Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - News Quiz 3rd September 2021

Episode Date: September 3, 2021

Andy Zaltzman is joined by Rachel Fairburn, Hugo Rifkind, Helen Lewis and Ian Smith.

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello. Welcome to the News Quiz Greatest Year of This Decade So Far Award. And the nominations are... ..2020 and 2021. Yes, bit of a disappointing shortlist. And before we announce the winner, which we'll do at the end of December,

let's find out more about 2021 by talking about it over the next eight weeks in this new series of The News Quiz. Thank you. Happy new News Quiz series, everyone. I'm Andy Zoltz and we are back from our summer break. And if you told me when we finished the last series at the start of June that COVID would still be circulating at alarming levels, Afghanistan would not have worked out

absolutely brilliantly, much of the world would be literally on fire and England's batting would still be overly dependent on Joe Root, well, I would never have... Obviously, I would have definitely have believed you. I would have believed you as much as if you'd said, in the hypothetical event of photos of Michael Gove dancing in a nightclub were to be circulated in the media, your retinas would never truly recover.

We are joined once again for this series by our live virtual remote audience, hand-picked from the top 7.5 billion best people in the world. And our teams this week. Firstly, we have Team Glass One Tenth Full, who are Rachel Fairburn and Hugo Rifkin. And on Team Glass 90% Empty, it's Ian Smith and Helen Lewis. CHEERING

So only one place to start for our first show after the summer hiatus, after what's been in the news recently, and this question will go to Team One Tenthful, to Rachel and Hugo. What prolonged campaign, obviously doomed to failure, that has divided the nation for years and was clearly never going to reach a satisfactory conclusion for everyone, did inevitably end in failure this week? Was it Geronimo?

Correct. Yes, it was. That was the correct answer, straight off the mark with two points. I mean, it's been a story that's really touched the nation, Geronimo the alpaca. What did he mean to you personally? I was a fan of his hair. I thought he was... You don't often see the kind of Bobby Ewing from Dallas look these days.

The full kind of Graham Sooners, if you will. And Geronimo the alpaca was rocking it well. I assume he's rocking it less well now. There's probably a hole in it right about there. was rocking it well. I assume it's rocking it less well now. There's probably a hole in it right about there. But the good thing about this is we've all learnt what an alpaca is.

So I reckon we are on a plus. I appreciated the delightful consistency of the British people who are totally resistant to any suggestion we might all go vegetarian or vegan to save the planet. But one disease-ridden alpaca and we're practically marching on Downing Street. It was very moving to see. Can one eat the alpaca? You can eat anything once.

I feel he was the pet that we deserved as a nation, you know, like a diseased animal. I just feel they could have been a bit kinder about the way they executed him. You know, it was all very dramatic, wasn't it? But I just feel like I'd like to have been lied to about it. You know when your parents used to say, oh, the dog's gone to live on a farm?

You know, all right, it was living on a farm already, but they could have said, oh, Geronimo's gone to live on a farm with other animals with TB. You know, he's there with the badgers. He's there with Tony Blair. He's there by accident because of his initials. I just feel it would have been a lot kinder for us because we've been through a lot, you know.

I think the word destroyed as well makes it sound a lot... Destroyed seems like such an excessive word for killing an animal. Because if you went to the hospital and a doctor came out and said, your grandma's surgery hasn't gone very well and we've had to destroy her... LAUGHTER It just seems like a lot. I think whenever I hear the word destroyed, and Geronimo, I feel like something's been launched out like a lot. I think whenever I hear the word destroyed and Geronimo,

I feel like something's been launched out of a cannon. The way he would have wanted to go. It's all because Geronimo didn't get his BCG, isn't it? If he'd got his BCG in his arm, then it all would have been fine. But Paul Lee's had tuberculosis twice, so there's something like 30,000 cows and hundreds of llamas and alpacas put down all the time. He's had TB twice and has lived to see a new album from Lorde.

