Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The News Quiz - 12th February 2021

Episode Date: February 12, 2021

A satirical review of the week's news with Andy Zaltzman and guests Felicity Ward, Anand Menon, Jessica Fostekew and Simon Evans.This week the panel mull over prison sentences for going on holiday, not being allowed to go on holiday in the first place and euphemistic food names.Written by Andy Zaltzman with additional material from Madeleine Brettingham, Max Davis and Alice Fraser.Producer: Richard Morris A BBC Studios Production

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello. I am Andy Zaltzman. Do not be fooled by the Zoom filter that makes me look like a balding middle-aged man. I am in fact all cat. Meow. Welcome to the News Quiz. Hello, welcome to the News Quiz,

the show in which we attempt to hold the smelling salts of truth underneath the nostrils of news before we then re-comatise it with the chloroform of comedy while soothingly whispering in its ear, it's better this way. It's time to meet the teams now. This week we have Team Handforth Parish Council versus Team Jaunt to Paris Cancelled.

On Team Parish Council, it's Anand Menon and Simon Evans. Can I check which one of us has authority here? And on Team Paris cancelled, it's Jess Fosterkew and Felicity Ward. Right, Alex, now time for question one. This goes to Team Paris, Council, Anand and Simon. What could cost you ten years of your life? Is it the new ramped-up version of British Summertime? It's close, but it's not right.

It's not right. I mean, it's interesting, isn't it? There are lots of things. If you poison someone, it gets you ten years. If you're cruel to children, it gets you ten years. And if you lie about your holidays, it gets you 10 years. And they all seem pretty comparable offences in my book, to be honest. Is it not unsubscribing from Virgin Media then? I thought that had been proven to be impossible. Yes, it's true. It is 10 years of your life, ten years in jail

for sneaking back from some certain random tourist destinations and falling foul of your neighbours. I think the sentence reflects the acknowledgement on the part of the government that they're not going to catch you. When you create an extraordinarily disproportionate punishment, that suggests the chances of you actually being subjected to it are infinitesimal. There's a direct correlation there.

It's very similar to the cultures which emerge among pastoral communities, shepherding peoples in the mountains of northwest Pakistan and Scotland, who let it be known that terrible things will happen to you if you rustle a sheep or defoul a virgin or vice versa and consequently create that fear in amongst the possible criminal tendency in their neighbours. That's basically where we're going now, which has, of course, led to some pretty colourful blood feuds over the years.

So that might be something that we can look forward to once the vaccines have done their work. That might be an unexpected residue. Yeah, because the blood feud industry has been really struggling during lockdown. It has. I mean, it's just been another downfall of this pandemic. It's like, where are the blood feuds?

You know, everything's stopped. Sure, I can't go to soft play with my baby, but where are the blood feuds? The problem is a 10-year jail sentence used to be like a really effective deterrent, but that's before we had experienced several months of homeschooling. And now, frankly, that sounds like an all-inclusive spa. Is jail a place where I don't have to do all the washing up? Take me to there.

I just think they can't be questioning teenagers because if teenagers face jail time for lying about where they'd be, I'd be serving a life sentence right now. And if my mum is listening, that's a joke. And I'll be home in 20 minutes. There was track work, so I had to catch the bus. I do think it's going to create a new opportunity for tourist knickknacks though because traditionally when you come back through customs if you're carrying castanets you know or some sort of you know large inflatable paella I don't know I haven't been to Spain but whatever it is basically if you go to Yemen now or wherever you're not supposed to go to, there will be opportunities at Duty Free

to buy souvenirs suggesting you've been somewhere safe. You just come in with a little red double-decker bus and they're like, oh, you've just been to London. You got lost. Just jump on the Paddington Express. Takes you straight back into town Jess what holiday would you say is worth you know a 10-year jail term what would you be looking for there yeah it's gonna have to be all inclusive isn't it to get 10 years

in jail I just like the idea of anybody I love the idea of someone actually going to jail for this you can imagine like the yard time chat can can't you? What are you in for then, Alan? Scamming a bank. You? I fibbed about my holiday to the Algarve. It's just not plausible. No, I mean, I think this is bonkers. I mean, I understand why they're doing it. These obviously, these travel rules have had to have been tightened.

