Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The Naked Week: Ep1. Lobbying, art, soup, and farms

Episode Date: December 6, 2024

From The Skewer’s Jon Holmes comes The Naked Week, a fresh way of dressing the week’s news in the altogether and parading it around for everyone to laugh at.Host Andrew Hunter Murray and chief cor...respondent Amy Hoggart will strip away the curtain and dive into not only the big stories, but also the way the news is packaged and presented.From award-winning writers and a crack team of contemporary satirists - and recorded in front of a live audience - The Naked Week delivers a topical news nude straight to your ears.This week - Lobbying, art, soup, and farms.Written by: Jon Holmes Katie Sayer Sarah Dempster Gareth Ceredig Jason Hazeley Adam Macqueen Louis MianPartial Nudity: Marc Haynes Cornelius Mendezwith Additional Material.Production Team: Laura Grimshaw, Tony Churnside, Jerry Peal, Katie Sayer, Phoebe Butler.Produced and Directed by Jon Holmes Executive Producer: Philip AbramsAn unusual production for BBC Radio 4

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. 12 stories of extraordinary young people from across history. There's a real sense of urgency in them. That resistance has to be mounted, it has to be mounted now. Follow History's Youngest Heroes wherever you get your podcasts. BBC Sounds music radio podcasts. Hello and welcome to The Naked Week, a brand new show slipping seamlessly into the slot marked Friday night comedy on radio 4 The plan is simple We'll be looking at in beneath and behind the headlines to find out just what's really going on Just like Justin Welby didn't with that awkward report
Starting point is 00:01:00 Coming up in the next 28 minutes then farms bots Soothsaying lobbying and soup. Plus a Greg Wallace joke that may or may not make the edit, depending on the lawyers. But first, this week on The Naked Week, Donald Trump announced the latest nomination to his cabinet. The two kilogram garden gnome made of the drug MDMA. To be fair, not his worst pick. Elsewhere, Jeremy Vine's Christmas penis seems to be completely out of control. I was accidentally projecting snowflakes onto the ceiling of my neighbour's bedroom
Starting point is 00:01:30 without realising. So I had to use a special blinker on it. Merry Christmas everybody. Speaking of which, TalkTV totally destroyed the magic of the school nativity. Schools are telling them that they could be a cat, or a wolf, or a lizard, or a dog, or a giraffe. Well, no, you can't. Get a bloody job. LAUGHTER OK.
Starting point is 00:01:55 After vandalising three of the four Mount Rushmore presidential monuments, Sir Keir Starmer was asked why he left one unscathed. I've got absolutely nothing against Lincoln. LAUGHTER Good to know. And understandably the archers went big on the farmers' inheritance tax issue. There's a lot of anger about this new inheritance tax on farms. Yeah, but David we need those taxes to pay for things like the NHS. Alright.
Starting point is 00:02:22 You can feel the raw anger coming out of Ambridge right now. But yes, let's talk the National Farmers Union. The last couple of weeks have seen the NFU saying, NFU, uh huh, to Rachel Reeves for applying inheritance tax to agricultural land. But here at The Naked Week, we had a different take. We heard there was a tax dodge going, and we wanted in. According to the Times, one third of agricultural land being bought today is specifically
Starting point is 00:02:47 for tax avoidance purposes. And despite Rachel Reeves' literal land grab, you can still pass on the smallest farms tax-free. And thus, we sensed an opportunity. So ladies and gentlemen, I'm very pleased to announce that The Naked Week has officially entered the agricultural industry by genuinely buying a square foot of land
Starting point is 00:03:03 in the Scottish Highlands from a dubious online-only gift registry. Yes. And we have a downloadable certificate to prove it. Now I'm just going to pop into the audience with it. Hold on a second. Madam, could you please read out what's on the certificate just here? Lord of the Glen, certificate of rights. Lord Andrew Hunter Murray of the Naked Week. Plot and two, two, two, two? Hunter Murray of the Naked Week plot and to to to to That's correct. Thank you very much We are now officially big farmer, this is very exciting so
Starting point is 00:03:36 The Naked Week is now the proud owner of a one square foot tract of farmland in Kilnash wherever or whatever that is Now I want to say fear not people in Kilnash, wherever or whatever that is. Now, I want to say, fear not, people of Kilnash, I'm going to rule my domain with a gentle hand. Imagine a farming version of Greg Wallace, only with none of the things Greg Wallace has been accused of. But how does it earn a profit from this land? Well, it turns out that we can't, because the land is so small, we would have to stack livestock on top of each other like a cow ladder.
