Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The News Quiz - 27th May

Episode Date: June 24, 2022

Andy Zaltzman presents the News Quiz from the 2022 Hay Festival.

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Andy Zaltzman. We are in a tent in a field at the Hay Festival, one of the leading literary festivals in the known universe. So, book fans, are you sitting comfortably? Well, you absolutely

shouldn't be. Have you not been watching the news for the last 30,000 years? Anyway, welcome to the News Quiz. Appropriately enough, we are at a literature festival, very much the burning man of books, this place in a week which has finally seen the publication of a long-awaited literary masterpiece.

60 pages of grey, and we'll be analysing this fascinating piece of literature. What does it really mean? I think it's more about what it doesn't say than what it does. Was it really wise to have a story with so few likeable characters in it and such a crudely drawn, unbelievable lead. Since we are in Hay on Why, our teams this week are

Team Hay and Team Why, which are short for Team Hey, You're Destroying Our Democracy From Within, and Team Why Was There All That Fuss? On Team Hay, we have Angela Barnes and Shappi Korsandi. And on Team Why, Robin Morgan and Paul Sinha. And our first question this week goes to Team Hay,

to Angela and Shappi. Who this week was banged to rights, stroke, completely exonerated, delete according to preferred newspaper? So, this is the Sue Gray report, which finally published. So we got to sort of learn a bit more about the nitty gritty of what really happened at those parties in 10 Downing Street. And for a start, you know, they're all open to interpretation. I think we say parties, you could look at it,

that what they were actually doing is selflessly holding awake for every single Covid death that there has been under their watch. But that was obviously a joke, guys. I mean, some of the details of the parties were quite something, weren't they? The red wine all up the walls and the vomit was the thing that really stuck out for a lot of people. And I just think, well, you know, again, they can be explained away. You know, Boris and Carrie are Catholic,

so that could have been just an enthusiastic communion. Got that red wine up the walls. And as for the vomit, this is Boris's house. Most of the people there are pregnant. Can I just tell you that one of the things that's really upset me about this is that I found myself thinking Margaret Thatcher would not have stood for this.

So, imagine that it's made me think favourably of Thatcher to a point that I'm really worried that if he carries on for another couple of years, am I going to start thinking, you know, that Mussolini wasn't such a bad chap? And do you know what? Maybe the Ayatollah Khomeini had a point. At least he properly banned alcohol and stuck to it.

I have nothing but pity for those people who have to come up with more and more imaginative ways to defend this horror and, you know, just go... My heart is definitely bleeding, there's no doubt about that. Well, no, but I saw someone, well, he couldn't see the wine, he has no peripheral vision, because prey has peripheral vision and our leader is an apex predator and sees straight ahead. So if they'd got the wine bottles, dressed them up in gazelle outfit right in front of him, then he would have cancelled.

It's not his fault. Of that, the highlight was definitely Grant Shapps who claimed that Boris was in mourning for his mother at a meeting that turned out to be ten months before his mother died. It does mean we can call him Captain Foresight now. I think we're missing the point. We're focusing on Boris, but I feel like we should be focusing on Sue Gray. She is an icon.

No-one knew about her six months ago, and now everyone was waiting for her to deliver a PDF via email. She's going to go on Strictly. She's going to win it. It's been quite a year, hasn't it, for women in the civil service? We've had Jackie Weaver, Sue Gray. They must be queuing up now for their turn. And it turns out that neither of them had any authority at all, sadly. My favourite of the photos that we saw yesterday

was the one with Rishi in. It had real sort of energy of, oh, they finally let me join in, didn't it? Because they sort of... There were some people suggesting that the reason certain people hadn't been fined was because they hadn't filled out the questionnaire. You know, I mean, that's its own thing.

But I just thought, I bet rishi was the first to fill in that questionnaire and get the fine because that means he could prove to those bullies at school that he did get invited to a party um we're gonna since we're at the hay festival we're now going to have a little sub quiz uh dealing with literary quotations so you have to tell me is this a quotation from a famous piece of literature or something Boris Johnson said as a reaction to the Sue Gray report? OK, first to Angela and Shappi.

