Council

deliberation featuring some spectacular exchanges as Councillor Reichardt Seishi saying, the problem with that bear is it doesn't have a complete wardrobe. It is half naked, which is wholly inappropriate for children. In which case, Andy, I'm guessing that Eaw is out of the equation too, because he walks around completely naked. Sure, he'll occasion where a bowtie on his tail, but I'm guessing that unless he wears that bow over his cartoon donkey penis, the whole just aren't going to be happy with that either.

And in many ways, that bowtie just makes it worse, doesn't it? It's like the tassel. An unknown official then chimed in. Well, it doesn't wear underpants, because it doesn't have a sex. It's a hemapheridite. And that is either magnificently stupid or a problem of translation, Andy. Perhaps the word hemapheridite in Polish means fictional cartoon, apparently, let's give them the benefit of the doubt on that one.

But the best argument came from a counsellor Yakizma saying, this is very disturbing, but can you imagine the author was over 60 and cut Poo's testicles off with a razor blade because he had a problem with his identity. Whoa, whoa, the key question I have here and he is. What the f*** happens in the Polish version of Winnie the Pooh? LAUGHTER A. A. Milne suddenly appears on a page and cuts Winnie the Pooh's testicles off with a razor blade. Then what? Christopher Robin chemically castrakes piglets. What is wrong with the old stories where they throw sticks off bridges? Is that not edgy enough anymore? Well, the stick was clearly a representation of the male penis being discarded.

They went into the river of death. When they sold Winnie the Poohot ad Disney had all went to shit. I think the sore movies franchise was initially based on a Polish edition of Winnie the Poot. Well, I think it's completely wrong to blame AA Milne for this because of course, AA Milne was the author of this and he makes no explicit reference to slicing off post-testicles. I think the blame needs to lie with the illustrator, E.H. Sheppard, who of course was absolutely renowned for his hatred of visible bear balls. Now, it's time for the reigning champions, the UK.

What kind of defence can we put up to our hard one title? Well, this nation of food banks and billionaires of nasty scrounging, benefit-bloodging war refugees, a nice cash-flashing oligarchs and multinational two-side step-tax like a Virginia rugby player. We have been, yeah, we are endemically dickish in many ways and a few stories have really highlighted this. This came in from Joseph Poole, who writes, to protect the UK status as world's biggest dicks, I'd like to put for this story about how the work and pension sector in Duncan Smith has reclassified multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's sufferers

as being okay to seek work as their degenerative conditions will improve. So this is further grisp to... God, where this absolute worth. This is... You've got to... Historically, we've been absolutely appalling. But do not get complacent, I think, that we don't still have a string to our dickish boat that we can pluck every now and then.

We've got a lot of dicks in our bag, as Gullford would say. This is further grisp to the strobby mills of those who think Britain is legislating itself towards becoming a hot-less bastard of a nation. An investigation by charities found that almost 8,000 people diagnosed with MS, muscular atrophy, Parkinson's, cystic fibrosis and rheumatoid arthritis have been put on the lesser, will be able to work soon benefit. Well, Britain, if you're not happy with that, why don't you elect some medical scientists instead of politicians at the next election? You choose politicians, they will act like politicians. And in a further dickish story, the UKIP leader Nigel Farage has said that women should not breastfeed in public

in quotes an openly ostentatious way because some people feel very embarrassed by, and this followed the story in which a woman in Claridge's tearum was asked to cover up the hideous and unnatural abomination of feeding a small baby using her boob. Some people feel very embarrassed by breastfeeding in public, said for us, which to me, John, in a tearum makes about as much sense as being embarrassed

by someone drinking a cup of tea. It's absolutely ostentatious breastfeeding as well. I've been around breastfeeding mothers, both my own mother whilst I was the victim, stroke recipient, and my wife. And I've never seen any breastfeeding mother think, right, I think baby needs a feed. Let's get ostentatious about this. Let's go out and get a bit of a crowd. Bring the big screen and a projector. I want this to be completely and utterly unignorable. I mean a lot of people say it's disgusting, it's unnatural, that's not what's waps of form.

It's unnatural. Well we all know what waps. That's a really hard case to make. Well, I mean, it's not what whaps a forge on, they are for, mate. This says that, Nestle. They're for making you more hydrodonomic while swimming backstroke, I believe. And the argument that it's natural, well, so is bubonic plague.