Starting point is 00:04:05 It can't be done. There is no money in vertical beef. We have checked. So instead, we got the Naked Week agricultural storyline advisors, they're the same ones who do the archers actually, to crunch the numbers and we have come up with a cunning plan. On Monday, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Pat McFadden, launched a tactical speech in the direction of the NATO cyber defense conference, warning that Kremlin bot farms could launch cyber attacks targeting the UK. Here is our idea, and we think it's something that all British farmers can get behind. We are turning our single square foot of land in Scotland into a good old fashioned British bot farm.
Starting point is 00:04:38 That is the way forwards. Hugely profitable farms that grow attacks on foreign infrastructure rather than carrots. And in fact, in the last ten minutes, I have organically grown a robotic cyber Jeremy Clarkson to be in charge of the whole thing, hog the limelight, and farm-splain it all to Victoria Derbyshire. I have christened my farm Diddley Bot, of course, and Robo Clarkson joins me now. Hi, Jeremy. The good news is he's even got life-like Clarkson opinions. I can get a chicken from abroad.
Starting point is 00:05:08 Yeah, you can. It's so full of chlorine. It tastes like a swimming pool with a beak. Thank you Robo Clarkson, wonderful. Now, as Donald Trump's appointments to his top team continue to channel Gladiator 2, specifically the bit where the Mad Emperor appoints his own monkey as chief consul, Now, as Donald Trump's appointments to his top team continue to channel Gladiator 2, specifically the bit where the Mad Emperor appoints his own monkey as chief consul, the media circus on this side of the Atlantic continues to pontificate on it all.
Starting point is 00:05:34 An awful lot of people ended up looking awfully stupid on election night. Not least the lineup of expert mouths on smash-hit gobbcast, The Rest Is Politics. Anthony Scaramucci, Harris or Trump? Harris. Marina Hyde? Harris. My prediction is it's Harris. Rory Stewart? I am incredibly confident that Kamala Harris is going to win this
Starting point is 00:05:54 and win this by a large margin. Rory Stewart, their former Conservative minister, for getting it wrong. In fact, no one has been wronger than Rory Stewart since Captain Tom Moore's daughter said, it's what he would have wanted. Stewart's tag team partner in this centrist dad podcasting Thunderdome is Alistair Campbell, Tony Blair's former spin doctor, and silver medalist
Starting point is 00:06:17 in the hotly contested 2003 edition of Iraq's most overenthusiastic landscape gardener. And you can see why the two of them have become so successful. For example, where else are you going to get this level of first-hand, rigorously researched analysis of the impact of Trump's victory on the war in Ukraine? Somebody posted something that said Donald Trump's son had posted this video of Zelensky being showered with dollar bills that were sort of coming out of the sky. I don't know whether this is real.
Starting point is 00:06:45 And I decided not to check. No. Why would you? Why would you? With this level of insight, there is no wonder that the rest is politics has slipped the stifling bonds of the podcasting studio to conquer the live circuit. The pair recently played to 13,000 of their listeners at the O2. Stuart and Campbell, they are like Simon and Garfunkel. If Simon was complicit in Theresa May's hardline anti-immigration
Starting point is 00:07:09 rhetoric of the mid 2010s, and Garfunkel was in The Hague. Clearly, though, Rory Stuart is a soothsayer for our age. And to prove it, we're now going to ask him for some of his hot takes on other events. So Rory, welcome to the Naked Week. Thank you very much for having me. Firstly, Rory, can I just get your thoughts on the invention of the mini disc player? It's completely amazing.
Starting point is 00:07:28 I mean, there's huge demand for it. Okay. I'm sure you're right. And I was just wondering, are you at all concerned about the Hindenburg airship? Don't worry. It's all going to be fine. Good. Good to know. Good to know. That's what I think too. What about your thoughts on the number four reactor at Chernobyl?
