Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - NEWS QUIZ: Protests, Social Bubbles and the Smell of Pubs

Episode Date: June 5, 2020

Angela Barnes welcomes Jen Brister, Sophie Duker, Lucy Porter and Hugo Rifkind.

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Tim Harford, the presenter of More or Less. And I believe that if you want to understand the world, which is a very big, very complicated place, then numbers are an absolutely essential tool. They're like a telescope for an astronomer or an x-ray machine for a radiographer. Numbers answer questions we can't answer in any other way, such as how safe is a home birth? And yes, we check the facts.

What are those lying politicians lying to us about this week? So please subscribe to More or Less and let numbers light up your world. Hello and welcome to the Friday Night Comedy podcast with me, Angela Barnes. Bit of news, since we were last on air, the producers have been contacted by Jacob Rees-Mogg and told that nobody's allowed to listen to topical comedy remotely anymore apparently it's better if i deliver jokes at you in person so we're just figuring out how to make that work obviously there's a lot of you to get around so don't be alarmed if you see me driving about shouting satirical observations out of a car window or whispering one-liners through your letterbox as you sleep.

It's just the system working. Until then, here's the last episode of this series of The News Quiz. Enjoy. Welcome to The News Quiz with your host, Angela Barnes. Hello and welcome to The News Quiz. Actually, you're lucky I'm here at all this week because I've just caught wind that IKEA is open now and my fellow and I, we haven't had a decent row in months,

so I'm really itching to get down there. But I'll have to wait because we are going to start this week with an unfortunately worded listing in The Guardian's Guide, read by Caroline Nicholls. Paul O'Grady, for the love of dogs. Paul helps to feed a pair of weak old kittens. Thank you to Karen Rasmussen for sending that in. Now let's meet the teams.

In Team A, we have Sophie Duker and Hugo Rifkind. Hello. And in Team B, it's Lucy Porter and Jen Brister. Hello. Hello. Hello, panel. How are you? Have we been enjoying the new freedoms?

No, I've been sort of... It's hard to feel any sense of freedom when you're sort of trapped in a house with two five-year-olds. I mean, there is no freedom because now I've got two five-year-olds and we can't actually go anywhere. I mean, do I sound OK, Angela? Do I sound fine? I feel great. I sort of feel like at the moment, this week and the last couple of weeks, it's kind of like in a really, really bad way. It's kind of like the a really, really bad way. It's kind of like the Thursday at Glastonbury. In Glastonbury, you've got the whole festival.

It's set up so that you've got 70,000 people in front of the pyramid stage and people in front of all the stages. And on the Thursday, everyone's there, but nothing's open. So everyone's in the same burger bar just sitting outside it looking annoyed. And that's our life now. Everyone's free. Everyone can go anywhere, but there's nowhere to go. No matter how bad I've been feeling about both the world and lockdown um at least he's reminding me that thank god i'm not at glastonbury well on that note i think we should um press on with the

show yeah yeah sophie which protests matter angela so many protests matter the protests of my neighbors when i practice tiktok dances in the garden the protests of dominic cummings optician as he clings for dear life in the passenger seat but the protests which matter this week are all to do with the big scary r and i'm not talking r numbers i'm talking racism i talk racism a lot and there's a sound that i often hear when i start to talk about racism a little and that is the sound of the entire audience of sphincters clapping shut at once so dear white people please unclench it's my job to be funny for money i know stand-ups don't get on live at the apollo with gags about systemic racism at least not yet yet. But don't worry, I'll keep it light. Obviously not,

literally. This big story of the week is very upsetting. And so I have prepared something to say. George Floyd was a black American who was killed by the excessive force of a white police officer, an act which has sparked protests in all 50 US states and across the world. And maybe because everyone being more or less indoors means that we have more time to bake banana bread and care about black people, shit really kicked off. Trump has reacted to his country's largely peaceful protests by sending in the military. On home soil, Tory MP Desmond Swain refused to comply with constituents' wishes and condemned Trump's response, saying, Swain refused to comply with constituents' wishes and condemned Trump's response, saying, arsonists and looters have it coming. Look, I don't judge despicable human Desmond Swain.