He's done pretty well. LAUGHTER see a new album from Lorde. It's done pretty well. People claim that the positive tests for the bovine tuberculosis were inaccurate, very much a kind of Shakespearean TB or not TB confusion. I'm getting worried this series has peaked too early. If you mention the RCU,

it's like hypocrisy of our attitude towards animals. I mean, we are a nation that eats an estimated 2.3 trillion tonnes of doner kebab meat every year. That's an estimate that I've done based on the amount I've eaten in the last 24 hours, extrapolated across the whole population. Rachel, why do you think there was so much fuss about this one particular animal rather than all the others?

Because it's cute. That's it, innit? It's cute. And also, we don't eat alpacas, as far as I know. As we've just discussed, we don't eat it. That's why I think, you know, you see it as like a cute little pet rather than... I mean, God, if he was a dog, can you imagine? Oh, my God, people would be out on the streets rioting. We'd never hear the end of it. People are obsessed with the dogs, aren't they?

Some people use them as personalities. Yes, and in fact, this woolly-faced Robin Hood de Nogere, he did score an unprecedented 9.5 fluffs on the Cute Woolly Animal Monthly magazine's Cuddlability Index. I think the whole thing's quite hypocritical because there's loads of unattended suitcases that

get destroyed every year that no one says anything about. I'm just awaiting the 75-part Netflix series about it. Anything that you can tell somebody in less than three minutes, beginning, middle and end, is now a Netflix series. So we're going to have Geronimo, 100%. You say that, and I'm just hearing rumours, actually,

that Netflix have cast Brad Pitt and Chris Hemsworth as respectively the front and back halves of Geronimo. Are we all done on the alpaca? I'll pack it in, then. Yes, this is the... This is the tragic story of Geronimo the alpaca, who involuntarily passed away at the age of eight after a long battle against the system.

The three-foot, two-inch former quadruped and woolly neckwear model, man, could he rock an alpaca wool snood, has been described in the media as Britain's most divisive alpaca, which probably is byline in his Daily Express column. Following a four-year legal battle after testing positive for bovine tuberculosis, Geronimo was, delete according to preference, put down for scientifically justifiable reasons,

stroke, executed for a crime he didn't commit, stroke, obviously taken to an MI5 dark side and interrogated about his role in the Georgie Markov murder, stroke, taken to a happier, simpler place in this too-too troubled world. He died as he lived, with a surprised look on his face. People also claim that the positive tests for bovine tuberculosis are inaccurate. We can all relate to that.

Look, I'm not saying these home tests are completely unreliable, but I've been pinged three times in the last fortnight for myxomatosis, Dutch elm disease and Saturday night fever. pinged three times in the last fortnight for myxomatosis, Dutch elm disease and Saturday night fever. At the end of our first round, it's two points to Team 110th Full. No points to Team 90% Empty who get

our next question, which is our special heartbreakingly inevitable and irredeemably tragic geopolitical failure round. So please listen carefully. This goes to Helen and Ian. I am a landlocked mountainous nation in Central Asia with a history of disastrous foreign interventions that now, after

a 20-year campaign, finds itself back in the hands of a gun-toting, misogynist, medieval themed misery cult. What am I? A chance to do a little light material about Azerbaijan, which, frankly, hasn't had a good press recently. It must be Afghanistan. Correct, yes, correct, two points.

I mean, it was just an incredibly depressing story from start to finish, and I therefore commend Dominic Raab for taking the edge off it by being an absolute clown show from start to finish. Beginning with saying that he couldn't go in the sea because the sea was closed. That was a new adventure for him. There's been a very different approach to basically how this failure is addressed

in, like, Britain and in America. Because America's doing this thing where they're kind of like, yep, we pulled out, it's a shit show, we don't care. 20 years, we don't care anymore. I mean, Joe Biden doesn't care. Joe Biden doesn't have to talk about whether or not he was on holiday. He's just like, yeah, we did what we were going to do. And it was always going to be awful. Whereas here in Britain, we're doing this really, really weird thing. I mean,

Dominic Raab's kind of like, obviously, all over the place. But he's also kind of doing this thing of going, well, we knew they'd take over, but we didn't know it would happen so quickly. And it's like, well, that's not better. I mean, it was still going to happen. So you were going to have like a sort of a six month disaster rather than a one week disaster. You know well, that's not better. I mean, it was still going to happen. So you were going to have, like, a sort of a six-month disaster rather than a one-week disaster, you know, and that's your best defence here, is that we thought it was going to turn into hell, but more slowly. It does seem like some of the worst spin attempts...

