Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The News Quiz: Ep 3. The Donald and The Dons

Episode Date: January 31, 2025

This week on The News Quiz, Andy Zaltzman is joined by Andrew Maxwell, Val McDermid, Jay Lafferty and Stuart Mitchell to unpack the week's new stories. Recorded from the Gardyne Theatre in Dundee, the panel look into Donald Trump's first week of his second term, Prince Harry's legal victories, Scottish Health Minister Neil Gray's sporting excursions, and the honour of the Glaswegian accent.Written by Andy Zaltzman.With additional material by: Rebecca Bain, Cody Dahler, Alexandra Haddow and Peter Tellouche. Producer: Rajiv Karia Executive Producer: Richard Morris Production Coordinator: Jodie Charman Sound Manager: Sean Kerwin Sound Editor: Marc WillcoxA BBC Studios Audio Production for Radio 4 An Eco-Audio certified Production.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. in this new age of Trump. I'm just having to make some updates to their dictionary. Right, old, combative, compassion... compassion. We won't need that one anymore. Literally. Now, all the hucks are huge. Oh, here it is. Humanity. Yeah, humerus.

Gotta make sure that one's properly gone. Oh. Obviously there's a hell of a lot of work to be done here. so why don't we have the theme tune for this week's New Squeeze? Welcome to the New Squeeze! We're going to come to record this week so we can be in a place where one of the football teams has a shirt the same colour as the face of the American version. Our teams this week in tribute to Donald Trump's first few days in office, we have team Monopoly against team Get Out Of Jail 3. And Andrew Maxwell and Jay Lackadie. And now for the evening, Andrew Maxwell and Jay Lappertee. And for the evening, we have Stuart Mitchell and one of our leading crime novelists, Val McDonough.

To Jay and Andrew, let's put this in a manner that comedians might understand. Who this week did a 30 minute gig that really split the audience before signing a lot of water cross This would be Donald Trump, correct they've made him the president of America You know the fella he owns it he's a Scottish golf club owner And he's done such a great job of that the Americans have made him the president he's got a best friend now that's nice Elon Musk is his best pal it's inevitable that Donald Trump's gonna fall out with him and if he does Musk is gonna lose you know in the Twitter spot they'll have

cuz Trump you know he's funny online he comes up with mean nicknames for people And if he does, Musk is gonna lose. You know, in the Twitter spot they'll have, cos Trump, you know, he's funny online. He comes up with mean nicknames for people. You know what I mean? Sleepy Joe, Kirk and Hillary. What's Musk's one gotta be? I call him Crypto Cry Baby! Do you have anything for the inauguration?

Er, no. Of course. I feel about Trump's second presidency the same way that I feel about my early onset menopause. You know, I feel like Trump was a good allegory for the men pos because it's shock and disbelief that it's actually physically happening. And then that gives way to like a slow lingering dread that it's only going to get worse until I die. I mean, come on, you need to look at Trump at the end of the day. He eats all the junk food he wants, he's never off the golf course, and also his wife lives somewhere else. He might be the American president, but he's living the Scottish dream. I'm going to ask the executive orders, the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico and calling Denali the celebrity Alaskan mountain, Mount McKinley. I've not got a problem with renaming, I still think of America as West Cornwall Plaza.

I'll have more on Trump in Scotland in a little bit. But another question now for Stephen and Val. Trump has signed up to an exclusive, glamorous club this week. The other members of that club are Iran, Libya and Yemen. So, they're pretty exclusive. Can you tell me what that club is? Is it the Islamic Daniels Association? That's not one I've got written down. That's not one I've got written down. Just to tell you the opposite, they are now with four countries not signed up to the Paris Accords. Eight more countries are worried about the tariffs than that.

