Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The News Quiz: Ep6. The Iron Dome

Episode Date: October 16, 2026

What's better - an Iron Dome or a Britannia Shield? Why should British parents refrain from sending their children on a French exchange this week? And how big can a pumpkin really be?The panel is Daliso Chaponda, Kyrah Gray, Coco Khan and Finlay Christie.With additional material by: Carywn Blaney, Adrian Gray and Cameron Loxdale Producer: Georgia Keating Executive Producer: Pete Strauss Production Coordinator: Giulia Lopes Mazzu Sound Editor: Marc WillcoxA BBC Studios Production for Radio 4.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. He's the founder of the Adani group, one of India's major infrastructure conglomerates. And with interests ranging from ports to airports to power generation and green energy, he's become one of Asia's wealthiest individuals. On Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service, we're delving into the life and fortune of billionaire businessman Gautam Adani. Listen on BBC.com, the BBC app, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, I am Andy Zaltzman.

I'm just testing out my new Iron Dome. For too long, we Brits have sat back and relied on the nanny state to sort out our military defences for us. And I, for one, think it's high time. We took personal responsibility for ourselves at this hostile world. So I am practicing for the hypothetical Russian or Iranian or other assorted baddy onslaught by heading snooker balls whilst wearing this on my head.

The all-new. Andy Zaltzman handy head source ban You said it was an iron dome. I didn't say it was an iron dome. Do you want me to rewind the tape? No. Let's start the show. Welcome to the news quiz.

Hello, a French revolution panic about the threat from Moscow an outbreak of plague. No, it's not yet another history podcast. It's just the news this week. And our two teams who will be quizzed about that news are in the week that two of football's greatest stepped away from the international game. We have

team messy exits against team very messy exit. Let's call them Team Lionel and Team Ronald. On Team Lionel, we have Delees Osia Ponder, and from Pod Save the UK, Cocoa Khan. On Team Ronald, Finlay Christie and Kyra Gray. As we record, voting is still open in the Hoban and some pancreas by election

prompted by former Prime Minister Kirstama stepping down in order to spend less time sitting in the House of Commons being hauntingly reminded of his own deeply harrowing political downfall. Green Party leader, Zach Pallanski, standing for the seat, days after his party voted to pass a motion stating that Zionism is racism. This is the Greens, remember?

It remains unclear how antagonising almost all Jewish people will help reduce carbon dioxide levels. Anyway, we will have full updates on the result of the Hoban and St. Bankrupt's by-election next week. Our first question, Conservative leader Kemmy Badock told her party's conference that something is coming that we have not seen in this country for more than half a century. What? Are the Bay City Rollers back on tour? Sadly, no. A World Cup win?

That could win them the election if they can deliver that? No. Is she going to close down the mines and take milk from children? Telling a millennial how much you bought your house for and them not having an aneurism.

That's not what she said. Any other deliso? It was the battle thing, right? Yes. She was saying that... There would be a battle for the soul of the nation. Yes. And I would be more excited by that if it was like an actual battle for the soul,

like involving exorcisms, right? Because I would love to have like, Kemi Badernock with like, I don't know, some relics, maybe Margaret Thatcher's handbag. And then you've got Andy Burnham's, he's got like a crucifix, which he's waving. And then, you know, Farage just levitate. and claxing. His head starts rotating. And he starts yelling,

your mother so's socks in hull. Well, I think we'd all tune in to watch that. You're a battle for the soul of the nation. Does this excite you? Not at all. She's very dramatic. It's not game of Thrones, man. What do you mean?

I've really been going for that this year. I don't know if anyone saw the Birmingham Tapestry. So in homage to the Beio tapestry, which no one could get tickets for, they use some AI to do their own version, the Birmingham tapestry, but rather than depicting, obviously, the Battle of 1066, it just depicts like Labor doing bad things. And, you know, there's some references to Nigel Farage, so there's like a bit where he's there,

and it's written next to it, here doth have a hissy-fitter election or something. So they're having fun with it, but they're definitely in this medieval moment, I think, which explains a lot. Yeah. They did also say that nostalgia is not a policy, basically, but that does seem to be their only policy. Also, they have like a weird juxtaposition of they're trying to say, we're going to bring back the good old days. But they're also saying, we've changed.

