Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The News Quiz - 3rd June

Episode Date: July 1, 2022

Andy Zaltzman hurls the week's headlines at a panel of comedians and journalists.

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. White triangle, red triangle, blue triangle, white triangle, red triangle, blue triangle, white triangle. Right, now that this show has been bunted, we are ready to begin. Welcome to the News Quiz. Hello, I am Andy Zaltzman. Our teams this week, we have Team I Like To Bunt It Bunt It

versus Team There's No Such Thing As Too Much Bling. On Team Bunt, we have Athena Koblenu and Lucy Porter. bling. On team bunt we have Athena Koblenou and Lucy Porter. And on team bling it's Simon Evans and Annan Menon. And because it's a jubilee show, the points for each round

will be themed around some aspect of the Queen's reign. So to start with, there will be 530.2 points for winning round one. That's the number of carrots in the Cullinan One Diamond. On top of the Sovereign Scepter, would you believe, for any carrots fans in? That's a carrot and stick. That's very good. Right.

This question can go to both teams. Large celebrations are happening this week to mark 70 years of what? Anyone? Is it building Crossrail? Any other suggestions? Aerosol cheese. I actually was just browsing the history,

you know, what has happened since 1953, and, of course, it's the invention of DNA. It's probably the most... Yes, by two men and no women. And Francis Crick and something Watson. And James Watson, Francis Crick, and they invented DNA in 1953. Previously, genetic information had to be passed on orally from generation to generation.

And indeed still is in some parts of mid-Wales. But just had to push it a bit too far, didn't I? It's Hulk Hogan. Born in 53. Right. Well, that's not 70 years, that's 69 years. You're mixing up your coronation with your accession to the throne.

You've spent a lot of today on Google, haven't you? Everything I have researched today has been rendered completely real. But next year you can come back and do it all again. 70 years of Elton John farewell tours. That's also correct.

Well, no, it is the Queen. 70 years of Elton John. Correct answer, so no points to anyone. Yes, she's... I mean, not many people stick it out for 70 years in one job. It's like the Rolling Stones, isn't it? Well, she's ten years ahead of the Rolling Stones. They've been Rolling Stones for six years, but she's maintained a ten-year lead. Impressive, impressive stamina, if not the worst.

And her later albums have been much better than theirs as well. I mean, when you say job, though, it's more a sort of lifestyle, isn't it? Oh, you've never opened a dog kennel before then, have you? You've never had to inspect your own troops from Donald Trump within punching distance and somehow kept your arms closely by your own side. She's actually, she's seen them all off,

if you think about it, musically. I mean, not just the Rodney Stark, she's seen off Lonnie Donegan, the Beatles, the Who, the Kinks. Banana Robert. Punk, funk, disco, new romantics. Dick Van Dyke. He's the only one ahead of her, as he said.

Yes, 70 Years of the Queen. And a quick follow-up question. Is this 70th anniversary being celebrated with... It's been an amazing day. I mean, I have loved every second of it. My favourite bit was Kirsty Young interviewing Penelope Keith and Alan Titchmarsh. That is classic. The Keith, the Titch.

Alan Titchmarsh told some really baffling story about how the first time he met the Queen, she said, oh, you've got very small onions. And then the most recent time you met her it was uh he'd done a garden for chelsea she went oh you've got very big boulders and it was just kirsty young and penelope heath going he's talking about his nuts my favorite one was the stonehenge display. That was fantastic. They had 12 different images of the Queen sort of shone onto the stones. I just thought they missed the trick

not having one of her reclining horizontally. Or possibly one of the corgis would fit quite well onto that. I guess the bales, those bits of corgis. When I saw those images, I got worried because I thought the Queen had gone missing. Oh, my God, she's missing and they're trying really hard to find her. Is that what they normally use Stonehenge for now? It's sort of better than a milk carton, isn't it?

So I think we should just do that now. I think the obvious example that's been set in the last couple of weeks is the new ABBA show, right, where they use what they're calling avatars, which is a cross between an avatar and an abattoir. But that's obviously how the Queen should operate from now on. She herself should be kept in a permanent state of suspended animation. Her hologram can tour all the provinces and former colonies in the Commonwealth by dropbox.