Scotland for example, what's it going to put tariffs on in Scotland? American candy shops. I mean, how can you put 10% on Moneylunder? I mean, just putting out the World Health Organisation that I respond to, are you concerned or excited by this? It's kind of, this whole parishing is terrifying, because Trump has become president of a country which is quite literally on fire. The LRA fires now have been going for, I think it is, coming up for three weeks and there's

no sign of them abating. They're currently looking to burn longer than Liz Truss' Premiership. I do think it's California's own fault that they're burning because they've got fish looking to burn longer than Liz Truss's Premiership. He thinks it's California's own fault that they're burning because they've got fish conservation in Northern California which he says means that all the water isn't trickling down to where the fire is. He actually said this week I don't think we should give California anything

until they let the water run down. What? Right, let's have another question. Why were even some Republicans reduced to saying this week, PUN, what was that? I think this is to do with the thousand-odd criminals that Trump pardoned on his first day in office, the people who stormed the Capitol. So he gave over a thousand people pardons and it was quite interesting watching the Republicans trying not to answer the question about whether or not they thought that was

correct. There was more sidestepping than there is in Strictly Come Down. Because they were approaching that, I was watching one Republican and I thought oh he's approaching that the same way I do when my little boy asks for a play date in front of the child in question. Initially I'll pretend I don't hear what he says and then when he repeats it he'll say something like oh but you let him come last time and I'll say something like well I think we're looking towards the future and not the past I thought it was really interesting that the only person that wasn't given a pardon and the person who I think most needs a pardon was Melania

She's still in that marriage She looks thrilled to be there, didn't she? She always looked thrilled. The Secret Service, trying to keep her away from the bar, not because she was getting drunk, because she was asking for Angela. Elon Musk, the allegedly fictitious cartoon-rubber genius, claimed that the two straight-arm salutes he did were not Nazi salutes. For ten points, can anyone give me the most convincing explanation of what he was saying? I think we have to be sorry for them. We've all had heartburn, haven't we? You have the heartburn that is absolutely hellish and you just have to grab your chest. Have a wee rub and that eases it and then you throw your arm out.

To chew your joy at not having a heartburn anymore. I think that Elon Musk, I don't know if anybody else agrees with this, but Elon Musk sounds like an Aldi deodorant. It looks like he would smell like one of those. It's like a used car salesman that's been stuck in a lift. I used car salesman that's been stuck in a lift That's how I feel and I smell So then I thought maybe to get rid of that kind of albibody smell that he was, you know the nippy mint body wash Maybe he had used the nippy mint body wash in that morning

and he hadn't quite managed to wash it off with all his excitement and suddenly he was just getting all his neck ones done and that's the only thing I could come up with. Either that or you know he's a Nazi The other possible explanation is that he was demonstrating the optimum trajectory for throwing a javelin, demonstrating how to scrape the smell off a Carl Winscreen, how to stroke a dog who had fallen asleep lying head first down on a playground slide. I'll give the ten points to Alex. I give it ten points for the two of you. That was a radical turn.

The Anti-Defamation League in the US, what a league that is. I think you can watch the Anti-Defamation Playoffs next weekend. That's an organisation dedicated to combating anti-semitism and other strands of prejudice. Described it as, quote, an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm. And I think that might be an early contender for euphemistic understatement. It's Mr Musk, easily the most disappointing Roger Harbury's book for me. Of course not that the first person to have more money than cents, it's just the ratio between the two.

I'd be denied making a Nazi salute, although I think it's fair to say it's unable to deny making the kind of salutes that someone might make if they were playing the part of a fascist leader in a film about a, let me emphasise, fictional nation based on Nazi Germany. That's the moment when to Trump's Scottish heritage. Of course his Scottish heritage is writ large in, love of wars across southern borders, his lifelong commitment to unhealthy food, and his daily beauty regime, which famously involves bathing his face in a vat of iron brew. Now, Alex, tell me, what bit of Scottish land

does Trump apparently have his acquisitive eye on? Is it the Isle of Lewis because he's actually got three cousins there? Or as I've called him, Lewis Tinder matches? I'm going to ask you a imporet. Now guess just what little bit of the the man is trying to get hold of. It's actually 10 yards of turf at Turnberry Golf Course so that from one of the tees you get a better view of Turnberry Castle. But is that just a gateway to trying to take over the whole of Scotland? I know he's threatening tariffs on whisky.