And I think it's timely that they're doing it now, almost exactly on the anniversary of when it would have been useful and really effective to have done it. This is why you should never buy a five-year diary. Paul Matt Hancock's been working on 2021 all along. He's like, oh, no! Yeah, he's almost exactly a year behind the curve. Any minute now, he's going to tweet about this great show

on Netflix called Tiger King. Well, I guess, you know, as they say, better late than never. But I guess you could add better not late than really, really late and better on time than late at all. Well, kind of, Andy, except I'd say the beauty of this policy is that every single part of it is totally implausible. So it's stringent enough to make sure all the airlines go bankrupt, but everyone knows a 10-day quarantine doesn't stop anything.

It needs to be 14, so it doesn't work. And everyone knows that having a short list of countries doesn't work because we don't know where the next mutation is coming from. So it is absolute genius in terms of achieving absolutely none of its stated objectives and the part i really like if you arrive at heathrow and you need to go into quarantine you're allowed to go there on public transport if necessary i have to say we're thinking of going to a quarantine hotel for our summer holiday.

Have a ten day break. Lovely. I think what the government are is sportsmanlike. You know, they're giving the virus a fighting chance. They've been criticised over fox hunting enough and they've taken that on board that that's not really

a sport. It's all one way and so they're trying to even it up a little bit. Yes, this is the story about the draconian suggested jail sentences which means that ten years will not only be the average time it takes to get England cricket captain Joe Root out in a test match, it is also

the potential jail sentence for telling a porky about your holidays. The surprise policy announced by Health Secretary Matt Hancock was praised for hitting the political sweet spot of ticking off all three of the hallowed three U's. Uncosted, unnecessary and unenforceable. It's always impressive to get the full house on that one. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps defended the proposal, which doesn't necessarily mean that it's definitely wrong,

but, well, you know, stats are stats. The strictest punishments will be reserved for those who lie about recent visits to coronavirus hotspots such as South Africa, Brazil and Downing Street. And customs officers will also be on the lookout for anyone walking through Heathrow in a T-shirt that says I went to the Wuhan wet market and all I got was this delicious pangolin. And the next question is also on the subject of holidays.

It's a multiple choice question, goes to both teams. What two adjectives were used by a spokesperson for the Association of Independent Tour Operators to describe Grant Shapps' warning to the public not to book summer holidays? Was it A, helpful and constructive? There's always an obviously wrong answer in a multiple choice question. We all know that. Was it B, grumpy and dopey?

Was it C, sporty and ginger? Was it D, apocalyptic and Gormless, the two that didn't quite make the Spice Girls cut? Was it E, Puerile and Nonsensical? Or was it F, Smouldering and Erotic? Any suggestions? I would think, Grant Shapps, it's got to be Smouldering and Erotic, hasn't it? Sadly not, Simon.

No, guess but wrong. Was it that I've forgotten them now? There's too many options. My brain's turned to mush. I haven't been stimulated mentally in a year. How am I going to remember six options? Predictable and hopeless. Was that in there?

It wasn't, no. The correct answer is puerile and nonsensical. We all knew that that's no points to anyone to clarify the current government guidance on holidays is now to book and also not book your holiday but maybe book one soon but don't get

your hopes up and don't lose hope completely if you do book it or don't book it but if you do or don't cheer yourself up by booking a holiday. Don't do that or you're a traitor. I would have thought the correct tactic would probably be to book a holiday somewhere you don't want to go. Bound not to be disappointed. So by the time you get there, like it gets to the holiday, you're like, I don't want to go, actually.

It's like when you get invited to a party and then at the last minute they're like, oh, we had to cancel. You're like, oh, no, that's terrible. Great. I didn't want to come. I have to see you. Yeah, every adult's fantasy. But hasn't Matt Hancock, he said, don't book your summer holidays?

But he has booked his. Yes. He said, but I booked it months ago using the increasingly popular Cummings defence that he's probably just better than us. I have to say, Andy, I think you've missed the best story of the week, though, which was provided to us by the Home Office. I don't know if you remember, at the start of this week, the Home Office said, all you illegal immigrants, we'd just like you to know that you can come forward, get a vaccine and we won't do anything about it. And I just had this vision in my head of Priti Patel dressed as the child catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, going around immigrant areas with a syringe in her hand saying, come on, little immigrants, you can trust me.