She doesn't need to need, like, You know, she can use wheat transfer. She doesn't need a royal yacht or anything. It's a fantastic opportunity. But it's interesting you mention the need to keep the Queen going because Stonehenge only works generally on the summer solstice, doesn't it? That's the only time that it... So that's the halfway point.

And it's suddenly these pictures of the Queen magically appeared, which does suggest we are at the exact midpoint of her reign. Well, it's not widely known, because she's often referred to as the head of the established church. It's not generally known that she is also still the head druid. And in charge of all the human sacrifices. What do you think the state of republicanism

is? Because the Queen has, I think, 92% approval rating at the moment. I think two bank holidays puts them on the back foot. If you personally. Right. It's the bank holidays more than the projections on Stonehenge for me. I mean, if Napoleon had just said to the British public in

the early 19th century, I'm going to give you two extra days off... Let me in, two days off. We'd have waved him across. Yep, we'd have built a bridge. So, I mean, if there was a vote on whether or not to keep the monarchy, Simon, Britain would probably vote to keep it.

So democracy would dictate that we retain an unelected head of state. Yes. Is that a paradox that makes your hair curl? Does it surprise or baffle or bemuse you? It doesn't surprise me at all. Nobody would reverse engineer such a ridiculous system, but it has created the most stable nations on earth. And very few of us look across the Atlantic, for instance, which you can barely see out a four-year term without coming off the tracks and going into the ditch these days,

you know, and things. Well, I'd rather have a system like that. That would be much more suitable to the good health and stability of the nation. It's a wonderful thing. You get her, who has to meet all the nutcases who come over with epaulettes and gold braid and unearned medals and expect to spawn around and be shown the inside of Knightsbridge.

And meanwhile, the government can get on with the important business of, you know, wine and cheese. It works. It works very nicely. And I think the British people are actually extraordinarily pragmatic, despite the attempt to drip poison into their ear from the Stalinist BBC. Stalin died in 53 as well. That's my last one.

Well, the celebrations next year are going to be amazing. Well, we're going to do a royal myth or royal mint round now. You have to tell me, is this royal fact or royal fiction? This can go to Athena and Lucy. Anything with the Queen's head on it is technically money.

Yeah, that's got to be fact, because I've got a little stamp at home, so I'm just going to start stamping things and I'm going to buy a house. Excellent. My mum would have been a millionaire. The amount of tea towels we had. And it's fiction, it's not actually true it was the case though up until that awkward moment in 1649 when Oliver Cromwell

tried to pay for his Christmas tree with King Charles I's actual head shot wouldn't take it Cromwell did not react well and the rest is history Simon and Anand all misdemeanours committed by serving Prime Ministers within five years either side of a Jubilee

are technically legal. That's clearly true. It is true. When did that get passed? Yesterday. Yes, this is indeed the Jubilee. Much of Britain has been enthusiastically celebrating one or both of 70 years

of Queen Elizabeth II being Queen Elizabeth II or a four-day weekend. Elizabeth II balconied yet again. Can you use balcony as a verb? You can verb anything these days, can't you? Extending her balconying record for a British monarch. The world's most enduringly

successful coin and banknote model. Still monocling it up, big time. Still hitting her KPpis at the age of 96 um i'm not exactly sure what those kpis are i think one of them is not saying heard it whenever the national anthem begins increasingly tricky she's one of very few people to stick at one job for over 70 years and has never once grumbled about the lack of opportunities for promotion and career development not many others spring to mind have done their job for 70... David Attenborough has been snooping on insects, getting their jiggles on, and wildebeest bingo

for a solid seven decades, but not many others. There are, of course, some in this country, many perhaps for whom the jubiliations are something of a mystery, people who remain unconvinced by the need for a relic of medieval feudalism to forge a national identity, and for whom even the words President Gove cannot change their mind.

But the Queen remains strikingly popular with a very high approval rating, having very, very sensibly taken the choice to be constitutionally barred from saying or doing anything. If only more political figures would follow that noble... At the end of that round, it's four Battenbergs each. At the end of that round, it's four Battenbergs each. APPLAUSE And there will now be a fly-past over the punchline of the next joke to honour the Queen.

Three chickens walked into a pub near Sandringham and the barman said... Tough crowd. Moving on to our next round. This question can go to Anand. Who is making a stand against war by storming out in a measured and fiscally responsible way probably by the end of the year?

