Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - NEWS QUIZ: Climate Change, Brexit and Swedish Trotting

Episode Date: May 8, 2020

Angela Barnes welcomes Helen Lewis, Andy Parsons, Kerry Godliman and Simon Evans.

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Louis Theroux and I've got a new podcast on BBC Sounds called Grounded with Louis Theroux. Stick around after the show to hear what it's all about. Hello, I'm Angela Barnes and you're listening to the Friday Night Comedy podcast. This week a few tantalising hints have been dropping about when sport might return to our screens.

Now, I can only speak for myself here, but I, for one, can't wait to get back to my Saturday routine of grabbing a nice cold beer, sitting myself down on the sofa, and not watching it. Bliss. Until then, here's the news quiz. Enjoy.

Enjoy. Watching it bliss. Until then, here's the News Quiz. Enjoy. Welcome to the News Quiz with your host, Angela Barnes. Hello and welcome to another lockdown edition of the News Quiz coming once again from our very own homes. Now, we're doing our best to make things sound as good as possible. For example, I'm recording from a fort I've created out of two king-sized duvets and some pillows. This, of course, provides a decent degree of soundproofing and now we're in week six of lockdown, handily doubles as a padded cell. So without further ado, we'll start tonight with this cutting from the front page of The Times, read by Alan Smith. I want a baby, but I'm single and in lockdown. Free delivery for six weeks.

Thank you to Brian Thorpe for sending that in. Now let's meet the teams. In Team A, we have Helen Lewis and Andy Parsons. Hello. And in Team B, it's Kerry Godleman and Simon Evans. Hello. How are you all doing? Kerry, Helen, we saw you a couple of weeks ago.

I think it's progressing well. I'm about 10% madder and 10% hairier. How about you? I think it's progressing well i'm about 10 madder and 10 hairier how about you i think that's the entire population i'm worried because we were both doing embroidery when we last saw each other and she's stuck with it but i've moved on now yeah i'm nostalgic for the the embroidery days andy passes how are you getting on i'm trying to remain positive i mean we've managed to do some good things haven't we we've obviously got lots of staff who haven't lost their jobs because they've been furloughed, which is good, 80% of wages.

Then, of course, we've managed to build a nightingale hospital in nine days. We weren't sure we could do that. Admittedly, you know, it's only got a few patients. It's got no nurses, no gowns, no masks. It's on standby at the moment, but we did build it in nine days. Simon Evans, how are you getting on your lockdown? Tremendous, thank you. I've discovered all kinds of new cocktail recipes

based on what was left at the back of the cupboard. I have learned that we have two children now. And actually... Which one were you not aware of? The younger, louder one. I just assumed my daughter's voice was breaking back and forth. It's all been tremendously good fun so far, touch wood. Shall we crack on with the show?

OK, Helen, who didn't take their own sage advice? This must be Professor Lockdown, as he's known, Neil Ferguson, the Coughing Boffin, as he mysteriously wasn't nicknamed by any tabloids. And basically, he was on the SAGE advisory committee, which came up with the lockdown rules. But he had a woman over to visit him, which he said he considered them part of the same household. But that's not how it works, unfortunately. And the problem with this is the Scotland's chief medical officer got done for, well, not exactly the same thing.

But she was going to her second home at the weekends and she had to resign, too. And there's a big established problem with that. If you make the rules, you do actually kind of have to follow them. But I kind of I have some sympathy for both of them. I think, you know, for those of us who've got someone at home with us during lockdown, we may be sick of the sight of their face 23 hours a day. But I think for people on their own, it must be really, really hard. The person I don't have any sympathy for, unsurprising enough, is Nigel Farage, who has decided that his career as a YouTuber

means that he has to go out and do reporting for a 100-mile journey. He had to go to Kent to report on the migrant crisis. I think it might be our duty to be obedient consumers of the press and be distracted by Mr. Ferguson's little tryst and not put focus on Boris Johnson's failings. Isn't that the point of it? Well, yeah.

That's the point of it coming out on the same day of us topping Italy for our death rates? It does seem unusual, doesn't it? Because the actual tryst, if you want to call it that, happened a month ago. I feel like I ought to say at this point that as a journalist, any time there's a massive conspiracy that involves the media being really really clever it almost certainly

didn't happen. Isn't this about people starting to break down on the lockdown like people doing so like Gordon Ramsay's been out and about hasn't he

sort of going to his second home like that. He has. It turns out his second home is 25 miles from his normal home

which he hasn't clearly caught the drift of what a second home is for. He's got three homes and they're all in Cornwall. You can actually get a Gordon Ramsay tracker and download it onto your phone now because he's been spotted in Newquay, in Foy, in Port Isaac, and you can check the prevalence of Gordon Ramsay in your area.