Only God, Judy and Rinder can judge. But if arsonists and looters have it coming, then the Royal Family, British Museum and the council that opted for cheaper, more flammable cladding had better watch their backs. We tend to think of UK racism as a less bombastic version of what you could get stateside, but we pioneer formats. Brits invented The Office, Big Brother. Of course we were experts in anti-blackness before it was cool. From Windrush to Grenfell, Stephen Lawrence to Sarah Reid, our nation has blood on its hands.

And no amount of hot water and happy birthdays can wash that stain clean. These protests are about Tony McDade and Naomi Hersey, Boomy Thomas and Belly Majinga, about Diane Abbott and Meghan Markle, about your colleagues, classmates, clients, friends, about me, my mum and my little brother. It's about the workers who clean your streets and serve your food and save your lives. This story is about Black Lives Matter. If there was 500 people in the radio theatre right now, that would definitely be getting... I'm glad we feel awkward and uncomfortable

because we bloody well should, right? I feel a bit like at the moment, you know when your friend gets pregnant and their husband says, we're having a baby and it's like, no, no, no, no, no. That's not your experience. That's her experience. What you have to do is stand there, shut up, listen, and make sure you don't make it worse. No, no, Angela, this is quite wrong. This is quite wrong. Look, speaking as a white privileged man, and the only one on the panel, I notice, but like a lot of white privileged men this week,

I've been trying to think about the best way that I can support people of colour. And like a lot of white privileged men, I've come to the conclusion that my best strategy for doing this, the best way to show my support is by criticising black people extensively for any tiny thing they're doing right now,

which makes me feel personally even mildly uncomfortable. I think that's what's important, rather than focusing on the massive, massive things that Western societies have been doing horribly wrong for generations, because that's much less important. Oh, Hugo, that's so good of you. Thank you. It's very important that men like you do...

I mean, please, please do speak up, because, you know, it's, yes, Alan25683, yes, he was talking to you and you specifically and calling you a racist. And it's very important that you're doing that good work, Hugo. Otherwise, literally, what are we for? Absolutely. Where to begin with the Trump reaction to when white people dressed up like G.I. Joe complaining they can't get their roots done, then, you know, they've got legitimate grievances. But if black people hold up signs asking not to get murdered,

then time to call in the army. Clearly, that's what the proportion of response is. I mean, and it is, you know, for years, if there's been unrest anywhere in the world, the Americans have invaded. So it is kind of nice to see that now they're being consistent and invading themselves at the first sight of trouble. Those images of Trump outside that church holding a Bible, kudos to him for holding it that long while it was clearly burning a hole in his

skin. It was quite ironic, wasn't it, that he was standing there holding a book he's clearly never read in front of a church he's never visited. Trump, he's not even pretending, is he, to try to unify anybody in the United States. And I think the only time you can imagine him even uttering the words Black Lives Matter was if there was a question mark at the end. Black lives matter? The thing that I found quite sort of disheartening in this country is at the moment, people seem to be really upset about the protests that are happening in London you know that there are people protesting in Hyde Park in support of

the Black Lives Matter movement and the thing that people seem to be most upset about is the fact there's no social distancing going on but nobody these are the same people that had no problem with the VE day celebrations so it seems to be absolutely fine to protest about Black Lives Matter, but could you do it with a conga? The idea that it's not as important as social distancing and it can wait, it's like, well, we know that if you wait, there is a moment when you have to speak out and there is a moment where action has to be taken.

And if you don't speak out and if you don't seize the moment, then the agenda moves on. I think it is, yeah, I agree with you. I think the moment to the agenda moves on i think it is yeah i i agree with you i think like the moment to do stuff is now while people are literally getting murdered but i think it is important to say as well that not everyone is critical of the protesters some people are really supportive all over the world and that's been really heartening but also some white people have been being really really weird about it like too uh supportive there was a group of i don't know if anyone saw this a group of white people in been being really, really weird about it, like too supportive. There was a group of, I don't know if anyone saw this,

a group of white people in the States who all got together in a park and got on their knees and renounced their white privilege. Isn't that useful an action? What alarmed me about Trump walking to the church reminded me so much of Circe going to the Sept to see the High Sparrow in Game of Thrones. Have you seen the bit of him where an interviewer asks him, you know, so you've said the Bible is your favourite book.