I think we should sidestep this by making a new cocktail, Iron Brew and Bucky. Woo! And claim that we have created it in honour of the Orange Man. No. We won't tax it then. We need to tax it. OK.

I've apparently tried to make a visit to Scotland in, what was described in the newspaper as the summer but it might have been a misprint. Are you excited why Trump can commune with his heritage? Am I excited about it? No. I think he was worse because we have lost our fabulous Jamie Godley who always gave him such a beautiful award. He was possibly in honour of Jamie and in our memory when he does arrive but we should all just turn up with our own wee...signs. Yes, the latest installment in America's harrowingly under- testable 248 and a half year experiment in splitting off from the UK has played out this week. It's really not going well for me.

The old saying goes, a week is a long time in politics and right now if you're not a fan of Trump and everything he stands for, 207 more weeks really feels about as appealing as eternity on hold to an HMRC call centre. Trump has bagged the Capitol with proverbial dock returning to its vomit. The the first slave town that America has voted to crack itself in a lawsuit. It's hard to understand another country's politics

as an outsider, but seeing America vote for Trump again, after everything he's done, and the so-called American values that they like to pride themselves on, to me, it's like when you mix someone's off both hands in separate He was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a very good American, he was a Starting to look like that's what they all do. At the end of that round the scores are now Andrew and Jay have 6 and Valens do it at 12. Here is Dundee, the city of the 3 J's, Jutes, Jam and Journalism. So our panellists can choose one of those J's to have a question on J, since you're called J, I'll let you have the choice

Jout, Jam or Journalism? Let's go with Journalism Okay, a question on Journalism Is which newspaper publishing house had to pay out a principally sum this week? I think beautifully it was the son. The newspaper owners of the son, yes. They had to pay Prince Harry. It's been a nice change to have a legal battle

where there's a member of the royal family you can actually root for. I know that. He probably must have been sweating as he waited for the book. If only we had waited, we could have got all we needed from the 416 pages of spare for the princely sum of £4.49 for a used second hand coffee. Ah, the sun, what a newspaper. I think you misread your script there, it should be what? Ah, the son. What a newspaper.

I think you misread your script there. It should be what? A newspaper? I think it's interesting because all the other people that got destroyed with the phone hacking and got their lives taken apart did not get massive payouts. So it's the the usual thing you give it to those who already have it and ignore the ones that haven't you got it there's my socialist speech for the evening dropped down the rankings in recent years. This is my new form, he's down a sixth I think. I just got a bit of a level down, I bet you're reasoning why. It's hard to see him getting back up that much. At the end of our Royal Round tours are 10 to Andrew and Jay and 14 to Val and Stuart. Right, we're going to have a round on Scotland now. That's your home or home round. You can have a question about Scotland or Scotland.

Today, Andy, what's Scotland or Scotland? Or Scotland. Scottish House Minister Neil Gray has admitted misleading Parliament over what bizarre use of public funds? Supporting Aberdeen. Essentially correct. Can you give a little more detail on that? Yeah, he likes them.

He thinks it's worth leaving Edinburgh and going all the way up to Aberdeen to support the dance. That's what he thinks. And not only thinks that, he thinks that we should pay for him to do that. That's not a question to be correct. It's used taxpayer funded limos to attend football matches. And then frankly it wasn't entirely 100% truthful involvement. I mean, as a taxpayer here in Scotland, do you think this is a valid use of your money? I just think it's a good reminder of where Scottish politics is on the world stage.

Because like in America they've just elected the president and accused him of lying about his involvement in a plot to bring down democracy and change the course of western civilisation. And in Scotland we have sidelined a health secretary who's accused of fibbing about getting a taxi to a football match. A Scottish football match. The only thing more embarrassing for a Scottish minister is if he had used the car to go and watch cricket. Sorry. It's not fair, Andy, you could prove that

if the UK Health Minister went to a test match because he could just say, well I'm just seeing if cricket bores you to death Why wouldn't he just make something up? I mean he has been truthful although he sort of delayed what he was saying just make something up at least say that I don't know he was there to see if a doctor running onto the pitch after an injured player could be replaced by a nurse practitioner. And then when she's not running the line she's, I don't know, testing the fan's testicles or something.