Do you know what he's doing? He's buying fish. I mean, the audacity of the man. He's buying fish from a fishmonger's for his barbecues. That's what the article said. Like, plural of barbecues. Like, I don't know what he's done wrong, buying fish for a barbecue. Aren't we allowed to do that?

I think you're not supposed to do it if it's 25 miles from your house that you've gone to buy fish. Yeah, but it's his other house. This Professor Lockdown, the reason he gave, he said he'd got coronavirus. So, you know, he basically didn't think he could pass it on. At the moment, the government is saying, oh, well, actually, because you've had it doesn't mean that you've necessarily got immunity. But they obviously don't want to say that if you've had it, you're absolutely free to go out on the razzle if you fancy it. Because, you know, there's no problem.

Obviously not easy to go out on the razzle at the moment it because you know there's no problem obviously not easy to go out on the razzle at the moment you basically go jogging with a bottle of wine that's pretty much what your limits are the whole lockdown is sort of falling apart isn't it it seems like we're all waiting to be told that we can have we're roughly in the year of sort of 1960s manchester like les dawson sketches basically basically, now, aren't we? Where everyone is just mouthing to each other across the dinner. It does have a slight tone of carry on corona, doesn't it? Because we don't have clarity. So we don't have rules.

We have advice. Whereas obviously in France, you're not allowed out unless you've got paperwork and blah, blah, blah. But here it's a bit like, well, we advise you, but no one's saying officially don't. We're desperate for the lockdown to be eased if you're a parent, aren't you? I mean, it's like waiting for the lottery numbers to come through. Every time they talk about maybe which years they're going to actually sort of have first back to the primary school and they're going year six

and then year 10. Come on, year four. Year four is the one you want to have back. Maybe nurseries as well. Year minus three. Come on, year four. Year four is the one you want to have back. Maybe nurseries as well. Year minus three. Come on, that's what we're after. This is Professor Neil Ferguson, who's quit as a government advisor on coronavirus

after an error of judgment where a woman he was dating visited his home during lockdown. Ferguson's calculations helped transform government policy, but shamefully his calculations missed one thing, his own horniness. Two points to Helen. Everyone have a listen to this. So this is a question for everybody. Who's not having a great deal of joy?

Is this to do with the Brexit negotiations, which are ongoing at the moment and not going particularly well? Four weeks into News Quiz, and I think it might be one of the first times we've mentioned the B word. It's exciting, isn't it? Unheard of in the last four years. It really does come to something when Brexit is seen as light relief. I know, right?

The main story now is how actually maybe they're trying to sneak through the government a bad Brexit under the cover of coronavirus. And it's the worst of all things. It's coronavirus everybody's had enough of. Everybody had had enough of Brexit. And now it's the two stories combined oh it does feel right now like a year ago brexit was everything but it does feel right now that you know trying to negotiate brexit is like trying to negotiate cheaper broadband while your house is on fire oh completely i think a lot of the population obviously we've had we've had something on our minds for the last few weeks a A lot of people have forgotten that Brexit's a thing.

And I was thinking, how can we engage people back into Brexit? I think what we could do... How do you make Brexit sexy again? There are definitely a few things that have changed. For instance, I think it has become clear that having a distinctive blue passport will in fact be of some significance going forward because Britain is clearly going to be one of the few countries which isn't allowed to rejoin tourism and re-engage with the world in the immediate future. All these little sort of isolated bubbles of successful shutdown,

lockdown, test and trace countries are beginning to sort of explore the chance of opening up their borders again, and that wouldn't have happened anyway. That would have been enormously frustrating if it had felt like it was being imposed upon us by Europe. But in reality, of course, that is a choice that we have made now. We have selected a blue passport. So I think psychologically, actually, Brexit will have come in just enough time

to buoy us up and make us feel that we are, you know, the captains of our own soul and masters of our fate. It's a bit like we're not going to the party because we've chosen not to and not because we haven't been invited. Very much so. Is anyone following what's happening with the negotiations at the moment?

Goves back, isn't he? Goves back on the front line talking about it. Do you see what he said this week? What's going to happen is what we all predicted would happen this year, which is that everyone's going to take the middle section of the year off before falling into a screaming panic at the end of it.