What's your favourite passage in the Bible? Can you name any verses that have come out? It's all good. He's like, I don't like to play favourites with the Bible. I don't like to get into it. To me, the bit was, you know, well, A, going into the bunker and B, turning all the lights out. I was just testing the bunker.

In our house, through this lockdown, we've found so many new euphemisms for going to the toilet. I'm just testing the bunker. I'm just taking a trip to Barnard Castle. They're all good. This is the news of protests across the US and the world in reaction to the killing of George Floyd by police in Minnesota. In reaction to the protest, Donald Trump posed outside a church holding a Bible for 17 minutes, or as he calls it, a full day's work. Two points to Sophie. OK, Hugo, who's been distancing themselves this week?

Right. So, well, Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition, has been distancing himself from the government to start with. Now, you'd think that the opposition would normally distance itself from the government, but actually until now, the politics of coronavirus have been quite supportive. We're all in it together. No one quite wants to sort of start a big fight. But now you can tell Starmer's getting edgy.

It's a bit like that bit in Titanic when the boat goes sort of totally upright and you've got Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio hanging onto the railing. He's like Kate Winslet, watching the captain sliding past going like, are we fine? You know, it's come like that at the moment with coronavirus. Look, here in Britain, on coronavirus, we are probably doing worse than the rest of Europe. And there's really no way you can factor that away at this point. That is just what is happening. Now, some people say this is happening because our government is a bunch of incompetent chancers led by a bluffing idiot who kept blithely shaking hands with people until it almost killed him, and an alien who drives his car with his eyes

closed. Although some people say, no, no, it's not because of that. It's because of the unique features of the UK, the age, the population, the way our cities are made up. And it's a total coincidence that we're also governed by a bunch of incompetent chancers led by a guy who kept shaking hands with us, etc, etc, etc. Either way, this leaves us with a problem. And Keir Starmer this week, and it's a radical thing, has decided to start pointing this out really dramatically in Parliament. And he did an interview with The Guardian as well. Look, this is not going well. And there are lots of ways in which it's going well. Also distancing themselves at the moment. Scientists are distancing themselves from the government. Scientists have been sort of holding their tongue lately, not quite willing to get involved in the politics.

Now they're doing that a bit more. There's a strong sense that the government, from scientists it seems, that the government are slightly making it up as they go along now now telling people who are shielding that they can suddenly start going outside for example but without saying why that's happening and like we've got this new test and trace system they keep saying it's going to be world beating uh but the problem with the test and trace system is you keep hearing from people who are like working for the test and trace system who the whole system seems to have forgotten about and they're just stuck at home watching netflix saying i've got nobody to trace which means the test and trace system isn't even tracing the people who work for the traces which isn't great yeah Keir Starmer so he's finally sort of holding government to account

a little bit isn't he I liked it when he suggested to them they had rather than an exit strategy they had an exit without a strategy and I thought I tried to take a wetsuit off like that once dislocated a shoulder and and meanwhile you've got MPs back in the House of Commons who are distancing themselves from each other, or supposed to be. They're all lined up in a queue even more depressing than the IKEA one, you know, stretching out of the building like zombies going to the mall in Dawn of the Dead. And it's madness.

They've basically been told they all have to go back to the two Parliament to vote. Also, the other thing that came out was the whole debacle with the testing. So Boris Johnson had promised that 200,000 tests a day were going to take place. And then we discovered that these tests were happening, but actually it wasn't just how many people were tested, it was how many tests they were doing. So the swabs for the nose and the mouth were being counted as two tests. So it wasn't even about people. It was just tests.