Starting point is 00:07:42 Just incredible. I hugely recommend it. It seemed very safe. Laurie Stewart there, everybody. Now, in an increasingly frantic society where too many things are always happening and news moves faster than unsold copies of Boris Johnson's book to landfill, you'd be forgiven for thinking it's all a little bit much. We agree and we understand, but naturally your friends at The Naked Week have got your back. As such, we are taking time out of the program to offer a quiet space for contemplation, We agree and we understand, but naturally your friends at The Naked Week have got your back. As such, we are taking time out of the program to offer a quiet space for contemplation,
Starting point is 00:08:09 a metaphorical peace garden, as we bring you the news quietly, calmly, and through the medium of short-form Japanese poetry. It's one of the week's stories distilled down to its purest form, a crisp five syllables, seven syllables, and five syllables. It's the News in Haikus. Stammer petition signed by many bots turning on one of their own. The news in Haikus. Now when I was in school I was often told by my teachers that I lacked focus, to which I replied, huh? But here at The Naked Week we are nothing if not laser focused on current affairs, and it gets none more current or affairs-y than where we find ourselves now.
Starting point is 00:09:06 As a nation, five months on from that huge MP swapping party that Westminster held in the summer. One lot out, another lot in, followed by, like any decent swapping party, a copious binning of the wet wipes, or the Conservative Party, as you might otherwise remember them. But the question is, where now for Britain's least popular party, if you don't count Tupperware, or the one that Number Ten had while everyone else died of COVID? The Tories do have a new leader now, Kemi Badenok, not to be confused of course with Demi Badenok, who is half the politician Kemi will ever be, or Hemi Demi Badenok, who is
Starting point is 00:09:39 one quarter... Well, you get the idea with that one. But despite Labour's newfound unpopularity, the Tories are still remarkably behind in the polls, so we thought we would help them out. And when we focused our minds on it, we realised the best, and by best I mean cheapest, way to do this was to organise a focus group. And so it was that our chief correspondent, Amy Hoggett, gathered a small group of prominent conservatives together to ask them how the party can properly bounce back after its very
Starting point is 00:10:04 public school election thrashing. She kettled them in a room, she plied them with biscuits and she set their brains scampering through the wheat fields of true possibility. And Amy joins me now. Amy, what went down? I ran through various scenarios with them by asking a series of carefully constructed psychological questions designed to get to the heart of their slump in popularity. So what kind of questions are we talking about? Okay, so which member of the Shadow Cabinet is most likely to get their head stuck in railings at a petting zoo?
Starting point is 00:10:34 Okay, and to be clear, these are real, genuine, actual and prominent members of the Conservative Party you did this with. Oh yeah, 100%. Let's meet the group. Hi, my name's Yasmin Al-Atroshi. I'm the former Conservative candidate for Warrington North in the last general election. Hi, I'm Alusheh Yahyinde. I'm award chairman for Forest Hill. Max Impar-Reed. I'm a small business owner and I voted for the Conservatives in 2017, but not in the election since.
Starting point is 00:10:57 Hi, I'm Ross. I'm a young Conservative and I'm a student. I am an old Conservative. My name is William Atkinson. I'm the Assistant Editor of the website Conservative Home. Though I'm here to stay in a personal capacity. OK, great. So they all sound very nice. They all sound very pleased to be there as well. Yeah, it certainly started that way. So what was question one?
Starting point is 00:11:16 Simply this. If you were queuing in the toilets at Keele Services and reforms Lee Anderson emerged from the only usable cubicle with the words, I'd give it five minutes if I were you. How long would you actually give it? A. Under five minutes because you lost your sense of smell in an electrical fire. B. More than five minutes. You take the man and his trousers very seriously.
Starting point is 00:11:40 Or C. You'd hold it in till you reached stoke. Just to be clear before we hear these answers these are genuine prominent conservatives and you actually did this can't stress that enough roll the tape see you told it until you reach stoke I would I would why take the risk was it was it be the one we took him at his word yes babe yeah as a former Conn home back bench of the year you know I I trust that Lee Anderson even though he's found himself in the wrong, is a man to be believed when he says how long his toxic waste takes to be disposed of.