Nothing will happen. And whack him in the cage as soon as they came out. I mean, the difference between the child catcher and Pretty Patella is the child catcher was quite plausible. I mean, if anyone thought the BAME community aren't very good at getting vaccinated and whoever in the Home Office had the wheeze, I know what will attract them.

Let's stick Home Office on the syringe, that that would make it more attractive to them. Unbelievable. Moving on to round two. Now this question again goes to both teams. What thing that should obviously never been allowed to happen is now likely to cost the Treasury billions of pounds? Being in government.

It's close. Letting buildings catch fire? Correct, yes. The correct answer. Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick announced billions of pounds in funding this week to help tackle the UK's flammable cladding crisis, confirming that leaseholders in high-rise residential buildings will face no cost

for cladding repair works and leaseholders in low-rise buildings can, and I quote, go swivel. This is a story that, I don't know, it's one of the most bleak and depressing stories in recent times. And what can we learn about Britain from this whole sorry mess? Isn't this just classic Britain? Like this is actually Britain encapsulated in a moment in time. Go in, muck things up, ruin lives, then come in and go, oh, we'll help you. Like it's very kind of the government to cover the costs of removing unsafe clothing they approved in the first place.

It's like giving someone a head trauma and then getting praise for applying pressure to the wound. Oh, oh, you're so kind and violent. Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you, master. But it's significantly more rubbish than that because they're not paying for everyone. They reckon that if you're sort of 18 metres from the ground, you can jump because actually they're not going to pay to get your cladding removed if you're only a few storeys up. They're only going to do it for certain people. The whole thing is so utterly rubbish. I mean, just write the sodding check. I mean, it's not hard, is it? The only bit of this grim story that I found joyful is discovering that the Shadow Housing Secretary is called Fangham Debonair,

and that she chose that name and changed it by depot shortly after graduating from Oxford. And now, she is awesome, by the way. I'm just jealous that I only went kind of half-masked and stuck with foster care, and I wish I'd just sort of gone the whole hog and called myself Jessica Fancy Pants. Never too late.

The Grenfell United campaign group described the government scheme as, quote, too little, too late, which is a bit harsh. It's only three and a half years after a completely avoidable and unimaginable tragedy with repercussions affecting the lives and properties of thousands and thousands of people. That's not even a full Olympic cycle, and they've been run off their feet spending taxpayers' money on

pictures of the Prime Minister's cat. So cut them some slack, please. Coincidentally, too little too late was also draft one of the hands, face, space slogan. The money is only available to buildings over 18 metres because, well, because.

And this has led to reports that some of the tower blocks that have applied for the money are in fact two 9.5 metre high buildings on top of each other wearing a large raincoat. Moving on with a score at 8 to Team Paris Council and 2 to Team Paris Cancelled. We're moving on to Brexit now. Yay! And the question is

which cat, and that's an acronym, cat, for chaotic aftermath of trade deal got which creams? Which cat got which creams? Well, I suppose... Oh, this is the custody... No, go on. No, no. Now no no come on babe you do it well this

is what they have me here for to bore on about brexit so i'm going to bore on about brexit this is about the fact that david davis was right because on the continent they have run out of custard creams because of brexit so i suspect it is only a matter of time before they come running to us offering us whatever we want in exchange for being able to consume custard creams again. But if I can go on, because there are so many fun facts to know about Brexit, I'm going to tell you a few more. OK. One of the things about Brexit is it makes trade harder. Who knew? Who even guessed? What? Yeah, I know. It's a shocker guessed and the people yeah i know it's a shocker and the people who are suffering are our fishermen now the cornish fishermen have come up with a really cunning ruse they've decided

that some of the things they can't sell here they can't sell because the names are silly the megrim fish and the spider crab are being renamed so that we will go out and buy them apparently the megrim fish we don't eat it because its name contains the word grim, which makes me wonder why people buy shiitake mushrooms or toad in the hole. But anyway... LAUGHTER And apparently, the spider crab isn't as pretty as the brown crab,

so expect to go to Tesco's if you get in and to see a crab with lipstick on it. That will be a Cornish crab that they're trying to sell to you because it's now as pretty as the ones we like eating. We're body-shaming crabs now. Is that how far we've sailed? Species.