Have you been, Andy, have you ever actually been to a Scottish Premier League game? I haven't. Great isn't it? I got a chance to get Celtic about 20 years ago. You can't recommend it enough. If you've never been to a Scottish football game, amazing. So good for the self-esteem. You can actually watch the play on the pitch and honestly be able to say to yourself, I

could do that. If I could pass the piss test, I could be on the test. So he basically used the card to attend four Aberdeen games and five Scotland games and just like my blood test, I'm still waiting five months for a result. So now he's got into trouble for misleading Parliament it's not actually maybe even the taxis things, it's the fact that he tried to lie about it and I was pretty sure that the ability to mislead Parliament was a necessary skill for an MP because why did they start apologising for it? You would never have got Boris or any deal like that apologising for misleading the parliament.

An MP apologising to other MPs for misleading parliament is like one of the traitors apologising to Claudia Winkleman for being a bit shifty. A limo though. Can you imagine rocking up in a protein and a limo though. You imagine rockin' up in Aberdeen in a limo. You'd most think you're from space. Hold on, Dee. I guess if the old saying goes, you want to win the lottery you've got to buy a ticket. Likewise, if you want to go to Aberdeen versus Ross County, you've got to take a publicly funded limousine.

That's probably the best solution. Of course, transport is famously expensive in Scotland. For example, it costs around £450 million to get a ferry from Fort Blomfield. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money. And of course, it's not so bad in Dundee this weekend with Storm Eowyn having a special offer that if you just jump in the A-Gate free flight to Norway. And we like each other.

It's lovely coming. Scotland. Always. Why this week were people celebrating some outstanding hardcore drug abuse that paints the way for a better future? Well, we do have a slight problem in Scotland with drug deaths and they decided that the way to deal with this is to set up a place where people can go and safely take their drugs and it's supervised. And I think this is a good thing, one guy went 103 times already. Having said for a while that Michael Gove needs to get out more. I've been saying for a while that Michael Gove needs to get out more. When it comes to innovative ways to take drugs, we cannot be beaten.

Have you ever tried putting a pair of seatmolars on a suppository? Not yet. I'm still on the record. I'm better on a radio show than a TV one. Just pop it in son, pop it in. Lift up your gown and pop it in. I just wonder where a toe would go on the recording. I think so policy seems to have let them go out of the way. An initiative that seems sensible, humane and backed by scientific evidence that will work.

It's a bit out there these days, isn't it? It opened and it's been used 130 times in the first week and that was just by the staff. They look it up properly. But I think it's a great thing. Scottish drug deaths are the highest in Europe and they're higher than the USA, which is insane. And the only joke is that we haven't thought about having safe consumption rooms before. Dundee's drug mortality rate is two times higher than the national average, and yet they don't have one safe consumption room. Doesn't make sense? One final question. Dundee has sadly lost out to Glasgow for what accolade this week?

Sexiest accent? Gosh, really? I'm very close, I'm not sexiest. You're on the right one to an accent? Heartthrobbiest? Your most honourable accent? Um......Hearthrobiest? Most honourable accent? The Glaswegians? I don't really understand this, because if we say you're going to punch you, we are. I know, we've got the kind of accent in the west of Scotland where everything sounds like a threat.

That's a very pretty dog. It's not being back to the use of the national emergency. Is it Scotland? Scotland They said they did a survey of 50,000 women all over the UK and asked them to rate I think there was like 30 different regional accents and rate them for sexiest and least sexy The one that won at the time was the Edinburgh BA pilot voice Just coming into land that sort of Just blow the froth off a few. I don't

have to watch the game at Woodsonians. Bloody good guy. Got an 800 pound bike. Let's cycle around the Pentland Hills. People get to see my Lycra ass crack. That was considered the sexiest. The least sexy of all was the Brummie. Was the Brummie accent. This is crazy. Come on! This story, it's led by Cambridge University and I think it's led to every male Scottish actor to go and pay them a wee visit. We pride ourselves on the tight cast in of the seemingly endless line of Scottish actors playing the quintessential Glasgow hard man and now we've got this like trustworthy, honourable Cambridge seal of approval I mean what's gonna happen to all those actors? Cause like we are cut out for romantic comedy Dwayne can you imagine?