What are you doing? There are rumours doing the round of the soul of the nation was in fact covertly sold off to a private equity hedge fund, along with the gold reserves and the intellectual property rights of the sausage during the last financial crisis, those rumours have been neither confirmed nor completely confirmed. So let's look at some of the specifics from the Tory conference. Can any of you tell me who or what is Britannia Shield? Is she an early 2000s page 3 model?

My name's Britannia Shield. I go to South Bank Union and I hate missiles. It's protection. I thought Britannia Shield was sunscreen for the Caucasian community. I've got buckets of the stuff. It's supposed to protect you from missiles, right? Yes, correct.

This is what was going to be called, or wasn't going to be called Iron Dome. Yep. And that's Britannia Shield, which I prefer, I think Iron Dome sounds like it would protect you more than Britannia Shield. From a missile. A shield.

you know, it's like, maybe would save you from an arrow. But you want a dome. If like a bomb was heading for Cardiff and a politician there was like, well, don't worry, that's why we developed Welsh umbrella. I also think initially they wanted to call it a steel dome, but apparently we don't make that anymore. Yes, experts have suggested the Britannia Shield

will not in fact cover the whole of the UK, but focus on the highly populated areas, or to put it another way, Norfolk, you might want to book some Russian lessons. If it only protects some areas and not others, that's not a shield, that's a colander. Another question for the Tory conference. Why have the Conservatives been accused of planning to rob Peter to pay Paul's elderly and pretty well-off parents to never move from their current massive house?

So this is about their changes to inheriting tax, and by change I mean scrapping off. It's all part of a number of policies that they're floating at the minute which are trying to reach out to essentially like a high-income ambitious family. I think that's the language that they would use. And this is all part of their new approaches, I understand. They're going for the dinks, the double-income, no kids. This is how they're going to reach the young. Kemi Badock said she's putting the party back in the Conservative Party.

That's a quote. He's also introduced her methodology, and it's called Chemistry. Yes, yes. It's spelled exactly as you think. The childcare thing, like, I've got rich parents. Just have to drop that in there, isn't it? Is this the pickup line? I didn't have a gag.

No pints line. I've got rich parents, man. Which what that tells you, even if I'm not good at stand-up, I will just keep doing it. But yeah, like, my experience from my parents is they don't like free. stuff, they're very suspicious

of it. Like, you know, my mum buys expensive salt. Like, if the choice was between like, you know, free nanny and pink Himalayan Nanny. She's going for Pink Himalayan Nanny. I mean, only around 5% of all deaths

result in inheritance tax charges anyway. Really? Yeah, it's this policy really reaching out to the 80% of people who the polls say don't intend to vote. But is it not the dream of wealth? Because there's that thing where people always imagine they'll be wealthy. So even though it will never touch them, people are like, yes, when I make my million.

Right. So the key voter demographic is now deluded Mike. It's tough as a choice between like that, like, you know, like Burnham, obviously social care. Do I want my parents to live a bit longer or die sooner and have the gap? I hope they're not listening. I definitely will be. Kimmy Badenock also ruled out doing a deal with whom? Lulu Lemon.

I think that's still on the table. Was it reform? Yes, correct. Thank you. Thanks. How do you see that playing electorally? I think they needed to do it because there was a real sense that reform was going to replace the Conservative Party. So I think they needed to define themselves against reform in some way for their own self-preservation.

But also reform have been wrapped up in all sorts of nonsense that actually traditional conservative voters don't really like. They don't like convicted criminals. It's just the thing about them. It's quite well known. They don't like that. So, you know, in some ways, I'm surprised it took so long, to be honest. But yeah, they've done it now. They've drawn the line.

and they haven't quite said the words that reform are playing with divisive language around race, but they kind of have. Let's see if the chemistry catches on. I think you're right. I mean, of course the conservatives can't work with reform. They could never work with Swella, Braverman, Robert Jenrick, Danny Coet, Andrew Rosendell, Nadine Doris, Medine Zahari, Andrea Jenkins. I think at this point, a Tory Reform Coalition would, it wouldn't be a merger, it would be a reunion. Suella's been going around saying Oh you know I'm not English

I can't be English It's causing a lot of problems Obviously Kemi does not like that And I saw I can't remember which reporter Was asking her for comment She just said this line that said Suella Breverman is Reform's problem now And that was

Would it be great if she's been passed around From Pidey to Pide for the next few years I mean that's something to do In terms of how reform We're trying to appeal beyond their base And they seem to have flatlined quite significantly over the last year. I guess the thing is,

if the answer is bring in Suella Braverman, you have misheard the question. Well, let's wrap up the Tory conference. At the Conservative Conference in Birmingham, Kemi Badnock attempted to rouse the Tory faithful with a series of pledges designed to convince the party and the nation that they could still recover from 14 years of Conservative government.