Like, America said, like, no-one has done more to evacuate people from somewhere than we have, and you think, yeah, but you've created a situation where people need to be evacuated from somewhere. It's like a chef bragging, no-one has put out more fires in this kitchen than I have. I actually found Joe Biden's speech quite refreshing because, you know, I'm a woman of the world

and it was quite interesting to hear a man deliver a speech defending pulling out rather than why they hadn't. Hugo, are there any silver linings in this? Oh, yes. I mean, of course, because look, they're a new Taliban. They're not like the old Taliban. They're a new, inclusive, quite cuddly Taliban, they would claim.

For example, they did say, yes, they have banned women from working, but only while they get training, they have said, in how to speak to women, which I think is a very, very positive sign. They'll learn how to do things like say, do you come here often? And the women they're speaking to will say things like, well, it's my office, so I I did until you banned me from working. The Taliban, I mean it's got to be said it's been a messy transfer window in Afghanistan

and the Taliban have claimed to be a more moderate Taliban which I guess is like being a more luxurious endoscopy or a more relaxing barrage of javelins through the windscreen on the A303. It's not much to clinch, is it? It is crazy how they've sort of presented themselves as more mainstream.

Like, the weirdest thing is waking up and hearing that the Taliban were on Good Morning Britain. Like, even Piers Morgan would probably look and go, you can't replace me with them, that's too much. I was interested in, like, all the stuff that the Americans have left behind. So they've left, I think it's $61 billion worth of various items for them. I think a real sort of forward thinking approach to

show the Taliban have changed and they're a Taliban for the 21st century is maybe if they started doing like unboxing videos on social media. They could be opening it. Oh, look at this. It's an assault rifle. Oh, night vision goggles. Oh, night vision goggles.

Ooh, Twinkies, no thank you, we're not that bad, we wouldn't eat that rubbish. It's even worse because one report said that they've seen the Taliban wearing new camouflage uniforms, which I think means it isn't good camouflage. which I think means it isn't good camouflage. If that's the report, they're going, oh, the Taliban are going to be a formidable force now with all this new camouflage we can see them wearing over there. It would be much better if they said

the US Army left a lot of camouflage and we haven't seen the Taliban since. The US Army left a lot of camouflage, and we haven't seen the Taliban since. I've decided, though, to become an Afghan animal truther. Don't you think it's really strange that we haven't seen any of these animals that got rescued from the improbably named Penn Farthings Animal Shelter? I mean, I would have thought we'd be drowning in photos

of cute saved dogs. Where are they? I'm just really worried they're all going to have tuberculosis under them. That is the news story that ends Britain. We just have to kind of call it a night at that point. I think that story did tap into all our concerns about long-haul flying. What would you

find most annoying? Being sat next to a crying baby or being sat in front of a five-year-old who keeps kicking your seat or being sat next to a crying baby, or being sat in front of a five-year-old who keeps kicking your seat, or being sat next to someone who's brought 250 cats and dogs on the flight? It was the way they kind of, I mean,

when they brought all the animals back, I mean, which was, I don't know, people will disagree, but I think was just the sort of colossally immoral act that you have the ability to bring living creatures back from Afghanistan and you choose dogs and cats. I like dogs and cats, but I'm sort of more fond of people. But it was the way the defence of it was,

well, no, they went in the hold, and you can't put people in the hold. Because putting someone for whom the alternative is getting shot in the head against a wall in the hold would be cruel. It seemed to be the logic. I mean, it's just the most morally vacuous situation that I wish I could be more funny about, but it just does really make me quite cross. I think it's weird, because he called it,

it was sort of trending as Operation Ark, but, I mean, anyone with sort of basic Ark knowledge knows you only need two dogs and two cats. Sort of unforgivable amount of dogs really. Yes, this is the end of the Western involvement in Afghanistan. Joe Biden said in a