Beware, for I am fearless and therefore powerful. That's He-Man, isn't it? It's actually Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Yeah, Shappi, we don't belong here. My literary reference was He-Man. I'm a published author. Paul and Robin, why sometimes I've said as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

Is that a literary quotation or Boris Johnson? That is definitely a literary quotation. That's correct. I've slightly adapted it. It was, in fact, from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, why sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. But, you know, we can tweak words that's just that seems almost too appropriate in

this sense Shappi and Angela isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet I don't know is that She-Ra on one reading yes it's actually Anne of Green Gables which is very much the I don't know, is that She-Ra? On one reading, yes, it's actually Anne of Green Gables,

which is very much the inspiration for the She-Ra franchise. Yes, She-Ra. And finally, we seem to have got away with it. Is that Fifty Shades of Grey? Well, that is actually Martin Reynolds, the former principal private secretary to the prime minister not to be confused with the principled private secretary a position which remains vacant to this day um yes this is indeed sue gray's long-awaited report has been published this week into non-lockdown compliant social gatherings held in downing street during

the pandemic gray concluded that there were failures of leadership and judgment in Number 10 and the Cabinet Office, for which the senior leadership at the centre, both political and official, must bear responsibility. And bear responsibility the Prime Minister did,

albeit only in the modern 21st century fashion of bearing responsibility by saying, I bear responsibility, and then moving on to doing something else. Our next question can go to you, Shappi.

Who is not so much robbing Peter to pay Paul as belatedly asking for £5 billion from some absolutely minted Peters in order to pay a few hundred quid each to several million increasingly hungry Pauls? Is this the windfall tax? Correct, it is, yes. Yes, they said they weren't going to do it

because they said it was unconservative, but they had to do a U-turn, so they've sort of re-marketed it as the artist formerly known as a windfall tax. And now, I mean, it does feel to me that they're trying to divert attention from Partygate and it's going to be interesting to see if their core voters will mind paying more of the tax.

I don't really know what's going on with it all. I think they're working on the theory that most people, when asked, if we give you a £400 bonus, would you tolerate an inept government, would go, give me that £ 400 pound now it's a very simple process just bribe the electorate and and you know when you analyze it of course you're not bribing the electorate was still worse off than we started but that doesn't matter because i've got 400 quid but i didn't have yesterday so it's it's fine they're giving it to everybody aren't they regardless yeah yeah don't worry. Everybody.

Yeah, the Queen's getting it. Yeah, the Queen's going to buy a new Scarelectric set. Loves it. Yes, Conservatives have tried to refocus attention away from the Sue Gray report back onto long-standing issues such as the cost of living crisis, fuel poverty and general economic hardship, which is a bit of a weird thing to refocus attention

on things they've been doing really badly. It's reminiscent of when Al Capone's lawyers angrily insisted to a Chicago courtroom, can everyone please stop banging on about the tax thing and can we home in on the gangland slayings? Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced a £400 grant for all households to take some of the sting out of energy price rises,

as well as one-off payments to 8 million poorer households and a £300 pensioner payment uh last week so i was just imagining a 300 pound pensioner i saw one on grinder last night it's not free for those of you who don't uh know grinder it's a special app that helps you to find really defensive opening batsmen. This is hay, Andy. They all know Grindr. The grants will be paid for in part by a windfall tax on energy companies plucking some of the fruit from one of the magic money trees that, it turns out, has been growing in the front garden all along. Now, bear in mind that Shell's recently announced quarterly profits of £7.3 billion are enough to pay Boris Johnson his annual salary to be Prime Minister for the next 45,000 years.

Who's in? Or to buy six space hoppers for every single person in the United Kingdom, which, yes, I mean, it might not make people less hungry, but it would at least lighten the mood. Because as the famous saying goes, you can't be grumpy on a space hopper.

That was William Wordsworth, wasn't it? I think it was from I Bounced Along as Lonely as a Cloud. The Hay Festival is, of course, not the only festival that's been going on this week. We've also had the annual Festival of Economic Excess, that is the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland. Since we're in Hay, we're going to have a question from a great figure of British literature.