Under Badenock's leadership, the Tories have come roaring back in the opinion polls to just below, they were when she took over as leader. But that's politics at the moment, not completely evaporating to nothingness, is the new surging in public popularity. Despite a moderate recent rise in the polls,

the Tory leader admitted her party was like a bear with a nasty dose of food poisoning, in that it was not out of the woods. And at the end of that round, it's six points all. Right, let's move across the channel now, Finlay and Cairo, which country's schoolchildren have been taking themselves on a very lively politics and economics field trip with a bit of physics and chemistry

quite literally thrown in. This is La France. Really? Yeah. Which I lived in France for like a year. French kids are protesting because the schools are like overcrowded and a mess and badly organized

and all this stuff because they've got that protesting spirit of French. British kids wouldn't care. French kids are like, To the barricades, you know. The board of governors dying on bryosh while we share one glue stick, you know. You studied quite hard in that year in France, didn't he, by the time.

And in Parliament, the Prime Minister said, he said, well, if you want to improve the conditions of schools, don't burn down school buildings, which I reckon the quickest way to get a new school building. They love protesting other than. I went to protest, I got tear gas. It was for, they wanted to raise the retirement age in France. And I got tear gasped, and I obviously had to like, you know,

you can't breathe. And I was like, you're crying. I had to explain to people what was happening, which, you know, it was a good way to work on my French. Uweil Opitale, who in a pharmacy, you know. And I think actually that's where we're going wrong with language teaching in this country is we're not tear-gassing children

into learning languages. We can build a better Britain. Is tear-gassing at protests effect? Because doesn't it just make all the protesters look like they really mean it even more? I tell you what, my enthusiasm for the French retirement age wained pretty quickly are after I was tear-gast.

I was like, 64's young. It's really rough when you get teagas. You feel it in your eyes. You feel it in your mouth. Love is all around you. Also, have any of you seen the complaints of the French student? Like, one French student complained about classes of 35 people. And I had to just remind myself,

Deliso, don't African parent this child, okay? 35. Could we send you to Sierra Leone, where you have, like, your boutique classroom experience of 90s? And I know it's like the drought thing where England was having a drought And I was like, really? And then if you dug a well recently

So I know that I can't compare the experience With that experience But I'm just saying, you know, If you're going to demonstrate, I just expect a little bit more suffering. We're going to, we're going to, we, we're going to, ever tempted to go on a protest when you're at school? I mean, I don't think I've ever cared enough,

and I think it's a very British thing. I think we are just quite passive as a people, and I do feel like we need to be a bit more, like, the smallest inconvenience, I think the government will be less likely to take the piss if we really threw some croissants at them, do you know what I mean? I think we could go out there a bit more. So I do respect the fact that the children are standing up

for what they want and what they need, because I do think it's important for them to have the right equipment. You know, you're pushing them to become members of society, but you're not giving them what they need to do that, you know? So take the croissant in your head and listen to them. These are very worrying times for British parents whose kids are on school exchange trips in France. It could possibly be the most awkwardly timed French exchanges

since my great-uncle Herbert went to visit Julien at the Lycée in Aramanche in June 1944. Also tricky for those who have French exchange students visiting them over here Our kids' French exchange is staying with us at the moment And he's feeling very homesick So we have to tear gas him every morning Feel at home And the score is now eight to Finley and Kira And six to Deliso and Coco

An Observatory in Space This is the real deal This is going to revolutionise astronomy capable of capturing light from the dawn of the universe. It could be real exciting for the astronomical community, I guess, and for the whole world to see what Hubble really can do. From the BBC World Service, 13 minutes, trouble with Hubble, the story of the Hubble Space Telescape.

Listen now on BBC.com, the BBC app, or wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Our next question, can any of you explain the snowflake instance? Sounds like the one time my uncle was woke. How we all now refer to it in code. Remember when he said that that female footballer was good, but he didn't say for a woman. The snowflake in.