speech this week that the war in Afghanistan is now over, which is true unless you are, for example, still living in Afghanistan. Biden said he will, quote, turn the page on American foreign policy. But turning the page is not always a recipe for improvement, as we've all experienced recently. Why, just last week, I was reading my newspaper thinking, oh, jeepers, the world is doomed, I'm going to turn the page. I turn the page, Michael Gove dancing in a nightclub! The Biden also said the withdrawal marks the moment

when America stops policing the world, which, given how America polices America, might not be that much of a concern. America pleases America might not be that much of a concern. And I'm just hearing some breaking news. The Chinese government has just issued a statement saying, thank you America, this is turning out to be way, way easier than we thought it

was going to be. This question goes to both sides. A group of 60 NGOs has called on the UK government to use its £11 billion climate fund to pay for what? Stopping people having kids. Correct, Ian. Basically, sort of crazily,

the sort of solution that they've found to a slashed foreign aid budget is just to try and make less foreign people. That's their plan. They're trying to advocate for sort of more contraception and stuff like that, which... Who'd have thought condoms would save the environment when they're the definition of a single-use plastic? Everyone bangs on about straws,

but no-one's been advocating for paper condoms... ..until now. Lovely bit of origami foreplay. Won the Grand National in 1978, I was on the show. When I first read this story, and it said the UK government has been urged to use £11 billion of its climate funding for contraception, I thought, for the Prime Minister?

A bit late. I think the real problem with this is it's just wrong. This isn't how you save the climate, because we all know that basically men who hit 50 and don't have kids always buy a sports car. Ellen, it does seem to open the way for a new form of emissions trading around the world, those emissions being children. Do you see this being a viable plan for saving the planet?

I mean, that is the problem. Basically, the problem with climate change is people. If only we could get rid of people, in many ways the problem with climate change would be solved. It's an elegant solution, but there are one or two downsides about it. The problem is that it's not that... The average person born in the developing world,

they are so much less an emitter of pollutants than one of us. Basically, everyone's sort of casting round for ways that avoid us ever having to look at the idea that I might not be able to eat burgers or take flights. And I just think that's the sort of odd paradox of all of this stuff. So you're saying that children from developing countries, they're much less responsible for carbon emissions so if we were to

go overseas and have our children in a developing country and then bring them back would they then emit less carbon as adults? I'm not a scientist. I think you've sort of just proposed the gap here as a solution to carbon change.

I don't know where anyone was going with that. Yes, the government has been urged to crack open its £11 billion climate funding piggy bank to fund contraception in developing countries, as research from low-income nations shows a link between poor access to reproductive health services and environmental damage. And indeed, the Taliban, they are leading the fight

against climate change by pledging that Afghanistan will be pre-industrial by the end of October. The score is now four all. What caused two-time Wimbledon men's singles champion Andy Murray to rail against the injustice of the universe this week? Toilet breaks. Correct. Yes. Well done, Helen.

Or were you just calling for a toilet break at this key point in the quiz? I have got the bladder of a moth, it's true. Yeah, he said that his opponent was deliberately going to the toilet for eight minutes at a time, and then he did an amazing tweet that said that's longer than it took Jeff Bezos to get into space than it takes him to go to the toilet. Which I have to say, now, whenever you next go to the toilet,

I want you to think about whether or not you're taking longer or shorter a time than it takes Jeff Bezos to get to space. All of this happened as well at a venue that is called Flushing Meadows. Yes, it's not just the Western military-industrial complex that has been losing respect this week. It's Greek tennis star Stefanos Tsitsipas as well. At two sets all in his US Open match with Andy Murray, the luxuriantly locked, racket-wielding Adonis

toddled off to the toilet and emerged eight minutes later. A toilet break, or as parents of young children call it, the closest thing you get to a holiday these days. But he did then break Murray's serve and proceed. You have to say, the fact that Greek subterfuge has declined from building a giant horse and hiding an army inside it, to taking

an eight-minute WAS break, well, that tells a sorry story of national decline over 3,000 years. Andy Murray got vocally very stroppy about it. I'm not sure this was the right response. We all know the correct way to hurry up a toilet hog is to stand outside the cubicle, clearing your throat passive-aggressively and occasionally waggling the handle while saying,

Are you all right in there? This question goes to Helen and Ian on Team Glass 90% Empty. Why are little piggies no longer going to market? Oh, there's too many. Apparently we have too many pigs, which spoils the broth, I think. That's a problem. So we have an excess of pigs and not enough people working in the industry of killing pigs.

