Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - NEWS QUIZ: Mixed Messages, Death Stars and Teenage Dogs

Episode Date: May 15, 2020

Angela Barnes welcomes Helen Lewis, Andrew Maxwell, Sindhu Vee and Andy Zaltzman.

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm the award-winning Gary Bellamy, host of Radio 4's premium phone-in show, Down the Line. And, like all those retired doctors and other heroes, I've returned in this country's hour of need, broadcasting live

from my own home with a lockdown special. And you can find an exclusive extra episode by searching for Down the Line on BBC Sounds. Hello, I'm Angela Barnes and you're listening to the Friday Night Comedy podcast. This week I'm recording from the classroom, not an actual classroom, of course, but my home school classroom where I've been teaching my cockapoo Tina some new tricks during lockdown. I really don't want her to fall behind the other dogs in her year, you see. So that's why we've been learning all sorts of new commands like sit and fetch and stay alert, control the virus, save lives. So whether you're recovering from a week of pet homeschooling or gearing up for a weekend of quizzes on Zoom, I hope you enjoy this episode of The News Quiz. Welcome to The News Quiz with your host, Angela Barnes.

Hello and welcome to another lockdown edition of The News Quiz. We're still very much working from home here, but rest assured we are also staying alert. I, for one, have been waking up every morning and singing staying alert to the tune of staying alive by the beegees with full travolta dance moves and i've never felt better so let's start with this notice from a free cycling website in leeds read by diana speed offer padlock no key could be useful for an aspiring escape artist and thank you to martin Martin Zucker for sending that in. Now let's meet the teams. In team A, we have Andrew Maxwell and Helen Lewis. And in team B,

it's Andy Zaltzman and Sindhu V. Hello, everybody. Hi. Oh, how are you all doing? Good. Sindhu, this is the first time we've seen you this series. How are you getting on in lockdown? I'm getting along much better than if you'd hypothesized this to me a couple of months ago and said, what if you were with your family all the time? And Andrew Maxwell, did the I'm a Celebrity give you the skills you needed to get through this? Yes, this is basically the same show, only living it constantly. I don't have to boil my own water from a creek, which is nice. Helen lewis i feel like we have to have the needlepoint update is it cross stitch you're doing a needlepoint i get them mixed up it is i'm doing a 25 000 stitch version of the great wave of kanagawa by hokusai and i'm 3 000 stitches in oh yes

andy zoltzman i didn't think I would miss sport right but I love swimming that's the only sport I do and I really miss it to the point where I've started wearing a Veruca salt in the bath right

how are you coping? well I'm not to be honest I'm not I'm absolutely not coping I mean everyone's pretending that we're coping with this I'm not coping

without top level sport and I don't believe it's covered in the Magna Carta that an Englishman's right to watch sports seven days a week. I desperately need this lockdown to end. And on that note, should we do the news quiz? Andrew, have a listen to this.

Andrew, what issue is dividing the nation? It turns out that there's four places in England. There's England. There's a place called Scotland. There's Wales. And then there's Northern Ireland, which, as we all know, is happily in England. Who knew? Who knew? Who knew?

And they've all gone their own separate ways on how to deal with this perfidious pest that we're living through. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are staying with stay at home. But England, under the enlightened rule of Boris Johnson, has decided to go over to a new thing called stay alert. There's five levels of alertness. I'm on level four. I am willing to have a physically distant but otherwise jocular conversation in a park with an acquaintance. But at night, I sleep with a dagger in my clenched teeth. Northern Ireland is staying with stay at home,

but is also, the Northern Irish devolved government is setting up a thing where you can have a drive-through church. Obviously, because we're living in straightened times, they can't afford to build a Catholic drive-thru church and a Protestant drive-thru church.