That's what everybody expected. Not helped by the fact that half the negotiating team have actually had coronavirus but um yeah the thing that's going to happen is a massive argument about fish what's not sexy about that angela what's not sexy about fish i keep hearing oh the eu you know of want to have these negotiations about fishing quotas and we can't have our cake and eat it and to them i say have they not heard of fish cakes? Isn't the big debate as to whether we're going to have to actually extend the transition? And, you know, people say it would make much more sense to extend it in a time of coronavirus or whatever. But we actually don't get a say on how much we'd have to pay.

It'd be like being at a restaurant, having 27 others put in what they think they should actually for the bill, and then we're actually left with the bill. So things have changed in terms of the way things have gone. Well, there's an argument, isn't there, that Boris, he loves going right up to a deadline and sort of then doing his homework the night before. I think that he's been described as a crammer, I saw him described, so that to him,

he's got no desire to push the deadline back so far. Do we think it will move? Helen, do you think it will move? The man's just come out of intensive care two weeks ago and he's got a newborn baby. I mean, if there was ever a definition of he's got quite a lot on already without worrying about fish, then I really don't know. I think it's sort of bizarre, though, but I think there are quite sensible Brexiteers who think,

you know, look, it's happened, we're legally out. now we're doing, you know, finicking around the edges. Actually, six months one way or the other doesn't is not an existential threat to Brexit. However, there are also some crazy people in the world. This idea is that they're going to blink the EU. They blinked for the withdrawal agreement and now they'll blink again. Well, there seem to be a few changes because Gove came out this week, didn't he? And now they'll blink again. Well, there seem to be a few changes because Gove came out this week, didn't he?

And he said that the UK would accept tariffs as a condition of sovereignty, essentially. Whereas, you know, previously we've been given this rhetoric that no compromise was always going to be the theme of the talks. But I'm wondering whether now that they're thinking of changing the slogan for coronavirus, aren't they? It's not supposed to be stay home anymore. I'm looking forward to get coronavirus done. This is the news that, of course, Brexit negotiations continue to bubble away. In his evidence to a Lord Select Committee this week, Michael Gove insisted that in the event of a no-deal Brexit, there would be no medical shortages and certainly there's nothing that's happened in the past few months to give us any reason to doubt him. Two points to Simon. Andy, have a listen to this andy what might be given a sporting chance to come back is it sport

it could be did did you get the subtle clues in the question? Yeah, I like it. I like questions like that. Yeah, well, I mean, there's been no sport, has there? Basically, the only sport in Europe, pretty much, has been Swedish trotting, by all accounts. This is Swedish horse and carting. I wasn't aware of it necessarily, but apparently that and football in Belarus

is pretty much all you can follow at the moment. And the Swedish trotting has been going very well. Apparently a lot of people who are into gambling have been gambling on the Swedish trotting because there's been nothing else. And I think that's probably a definition of problem gambling, if you're interested in what's been happening

with Swedish trotting. I would think. It really is. If you're betting on Swedish trotting, that's like the sporting equivalent of drinking mouthwash. I think if you're worried about what is going to be happening to Dynamo Minsk, then really the fun has stopped. Are Belarus not... Are they not suffering with coronavirus or are they just not care? I think they've been all right because they've got borders

with lots of countries that have closed their borders. So by default, they've closed their borders. They've got borders with lots of countries that have closed their borders so by default they've closed their borders. They've got a dictator in charge who said that it was all like vodka and a sauna would sort you right out for coronavirus. Oh it was the vodka and a sauna guy. Which I should stress is not medical advice. I mean in any other circumstances a lovely idea but not to cure coronavirus. The boxing border control they're keen to come back uh july obviously they're going to change it slightly no crowds boxers going to wear masks and no spitting it in a bucket and you think if you've got you know sort of two meters away from you a 20 stone giant with fists

of steel i think the idea that they might sneeze on you is probably the least of your worries. Hang on, if you're not like allowed contact and spitting and all the normal sort of behaviours of boxing, isn't that dancing? You do feel that there are some sports that, you know, should be coming back that haven't been allowed so far. I mean, fishing is banned. Surely that is the definition of social distancing. And there's three or four reasons that you can go out, aren't there? One of them is to go to the shops for food and the other is for exercise.