This is a story that the EU are going to stop buying Russian oil because they figured out that if we're effectively trying to stop Russia from invading Ukraine, giving them billions of euros every day is probably not the best way to do it. So they've decided to stop. Except the problem for the European Union is one of their number is on the wrong side in the war. And this is Viktor Orban of Hungary, who quite likes Vladimir Putin and particularly very much likes the head of the Russian Orthodox Church. So Viktor Orban said, I'm going to veto this because let's face it, if you are an anti-Semitic kleptocrat, as Orban is, you need a mate at the top of the church to forgive you all your sins. So he said, we're not going to do this unless you lift the sanctions

on the head of the Orthodox Church, which is where we are now. So the EU is doing nothing. Right. Oh, that's encouraging. Sorry. The thing about petrol is if anyone has ever wondered whether there was any difference between BP petrol and Shell petrol and the various other branded petrels, well, obviously there isn't, right? You never know which one you've got. I mean, it's just petrol. In the same way, Russian oil is not distinguishable from any other form of oil. As long as there is one country that is buying it, I think India is quite happy to carry on having it shipped over in vast quantities. They're just going to rebrand it. Oh, yeah, this is Dutch oil. Yeah. Do you want some Dutch oil? Yeah, I've

got some Dutch petrol. Can I just... The Shell one says it makes your car go faster. Wow. Is that what you tell the police when they pull you over? Oh, it's Shell. No idea what to say. Couldn't help it. Yeah.

Well, some breaking news has just reached us regarding this. A compromise has been reached regarding the participation of Russian players at Wimbledon this year. Russian players will now be able to take part, but only if they give their prize money direct to the Conservative Party. And player three set against the Prime Minister, which I believe is the traditional way of going about these things. Yes, it's not been just the Queen setting new records this week. Oil prices have also been breaking new ground

after the European Union leaders announced that they will punish Vladimir Putin by blocking some of Russian oil imports. Not now, obviously, but seriously, by the end of the year. Take that, Putin, you've been schooled. Russia has been supplying about a quarter of the oil imported by EU countries. If only the warning signs had been visible that this might not be a sensible long-term strategy. But they weren't visible if your eyes were blinded

by the searing light of short-term economic convenience. And you do have to ask yourself, how often must the same mistakes be made before people cease trying to just pass them off as unlucky coincidence? We've seen these similar mistakes made over and over again. To me, the answer is 50 times, because 49 times I've now electrocuted myself. If it happens once more,

I'm going to stop dropping my toaster in the bath to see if I can make crunchy water. We're going to have a quick fire round. Now, based on the Battenberg cake for this Jubilee week, you have to choose either to have a question from a pink quarter of the Battenberg cake or from the yellow quarter of the Battenberg cake. Lucy and Athena?

Oh, well, as long as I don't have to have the marzipan, because that is the devil's toenail scraping. What do you choose? Let's go for pink, your own pink. I suspect it won't really make any difference whatsoever what we choose. Well, you've spotted that.

This is the question from the pink bit of the cake. Who in Paris this week was belatedly given the cake that Marie Antoinette had promised her in 1789? Oh, wow. I mean, I guess it would be quite mouldy by now. Yes. I do know this one. This was the Mona Lisa. Correct. That's why she was smiling. She knew she'd get some cake one day.

And it was a man dressed as an old woman who was in a wheelchair and then he got up and he threw some cake. I'm not entirely sure it wasn't just a Mrs Brown's Boys special, to be honest, but people were wondering how they got past security, but apparently they just breezed through saying they had nothing to declare.

I'm so sorry. You can't groan and applaud. One or the other, make a choice. If the Mona Lisa was in the National Gallery and somebody took in one of their sausage rolls, that might do a bit of damage to it. I just feel like this is what happens when you hype things up, because I went to see the Mona Lisa, and when you look at it, it's tiny.

And I just didn't have a cake at the time. So to demonstrate my frustration with the size of it and I've got a tea towel and I could have saved myself a Eurostar ticket really because the tea towel was bigger and would absorb cake much more satisfactorily

This guy was protesting about the environment or the lack of action on the environment by throwing cake at a Leonardo da Vinci picture. Can you explain the logic of that approach? I think, well, no.