It started to make me think, well, what tests are you including? All tests, you know, driving tests, smear tests, you know, eye tests. Are we slinging that in the mix for the stats? This week, when it came out that there'd been delays and omissions from the report on why black and minority ethnic people were dying at a higher rate of coronavirus. To watch Matt Hancock stand there in response and say Black Lives Matter,

it was like watching Mr Blobby try to say something more nuanced than blobby. He does seem constantly unhinged. Like he does have very much the air of Joaquin Phoenix in The Joker where he's just trying to do normal human responses but just laughing hysterically i'm not particularly turned by the charms of kirstarmer but i do think that he is kind of just saying the things that always needs to be said that we all knew like it's clear that the government is winging it but we don't know if they're winging it like you know a daredevil pilot or if they're winging it like

icarus and we're all screwed like we don't know if this is going to go up in flames or if we're going to get away with it the thing with the test what it reminds me of it's like when people have like a new song out on spotify and they play it themselves they leave their computer running it 24 hours a day to get their hits up it's kind of like a test you wonder if matt hancock's just sitting in his bathroom all night with a swab just jabbing himself in the nose again and again and again. 99, 100, 101, 102. Well, like sending everyone back to Parliament when, you know, the system that was in place was working. Everyone was, broadly speaking, happy with it, except Jacob Rees-Mogg, because he is the ghost of a Victorian politician who haunts Parliament and can't exist outside

it. Well, to be fair, his valet's only just got used to the electric telephone lately. So, you know, I mean, Zoom was... I think his main reason for not wanting to carry on with virtual Parliament is that someone's changed his Zoom background to the Death Star and he's too embarrassed to ask how to change it back.

The thing that I love the most about Parliament and voting this week is the queues that they had, the socially distanced queues, which were described as Alton Towers style queues, clearly by someone who's never been to Alton Towers. But the reason I like that analogy is because a lot of the MPs look like they might start screaming and never stop. It's interesting that Jacob Rees-Mogg wanted everyone to go back into parliament isn't it instead of as you say the system was working perfectly well which was to vote remotely and when he was asked his reasoning behind it was that for uh members of parliament to make these solemn decisions okay that were going to affect the country they couldn't possibly vote you know whilst taking a stroll in the summer's day or perhaps being in the living

room with their television on in the background but it's perfectly fine for years hasn't it in fact for decades to be voting after you fall out of one of the many bars in the house of commons they were also saying it was too complicated and people get it wrong if they're voting remotely but did you see stephen crabb getting it wrong in person he said he was trying to vote yes and so he first he walked through the the no bit and said yes. And they all said, no, you've got it wrong. So he walked back through the yes bit but said no. And it was just like, how you can mess up so badly walking past a box? You've had hours to wait to do this.

It's an absolute stage fright. You've been gearing up to do this for ages. And then you managed to screw it up twice in the space of 15 seconds. Amazing. This is the news that this week Keir Starmer accused the government of winging it in their coronavirus response. And if you're familiar with our Prime Minister, you'll know that winging it is the phrase written in Latin

on his family crest. Two points to Hugo. So that brings us to the end of round one. And the scores are Sophie and Hugo have four points. Lucy and Jen have two. Before we move on to round two, we've been sent this sign spotted at a school in Surrey. It says staff car park for the safety of children. No parking at any time. Thank you to Chris Walker for sending that in.

Lucy, have a listen to this. We're all going on a summer holiday. No more working for a week or two Fun and laughter on a summer holiday Lucy, who might have to have an isolation vacation? We are talking here, I think, about, well, a number of things. Air bridges being one of them, because we know how much Boris Johnson loves an imaginary bridge.

There's this suggestion that if we want to go on holiday we could create air bridges which would allow restriction free travel between places with low infection rates and i hate to break it to them but that ain't us um the idea that we're going to be an appealing destination but like say to the people of greece all right we'll go to you and then you come to us because for them it's not a lovely air bridge it's more like a plank straight into the shop and then there was the thing of like so we may be able to go to some other countries but they also announced that from Monday most visitors here will have to quarantine for 14 days in some ways I can see the appeal for people coming to the UK and just quarantining, because actually that might be a better holiday. If you came to London and you could stay in a

hotel with a swimming pool near Heathrow, rather than having to queue for hours to see some rubies we stole off the Indians or go up in a really slow Ferris wheel that you can't actually see anything when you get to the top, you know, it could appeal. Again, it just seems like another thing that isn't really fully thought through the idea that we are gonna get to go on holiday maybe but nobody's sure if by some magic we're allowed to leave our leper island and go somewhere else on holiday when we come back we've got to quarantine returning and this i mean it made me think well firstly this is actually bizarrely quite a popular policy 63 percent of people thought that people who, even British people who come back to Britain should have to quarantine.