And you wouldn't bring a dying plague, stricken 14th century peasant to clarages for tea and then take your top off and pop your tit in its mouth would you? So let's have some consistency, sisters. Farage also, he was on a journey to Cardiff in Wales from London and he for an appointment for a meeting. And he pulled out because he got stuck in traffic and said that basically blamed the fact that he didn't appear at this meeting on immigration causing excessive traffic on the M4. Now I can give an update to this because the very next day

I myself went to Cardiff and got there on time, so I'm delighted to announce that in those 24 hours between Farage, Heading West and Me Heading West, immigration was entirely solved. So we're now finally because he had the bravery to speak out, Andy, that's what you take away from that. And also a man faces deportation from the UK after a court ruled that his British wife salary was not high enough to allow him to stay in the country. So here's a couple of lessons from the British government. A to Brits, don't fall in love with foreigners and B to foreigners, don't fall in love with Brits without checking their tax returns first. Now both of you, please f*** off. Belgium, Dickishness now, and there was a bold, bold,

my country, to the dick entry for Belgium, a particularly bold, and it not featuring a waffle, at any point. And it seems physically impossible, unless it's been notably missed out of the reporting of this story. They must have been one somewhere. It's just, it's their sole ever present.

You don't think it's, unless you mention that there was definitely not a waffle present, I think you assume that a waffle was there. So this email came in from Andy Penman who pointed out the Belgium recently attempted to deport an entire Pakistani family after their son was identified as a terrorist for carrying his cricket bat on public transport.

What happened was that Asim Abasi, a 22-year-old Pakistani cricket player, was photographed carrying his covered bat. As soon as he saw his photo in the newspaper, he immediately contacted the police to tell them that he was not armed, but he was carrying his cricket bat to a practice session. And practicing cricket, Andy,

is about as far from an act of terrorism as it is possible to be, unless you think that testing the limits of the human attention span is an act of terrorism. He told the police that I wrapped my bat in my sweatshirt because it was raining and if it's wet, I can't play the ball properly. But to be fair, Andy, that is just what a terrorist would say. Yeah, that's exactly right. A terrorist was a cricket that concerned about playing with a wet bat and not a terrorist at all.

Or maybe Belgium just thinks that that's some kind of terror code. When he says, I wrapped my bat in my sweatshirt, he means, I will attack the West with ferocious anger. Well, I'd look at this from the point of view of someone who was infected by the glorious benevolent virus of cricket at a very young age. And I would say to you, Belgium, get down on your waffly fucking knees and give thanks that there are people prepared to live in your chocolate riddle nation and try to educate you in the glories of cricket, try to save you from the miserable swamp of waffle-addicted cricket lessness. Bow down and give thanks. And there's a danger of tit for tat or a prizles, John.

In fact, just before we start the recording, there was a story about Pakistan expelling Belgians for carrying waffles on the streets of Lahore. Well, the incredible thing is that despite contacting the police and clearing the homeless understanding up, his entire family of seven has now lost their right to live in Belgium, as the Pakistani Embassy in Brussels sacked his dad, a diplomat, for damaging Pakistan's reputation. How the f*** is that damaging Pakistan's reputation, Andy? Are they concerned

that the world will think they're too scared to play cricket with a damp bat? They've got a nuclear bomb, Andy. As long as they're willing to use that when it's raining, I think they'll have a certain level of the world's attention. But against the Belgian nominee comes this nomination from Esteban Domingo's Booneface, strong name. Who writes, I'm half Belgian, half Dominican, and I'll live in Manchester. I'll bet you never thought you would see those words

together in one sentence. I probably didn never thought you would see those words together in one sentence. I probably didn't think I would see those words together. I've taken time out from my regular Monday night rights Estabant, which primarily consists of eating rum-based waffles, using chocolate sticks as pretend cigars and watching poirot to the soundtrack of Baseball commentary. To tell you that one of my countries is a dick, but not Belgium, it's the Dominican Republic.

