Welcome to the latest issue of the Bugle blog, which in its short life span has potentially been read by political leaders, influential scientists, and acrobats from all six corners of the world.

The deluge of emails flinging themselves into the Bugle inbox has left all at our plush mid-Atlantic offices blushing like an aggressively propositioned debutante. Thanks again for all your correspondence, especially to those of you who have taken the trouble to spell and punctuate it correctly.

THE FINANCES OF FLAG BURNING

B.C. Woods, who almost lives in Seattle and is only 22, confesses movingly: “I am currently at a crossroads in my life, and am looking to plan for my financial future.” Whilst such prescient prudence is lauded by some, The Bugle encourages B.C., and other listeners, to make no such plans, given that they will almost certainly founder on the cocaine-fuelled financial rampagings of stock market speculators. Instead, we advice that you spend recklessly in the present, to minimise your sense of loss when world economics collapses spluttering in the open sewer of its own avaricious effluence, leaving you canoeing through slurry in search of a sandwich.

B.C., so named due to his parents’ shared love of the pre-Christian era, writes that, as “an avid news watcher” (the most dangerous kind of news watcher), he has become aware of “the great market for American flags which is currently booming in the Middle East”.

He writes: “In every protest I have ever seen, the supply of flags to burn seems endless. It stands to reason that these protesters must be buying bulk supplies of American flags simply to torch them immediately thereafter. As you have no doubt deduced, this must make investment in manufacturing American flags extremely profitable.”

(It should be noted that a Pentagon-commissioned report has suggested that most of the burning flags have in fact combusted spontaneously, overcome by the pro-American ardour of those waving them. The media, however, scrabbling around for the negatives as always, choose to portray the minor infernos in a different light.)

B.C. is concerned that a Democratic president might improve Americo-world relations to such an extent that the flag-burning market could plummet faster than a Spanish donkey off a church. Do not fear, B.C.. Bugle researchers have concluded that, regardless of the prevailing strength of antipathy between the flag-burning community and the USA, there are now enough events stored up in history that would-be flag-burners will always be able to remember a grudge-inducing American act which they haven’t thought about for a while, and burn a flag retrospectively. Your investment is both safe and sensible.

DOG BARKING MAD SCIENTISTS

Parisha Shah (one of the many molecular biology Ph.D. students from Chicago to attempt the dangerous stunt of listening to The Bugle whilst operating a microscope) expresses well-merited gratitude for our “heroic efforts” in raising awareness of the brutally important “scientific” study into dog bark translation, performed by what John described as The University Of Hungary, but what was in fact A University In Hungary.

Parisha’s flabber has been rightly ghasted by the development of a computer which correctly translates an “amazing” 43 per cent of Woofs – an incredible 3 per cent more than the average human woof-to-word accuracy rate.

She writes with awestruck keyboard: “In light of this pioneering study, I was wondering if you would consider a twist on your previous issuing of on-air ‘shut ups’ and instead issue an on-air ‘thank you’ to this brilliant research team.

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