Starting point is 00:12:09 I would be very concerned to see a man in my private space of a woman's toilet. That would really set me back. So you'd hold on till you reach Stoke? I would. Well you would though, you would. Longer probably. But I do think this is helpful, I genuinely think this is helping. What came next? Which of the following noises best represents the Conservative Party's approach to climate
Starting point is 00:12:30 change? Is it A? Okay. B? C? Or D? Oh go on Blimey! C?
Starting point is 00:12:40 C? C? C? C? C? C? C? C? C? La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la Well, I like to think the Naked Week focus group has really helped the party out. It hasn't, but I like to think it has. Now, seeing as the Naked Week is new to these Friday night Radio 4 parts, we are all braced for the inevitable backlash from people who want everything to stay exactly the same all the time forever. Which, if you're listening, Craig and Stowbridge, is why your wife left you.
Starting point is 00:13:20 The traditional forum for Radio 4 outrage venting is, of course, The traditional forum for radio for outrage venting is of course Feedback, who, when faced with emails written in green crayon, will summon the producer of the offending program on to try and defend it. Now, we're all busy people, and sensing what's going to happen come Monday, we have decided to get ahead of the curve and have our producer, John Holmes, pre-respond to your views. He joins me now. John, what would you say to the accusation that The Naked Week is a typical so-called excuse for a typical so-called BBC so-called satirical, typical so-called comedy, so-called programme that's typically not as so-called good as Dead Ringers?
Starting point is 00:13:59 I'd say I think it's probably fine. Typical BBC response. Rory Stewart is actually still with us. Rory, you're not going to complain about us to feedback are you? How you finding a show so far? So boring. Boring beyond belief. I'm Nicola Coughlin and for BBC Radio 4 this is history's youngest heroes. Rebellion, risk and the radical power of youth. She thought, right, I'll just do it. She thought about others rather than herself.
Starting point is 00:14:31 12 stories of extraordinary young people from across history. There's a real sense of urgency in them. That resistance has to be mounted, it has to be mounted now. Follow history's youngest heroes wherever you get your podcasts. So in the words of Taylor Swift, or if you prefer, Bananarama, it's been a cruel summer,
Starting point is 00:14:56 not least for Keir Starmer, as he got all caught up in a scandal involving freebies, tickets and multiple pairs of glasses for his increasingly worried looking face. But freebies and lobbying go hand in hand, say, Benjamin Netanyahu and arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu. And lobbying the government is, of course, both legal and legitimate for groups or individuals. But obviously, big corporations can more easily whisper into the ears of MPs if, for example, they happen to have treated them to first dibs at the Toby Carvery, followed by front row tickets to see Conor McGregor's next fight in the Irish High Court. Across this series, we are going to hold our nose and go for a paddle in the fetid Thames waters
Starting point is 00:15:35 of Westminster lobbying, starting with the wonderful world of gambling. Now this week, Labour announced stake limits for gambling slots on online betting, which on the face of it, would seem to be good news. But it's not quite the whole story, and it's not quite as much of a result as the headlines might have you believe. This is actually not a shiny new announcement at all. It is in fact precisely what the Tories proposed earlier this year while they were taking a short break from calling nurses greedy. A month before that proposal, Flutter Entertainment, the company which owns Paddy Power and Betfair among others, coincidentally sent a generous invitation to the then Conservative gambling
Starting point is 00:16:10 minister Stuart Andrew. And we have the email. Here it is. Dear Stuart, It is my great pleasure to invite you to this year's Cheltenham Festival with a ticket to the race course, full hospitality in a suite and a great view of the iconic Cheltenham finishing straight. I do hope that you are able to join us at this unique and thrilling occasion, but in any case we look forward to continuing our engagement with you and your team in the months ahead. Now, I do have to point out that Andrew ultimately declined the offer, but other MPs didn't. Amy is back with me. Amy, who rocked up at the races?