I thought they'd changed the spider crab to the Peter Parker crab. I think it's just going to be very confusing now that the megram's being changed to Cornish Soul. What if they think, oh, Cornish Soul, Northern Soul, put it all in the mix, we'll have a dance to that. Yeah, well, no, but I mean, now you mention that, you know, calling it Cornish Soul, I would pay good money to see Poldark

channelling his inner Aretha Franklin and blasting out a spine-tingling you-make-me-feel- me feel like a natural Cornishman. Cornish soul is another word for sea shanties, isn't it? Which is what is proving very popular online at the moment. Yeah, all the rage. Well, it's quite an interesting story, the sense that we buy things partly because of the way that the names that they're called obviously has a big impact on whether or not we want to eat them, hence black pudding, not hockey puck of blood.

But we're the news, because we want more honesty in society, and I'm sick of the food euphemisms that we use, so this is my challenge to you, panellists. You have to tell me which foodstuff has been rebranded under the following titles. So the first one is Probably Edible Death Tube. Is that a sausage? Correct, yes, that is a sausage. Mankey cow juice.

Milk. Yoghurt? Yoghurt, yes, you can have that. Right, there we go, that's a point. Bagged up crime scene. Haggis. Haggis, correct. Well done.

Haged up crime scene. Haggis. Haggis, correct. Well done. Burning effigy of time's unstoppable march towards the precipice of eternal oblivion. It's birthday cake. And refusal to learn the lessons of history. Britain. That's incorrect.

It's optimism. So there we go. That brings us to the end of the rebranding. I should say I've actually rebranded. I have anxiety and depression and people don't like to hear that. So I just started calling it the Blues Brothers. And people are in. Time for our next question.

What French institution has had its day, Jeanne? Is it about, like, French people have been allowed temporarily to have their lunch while they're at work? Correct. And in finding this out, I learned that I had no idea. Like, I knew the French loved a lovely long lunch. I didn't realise it's actually illegal to eat while you're at work. A French prison's just full of really brave, rebellious food critics.

It's that you're not allowed to bring, up until the pandemic, you weren't allowed to bring food into a work premises. You're not allowed to eat food at your desk and they're letting them do that now. And I kind of understand that because it's like French food, very hard to whack a lobster bisque into a thermos. It just feels like it's undermining the meal, you know, just getting a bouillabaisse in a Chinese takeaway container.

Whatever next? I'm going to get to the next thing in France. They'll be embracing pre-sliced bread, monogamy, ruthlessly efficient safe percentage rugby and cycling for less than three weeks at a time. They're going to have to learn to eat baguettes like we do. Yes, French law is being changed to legalise the eating of lunch at your desk. Due to the many and varied impacts of Covid,

French workers will no longer face what I think, I assume it's a 10-year jail sentence. That's all the race he's made, isn't it? Poor France, things have been going downhill there pretty much ever since they kicked us out of Calais in 1558. Temporarily, at least. We'll be back. Until now, employees who even ate an egg sandwich at their desks would have faced disciplinary action, or as it's known in France,

a telling oeuf. Right, where were we? Yes, so the scores are now Team Parrish Council have 14, Team Parrish Council have 7. Another international question. We're going across the Atlantic now. Which American national being impeached record holder and recent evictee from a luxurious Washington residence

who is famous for his rambling, incoherent speeches is apparently furious with his lawyer for making a rambling, incoherent speech? Any guesses? Tricky. speeches is apparently furious with his lawyer for making a rambling incoherent speech any guesses tricky is it bush is it one of the bushes good guess there's only i mean donald trump's impeachment record is astonishing one of many obviously significant marks and record he's created over the short of a single but historical term trump has like ramped up the short of a single but historical term. Trump has like ramped up the speed of impeachment. It's like virtually an annual event now.

I would be very surprised if Biden gets through without an impeachment now. God knows what they'll cook it up over, but it won't be a presidency without an impeachment now. I think that's how it feels. Anyone who's anyone is getting an impeachment these days. I'll be honest with you, I spend far too much time on Twitter and it's been very dull since he left. I think they've deprived us of a significant source of amusement. Just a bit mean of them, really. Do you also think hospitals are going to be really boring once Covid's finished? Yes, this is Donald Trump clinging on for dear life to his spot on the 50 greatest American presidents of all time list. The case began with the stupidly dressed half-assed micro-coup on the 6th of January,

which failed to keep Trump in office. Next time they might like to watch and learn from Myanmar, where, if nothing else, they have proved the ancient military theory that a real army is generally better at cooing the hell out of somewhere than some clod-headed conspiracy-addled wannabe rambos who spent the last 15 years shooting tin cans in a forest, aided by a semi-naked man wearing buffalo horns. I believe that's from Sun Tzu's Art of War, I think.