So the two communities are having to share the same drive-thru church and they have to take it in turns. So how it works, Angela, in practical terms is first the Catholic goes through the drive-thru church. They say their confession into a giant plastic uh clown's face then they go to the next window and they light a candle and then off they go then sammy the orange man comes in behind he goes straight past the clown's

face and goes to window one and blows out the Catholic's candle and everybody's happy. Can you tell us what stay alert means? I've never not been alert, right? I want to dial 999 when my neighbor's cat doesn't get home by four o'clock in the afternoon. Like what, how, how are we supposed to be doing this? Well, that sounds perfect. Surely you're incredibly alert. You're poised at any moment to throw yourself on anyone who looks like they might be able to sneeze. It made no sense.

And basically they tried to do this thing where they said, oh, of course, typical of the media to say this makes no sense. And then they went and polled normal humans who went, I mean, I'm quite alert. I mean, I'm not, you know, in karate clothes or anything. I'm just at home on my sofa. What more do you want from me? So no one understands it. It's terrible. The full slogan is, isn't it? Stay alert, control the virus, save lives.

And I am not the person placed to control the virus. I can't control myself, right? I eat a family pack of wagon wheels on the way home from ASDA. Sindhu, how are you taking the advice? Well, not to put too big a damper on this great show, but I had full Monte Corona in March. Oh my goodness. Did you, do you feel invincible now? No, I feel grateful that it's done. Um, so when they say to me,

stay alert, I'm like, I'm tired. Um, I was so alert ahead of the thing. Like I had to go to South Africa and I was literally, the stewardess walked up to me in the flight and she tried to give me something. And I looked at her and I took out a dead tall tissue and I wiped her hand while it was on the juice glass. She was looking at me like I was, I was like, dude, I was so alert, but I got it anyway. Obviously not alert enough. I think the stay alert thing is just don't go near other people that are outside. And as soon as you see someone outside, run away. Do you still have to pick which of your parents you like best?

Has that been changed yet? Apparently so. From my understanding is you can visit one parent as long as they're a garden centre. I think that's it, is it? Yeah, well, it's like you have emissions trading with your carbon emissions. You can have parental meeting tradings as well.

So I've got a friend whose parents live overseas, so I'm using his allowance to see both of my parents simultaneously. So there are kind of loopholes in what was the confusing initial guidance. But it has been quite an interesting week, our politicians, you know, abiding by their hypocritic oath and the government telling us to stay alert after failing to impose, for example, a quarantine on people coming into the country for over two months since other countries. That's not the most alert piece of government. We also had Boris Johnson telling everyone to apply common sense, which is like Michelangelo telling you to paint your living room ceiling in a nice neutral magnolia. He might be right,

but it doesn't really carry a lot of heft coming from him would you see jacob reese mogg this week he said that he thought that mps should go back to the house of commons at the beginning of june after the whitson break to set a good example but i can't help but think i mean this is a man who's at home for the first time probably with his six children i can't blame him i expect nanny's been furloughed you know i, I... Oh, don't say that about poor Nanny. I'm sure... No, Nanny went campaigning with him. He would never furlough Nanny, surely. Yeah, I think there's a real problem.

Someone pointed out that there is a bit of an issue when the government's saying it's fine for primary schools to go back, but not us. And you kind of think, well, are you more or less able to control running around and toddlers? Well, I think it's no coincidence, is it, that it's Tory MPs that have come up with the guidance that you can only meet one person not in your household

in a park at any given time. It is a deer park. It must be a deer park. A lot of the sort of restrictions they're easing do feel very middle class. The property market is open for business garden centres are open for business golf clubs i want to know when the bowling alley is going to be open for business and also you can play tennis you can see one of your polo ponies at a time the latest advice is coming through before we start recording is that you can play snooker

but only outside without a table or balls and ice ice hockey, but only alone up a tree. Fencing is now allowed, but only if there is ironically a fence between you and your opponent. So sport is making a comeback, Angela. That's something we can cling to. This is the news that there's been quite a backlash over the government's plans for easing lockdown this week. Teachers' unions have advised their members not to engage

with the government's preparations to reopen schools on the 1st of june a spokesperson added it really is their own time they're wasting two points to andrew everyone have a listen to this you're simply the best better than all the rest better than anyone. Okay, this is a question for everybody. Who are our heroes in sensible shoes this week? They are nurses.