And I was thinking about that. That's probably because whenever you go on holiday and you come back, you do want another holiday. You know, you get back from Majorca and you phone work and you go, sorry, I can't come in. I've got to stay in my garden for the next two weeks. That works quite well. But where it's going to be a nightmare, I was thinking,

is people who maybe work in or live in embassies. You know, you go into an embassy, you go into another country's soil. You know you forget your keys you forget your coat you forget your phone you go back that's like that's the better part two months gone you know 14 days each time the quarantine measures are already in place in spain aren't they so um if british tourists were to travel to spain they'd have to stay in the hotel for two weeks and not have any contact whatsoever with local people. So essentially, British holiday in Spain.

British Air was saying, well, it's to avoid a second wave. But then they're talking about sort of the second wave in late summer. And, you know, I hate to be pessimistic, but it feels like we'll be on at least our third wave by then. Like talking about dealing with a second wave in late summer is like me deciding what I'm going to do with the biscuits I bought today next week. It's like, no, they will be gone.

I will be licking the packet by that stage. So there's a sort of optimism to all of this that I think might be misplaced. Jen? Did you see there was a quote that stated that Priti Patel was actually adamant that the 14-day quarantine will last the full three weeks. And I thought, well, there's no hope for us. That's it. This is the news that from Monday,

anyone arriving in the UK will be required to self-isolate for two weeks. The timings of this plan have been questioned, but it does coincide exactly with the closing of the stable door after the horse bolted. Two points to Lucy. Jen, who is going to be living in a bubble? So this is the story about students who are going to find themselves in bubbles. This means that they're going to have to study and live with the same students in order to limit the spread of the virus.

And the government is also planning to cap the amount of students that go to universities outside of England. So to Scottish and Welsh universities, and they've capped it at six and a half percent, which to me just seems like some sort of random arbitrary figure that they came up, you know, like it almost feels like a decision they made just before lunch because someone really needed a week. I mean, it doesn't make any sense at all. And I kind of just feel really sorry for a lot of the students who are going to university

because they're not going to have the same experience that many of us had when we went. What is university about? It's about having a slightly hedonistic time, finding your feet, learning what it is to be an adult, getting drunk. It's not about, oh, right, getting stuck in a bubble with six people and go, this is my university experience for the next three years. I mean, it's fine. But if you are a straight bloke studying engineering, you'd be like, right, well, it's just Dave, Chris, Mike, John and Steve.

So I'm going to have to sleep with one of you. Which one's it going to be? The Scottish universities are really upset about it because the government's limiting the number of students from England who can go to universities in Scotland. And of course they pay fees in Scotland. And so it's a lot of money for Scottish universities. Although if Edinburgh University is really upset

about not getting enough students from England, then surely they can just train some Scottish ones to say ya and wear red's a lot of money for Scottish universities although if Edinburgh University is really upset about not getting enough students from England then surely they can just train some Scottish ones to say yeah and wear red trousers a lot. I must admit when I read the headline that said they're going to put a cap on students going to universities in Scotland I assumed it'd be one of those tartan ones with the orange hair. It's not sustainable to expect young people to not hang out with other young people I I mean, where I live in Brighton is the student park. So I've got like three or four student houses down my street. And I can tell you for a fact, they have abandoned social distancing quite a while ago. it's not really in young people's nature not to hang out when i was at university the only bubbles i had were at a phone party and that was pretty much the only time any of the boys had a wash in my entire first year i think it's just going to really ruin the like student experience like now the walk of shame will just be going out a second time for a non-essential yeah have you seen what

other provisions that they're putting in place for a post-coronavirus university experience? Are they going to have more scientists? Well, that's it. There's going to be more places for science students, apparently, because the government are fast running out of people to ignore. So I guess they need to do a little top up. Well, I guess that will stop the spread of diseases as none of the students will be having any sex. Seems really short-sighted. Who's going to write the poems? You know, who's going to be able to, you know,

to read the Iliad? Who's going to be Prime Minister, for God's sake? We have scientists as Prime Minister. Just think how screwed we're going to be. This is never going to work. Look at Angela Merkel. I mean, it's a terrible idea. Yeah, a disaster. Who wants that? On that note, I do think it will be a nasty shot for anyone studying PPE because they'll just be thrown straight into

a sweatshop. This is the news that universities are assessing how they will be impacted by coronavirus. Some are planning to implement social bubbles as opposed to anti-social bubbles, who is a very naughty clown indeed. Two points to Jen. Everyone, whose AI will be saying A up? This is the BBC. It is, Lucy. Who are getting in on the sort of Alexa and Google Home and all those other sort of electric assistant kind of market.