It's a simple answer. But actually, the most French thing about the whole thing is this guy was protesting about the climate crisis so the French have wheeled him off for psychiatric help. This guy's obviously mad. I mean, what is he talking about? Yes, the Mona Lisa, the celebrity portraitee, was splatted with a cake this week by a protester protesting against the destruction of planet Earth. Miss Lisa herself looked unperturbed by the attack. What was she concerned? Or maybe slightly amused? So hard to tell with her.

Or was she concerned? Or might be slightly amused? It's so hard to tell with her. So this question now to Anand and Simon. Do you want a pink bit of the cake? Actually, there's only the yellow bit of the cake. We'll take the yellow one, please. OK, here's your yellow part of the cake.

Who did their very best to boost Ukraine this week on the football field? Ah, the brave jocks. Yes. They usually win. Yeah, yeah. They are an extraordinarily generous people. They have lost time and again to minor and unpromising sides over the years, and not always those currently engaged in a difficult conflict. Sometimes they've really had to do their research to find some reason why this country should be given a leg up. Yes, Scotland did the honourable thing

by letting Ukraine progress to the final World Cup play-off stage and also Scotland did the honourable thing by refusing to have any part in FIFA's grotesquely tainted festival of sports washery in Qatar. You can only admire the ethical compass of the Scottish football team. But quite why the World Cup is in Qatar remains baffling. A country the size of East Anglia, but without the rich footballing heritage of East Anglia.

So, no Qatar-tanami, that's a shame. Better out than in, that's what I say. Yes, well, in fact, the questions in that round were worth 19.4 million points each, which is the average cost of the Queen's hats. Moving on to our next question, with the scores neck and neck. This can go to Lucy and Athena.

Who, contrary to the current trend, might not be feeling particularly happy or glorious and may not be long to reign over us if stories of discontent within the Tory ranks are to be believed. I think Boris Johnson... Yes, correct. It's an extraordinary thing, isn't it? I don't understand who needs to send the letters to what, to where, to who,

but presumably it being the Conservative Party this year, they'll just do what they want. It is extraordinary that um his ethics advisor is threatening to get who knew that boris johnson had an ethics advisor it's like finding out hennibal lecter had a dietician isn't it i mean yeah i i He's completely bulletproof. His own... Boris's own MPs have to decide whether he can be trusted to run the country,

which they're umming and ahhing about. It's like, seriously, do you think he could be trusted to feed your cats for the weekend? I've got no confidence in the people who are writing the letters. I've no confidence, because they're, like, about three years too late. It's like, what's happening now to make you write this letter? Were you waiting for the ink to dry? Were you waiting for the wax to cool down

before you gave it to your pigeon? Very confused at the delay with these letters. And, I mean, more and more Conservative MPs have been criticising the Prime Minister. Even Andrea Leadsom, previously loyal to Johnson, has accused him of unacceptable failings of leadership. I mean, what were the unacceptable failings of leadership. I mean, what were the acceptable failings of leadership?

I think being on holiday in the early part of the pandemic was fine, according to her. I think it's having a glass of wine in Downing Street, which did it for her. It's curious if you think about the two in comparison. I think we're not going to have a vote of no confidence because no-one has confidence in him. We're going to have a vote of no alternative because, looking around the parliamentary Conservative Party, there's probably no-one better. Now, they're something to keep you warm at night.

Yes, Boris Johnson has denied being a habitual liar. Well, he had to, didn't he? Either way, he had to. Nadine Dorries described a coordinated campaign against the Prime Minister. And indeed, there is one, as the things he said and did have mischievously continued to gang up against him. Just some more breaking Jubilee news reaching us.

Prince Edward is to be made into a city. Sporting a fetching PE4 postcode, Edward is set to be the world's smallest city with a population of one, but also its most mobile. And it's hoped that Edward's new city status will attract more tourists. And also an official Jubilee cheese has been released, specially formulated to make you dream about the Queen

after eating it. Blue-veined, I would hope. Moving on. Now, Athena, which fifth richest country in the world cannot find the money to feed its children? Oh, that has to be Great Britain. Correct. So Great Britain is the fifth richest country in the world, is it? Well, it depends what measure you use, but, I mean, it's up there.