I think we all feel very grateful to nurses because here's the thing. It's like when I got sick, people in my family, they loved me a lot. They were like, dude, you're on your own. I mean, here's a sandwich on a plate with a pole. We're going to push it into your room and good luck. So I feel very, very grateful when I hear what the nurses are doing. They're going out into people's homes. You know, I think it's great. I think we're all thankful, but you know, there was that video that the Royal family did about it, right? Yes, there was. They were so thankful in such a formal way throughout that video. And they kept saying, do you think your families are very upset? And I was like, what kind of questions are these?

I mean, I have to say, if I was a nurse and I got that video, I think the nurses in India in that video were sort of compensating by adding all this extra emotion in. Did you see that? They were like, we are very happy. They were talking to the English royal family like they don't speak English because they couldn't see any emotion. They were like, we are very happy here. It was so crazy. It was International Nurses Day was on Tuesday, the 12th of May, which was the 200th birthday of Florence Nightingale. I'm surprised the NHS didn't ask her to come out of retirement and muck in. day of Florence Nightingale. I'm surprised the NHS didn't ask her to come out of retirement and muck in. So the Royal Family, they did a series of Zoom calls with people all over the world. Duchess of York and Sophie Wessex spoke with nurses in India, Malawi, Cyprus, the Bahamas and Sierra Leone.

Do you know the worst thing about the Zoom call with the Royal Family was I started tearing up and I thought I'm looking at Sophie Countess of Wessex and I'm feeling genuine weird emotions. I think it's just I've been locked down too much. Just simple things tip me over the edge. I have felt more emotion. I thought it was just Randy and hungry, but it turns out there's a third one. Who knew? If people out of this, people have a little bit more appreciation for the caring sectors of this world and public sector workers that literally make the world go round.

You know, I was hospitalized when I was 11. And I still remember it was just the care that a quality nurse, somebody who's great at their job, makes such a world of difference. And I still remember the nurse that looked after me you know all those years ago I mean her name was nurse watch horn I mean for an 11 year old boy like to be able to say the words watch horn over and over again my parents came in to visit me I'm'm a nurse. Watch your horns, great. I used to be a nurse and I've got friends from those days who are on the front line right now. You know, I have quite a lot of guilt

that I'm not there with them really and that I sort of, just to, you know, make it clear, my skills are way out of date. I'd be useless. I think I'd be maybe a bit more used in the crisis than a dental nurse, but less use than someone

who's seen all of Holby. That's fair enough. But it's all very well clapping and they've got this shiner light for the nurses and all of this thing, which is brilliant. But what nurses really, really want is just protective equipment and fair pay and if we're offering to be locked in a medical supply cupboard with Idris Elba.

Well, the pay issue is a significant one, but there's two sides to looking at it. Nurses on our current system of valuing people are worth around two and a half days of an average Premier League footballer. So for one Premier League footballer, you could pay for 125 nurses for a year.

The problem is, it's very hard to fit 125 nurses into a fluent formation. I mean, where do you play them? Do you play them wide left to keep them out of the way of the rest of the side? It's hard for the opposition to get the ball down their right-hand side, but you might then stifle your own attack and cause problems in the centre of to keep them out of the way of the rest of the side. It's hard for the opposition to get the ball down their right-hand side, but you might then stifle your own attack and cause problems in the centre of your defence

if some of the 125 nurses lose positional discipline. And it really doesn't work with zonal marking. I mean, you could play your nurses in a free role, but there's just no satisfactory... They're just words, Andy. They're just words at this point. I miss sport, Angela. I miss sport. I'm going to tell Andy. Let me have my moment.