Haw See you You complete me. I kill your head in my head. Here's a little bit of your head. These three people that are doing this, it must have been like quite a small pool. Because it feels very much that in order to get this honourable Glaswegian accent that everybody was doing their best phone voice. And then I was thinking, the phone voice, that's like a thing that's going to be lost to the genders.

Because they don't know the joy of hearing your mother interrupt mid-swere rants. So 014166892. Yes, this is she. So they've always got a hard time for their gender exclusiveness but my mum was leaving my pronouns in the 90s. As a sunny family, people with Lhasa-Wijan accents were likely to be audible. People with Scouts accents were most likely to be gigging about how many nights it's current form. People with Dundee accents were most likely to accept obviously and sincere flattery by

laughing when talked about. And people with acute accents were most likely to be French. That was very grouch. An exciting time for Glasgow, not only having a most honourable sounding voice, but also hosting the Commonwealth Games next year. Also in line for hosting the 2028 Republican National Convention, if Trump's plan for conquering a couple of places is in place. Also this week, a prominent round of smart doorbells announced that for the first time you could make a smart doorbell talk in a Scottish accent. Azka Sada from Glasgow won the audition, managing to see off the incredible challenge of Mel Gibson. Well done.

And the final scores are... 16 points all! And we have here the exclusive coverage on Five Live of the Best Thing Ever competition. First round matches to find the best thing ever. It's not all the arguments about what is the best thing ever. Our first round matches live on Five Live this weekend are Forks vs Impressionist Art, Sliced Bread vs Penicillin, Fancy Castles vs an Independent Judiciary.

Actually, our first round ties none of these are winners there. Thank you very much for listening, I've been Andy Zantzman, goodbye! Hello, Greg Jenner here. I am the host of You're Dead to Me from BBC Radio 4. We are the comedy show that takes history seriously and then laughs at it. And we're back for a brand new series, Series 9, where we're covering all sorts of things from Aristotle to the legend of King Arthur to the history of coffee to the reign of Catherine of Medici of France. We're looking at the Arts and Crafts movement and the life of Sojourner Truth and how cuneiform writing systems worked in the Bronze Age. Loads of different stuff. It's a fantastic series. It's funny.

We get great historians. We get great comedians. So if you want to listen to Your Dead to Me, listen first on BBC Sounds. Yoga is more than just exercise. It's the spiritual practice that millions swear by. And in 2017, Miranda, a university tutor from London, joins a yoga school that promises profound transformation. It felt a really safe and welcoming space. After the yoga classes, I felt amazing. But soon, that calm, welcoming atmosphere leads to something far darker, a journey that

leads to allegations of grooming, trafficking, and exploitation across international borders. I don't have my passport. I don't have my phone. I don't have my bank, I don't have my phone, I don't have my bank cards, I have nothing. The passport being taken, the being in a house and not feeling like they can leave. World of Secrets is where untold stories are unveiled and hidden realities are exposed. In this new series we're confronting the dark

side of the wellness industry, where the hope of a spiritual breakthrough gives way to disturbing accusations. You just get sucked in so gradually, and it's done so skillfully that you don't realise. And it's like this, the secret that's there. I wanted to believe that, you know, that I wanted to believe that, you know, that whatever they were doing, even if it seemed gross to me, was for some spiritual reason that I couldn't yet understand. Revealing the hidden secrets of a global yoga network. I feel that I have no other choice. The only thing I can do is to speak about this and to put my reputation and everything else on the line. I want truth and justice and for other people to not be hurt, for things to be different in the future. To bring it into

the light and almost alchemize some of that evil stuff that went on and take back the power. World of Secrets, Season 6, The Bad Guru. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Music Music