Now, you've probably never heard of the Dominican Republic, right, Esther Band, though John might have, given that he's living in the second biggest Dominican city in the world. That's true. We are like just like Puerto Ricans minus the parade, but with better rum. Another difference with Puerto Rico is that we're actually

independent, or at least we get to legislate our own rules and stuff, and I left pretty much to play alone with ourselves, as long as we don't make too much noise and leave the grown-ups, Papa USA and Mama IMF in peace, classic parenting. If we behave we're rewarded with a multi-million dollar baseball contract that is even better parenting. I mean it's not necessarily what my son wanted for his birthday this week but what's good for Albert Poo holes, it's good for my boy if not for my bank account but anyway I think he's only six but he's good for Albert Poole holes is good for my boy, if not for my bank account. But anyway, I think he's only six, but he's playing for the LA Angels next year. However, our politicians continue, Gestrban, did what they do best and ruined this peaceful

life by being Dix once again a dance as old as time itself. Our constitutional courts decided to resolve decades of tensions with neighboring Haiti by reinterpreting a law introduced in 2010 2010 which changed the right of Dominican citizenship from Jussoli to Jussanguiness, right of the land against right of blood and applied it retrospectively thus stripping citizenship from all descendants of illegal immigrants born in the Dominican Republic between any guesses for the years. republic between any guesses for the years. 1750. Not quite that bad. 1929 and 20. Still bad. That's still very bad. Don't let Chris' guess make that feel less bad to you.

To be fair, if the Queen had been born in the Dominican Republic from Haitian parents and that is quite a big if she would be safe under this she was born in 1926. But this renders points out Estabane people who haven't lived anywhere else basically stateless. These are overwhelmingly Haitians says Estabane, no problem with that. These Haitians have had it far too good for far too long. How can I make that? I'm not the history of Haiti. I might be mixing up Haitian with Monaco, they're basically interchangeable. You don't have to pay too much tax, and either of them, albeit for very, very different reasons.

Estabank concludes, just in case the Dickoff ends in a draw, here's the tiebreaker, amid international condemnation, a complaint was submitted to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in hope of overturning the rule. What did the Dominican court do? Well, they found a loophole and annulled their membership of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights

dissolving any responsibility to review the complaint. That is classic, John. That is a classic governmental sidestep. BELL RINGS Hong Kong diggers us now, and someone else wrote to us, Matt Brown wrote to us saying, hello, John and Andy, I believe Hong Kong, while not necessarily a country,

should get special mention as a potential top dick for the government's response to the democracy protests. And he's not wrong about that Andy, because whilst the physical responses to the protest got the most attention on the news around the world, the verbal responses were perhaps even more chilling. The most profoundly patronising came from Chief Executive, Scylun, who basically argued that the universal democracy would not be possible could not possibly be allowed, because it would mean that too many poor people would be able to vote. And that is the kind of old-school snubbing of poor people that can give you a nosebleeds just to hear our loud nowadays. Usually when you hear that kind of tone,

it's in a lavish BBC costume drama being spoken by a man in an unfeasably large mustache, not a clean shaven politician in 2014. Long said it would be better as Beijing is suggesting for them to screen all candidates with a broadly representative, nominated committee, appointed by Beijing. That screening he said would insulate candidates from popular pressure to create a welfare

state and would allow the city government to follow more business-friendly policies to address economic inequality instead. Holy shit, I think I just had a nose bleed out of the other nostril as well, Adley. He is one centred away from saying let them eat cake and meaning it. And the best thing about all of this is that he said at government house in Hong Kong, the all-night mansion that was the home of British colonial governors for more than a century. So if those wars could talk, they'd probably say, honestly, you're not going to believe this, but we've actually heard a lot worse than what we say right now.

This is a refreshingly unracist take on poor people in Hong Kong. A few quick entries, Constantine nominated Russia for an interview in which Igor Strelkov, the Ex-Minister of Defence of the Donets, People's Republic, reminisced with a quote, Terry Idnostalgia about atrocities he himself had committed

in Ukraine. Russia is, I mean, it's had a strong year in terms of, in terms of, it's tough. It's worn its national dick very much on its president's sleeves. Alex nominated Spain. We in Spain are such dicks that we're about to tax the sun. If you have a solar panel, you have to pay a tax so high, it will become cheaper to buy the energy from the electric companies who can even get into your home without permission to make sure you aren't hiding solar panels. Well, we've warned about this before, John, I've clearly worried about the dangers of overfarming the sun.