It was International Nurses Day this week and members of the Royal Family took part in a video call with nurses around the world. They talked about funding issues, problems with staffing, the public not keeping an appropriate distance and then they asked the nurses how they were getting on. Two points to, let's say, Sindhu. Helen, have a listen to this.

Money, money, money Must be funding Say Sindhu! Helen, have a listen to this. Helen, what's the follow-down? Made me quite sad then to realise that the heyday of Avra is before the birth of Rishi Sunak, right? He's almost fetal in his youth. He was 40 last week. The good news is that the furlough scheme, paying the wages up to 80% of people's salaries, is going to be extended to October.

It'll be starting to wind down from August and that will hopefully stop a lot of job losses. But already, you know, universal credit claims have spiked. We are going into a recession, the economic figures are already quite bad. The one bright political spot in all of this is that Prime Minister's questions has become watchable again. Very exciting for nerds like me. Jeremy Corbyn, whatever his other good qualities, he had the turning circle of a canal boat. And watching him against Theresa May was like watching two sloths trying to mate. I mean, it was just absolutely the worst way to spend half an hour of your life I can possibly imagine.

Keir Starmer, who's now leader of Labour, managed to get some very good points. Far be it from me to say that Boris Johnson is maybe a bluffer who came out of journalism where you just try and say a thousand words of stuff. I wouldn't say that about him. All journalists are rigorous researchers and definitely up to the standards of lawyers. But yeah, we've got a situation now where we've got a government that's being held to account. And hooray, I think that's actually quite a good thing. That is cause for optimism in an otherwise quite dark time.

Absolutely. I couldn't believe when I read that millions more people made use of the furlough scheme than they expected and i just think what did they think was oh yeah there was very little take up for their alternative option of being skint like what did they think people were gonna do when that option was there i think a lot of wealthy people underestimate how poor poor people are yeah that's that's it i mean you know the classic one you've seen it on like channel five or something lady fuffington of sodbury will live on minimum wage for a week to show that if you eat from scratch and if you have porridge in the for breakfast instead of

these cereals that you give your children you can actually live on this money and if it's looked in that context it then makes poor people look like they are poor because they're slobs and whatnot. But the reality of it is Lady Fuffington of Sudbury can do that for a week because always at the back of her mind, like a celebrity on a TV show in a jungle, you know you're leaving. Yeah. Right. It's, that's what, that's what people what people with money completely forget. Some people have... There's millions of people in this country

who have never not had money. Yeah. Are we worried about the future of the economy? Well, definitely. And my children have questions about what is being done at the moment. And they say, well, Dad, it's all very well, this furlough scheme

and the emergency bailout packages, but who's going to pay for it and i just looked them square in the eye and said you are uh you your generation your children if you ever have them their children and their children's children if you're not happy with that then you just need to take out more debt and pass it on to their children after them until one day inevitably the universe the universe will end and it'll all be written off. So you've just got to play the long game with these things. Just put it on the tab for future generations. If they're not happy with it, they can vote the government out. So, you know, that's a simple way out.

To be honest, it is. The economy is screwed right now. But please, I want everybody to remember, listening out there on Radio Land, there's only six months until Brexit and then money, money, money, money. There's nothing but

money. Amazing trade deals. A nation revived. Four more years of Donald Trump. Finally properly cleaned chickens. Oh man, come on. How many times have you looked at a chicken and think think would you please dip it in the pool take your chickens to the local swimming pool and live like free men

so that's only six months away so there's only six months of this economic chaos and bleakness for this country to go through it's going to be a difficult six months there's only six months of this economic chaos and bleakness for this country to go through. It's going to be a difficult six months, as obviously the government's gone for this kind of controversial worst of all worlds strategy, a kind of no cake and not eat it approach. And Matt Hancock, who's just been incidentally, while we've been on air, he's been ruled out for three weeks with a repetitive floundering injury. He has told us there will be no big, lavish international holidays this year, or as they used to be known in this country, an empire. Well, he said, didn't he, summer's cancelled,