Now I'll just fire up the BBC Ouija board. They haven't actually used it since Oliver Cromwell's controversial This Is Your Life. I'm getting something. It's a big news quiz at the Hay Festival. Hello to Jane Austen! I'm getting something. Hi Andy.

Love the show. Thanks, Josters. lovely to have you on. Now, your question is going to go to Paul and Robin. It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, brackets, and we're talking billions here, must be in want of what? Imagination for a start,

because they keep going to Davos every year, the people that you describe, the billionaires in the world. They've arrived at Davos, as they always do. It's never Blackpool. It's never a service station off the M1. It's always Davos. I want to prove that you're people of the people.

Go to Switzerland's most expensive resort, where even the Norwegians and the Finnish go. Now, that's a bit too much for us. The difference this year is that there have been protesters, including actual millionaires, who've been saying, come on, tax us, please. Not billionaires, has to be said, but millionaires have joined the activists saying, tax us, please. Not billionaires, it has to be said, but millionaires have joined the activists saying, tax us, please. Now, I obviously think this is a fairly good thing and a very sensible, common-sense idea, but I don't want it to be too punitive

because I don't want to de-incentivise Bradley Walsh... LAUGHTER ..to carry on hosting the chase, because my finances rather depend on him being taxed at a fairly generous rate? We're so scared of sort of taxing billionaires. Because I think there's several reasons. One is that we think billionaires are just a bit more than a millionaire,

and it isn't, is it? It takes 10 days to count to a million, it takes 30 years to count to a billion. That's how much more money they go. And I think if you're a billionaire... Did you test that to a billion. That's how much more money they get. And I think if you're a billionaire... Did you test that out? I tested it. I started when I was 15.

Is that why you started comedy in your 30s? Yeah, I was too busy counting. But I think the other reason we let billionaires sort of get away with it is because somewhere, somewhere in our heads, we think that one day we might be one. Now, usually when I say that to people I'm in a comedy club and I say but you're here you know so no chance but we're at a festival so there's a possibility some of the people in the room but I think it's the same thing in our heads it's the

same thing that made me when George Clooney got married go oh as if I was ever in with a shot you know from what I've heard you were never in with a shot you know from what i've heard you were never in with a shot well what i worry about with the with the davos um millionaires is maybe this is a sort of like their way of feeling something again like an snm thing they've done like all the masochistic sort of sexual things to kind of feel humiliated because they're powerful in every other aspect of their life and so now they masochistically want to sort of have money forcibly taken away from them

and they're at Davos after hours going tax me, tax me, I've been so naughty Put me on PAYE Do you reckon at Davos the billionaires look at the millionaires and go look at that scum how the other 99 live i think it's a good it's a good way for the millionaires uh the ones who are protesting to sort of basically assure that it's not their limos getting torched in the ncp

that's probably why they've done it didn't they park in ncp yeah right yeah nothing else can afford it have you been to it yes so wealthy attendees at the world economic forum in davos took to the streets alongside left-wing activists to call for fairer tax systems worldwide oxfam claims that over the last two years a new billionaire has been created every 30 hours, meaning that as a species, the billionaire has a gestation period 1 13th the length of that of a

hamster. But it also means that it will take only what, 7.8 billion times 30 hours? 26.7 million years for everyone in the world today to be a billionaire. So just hang in there, everyone. At the end of that round, it's four points all.

Well, as I said, we are at the Hay Literary Festival. Let's find out what is happening elsewhere in the festival outside this tent. Well, it looks like it's all kicking off between the 19th century romanticism fans and the magical realism ultras. Horrible scenes. Why would you put a firework there?

It's getting drafty in here. Moving on now, this is a Wales round, since we are just over the border in Wales. OK, here's a question for you, Robin. There have often been complaints about public transport in Wales, especially, of course, after the dragon culls of the 15th century. But there has been some exciting news this week. Can you tell me, Robin, why has it become much quicker this week

to get from South Wales to north wales provided that you've started your journey in east london um this is the very exciting news about the new elizabeth line which uh we here in wales are and i cannot stress this enough buzzing honestly coming into hay coming into the country you'll have seen the welsh flag I cannot stress this enough, buzzing for you. Honestly, coming into Hay, coming into the country, you'll have seen the Welsh flag draped across government buildings. We've changed the red dragon. We've painted it in purple.