In other American news, now this is a question to Team Paris Cancelled, to Jess and Felicity. When is a cat not a cat? So this is where there are some lawmakers, that's how they're described, talking to a judge and one of them logs onto the Zoom court or Zoom court with their child had been using their computer before them and they had a cat filter on so it looked like a cat talking and at one point because he's struggling to turn the filter off he had to say um i am really here i'm not a cat which is obviously exactly what a real cat would say

what's amazing is that ever since then everybody apparently has been trying to get hold of this cat filter. Well, I have a great trick for you. Spend a whole year just not waxing your face. You don't need one. That's what I've gone with. I love the idea that somewhere there's a clock ticking down to the day when Jackie Weaver does a video with a cat filter on and the internet is going to explode.

does a video with a cat filter on and the internet is going to explode. Also, it turns out apparently that the technology for making that cat filter is like decades old, which makes it amazing that it looks like a more realistic cat than any of the cats in the 2019 film Cats. This is indeed the story of Texas lawyer Ron Ponton, who was forced to deny to a judge that he was a cat, blaming technology, such a convenient excuse, rather than taking the opportunity to announce a global feline revolution

by meowing, you apes have had your chance, it's kitty time now, your honour. Of course, you'd never see a British lawyer making themselves look so ridiculous, just your standard Batman cape and a wig made out of a horse. Still on the far side of the Atlantic, this question goes to Team Parish Council. How did a bird defeat a gorilla? Oh, this was, there was a gorilla video, or it was like a fake video, and how they debunked it was they said that they were filming it in one particular area and then there was like an Ecuadorian bird in the background making a noise and one of the

ornithologists wrote in went that bird isn't found in Colombia you'd never hear that and this is I always say it it's always the ornithologists who bring down the stealth tactics of a government isn't it never suspect the ornithologists, but they know some stuff. I really hope that ornithologist calls his autobiography from Twitcher to Snitcher. Well, this is a wonderful story, this, isn't it? This eagle-eyed ornithologist who thwarted... That's a word that needs more airtime, thwarted.

I keep telling the BBC they should use the word thwarted that's a word that needs more air time, thwarted I keep telling the BBC they should use the word thwarted more but they've won't let me do it anyway isn't this like just a kind of very politically driven or motivated example of a conspiracy theory being accepted

because it suits the narrative and yet when you point out that the golf flags on the moon shouldn't be fluttering in the breeze like that, you're some kind of nutter. It does slightly raise the question of what this ornithologist was watching this guerrilla propaganda video for. Who watches guerrilla propaganda videos for bird

calls? I mean, I watch them for the dudes with guns. But the pale brown Tillamoo is now officially the most disruptive political tweeter since Donald Trump. And this could prove to be the biggest avian impact on politics since Rod Hull made Nixon confess to Watergate by having Emu bite him in the clonkers.

Well, that brings us to the end of this week's News Quiz, and our winners are Team Parrish Council, Annand and Simon, with 14. Team Parrish Council, Jess andAnne and Simon with 14, Team Parish Council Jess and Felicity trailing behind on just 10 Just some breaking news reaching us now, the government has announced

that BBC 6 music will be taken over for the summer and instead the government will broadcast sounds of holidays to the nation. These will include a couple in the next door room having a blazing row about who was or was not eyeing up the waiting staff at dinner the night before, as well as a ten-hour through-the-night performance by the Mosquito Jazz Orchestra of Britain

and a live broadcast of installation artist Drellard Butclark's fascinating new work, Children Bickering in the Row Behind, brackets Long Haul. Thank you for listening to the News Quiz. I've been Andy Zaltzman. Goodbye. Taking part in the News Quiz were Arnand Menon, Jessica Fosterkew, Simon Evans

and Felicity Ward. In the chair was Andy Zaltzman, and additional material was written by The producer was Richard Morris, and it was a BBC Studios production. Thank you.