It's a good answer. It's not where I've got written down here. Any other suggestions? the snowflake instance. ASOS were hacked. Yes. And the code name for this hacking, I believe, is the snowflake instance. Is that right?

Well, the hacker group sent a message to all customers of the online clothing retailer ASOS saying, we have fully compromised the snowflake instance. Engage with us or we will leak it. I actually think this was an oddly comforting story because it's old-school hackers and scammers. not self-motivated artificial intelligence, which is going to take us over. So previously all the tech news of the last few weeks

has been terrifying to me. And I'm like, oh no, this is just some old school hackers trying to get some money. I actually wanted to send them my bank detail. So you're saying basically this is an and finally story of human warmth. Yes, yes. I was fuming. My ASOS got hacked.

They'd ordered a load of lingerie in my sense. size made me wear it kneeling down on a bath mat with my dad's gloves on it was crazy so snowflake is the actual storage company and assox hacked that is that what no it wasn't asos doing the hacking oh no not a snowflake is a cloud platform okay used by aesos I'm reliably informed okay I just feel like hackers aren't hacking the things we need them to hack yeah like I feel like nominate yeah like I feel like they're doing pointless things like, why aren't you hacking the councils? You know what I mean? Scrapping the parking charges.

Dartford Tunnel. Look at the important stuff. Isos, the online clothing retailer renowned for garments such as tops, has become the latest victim of hackers. They threaten to leak customers' details potentially including underpants sizes and sock preferences. So people are very, very worried.

Delisa and Coco on Team Lionel. Can I have our next question? Who was feeling pumped? bumped up after breaking a world record this week. A farmer. Correct. You claim why? Because he did a big pumpkin.

He made one. He grew one. Yeah. How big? Massive. Absolutely massive. The world record biggest ever pumpkin. Why?

Do we celebrate people growing freak vegetables? This is a big win. This is not a big win. This is a big win. We need to fat shame these mutant squashes. I like it as a story because America, pumpkins is like their thing. But it's us getting the pump. That's like us beating them in the Olympics at the shooting.

I'll take it. But do you know what he said he was going to use it for? To feed his cows or something. Cow feed? What? Yeah. They eat pumpkins. I thought they just eat gross.

Yeah, I didn't know cows eat pumpkins, actually. They're having spice lattes. I didn't know. that pumpkins were so British. But reading about this gargantuan pumpkin that was linked to another article. So this gargantuan pumpkin is in Hampshire because in Hampshire they also did a collage of pumpkin.

I think it's the same farm. They love pumpkins in Hampshire. A collage of pumpkins. Yeah. No, no, we need to break this down. So they just got loads of pumpkins and put them in paper? No, no, they got loads of pumpkins

and used them collage style to create a large picture of David Attenborough. Can I want to tell me how much it weighed? In tons. In tons? I've got kilograms. Philograms? It was 1,295.8 kilograms.

Correct. So just under 1.3 tons. Equivalent to the weight of most of a hippopotamus or a six-person motorcycle pyramid using Kawasaki A7 Avengers and six people away approximately 10 stone or the same way as 1.5 million wasps or of the French men's rugby team

after they've had two players inevitably sent off for violence in the first half or it weighs the same as 1.3 times a ton of bricks. What, like you say, this is something to be patriotic about. Where do you put it in the great achievements of this country's history, Finlay? Shakespeare.

Shakespeare? Yeah. Would you say this pumpkin is better than Shakespeare? Some of the plays. Yeah. I'm not messing about with all of the ones that are just like King's names. Yes, strangely big and oddly shaped, not just the new Electric Jaguar unveiled this week,

but also a massive, record-breaking British pumpkin. This is the superhero, this world and this nation needs right now. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a pumpkin. It's a 1.3 ton pumpkin, slower than a speeding bullet, less powerful than a locomotive, but heavier than a Ford Fiesta, and destined to be mulched up and fed to cows. And at a time when our country is struggling for a sense of purpose and identity in a changing world, riven by tensions and disagreements about who we really are, we in Britain, we at least know this.

We still grow unnecessarily massive vegetables with the best of them. We may have lost our empire. We may be uncertain of what our national future holds. we may feel vulnerable amidst a swirling tides of global flux. We may disagree about everything, including whether a plant that's technically a fruit can be called a vegetable because you're more like to have it with main course than dessert. But we will set more pointless world records

than any other nation on this planet. May the blessed pitchfork of His Majesty, the king himself dexterously bring forth a squash the size of a rhinoceros from our feckoned British soil for no real reason, so that our enemies may know this. We are Britain. Our pumpkins are massive.