And I think the two are linked. I think basically there's not a lot of people working in abattoirs. And I think the reason is you don't really see that sort of job advertised very well. And I think they should do it how they do those royal navy engineering adverts where they say if you can kill a fly then you can kill a rat and if you can kill a rat then you can kill a dog and if you can kill a dog then you can kill a pig and if you can kill a pig you can work in any of the UK's abattoirs. If you've got too many pigs on farms

and not enough people on the farms looking after the pigs, couldn't we just train the pigs to walk on their hind legs and run the farm, as George Orwell showed us this morning? If it works out the way you want it to. Rachel, why do you think it is that slaughtering pigs for a living is not a career choice for young Britons these days? What do you think might be putting them off? Well, it's not something you can Instagram, is it?

I mean, it's not very palatable, is it? All the squealing and the blood and the wellies. No-one wants to do that. You'd have to pay me about £1 million per pig to kill the pigs. I couldn't do it. I'd be happy to undercut you, though, if that's currently the best option. I'd be happy to undercut you, though, if that's currently the best option. If they're really looking for people, I'll do it half a million.

Half a million, I'll do it with my bare hands. Yes, this is news that young people have found a new way to ruin Britain this week by not taking jobs in abattoirs. The shortage of workers at abattoirs has caused an oversupply of pigs, who, much like many of us over lockdown, have been growing at a rate of a kilogram a week and have become too, well, porky to slaughter. The shortage has been attributed to a lack of workers due to the pandemic, Brexit and generation snowflakes,

lily-livered reluctance to spend their time slaughtering piggies for little more than minimum wage and the sheer bare-knuckle excitement. I blame pepper. Hopelessly unrealistic propaganda. Moving on to our final question. If you go down to the woods today, why might you get a big surprise? All the trees are dying.

Correct, yes. Correct, Rachel, well done. There's going to be no trees. As if things aren't bad enough and now trees are going to become extinct. Not all of them, don't worry. I think it's like 30% of the world's trees species are going to become extinct, which is a lot. It's as if

the planet wants us to die out, isn't it? Oh, we're blaming the planet now. I mean, there's 60,000 species of trees, Hugo. That's too many. Exactly. I mean, how many do we actually use on a daily basis? I reckon we need very few trees. Very few.

Christmas trees, they're good. Yeah, that's one tree. We need conkers. Keep the one that does conkers. That's good. The one that does conkers. Er, that's good. The one that does all IKEA furniture. Right. Willow.

Apple trees. Apple trees. Willow, so someone shamelessly kind of pandered to Andy's interests. Yeah, how well we take cricket without Willow. Someone else in the audience shouted apple trees, but that's just stupid because we don't need apple trees. We can get them in supermarkets. Yes, apparently 30% of the world's tree species

are facing extinction in the wild, according to a new assessment. Experts say that 17,500 tree species are at risk, which is good news if you hate trees and think they deserve to die for their pathetic refusal to evolve the ability to move. Even rocks did that. They became tortoises.

That is a fact. I mean, what is a tree except a jumped-up, egocentric mega-weed that is too big for a strimmer? Look, I'm not a botanist, but... Trees do remain under threat from human phenomena such as deforestation, logging, climate change,

woodpecker fetishists living out their warped fantasies, and people writing books or articles for newspapers and magazines. Helen and Hugo, this is all your fault. That brings us to the end of our first news quiz of the series, and it's a triumphant win for Helen Lewis and Ian Smith

on Team Glass, 90% empty, over Rachel Fairburn and Hugo Rifkin. Just before we leave some breaking news just reaching us, David Cameron has just offered to rehouse as many oversized pigs as are currently necessary. Thank you very much for listening to the News Quiz. I've been Andy Zaltzman. Goodbye. CHEERING Thank you. And it was a BBC Studios production. radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon Pull Apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just

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