Starting point is 00:16:37 Well, former Tory MP for Shipley, Sir Philip Davies for one, and equally former Tory MP for Tewkesbury, Lawrence Robertson for two. They got posh tickets to Cheltenham from Kindred which owns Unibet and 32 Red which, in case you were wondering, are websites, not horses. And that was all declared and totally above board. So what are the odds that the two of them would both decide to speak out against gambling affordability checks in parliament within just a few weeks of their big day out. Here's Davies.
Starting point is 00:17:07 The government is only snobbishly treating punters as some kind of pariah, which I do not appreciate. And here's Robertson. A Conservative government actually should not be telling people how much money they should spend. Of course, we are not suggesting for a moment that their interventions were influenced by something as meagager as Prosecco and a view of the finishing line at Cheltenham. Far from it. Well, not that far from it. I imagine the views were really good. But how much money would you put on them both retaining their seats come polling day? They were both out of a job. But don't worry, the gambling industry was prepared ever since they knew there was an election looming they had been indulging in each way bets. Amy?
Starting point is 00:17:46 Yeah. In May 2023, the betting and gaming council, the main lobbyists for the gambling industry, gifted Labour MP Stephanie Peacock a hospitality box ticket for a football match worth almost £600. Bets on the table please. Would she get a senior position under Keir Starmer? It came in. In September 2023, Peacock was appointed Labour's shadow gambling minister.
Starting point is 00:18:09 It would be like making Begbie from Trainspotting the shadow minister for heroin, or Russell Brand the shadow minister... Okay, let's just play this, I hope you say heroin again actually. Now shall we go double or quits? Yes! Always bev on red. Come this summer's election, R. Ste. Stef Julia became Labour's sports minister with responsibility for gambling when discussed in the House of Commons.
Starting point is 00:18:30 And what did Peacock have to squawk in the Commons? I visited most of the betting shops in my own constituency of Barnsley South and I've seen the first hand that the difference they make in helping support and combat loneliness. I take that really seriously. She's right, isn't she? Gambling is a terrific way not to be lonely. You know, you get loads of visits from people, mainly bailiffs, yes. Now there's lots more of this gambling government love in
Starting point is 00:18:56 and suffice to say, two former Labour shadow ministers, a former Labour adviser and a former Labour parliamentary candidate have all gone to work for our old friends, the Betting and Gaming Council. And that brings us back to this week's news about online gambling limits. Because you would think placing restrictions on online slot machines might be hailed as a step in the right direction. Kind of like a rubbish dressage.
Starting point is 00:19:18 Or as it's better known, dressage. And it is sort of good, but only in the way that Liz Truss was sort of a Prime Minister. This legislation places a £5 per spin limit on people aged over the age of 25, and a £2 limit on people aged 18 to 24. But back in February, when this proposal was first floated, the charity Gambling with Lives described it as a missed opportunity to reduce the number of suicides caused each year by addiction to these slot games, of which there are many hundreds. They pointed out a blanket £2 limit could easily be imposed if there was any political will on either side to do it.
Starting point is 00:19:54 But then, gambling with lives probably didn't get VIP hospitality tickets to the Chilternum Festival. They will have to settle for the Toby Carvery like the rest of us. This is the Naked Week on Radio 4, where this week, not only are the government continuing to make errors, they're also losing furniture. I had a big round table this morning. More allegations emerge about Greg Wallace's behaviour towards colleagues. He would give them a nice bowl of food and shoot them. Just time now to catch up with singer-songwriter Kate Nash,
Starting point is 00:20:26 who was raising eyebrows and possibly other body parts, with the revelation that she is partly funding her next tour through the adult platform OnlyFans. As she told Emma Barnett on the Today program on Monday, I'm selling pictures of my arse. A noble endeavor. And in fact, we've decided to raise money for the BBC by setting up Radio 4's first ever OnlyFans.
Starting point is 00:20:47 Why do you think Michel Hussain is leaving the Today program? It's this. But Nick Robinson is on board. He's flogging marital aids. This is just a very simple inflatable rib. And at the back, an engine, what, 30 horsepower? Wow. Wow. Powerful stuff. And with a range of familiar faces on board, there's something for everyone. Isn't that right, Melvin? Prostitutes and homosexuals. There's plenty of stuff about them.