The Queen is riding the dragon to celebrate it. We've got some street parties next week just for Crossrail. It's going to be very exciting. I adore when the media talk about infrastructure in the South East, living in a country where if I was to try and get a train from South Wales to North Wales I would have to change platforms in Crewe or Shrewsbury it's good to have a choice literally going into a different country crossing risking the anger of Priti Patel. Have you been on TripAdvisor Rwanda yet? All I wanted was to go to Ril, and I'm in Rwanda now. That's what's happening.

Trains are clearly a bit of a problem in Wales generally, Robin. Yeah, there was a politician in the news where a politician couldn't get on his train and had to wait at a station for two hours. That was headline news for a day. If that happened to a politician in the South East, they would spend £90 billion on a new train. Another Wales question for you, Robin. Well, many people thought we would be covering

a political resignation this week, and indeed we are. But a Welsh town councillor has quit his role over an allegation that he is secretly what um this is very serious it's um basically he had to quit because the allegation people believed it and it's affected his um ability to his job because people think that he is world-renowned street graffiti artist Banksy. Correct. Unbelievably, that is the correct answer. He might be. We don't know. I don't think he is.

Just for the sheer amount of trips he'd have to do from Pembroke Dock to Bristol with today's petrol prices. I mean, you'd have to sell your Pembroke Dock to Bristol with today's petrol prices. I mean, you'd have to sell your pieces for half a million quid. That's going to be it. Do you think we've stumbled across something? That if you accuse someone of being Banksy, they have to resign.

Well, it is a strange world, isn't it? That he felt he had to resign because he was facing false claims that he was something that it is a strange world, isn't it, that he felt he had to resign because he was facing false claims that he was something that it is legal to be. I love the fact that why they suspected he was... He's a street artist anyway, and he says, the reason they thought it was me is we work at the same sort of places

at the same sort of times, i.e. walls at night. Are we supposed to believe that that was Banksy's long game to be a councillor in Pembroke Dock? Did he have a farewell party? Because if he did, I hope there was a little girl that presented him with a red balloon. Yes, William Billy Gannon served Pembroke Dock's Bufferland Ward. He announced his resignation with immediate effect last Friday.

He said that the rumour that he was Banksy, and we assume that rumour just appeared mysteriously overnight, was undermining his ability to work as a council representative. Like I say, it is a strange world that he felt he had to resign for not being something legal if he'd released a bucket full of endangered frogs into the pembroke dock council building then mercilessly hunted them down with a golf club having that morning fronted a frog safety awareness campaign and then renamed the council building the billy gannon frogpocalyptic slaughter dome sold it to himself for £1

and then flogged it for £5 billion to Saudi Arabia for extrajudicial off-the-books torturing, he'd probably have sold it on. Such is the world we live in. And finally, Robin, the children of Wales are about to be given what? Free

musical instruments. This is a government plan to give every child in Wales access to a musical instrument, which is... Yeah. See? Did you hear how out of time that clapping was? If they'd have been given instruments at six years old, that would have been beautiful.

It's great news for kids, dreadful news if you live next door to a child. The entire country has done that thing that I do, because I'm a childless woman, and there's nothing I like more than when my friends have a kid, is to buy them the noisiest presents ever. This is because Mark Drakeford, the First Minister, is a big sort of musical instrument fan. He plays the clarinet and the ukulele. At the same time?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. he's a one-man band he did quite well in the local elections he used the clarinet to do a sort of pied piper and chase all the tories out of their council seats he's basically sort of just sort of pitching himself as the anti-boris so like he's you know whereas whereas Boris kind of presides it over quite alcoholic behaviour and, you know, number 10. Drakeford's a teetotaller. Boris is a bit of a Lothario. Drakeford famously ran on a never-gone-past-second-base policy. That's right, isn't it, Wales?

