So, it's been about five weeks now since my bicycle accident and two weeks since arriving in St. Louis to spend time with my family, and things are going pretty smoothly; the other day, for example, I finally had a chance to sit down and re-subscribe to all the podcasts I usually listen to up in Chicago. And that's had me thinking again about my favorite of all of them, a weekly half-hour show called The Bugle sponsored by the Times newspaper over in London. Written and hosted by a pair of UK comedians named Andy Zaltzman and John Oliver (the latter being more well-known by Americans as "that British dude on The Daily Show"), The Bugle essentially carries on the well-known British tradition of audio parodies concerning current events, coming out every Friday afternoon and covering all the top news stories of the last seven days; the particular hook here, then, is that the two actually record each show in real time while Zaltzman is in London and Oliver in New York, not only making the content of each episode a mix of European and American news but also each comedian's take on these subjects. Plus in the best online tradition, the show has a strong social element, with the duo not only maintaining a blog for the show but also actively soliciting bits from their audience for each episode; in particular, the user-driven "Hotties from History" segment is a real hoot, and will oftentimes actually be the funniest part of the entire podcast.

It's a real highlight of my week, and I'm always anxiously refreshing my iTunes come every Friday afternoon for the latest; for those like me who appreciate dry off-the-cuff British humor concerning the latest topics in the news, I encourage you to check out the podcast yourself, either at the official site or through their iTunes channel.