And obviously the anglers are trying to make the case that their sport is one of the few that involves both of those things. Although in my experience, it's hugely neither. Are any of you missing sport? Are you sports fans? Yeah. Because I'm not a sports fan, but I do know that sport's important. Like for a start, the sports round in a pub quiz makes sure the intelligent people don't win everything.

Well, I was going to say the one I miss, the one I do miss is University Challenge, which lasted well into lockdown. It ended about three weeks ago. And that felt like it was a live competitive event, even though it was recorded, in which people were not only sitting next to each other, but on top of each other in a form that would be completely unacceptable now.

It had all the excitement and, you know, the great clash of individuals and team play. When that went, I finally understood how everybody else had felt about the premiership. I know that Dominic Raab has said that sport is good for morale and that some of these events are going to go ahead without spectators. Is that right?

But I'm not a sport fan, so you tell me. If you haven't got spectators, is it sport? Isn't it like that butterfly in a wood thing where is it real if no one is witnessing it? This is the news that sports, including football and boxing, may soon be returning with special considerations for social distancing. Of course, sport never really went away. Not away not if like me you've enjoyed highly competitive daily games of who will break this tense and resentful silence first two points to

andy and at the end of round one helen and andy have four points and kerry and simon have two now before we start round two we've been sent this quote from a renowned Slovenian chef in the EasyJet in-flight magazine. I wanted quality ducks and I didn't have a supplier, so I became one myself. Thank you to Rosamund Southgate for sending that in. Simon, what might be given the green light thanks to coronavirus? Well, I would imagine that this is a reference to climate change policies. A lot of the Green Lobby are quite excited about the PR job that has been done by this medieval plague in reminding us that we are a plaything at the mercy of the climate and of the environment and of nature herself in all her various magnificent and terrifying forms and that if we mess with natural balances um then we can come a cropper they hope that the implication is that if a single bat soup can bring the world to a standstill imagine what a degree raise in temperature would do and so on and also of course they're reminding us that we have witnessed a beautiful

calm which is uh undeniably very aesthetically appealing for the first sort of five minutes of the eight weeks that we've been experiencing it for. The sight of the Thames running without a ripple and the sight of the blue skies. We live under the Gatwick flight path and we haven't seen any chemtrails and none of our frogs are gay anymore. And it's marvellous, you know.

People are getting excited about the drop in emissions, but I can't help thinking it's a bit like getting excited that you've lost weight, but it's because you've spent a month down a well. It's a bit like, you know, when you go on a family holiday. We went on a family cycling holiday once and we cycled every single day. We felt great. We came back. It was like, we're going to do that forever now.

We're going to cycle together as a family. And then we put our bikes in the garage and never to come out again. That's what it feels like. But this equivalent is that then the garage blew up. Yeah. This is an opportunity though, isn't it? We are a windy country surrounded by the sea. We are made for renewables.

At the moment, we've got Denmark leading the charge on wind energy. And they sell most of their wind energy for interconnectors under the sea to Scandinavian countries. In Germany, we get 40% of Europe's wind. So, you know, it'd be brilliant if we could flog that to Europe. Regardless of what anybody thinks of Brexit, every single person in the country would be up for selling fresh air to Europe. It's an interesting fact who sells what to whom. Germany is way ahead of Spain in terms of solar which is extraordinary.

I mean Germany's weather is no better than ours at all. It's all about the science and the technology and the investment. Nothing to do with the weather at all it seems. I've always found that bizarre but it's true. Until recently like like Gatwick were in talks, weren't they, to build another runway. And I find that quite like now they're in talks to work out what day their runway should be used for car boot sales. Do you think though, I mean, I've sort of got used to having a beer in the evening with my mates via the various like meeting apps,

but do you think that will pan out to full fortnight holidays? Do you think people are going to sit there in their shorts with a sun lamp and just like a screen full of Marbella with some gently blowing breeze across the palms, sipping a martini? To be honest, I quite like that idea. I'm happy to never go on holiday again as long as everybody else isn't allowed to either.

The one thing I like about lockdown, it's completely eliminated FOMO. I think it would be a shame if everything just did lurch back to the horror show environmentally that it did before the pandemic. I mean, there's got to be some sort of middle ground, hasn't there? All the things they said weren't possible have been shown to be possible. Admit it, though, a little bit of you wants to sit under a patio heater eating a Barnell sandwich.