Starting point is 00:21:08 Right, right. Well, Radio 4's OnlyFans, subscribe now. So, last weekend saw the chaotic end to the COP29 climate summit. And you know what they say, the 29th time is the charm. This one was hosted by oil-rich Azerbaijan, which is only massively hypocritical if you stop and think about it for a fraction of a second. So, you know, don't. The generally perceived outcome was that it was too little, too late. Much like when your Uber driver eventually arrives and it's Rishi Sunak.
Starting point is 00:21:36 And in case you're wondering, it's called COP because it disproportionately targets black people. That, my friends, is satire. Ring the bell. So anyway, with the climate can safely kicked down the road yet again, it's only a matter of time before someone from Just Stop Oil rinses the can out, fills it with cream of mushroom and Googles, nearest art exhibition not by Banksy. Back in October, the National Gallery banned visitors from bringing in any liquids after climate protesters chucked soup at two of Van Gogh's sunflowers pictures Less than a year after they'd pulled exactly the same stunt which depending on your own bias both proves and disproves
Starting point is 00:22:12 How effective it was the first time? Now for those of you who heard the words National Gallery and already shouting. Oh, yeah. Here we go Another tofu licking London centric story from the liberal metropolitan media, typical BBC. Firstly, welcome, you must be new to Radio 4. And also, yes, the National Gallery may be in London, but it does truly represent the United Kingdom in that it's increasingly hard to get in legally, and even if you do, you'll walk around for a bit having a look and soon wish you hadn't bothered. According to the gallery's website, the only exceptions to the no-liquid rule are
Starting point is 00:22:47 baby formula, expressed milk and prescription meds. Or, as I like to call them, brunch. But scientifically speaking, just what is a liquid? Amy Hoggett rejoins us now and she has been looking into this. Amy? Yes. It turns out that it really is complicated. A minefield really, and worse still, a minefield that's been flooded with soup. And that's why I went to meet Mark Mirdofnik, Professor of Materials and Society at University College London, and I asked him, what is a liquid? Well liquids, they're a bit of a tricky one to define. Our best definition so far is it's something that flows and it
Starting point is 00:23:25 takes the shape of the container it's in. That's your definition of a liquid. I know it doesn't sound great and there's a lot of disquiet about this in the physics world because under that definition, cats... Well, because cats quite frequently get into bowls and they assume the shape of the bowl so they are liquids. And it is upsetting. What if I was to bring something to the National Gallery with me that was visibly wet but also technically a solid?
Starting point is 00:23:54 Someone like Tommy Robinson. Now if you smacked him out into a smoothie, he's a liquid. Fair enough. There you go. Thank you, Amy. Now it's fair to say that Just Stop Oil has copped a ton of criticism for its soup-chucking tactics. Recent surveys suggest that while 58% of British adults support their demands, 57% are against the group itself. So while they might agree with Just Stop Oil's aims, the public is largely uncomfortable with the method they're using to get there.
Starting point is 00:24:21 This, of course, is known as the sausages paradox. We all want to eat sausages, of course we do, but the method of getting two sausages isn't something many of us feel comfortable with. I have heard they puree the lips. And it's not as if climate change is the fault of the National Gallery staff, is it? Unless one of them is constantly fiddling with a thermostat. The staff of the National Gallery should not have to spend their time
Starting point is 00:24:46 protecting artworks from protesters. They should be allowed to get on with their actual jobs of sitting on chairs all day and staring vacantly at people walking by. But tactics aside, we at The Naked Week, we want to prove that actually, in spite of what Justapoil's critics think, a soup art interface can genuinely be a force for good. We are going to use JSO's tactics that the public dislike, but we are going to reverse it. And in the name of climate change awareness, we are now going to throw some art at some soup.
Starting point is 00:25:18 We are going to then donate the soup to a food bank rather than spaff it up an old master. Sorry, what? No. We are going to then donate the soup to a food bank, rather than spaff it up an old master. Sorry, what? No. It's a win-win. And that is why this morning we went out, we bought ourselves three works of art and 82 tins of tomato soup,
Starting point is 00:25:36 just like Andy Warhol used in lieu of being actually able to draw. And we are going to reveal them now. One, two, three. Brilliant. Superb. So, okay, this is pretty straightforward, albeit unnecessarily visual for a radio program.