but apparently it's all right. We've got a replacement bus summer coming along. But what they need to do is they force people to lock down, fair enough, but now they need to force people to lock up, because understandably people are going to be a bit wary of spending, so they need to be forced to spend money, even if they don't actually have it. It's basically the way our economy works. Anyway, go on holiday or face a £2,500 fine,

get ratted out by your next-door neighbour for having a homemade vegetarian stroganoff, using home-grown vegetables and home-squeezed chicken milk creme fraiche when he could have been chowing down on an extra-large doner kebab to get the economy moving. So the government needs to step in and make a spend. Well, there's been a lot of criticism from the government, hasn't there, that they might break a manifesto pledge and increase taxes. And I do think it's a bit harsh to criticise,

given the circumstances we're in. I've always pledged that I wouldn't eat Ben & Jerry's with my hands, but this is different times, isn't it? You know? It's not a manifesto pledges. I mean, everyone knows they don't actually mean them. I mean, it's basically, you know, it's tomorrow's chip paper, isn't it? I don't know. I did actually, my local chippy was serving fish and chips in the Liberal Democrat manifesto earlier this year. This is the news that ministers have warned that the coronavirus crisis could result in economic difficulties, including possibly a two year public sector pay freeze,

which is bad news for the care assistants and social workers out there who only got into the game for that sweet dollar dollar. Two points to Helen. At the end of round one andrew and helen have four points and sindu and andy have two before we start round two i've sent this listing from a kilburn community facebook page and it simply reads free natty nappies size five almost full thank you to to Janet Williams for sending that in. Andy, whose campaign has gone over to the dark side? Well, this would be President of America Donald Trump, who's a campaign manager, announced that they have a Death Star style campaign against Joe Biden, ready to launch against Trump's Democratic candidate opponent. And I mean, it's quite hard as an outsider to fully understand American politics, but it is

increasingly looking like the decision America made to quit the United Kingdom back in the 18th century is looking worse and worse by the day. And there are rumours that if Biden does win the election in November, they will apply to become a province of New Zealand. It was an interesting term to use, Death Star. I mean, it is a rare display of ethical honesty from the Trump campaign. Very much cards on the table. We are the forces of evil out to destroy all light and hope from the universe. I think he's just given up now on being a good guy at all.

Will the campaign slogan Trump 2020 be fava beans and a nice Chianti? Like, is he just, they're going evil now. Yeah, I mean, although at least with Hannibal Lecter, he knew what he was doing, which you don't really get that sense with. You can argue with his methods, but he definitely got the job done.

But I mean, it's possible this Death Star gamut will play well with Trump's light and the hope of us core support. Now, as many people have pointed out, the Death Star ultimately failed. And it also it was capable of holding over a million personnel. The difference with Trump's America being that they actually had had jobs, albeit fictional ones. And their leader, who ironically slightly less fictional than Trump himself, had a coherent, if ethically questionable, strategy, which is something Trump's always struggled for,

the coherence that Vader managed to achieve. So very much it's a distraction tactic, I think. We're seeing a lot of distraction tactics from Trump to take attention away from things that might work against him in the election, for example, everything he says and does. That's been held at him a lot, isn't it, that he's trying to deflect away from the immediate coronavirus crisis by putting people's attention onto the election campaign. And it is a bit like saying, you know, yeah, well, maybe I did sleep with your brother,

but you still haven't put that shelf up. So and the way American politics seems to work, you know, if it turns out that Joe Biden eats his soup with the wrong type of spoon, that will be worse than everything else Donald Trump has done in the minds of a lot of the American media. I would have thought if they were going to target anything with Biden, it would be, you know, the fact that he's been accused of sexual assault. But then, of course, that's an area that Donald Trump probably doesn't want to get too close to debating. And so it does seem that Biden's entire campaign could be run on a solid platform of just being less of a creep than Donald Trump. The odd thing is that Donald Trump is trying to