That was Helen Lewis from The New Statesman. A lot of people I know, they've been talking about how to make your home more climate-friendly. Ideally, you should buy a new one, prepackaged from Germany. They're called a passive house, I believe, in which there is no need to spend anything on energy it's so energy efficient it doesn't need any inputs at all for which of course the obvious counter is the English version being the passive aggressive house

where you just sort of go I suppose I'll run this bath then shall I I'm looking forward to Christmas round robins this year though you know oh this, I didn't spend two weeks in the Mediterranean. I spent two weeks trying to claim back my holiday that I had booked for the Mediterranean. When you just said that I'm looking forward to Christmas round Robins, I was thinking, oh, who's Robin? Can I come? That's what you meant. Have you seen what other positive effects the coronavirus could be having? I did see that the aircrafts are saying, oh, maybe what we should do to try and get more people back on flights is to have the middle seat free. And I was thinking, surely, you know, if people are coughing and sneezing, the middle seat is not the one you need to worry about.

It's the one behind you. People don't tend to cough to the side, do they? You see them and go, oh no, definitely I'm going over. One to the left, one to the right behind you people don't tend to cough to the side do they you see them you go on over there definitely i'm going over one to the left one to the right i'll get both seats to myself it would cost the airlines quite a lot to give up one out of three seats right if which is what they're talking about would be much cheaper for them to equip every passenger with a really well-made custom fit proper full head coveringcovering helmet, an N95 respirator, like the proper astronaut version. Like a space suit. Yeah, exactly. We can go to the cinema, we can go to the theatre.

I don't know why the gigs and the festivals aren't on. Everybody wears an astronaut outfit. An adult nappy, you take your own flask of tea. I don't see the problem. It'll get a bit warm in the summer, I think, in a full-on astronaut outfit. They were saying for the airlines that if you had to socially distance and you were queuing

up for a jumbo jet, the queue would be a kilometre long. Can you imagine getting to check-in and then going, oh, that's the end of the queue there, mate. And you've got to walk a kilometre, then walk a kilometre back, and then go, oh, no, sorry. Oh, would it be on one of those moving floors, though? If it's on one of those moving floors,

that would be fun. This is the news that the government advisers on climate change have told ministers that there could be an opportunity to prioritise environmentally friendly companies after the pandemic. Of course, we could do that, but my money is on us eating coal, burning tyres and tarmacking the dog within five minutes of lockdown ending. Two points to Simon. Everyone, have a listen to this. Okay, this is a question for everybody.

What might we soon be working our way back to? And yes, I did end a sentence on a preposition. Deal with it, Radio 4. We're going back to work, aren't we, apparently? We're all going back to work. Apparently so. We're addicted to furloughing, apparently, in the same way that we're addicted to paying our rent. And I didn't even know what furlough was

and now I'm really cross that i've got to give it up this is vishy soon i can announce this week that the job retention scheme is going to be steadily scaled back from july which is the same approach i'm taking to snacking the thing with furloughing is they were trying to encourage people who've been furloughed to do fruit picking this was what we need fruit pickers one and people have been complaining that those people have to work in front of a home doing working from home in front of a screen it's like staring at a screen for eight hours but fruit picking is it is worse than it is you're staring at a blackberry bush for eight hours it's the equivalent of like every now and again having to look for your own keyboard and then put

it in a basket look for your keyboard again put it in a basket. Look for your keyboard again, put it in a basket. Do you know how many jobs are currently being supported by the furlough scheme? 6.7 million, I think, isn't it? It was 6.3 million jobs, apparently, which is nearly two George Osbournes. Oh, damn, I was so close. They're going to, like, office work,

they've got all different things in mind, haven't they, to get people back in work. I thought I read that one of the ways to get people back to working in offices is to make it staggering but it was staggered and I was like oh I thought they're going to do pyrotechnics and a magic show and then they're going to have arrows aren't they on the floor so that people can flow in the right direction like in Ikea where if you don't follow the arrows you just buy meatballs I. I did see that B&Q have banned under-16s. And trying to take a two-year-old, certainly, to the shops

has proved a complete nightmare. Just touching everything, and then you go with your hand gel, and you look for some new hand gel in the shop. And if they haven't got any, you basically regard the trip as sort of net loss. Why are you taking a two-year-old to B&Q andy what are you doing with your i wasn't taking them to b&q i can't take them shopping because i didn't have any choice they're terrible at hygiene though you're carrying her along and you saw you give her a tissue to blow her nose and she sort of waved the tissue in the air and

then she just sneeze on your head and laugh this is the news that the government's job retention scheme will be wound down from july we don't know what the return to work will look like but suggestions have included phased start times limited lift use and instead of photocopying your backside getting leonard from accounts to paint you like one of his french girls 150 times two points to andy now before we take a look at the final scores, this week, I don't know if you saw this, the campaign for Real Ale announced its pub design awards, which I think is really cruel because I don't know about you,