And also, what about the oil companies? Won't somebody please please for once think of the oil companies. Japan was nominated by Ian Maloney currently living there who points out that official statistics so that of 3,260 people who applied for refugee status in Japan during 2014 only how many applications were granted from 3,260 260, and he guesses half. What, half of the applications or one half of one application? 1,500. You would be, you would be much closer going for one half of one application. Six applications, six out of 3,260.

Alvaro from Chile nominated his country for anti-deluvian abortion laws that put the O into misogyny. And we had a frankly horrific nomination for Kenya from an understandably anonymous correspondent that puts the G into even more appallingly misogynistic. It's been, as you said, John, it's hard to be overly positive about the state of all once great species having read plowed through all these emails. Yeah. So those are the entries for the my country tizidic competition. Now it is decision time.

Well, John, for me, it has to be Belgium for its hideously anti-cricket attempt to deport that Pakistani family. I mean, you take on cricket, you take on Andy's ultimate and you know, I'm not going to stand by and let that dickiness go unrewarded. It's hard to look past Mexico just in terms of the distilled horror that's taking place there. Russia is generally almost a victim of having had too good a year of being a dick. I don't know, in terms of the nominees, it just shows what a cool heart to make a call there. Well, competitive field, it's been. I mean, you almost want to just cut the trophy

in 15 and it's like Miss World, but more so. It, it, I don't know if I can pick one. Chris, have you got any? Well, I played cricket in Belgium. Right. Against the team made up entirely of Muslims and racists. And they seemed to get along just fine. So you could hope, cricket is a uniting force, a Belgium shouldn't brace that. But I personally think that it's got to be Poland, because you can't f*** with Winnie the Pooh.

Oh, testifying. I mean, of all the things we've discussed here, a fictitious bear being dishonoured. Yeah, I mean, that is fully dickish. I think some of these nominations have actually do spill beyond the dick, the dickishness into full f***ery. And I mean, that is, I think it's, I think to me, it's Poland or Belgium. And that's, um, yeah, you're right. In terms of dickishness, a kind of, you know, irritating piece of behaviour that doesn't really have much broader significance

in the world, it's probably Poland, isn't it? It's probably Poland. I think we have a winner that the dick of a country is the other country slightly overshot that's the problem. They've just made an impression on the plaster scene on the take of Ford. They've been made an impression on the plaster scene on the takeout board.

They've been a lot of no jumps. And so the winner, congratulations Poland. Well done. A much overdue trophy for the Poles had Pope with a decade in the 1990s, of course, I think is the first major trophy they've won since then. So thanks to all of you who sent an email for this conversation. Sorry, we couldn't get around to all the nominated countries and all the emails, but I'm sure you want to say it was a massively keenly false contest. One, I'm sure we'll return to at some point in the bugle future.

This is the end of the bugle for this year 2014. Thanks once again for listening through the year. Thanks in particular to those who have voluntarily subscribed to keep the podcast free for other people and and independent and Also Happy Hanukkah to one and all I believe I've got the right week this year John If you have it's a lucky guess

No, it's you know what guess I mean Can you guess something with access to the internet? I'm not sure you can anymore. And particularly, happy Hanukkah to our listeners, chosen by the Almighty Lord as his chosen people, chosen by the people for a special happy Hanukkah greeting. Don't listen to this if you're not on the Jewish team. Happy Hanukkah! My father Hanukkah bring all the presents you've asked for

on his special sleigh, although you do have to have eight separate chimneys, I think, if you want him to come every day of the Big G- sorry, I'm a bit out of the loop. As a lapsed you, John, of course, I'm not allowed to have the full Chanukkah Shabang, which this year runs 16th to the 24th of December. I'm just allowed a special one-day lapsed Chanukkah,

the day after the real Chanukkah ends, which this year falls on the 25th of December. I'm just allowed a special one day lapsed Hanukkah, the day after the real Hanukkah ends, which this year falls on the 25th of December, as it has in all other years in my house. So we will have a bugle review of the year out, at some points, over the festive season. Thanks again for your ears and your support during this year, and we will be back in 2015. Goodbye.

Happy holidays! Thank you.