put this new conspiracy theory around that he's called Obamagate. And the thing that's amazing about Obamagate is I've read it about 15 times and I still don't understand it. And you think, I'm not sure this is going to work if you've got a completely impenetrable... I'm so glad you said that, Helen. I have to say, because I've tried to read it and I'm missing something here, clearly. But if you don't get it, then I feel better. So there was a national security advisor called Michael Flynn who was having contacts with a Russian ambassador before the transition time. He got sacked. He lied to Mike Pence about it and he got sacked. He's now not going to be prosecuted. And the thing is, Donald Trump has decided that this is a really good thing for him

to bring up the possible collusion of his campaign with Russia again. This is the thing that really makes Obama look bad. And you think it's like someone like, I don't know, like trying to rob a bank and then spending like the next three years furiously suing the bank because they tripped over on the way in. It's that kind of level of master kind of criminal plot. Well, I just think that when, you know, there's so many things Trump does, and we think that just doesn't make any sense. And then you see the people who are voting for him, who are sort of in the middle part of America saying, I'm not going to isolate because I'm innocent until proven guilty. And you think that, oh, I see, that's why Trump makes sense

to you. Somebody had a slogan that said give me corona or give me death. I'm like, yeah. You're like, you can have both if you really work hard. Yeah, exactly. These two are not mutually exclusive. Give me crisps or give me a snack that goes well with beer. This is the news that Donald Trump's

re-election campaign offensive against Joe Biden is really hotting up. He spent Mother's Day this year tweeting about hashtag Obamagate, when really, like any good husband and father, he should have been at the petrol station buying flowers or buggering up breakfast in bed for Melania. Two points to Andy. Before we take a look at the final scores, everyone have a listen to this. You ain't nothing but a hound dogger Criking all the time You ain't nothing but a hound dogger Criking all the time

Well, you ain't never caught a rabbit And you ain't no friend of mine Whose teenage years can drive you barking mad? There has been research recently that dogs experience adolescence and the concurrent emotional difficulties, just like human teenagers. We live in the Western world where being a teenager and it's always their hormones. Oh, they can't help it. Oh no. Can I just say I grew up in India where this hormone hoax doesn't exist.

So I just want to point out that as a teenager, if I had been rude to my mother or something and said, well, it's my hormones, my mother would have said, oh, really? It's your hormone? Very good. Can you come here close to me and bring your hormones? Because I tell you what, I wouldn't be on this radio show. Right? And my mother would have had another child and raised it properly we bought a dog which I am keenly aware there is this is broadcast in Ireland and right now

people are going bought a dog yeah just turn up in your garden yeah you just get a dog in Ireland you know you don't buy them you get them you have a family meeting and your dad goes out and just gets a dog. There's no deciding what's the right type of dog for you, right? This is my fifth dog. It's my wife's first dog, right? But it turns out the dogs you pay for compared to the dogs you get for free, so much more mentally stable. Yeah.

Oh, my God. get for free so much more mentally stable oh my god like growing up i didn't have every single one of my dogs was touched in some way you know one of them hated men in hats another one was eternally at war against shopping bags on the wind like they are they were all like i i never had a dog growing up that if you let it loose in the park would run on all four legs. This brings us to the end of the show. And I can tell you that the final scores are Helen and Andrew have four points and Sindhu and Andy have six. Thank you to our brilliant panel and you, the listeners, for joining us. We'll leave you with these directions seen on Oakville Endoscopy's website, spotted by Ian Little. Directions 2125 Wycroft Road, back entrance.

And with that, goodbye. Taking part in the news quiz were Helen Lewis, Andrew Maxwell, Sindhu V and Andy Zaltzman. In the chair was Angela Barnes and the news was read by me, Diana Speed. The chair's script was written by Tom Coles, Max Davis and Jenny Lavelle with additional material from Charlie Dinkin and Geoffrey Adu. The producer was Susie Grant and it was a BBC Studios production.