I miss the pub. Are we missing the pub? Yeah, very much so. Kerry's not missing the pub. I'm done with pubs. It just got me thinking about how I'd design my perfect pub. Like, I've been fantasising about pubs. Have you got any thinking about how I'd design my perfect pub. I've been fantasising about pubs. Have you got any particular

requirements you have in your fantasy pub? Open. That's all I'm after. A pub that's open would be lovely. Disinfectant on tap. I went into a pub once and there was half the pub was roped off because it was a children's fourth birthday party. That's not what pubs are for.

People always bang on about the Cont continentals being good with this. You go to Spain and they all have their kids, but that's because they can sit outside. It's not so annoying, is it, when they're outside running around? It's no good. I think the reason they might be bored is because some pubs claim to welcome children and have colouring pencils for them, but all the grown-ups that run the pub can't be asked

to sharpen the colouring pencils, so you get given a jar of blunt colouring pencils that's why the kids are bored well once any child has seen a screen of any kind it will never be satisfied with a pencil again will it do you like cozy pubs i like pubs that don't look too rough that's my only and i went went into one in new york and it had a rotating door and i like a rotating door in a pub because this particular pub, I went through the rotating door and looked straight ahead and it was a really dark room, three massive geezers by the bar, all of their necks turned as soon as I came round.

And I managed to keep the rotating door going. Just went back out again. I seem to have made a terrible mistake. Keep walking. I won't be troubling you, gentlemen. I like a cosy pub as well. Like open plan pubs. Like I'll sit in an airport lounge if I want to be able to hear everyone's conversation.

And at least in an airport lounge, I can, you know, have my lager at 6am and no one judges me. I'm judging. So now post-corona, do you think it will be obligatory, all the booths? I would imagine capsules. Has that got a cosy vibe for you? That brings us to the end of the show tonight and the final scores are Helen and Andy have six, Simon and Kerry have four points.

Oh, champion. Thanks to our panel and you, the listeners, for joining us. We'll leave you with this poster spotted by Steve Davies in a supermarket in Weymouth. All girls with long hair must be tied up. Thank you. And with that, goodbye. Taking part in the news quiz were Kerry Godleman, Simon Evans, Helen Lewis and Andy Parsons. In the chair was Angela Barnes and the news was read by me, Alan Smith. The chair's script was written by Jenny Lavelle, Laura Major and Robin Morgan,

with additional material from Simon Olcock and Michael Fabry. The producer was Susie Grant and it was a BBC Studios production. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. 1-2-1-2. 1-2-1-2. This is a public service announcement for the BBC oh let me just close I've just, two more minutes Nancy

I'm just recording some audio working from home my name's Louis Theroux and I'm doing a new podcast for Radio 4. It's called Grounded with Louis Theroux. I've assembled a series of interviews from my own home. For some episodes, I may even be in my pajamas. I'll be talking to people that I find interesting, people whose work I admire,

people who, in normal circumstances, I might not have a chance to speak to. I told a couple of my good friends and they were like, oh my gosh, what have you done wrong? Have you done something wrong? Is it one of those weird documentary series? No, I think it's just a chat. The idea is that we can dig a little deeper. I walked out on stage once and the whole front row were blacked up. Peel back the layers and find

out who they really are. I don't think a penis has ever been inside me. Will that do? A free-flowing exchange of ideas. You spend your life catastrophizing in the most kind of absurd ways. Reflecting on what's going on now but also looking back at the past.

Malcolm X went to smithic. Things were so bad in the West Midlands that the baddest black dude in America flew on his own dime and walked around. All right, Malcolm. Two people communing through the miracle of the interweb at long distance and yet so very close. I am not going to do ironing.

It's just a rule I have. So it's no good asking me. We've got to quite a real place all of a sudden. I'm feeling anxious just even going to the far end of this conversation like we are. To hear new episodes as soon as they go live, just subscribe to Grounded with Louis Theroux on BBC Sounds. Let's face it, you've got nothing better to do.

Although that's not quite true because actually there is a lot to do. When I hear people on the radio going like, if you're at home, you're so bored because you're like, no, I'm not bored. I just have got kids that need constant attention. Put that in there.