I think. Yes, the funding for music education will be troubled under a plan announced by the Welsh Government last week. The scheme aims to make music accessible for all children and young people in Wales and follows the costly failure of the Shirley Basification Programme, which was supposed to have installed a clone of the Diamonds Are Forever singer in every pub

in Wales by opening time yesterday. Right. Another literary round now, with a score at 10 to Team Y and 4 to team hey we often talk about um famous last words of literary figures uh well we're going to flip that around so i didn't have a famous first words of literary figures now so uh angela and shapper you have to tell me which american novelists first words were... Oh, hang on a minute, hang on a minute. Oh, God, who was it? Who was it, Angela? Who was it?

F. Scott Fitzgerald. Yes. Incorrect. It was Harriet Beecher Stowe. Author Uncle Tom's Cabin. Paul and Robin, which 17th century literary giant's first word was hat? Am I having a cheese dream? It's clearly

John Bunyan. Wrong John, it was John Milton. But to be fair, it was most people's first word in the 17th century. There were a lot of hats going around. And Paul and Robin, which founder of psychoanalysis' first word was mum? I think that might have been Freud.

Correct, yes, it was. And he followed it up with, he's looking smoking hot this morning. Moving on to our final question of this week's news quiz. And this can go to Paul. You are a qualified doctor, Paul. The best kind of doctor, in my humble opinion. No disrespect at all to all the amdocs and assorted quacks out there. So a special medical question for you.

Complete the following sequence. Chicken, cow, goat, small. These are all successive Chinese years of the zodiac incorrect uh these can all be followed by pox yes so what's the next one as is the the joyous arrival on in the british scene of monkey park correct well done let's end with a good news story shall we uh there's a lot of... I mean, as a doctor, this is my chance to actually make amends for my biggest mistake as a junior doctor, which was not to write a diary.

If I'd just done that, I'd be shouting, tax me, tax me! But this is the arrival of monkeypox, which also has added relevance, it seems, as I'm a gay man, or for the purposes of monkeypox, an MSM, a man who has sex with men. Which is technically not what I am, because I've been married for two and a half years.

But this appears to be... Well, this is the new existential phobia we now have, monkeypox, which is not men who have sex with monkeys. A lot of people seem to think... Explain chickenpox. And smallpox. What's going on there? But the news is that it's meant to be milder than smallpox. That is what we...

That is really a bar you want to go under, isn't it? Yeah, smallpox officially eradicated in 1980, but its influence lives on, much like John Lennon. Is it? I mean, has anyone thought... Because it's not spread by monkeys, is it? It's spread by rodents. It started in monkeys, but it's not spread by monkeys, is it? It's spread by rodents, they think. It started in monkeys, but it's not spread by monkeys. Oh, because I wondered if it was called monkeypox

because it was discovered by a monkey. No, it's discovered by a monk. Well, he's monkey. He was the fifth monk in a trial scheme. He was monk E. Of course... Of course, what we don't want is a pandemic I think we're all on the same page there Paul

it will be fun in two years time to find out that the government's response to a monkeypox pandemic was to have several orgies at 10 Downing Street organised by Boris Johnson yes more than 300 cases of monkeypox have now been reported around the world, and it's currently neck and neck between Spain and Team GB

in the most cases race. Come on, Britain! We'll take a win, any win at the moment. There will be a special Radio 4 programme addressing the issue on Monday evening, Monkeypox Live. That brings us to the end of this literary special

news quiz and the final scores are 12 to Paul and Robin on team Y and 6 to Angela and Shappi on team A and that's it from the Hay Festival don't forget this special literary edition of the news quiz will be available in sonnet form in just 28 days' time. Thank you very much for listening.

I've been Andy Zaltzman. Goodbye. Taking part in the news quiz were Angela Barnes, Paul Sinha, Robin Morgan and Shaparak Korsandi. In the chair was Andy Zaltzman, and additional material was written by Alice Fraser, Max Davis and Cameron Loxdale. Thank you.