Sleep well, Vladimir. Right, we'll have another plant question now. What has gone sideways and down, but all the way to the top? The tree of the year. Correct, yes. Sensational effort from an elm in County Down in Northern Ireland that has grown sideways, partly due to winds,

but also due to it not wanting it enough when it comes to growing straight upwards like a real tree. Sorry, someone had to say it. So, I mean, this, again, a money hugely significant achievement in the tree of the year. Yeah, but they gave it a trophy made of wood, which I thought was insane. Well done. Here's your dead cousin.

I was also disappointed by, on the BBC website, underneath the picture, the caption was, John Martin was rooting for the tree. Oh, very nice. And I'm like, what other things did he put aside? Was he wanting to say that the judges were stumbling? It was unbelievable.

Oh, the behaviour was very shady. What are all the failed puns that he chose of all of them? Well, he wanted to, you know, he writes articles, but also he likes to branch out. And also, I feel like people are celebrating this tree out of nowhere. Like, everyone's saying how much they love this tree. I think it's an industry plant. You're sick of more of these puns.

I'm glad this section has proved so popular. Right, the score's a level, which means we go into our tiebreaker. We're going to play the popular parlor game, two truths and a lie. I'm going to give our panelists three headlines. Two of them are true from this week. One of them is not. Can they tell which is which? So headline A, Benjamin Netanyahu posted an AI Lego reenactment

of the Hamas terrorist attacks on the anniversary of the Hamas terrorist attacks. Headline B, Cristiano Ronaldo declared himself immortal. and headline C, the American president invited Iran to destroy two American cities. Only one of them is not a genuine headline. Which one is it? The Lego. Incorrect. I would guess that C is the lie.

I think I'd also go C. Well, you're both wrong. Cristiano Ronaldo did not declare himself immortal, although he does clearly think it. But those other two are genuine. It brings me no joy to say. this and I guess we learn from this that everyone has different opinions. For example, I personally think that posting a Lego reenactment of the Hamas terrorist attacks on social media on the

anniversary of those attacks is not appropriate behavior. But then I'm not Prime Minister of Israel. And he evidently thought it was. And in America, President Trump has said, I don't know, I just tune out now, to be honest, what's the point? It's just sound and fury, life's too short. If actually turns out to be important, someone will let us know. So what I would want to know, and I know this isn't the point, is, was it good or bad for Lego sale? I guess, to be honest, DeLisa, the answer to that question will tell us a lot about the state of humanity. We'll have full updates from Lego next week.

And the final scores, it's 10 points all. Very done to Finlay and Kaira and Zawin Toto. And just some final news reaching us. The British Museum has apologized to visitors. who've been disappointed by their experience at the Bayer Tapestry exhibition. Museum curator Drellard Buck Clark said, we know the fans wanted to see England win. It's always disappointing to lose on homesail,

but unfortunately the last just couldn't get it done on the day. Thank you very much for listening. And don't forget, as part of the round of Radio 4 programming cuts announced this week, some programs will end a few seconds earlier than... Taking part in the news for his word, Paira Gray, Finlay Christie, Cocoa Kahn, to Lisa Sheponder. In the chair was me, Andy Zaltzman,

and additional material was written by Cameron Loxdale, Karwin Blaney and Adrian Gray. The producer was Georgia Keating, and it was a BBC Studios production for Radio 4. Hello, I'm Greg Jenner. I'm the host of You're Dead to Me,

the comedy podcast that takes history seriously. And we are back for a 12th series. Everyone in that film is wearing their own pants. We're joined by comedians like Kyle Smith Bino and Desiree Birch. Can't see how this would go wrong. We'll meet many medieval saints.

Motivational speaker saint. With a sort of Madonna head mic on. We're doing a history of underwear. Plus there's loads more. You're dead to me. Listen on BBC Sounds. It's late 2007 and while attending a Christmas party, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg meets a woman

who would change the course of his company forever. She joined Facebook as chief of operations in 2008 and has been credited for making the company profitable. And herself enormously. rich. On Good Bad Billionaire, we're exploring the life and fortune of billionaire tech leader Cheryl Sandberg. Listen on BBC.com, the BBC app or wherever you get your podcasts.