Starting point is 00:25:49 We have stacked up these tins of soup into three pyramids. The three piles of soup tins, we have three works of art with us. According to BBC Verify, this is actually what Lord Reith would have wanted. And to give our three artworks a fair appraisal and to perform the official throwing, please welcome in the blue corner, art historian and critic Verity Babs.
Starting point is 00:26:06 What we do have is a few works of art and I wonder if we could talk them through. So number one over here we have a human-sized, albeit not life-sized, replica of Michelangelo's David. So can you just talk us through this? Yeah, Michelangelo's David is one of the most famous artworks in the world and one of the best things about it is the fact that it's disproportionate. So everything above the waist is much larger than everything below the waist and that's and that's because it was meant to be put on top of a roof so it's meant to be viewed from below. But that is an excuse that a man once gave me on a date. We should say our David is made of cardboard.
Starting point is 00:26:53 Next we have a cheap plastic skull from a Halloween shop with some tinsel glued to the top and it's got some sequins glued on around the eyes. So this is a beautiful recreation of Damien Hirst's For the Love of God which is an apt title because that's what it makes you want to say. Okay and we turn to the final one now. Now this is a very famous artwork. This is the Athena poster of a girl playing tennis scratching her ass. Well Verity as a professional critic which of these three do you think is
Starting point is 00:27:23 going to knock over the most tins of soup? Andrew, honestly, I couldn't care less. Okay, well let's do it. So Verity's getting into position now with Michelangelo's David, and she's going to see how many tins of tomato soup she can knock over. I can't believe we're doing this. And she's going for it. And... Yay!
Starting point is 00:27:44 I would say 15 tins of soup knocked over there. All right. OK, now number two is going to be the hearst skull. It's good. It's got a good shape to it. It's good for chucking. Let's see what Verity can do with it. Here she goes.
Starting point is 00:27:56 A moderate throw, but not over-egging it. I think that was decent. But David's still in the lead. And now we come to some... The frame has heft on this Athena poster. I'm going to say that much. This is going to be the one. She's taking position. She's lining up.
Starting point is 00:28:13 And she's going for it. Whoo! Yes! APPLAUSE Very... Very strong. I think I can say the winner is Michelangelo's David, everybody. Of course, the real winner is the world's publicly listed oil and gas companies,
Starting point is 00:28:35 who in 2022 alone made over $400 billion in profit. Yay! And that was The Naked Week this week. The Naked Week was hosted by me, Andrew Hunter Murray, with chief correspondent Amy Hoggett, and guests Verity Babs and Professor Mark Mierdorfmik. It was written by John Holmes, Gareth Caredding, Katie Sayer, Sarah Dempster, Jason Haisley, Adam McQueen and Louis Mian. Partial Nudity was by Mark Haynes and Cornelius Mendez, with additional flashing from Alice
Starting point is 00:28:59 Bright, Ali Panting, Helen Brooks, Nicky Roberts, Darren Phillips and Kevin Smith. The Naked Week is produced and directed by John Holmes and it's an unusual production for BBC Radio 4. What happens when at-home DNA tests reveal more than you bargained for? My birth mum was still here, she's still alive. Six new stories of reconnecting and rupturing families. I just couldn't believe it. I had a sister after all. Lives upended and long buried secrets. I then wrote back and said, look, the ripples from this will be enormous.
Starting point is 00:29:39 What do you want to do? The new series of The Gift with me, Jenny Clemen. From BBC Radio 4. Listen now on BBC Sounds. I'm Nicola Cochlan and for BBC Radio 4, this is history's youngest heroes. Rebellion, risk and the radical power of youth. She thought, right, I'll just do it. She thought about others rather than herself.
Starting point is 00:30:09 12 stories of extraordinary young people from across history. There's a real sense of urgency in them. That resistance has to be mounted, it has to be mounted now. Follow History's Youngest Heroes wherever you get your podcasts.

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