Imperial measures. Imperial measures. That's quite... I didn't know that. No, we can't feed our children. Some people who work in schools and educators have asked Boris Johnson to supply more children with free school meals. A big mistake they did is asking themselves. They should have just sent a note to a footballer

and got him to get that footballer to ask on their behalf, you know, in crayon or something, because it's just not going to work. It's not going to get anyone's attention if it's a factual necessity, but it will get someone's attention if someone really famous asks for it. I'm no socialist, but I do think that... School dinners are one of the great levellers. I mean, that should be understood by a Tory party as well,

along with school uniforms, you know, that prevent some children from wearing fashionable clothes and others being exposed as paupers. Everyone eating the same horrific stodge every day, served up by a big raw bone dinner lady, is an extraordinarily important part of British upbringing. I don't know how you expect them to have any grasp of British values if they're not eating spam fritters

and roly-poly pudding every Thursday. them to have any grasp of British values if they're not eating spam fritters and roly-poly pudding every Thursday. What the hell has gone wrong with this country? The only people who stand to lose out are the school bullies, because they would normally steal lunch money, right? And if people are getting free school

dinners, they'll have to be given something else for them to nick. NFTs, Bitcoin. Yes, there have been increasing calls for more children to be given free school meals due to the cost of living crisis and the rather woke idea that children should eat. School kids could be set to be offered a 0.8 for the price of one deal on their lunches with suggestions that the size of school meals could be cut to save money. Now, some people have complained that this is the wrong thing to do in a country that has 177 billionaires, according to the latest count. But I think of it like this.

Which of these two species, billionaires or hungry children, is really endangered? 177 billionaires, but thousands and thousands of hungry children. So, we need to support the endangered minority. This question can go to Simon and Anand. The question is, are we there yet? And if not, why not?

Are we there yet? Smells a bit of easy jet. We can't go anywhere. Which is just as well, because this country is fantastic. Good point. So even if we could, we wouldn't. But we couldn't if we wanted to, because the airlines are crap, the trains are crap,

and basically nothing works. Yay! We're thinking of going to Gatwick this summer. It's a day out, isn't it? The problem is, it's like, because being stuck in an airport with small children is an absolute nightmare, and I was listening to all these people, because if you're in an airport,

all the things your children want are really expensive, like arcade games and sweets, and all the things you want are much cheaper and available in bulk, like gin and cigarettes. As you're there going, now, you could have that packet of Haribo, or for the same price, I could have 200 Lambert and Butler and a bottle of Tanqueray, and one of those will make the flight much more peaceful.

Because they were saying, like, the baggage handlers, there weren't enough baggage handlers, so the pilots were pitching in. Which is nice that way round. The other way round. You can't get an Uber driver to pick up your bag and the pilots are pitching in. Wow, I'm going to say that next time someone turns up

and doesn't want to put my suitcase in the boot. I kind of think that there's an easy way out of this, which is, you know, in the old days for instance, my first overseas holiday was a French exchange trip I went and spent two weeks in a French person's house and then they sent their son over and he stayed with us just do that but with your luggage so that in Gatwick you leave your suitcases

for a French family to wear for the next couple of weeks on their holiday and waiting for you in Paris there'll be some rather more stylish attire. You'll fit in a bit more. And I want to be the person that directs the planes. See, I'm qualified because I can do that with my arms. For people who can't see me, I'm doing that thing with my arms.

Yes, the launch of Britain's new Jubilee weekend special immersive interactive queuing experience has not thus far gone down particularly well with the travelling public. The airline industry has struggled to cope with the surge in flies as demand has picked up again after the pandemic and says it's been difficult to recruit and train staff quick enough. Labour's Lisa Nandy said the government should move heaven and earth to stop airport chaos. If anything, I think that would make things worse. Plane's, of course, famous for using Earth for both

take-offs and landings, and relying on praying to heaven to keep very heavy things in the air. Right. That brings us to the end of this week's News Scripts. We've got just a spare six seconds to get a bit of extra patriotism in. I can't believe you didn't stand up. Thank you very much for listening.

I've been Andy Zaltzman. Goodbye. Taking part in the news quiz were Athena Koblenu, Alan Menon, Simon Evans and Lucy Porter. In the chair was Andy Zaltzman and additional material was written by Alice Fraser, Simon Alcock and Cameron Loftsdale. The producer was Richard Morris and it was a BBC Studios production.