And the voice of the BBC's assistant is going to be a northern male. But it's quite interesting because the reason they decided to make it a man was because there have been lots of studies done about the fact that having female AI like Alexa might mean that people think it's OK to reinforce the stereotype that women are naturally subservient. And it did make me laugh because only the BBC could try and fight misogyny by giving a job to a man. I just think it's such a... It says it'll do everything

that a female voice digital assistant could do. And I thought, yeah, then it'll get credit for repeating a suggestion that Alexa made five minutes earlier. It's even more BBC than that because they were going, what we need here is somebody from the north. And I goes, well, there's people in the north. And he goes, nah, screw that, let's make one in London. In my head, it sounds like Alan Bennett. It's just like, oh, you don't want to listen to I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.

Mother finds it vulgar. What do we think about it having a northern accent? I think the reason they chose a northern man is because female voices are considered too much of a risk since Maitlis went rogue and needed reprogramming. Have you seen what the BBC assistant will do if you swear at it? Tell you off? No, apparently if you swear at it, it will direct you to a podcast to listen to. I thought, is there nothing that will stop a man promoting his podcast at me? This is the news that the BBC are launching their own digital assistant.

Called Beeb, it'll sit across platforms as a rival to Siri and Alexa, but its default voice will be a northern male. The northern assistant is the same as an Alexa, except no matter what music you request, it'll only play the theme from the hovis advert two points to sophie and that brings us to the end of the game before we take a look at the final scores i just want to ask you have you read about the guys who have created a range of scented candles that are the smell of smells we miss in lockdown i don't know if you've seen this it's paul firmin and nico dafgos have created a range called sense of normality they've created candles that have the smell of the pub which i think since the smoking ban is mostly beer and farts

and one of them is called the smell of festivals which is apparently cut grass and cider which goes to show that they have never been to a festival in their life, if that's what they think they smell like. Chemical toilets and misery is my experience. But panellists, I just wanted to ask you, what smell have you missed in lockdown? If you could have a scented candle

to remind you of something you're missing, what would it be? Hugo? Four of us live in this house and two of them are vegetarians, so I miss the smell of meat. I was going to say that means I want a meat candle, but that sounds really rude. So never mind that.

Lucy, what are you missing in lockdown? I should point out as well, though, the candle that smells of the pub, they are actually raising money for charity with it, but it does cost £45, which I thought, not only does, the candle that smells of the pub, they are actually raising money for charity with it. But it does cost £45, which I thought, not only does it give you the smell of the pub, but it's also quite good for people in London who are missing the cost of a round of drinks. Well, with that, that brings us to the end of the show. And I can tell you the final scores are Hugo and Sophie have six.

Lucy and Jen also have six. It's a draw. Sophie have six. Lucy and Jen also have six. It's a draw. Before we go tonight, I'd like to say a huge thank you to all of our panellists this week and indeed this series

who took on the challenge to make the News Quiz happen. And to all you listeners for being so brilliant and coming on this ride with us. It's been different, but it's been super fun. And at the end of each recording,

there's been no cue at the bar, which I call a win. News Quiz will be back in September with the always brilliant Andy Zaltzman in the chair. So until then, stay safe. And we'll leave you with an article spotted by Jonathan Pearson about Clap for Carers on the BBC News website. On the Listenden Gardens estate in North London, like many places across the UK, the clap is credited with bringing neighbours together. And with that, goodbye! Davis, Jenny LaVille and Robin Morgan, with additional material from Simon Alcock, Michael Fabry and Zoe Tomalin. The producer was Susie Grant and it was a BBC Studios

production. Hi, my name's Jarvis Cocker and I'm here to tell you about Wireless Nights, a nocturnal investigation into the human condition. A collection of stories about the night and the people who come alive after dark.

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