Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The News Quiz: Ep8. Titles, Jewels and "Chocolate" Bars

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

Alasdair Beckett-King, Laura Lexx, Ahir Shah and Ava Santina join Andy Zaltzman for this week's quiz.Brace yourselves for stories about the stripping of both Royal Titles and Royal Crown Jewels as well as the big question of the moment, are things better or worse than they used to be?Written by Andy Zaltzman Additional material by: Milo Edwards, Cameron Loxdale, Ruth Husko and Marty Gleeson Producer: Gwyn Rhys Davies Exec Producer: Richard Morris 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. Hello, it's Ray Winston. I'm here to tell you about my podcast on BBC Radio 4. History's toughest heroes. I've got stories about the pioneers, the rebels, the outcasts who define tough. And that was the first time anybody ever ran a car up that fast with no tires on. It almost feels like your eyeballs are going to come out of your head. Tough enough for you?

Subscribe to history's toughest heroes wherever you get your podcast. Hello, I'm Andy's ultimate, and this is the final news quiz of 2025, and it's a particularly a high-stake show today, because our winning team will become the new hosts of Strictly Come Dancing. So that was a lot on the line.

And our teams this week, well, it is, as you probably know, 2013 Hollywood blockbuster awareness week and in tribute to Donald Trump's strictly inspired home improvement project this week and the UK government's efforts to turn its opinion poll ratings round we have Team White House Down against Team Frozen On Team White House Down we have Laura Lex and Alistair Beckett King And on Team Frozen

We have Arir Shah and political editor at Politics Joe Ava Santina Our first question for Alistair and Law who is going to be asking Santa Claus for some new headed note paper for Christmas preferably to be dropped down a chimney in a different house I think this is well we no longer say Prince of Wales

do we I think this is Prince Andrew yes he was never Prince of Wales we say king instead of that that's why we don't say it that's what Alice is saying that was his old title I haven't really done my research Duke of York he was there Hill guy we don't call him the Duke of York anymore that was never the phrase I use

when talking about him. It's Prince Andrew. Can I just say, up front, I want to say how sorry I was to read about Prince Andrews tragic death and a freak accident next week. Very, very, very sad to hear about that. This is a very tricky story to talk about,

British libel laws being what they are, because there's a thing about Prince Andrew that I can't say on the radio, but I can think it. And I am thinking it now. So if you think it while I think it, they can't touch us for that. I feel sorry for him. Right, you...

I think I think I'm going to have to show you're working on that one. Yeah. I just think, of all the princes that have existed in England for my lifetime, he's the one behaving the most like a prince as I understand their job to be. And I think it's not his fault that the royal family went all woke and changed the rules. I think if you look historically, Because King Henry the 8th was like 48 when he married his 17-year-old wife, Catherine Howard.

And we learn about him in primary school, like, that's interesting. Then there's this other, like, historical king, Charles III, I think he's called. And he was like 29 when he met his 16-year-old first wife. So, you know, I just think Andy's towing the party line. He's not actually giving up these titles. He's just agreed not to use them. Yeah, I think giving up is strong

when they are literally ripping them out of his, like, white-knuckled hands in the house he still lives in for free. If you're just agreeing, like, I also agree that I am not the Duke of... Yeah. That's the thing that any of us could do. Wow, what did you do? So I don't use my official title, which is Zaltor the Merciless, the First Lord of Funk.

You know, I own it. I own it, but I don't like to show off. I mean, politically, Ava, is this sort of resonating broadly across the country? Are people, you know, how upset do you think voters people are in this country? Well, I think that they're most frustrated that it hasn't been debated in Parliament, which has been a push by several MPs, because it does feel like, well, it was voluntary for him to go out the titles, and it doesn't feel like anyone has actually had to face any consequences or retribution.

That's a really serious answer. You're all waiting to laugh, and sorry, that's it. But is it because you can't hold both concepts in your head at once in a serious debate? You can't say, or he's a beastie, but he's also part of God's magical family that own us all. You can't fight for both things. And if you're in Parliament, you're literally like, he's my boss, but his brother's weird. The punishments that they've discussed all do seem vaguely whimsical. The Scottish newspaper, the National, said that there are rumours that he could be excellent.

exiled to a Scottish castle, which, I mean, that's just my childhood holidays. It doesn't really sound like that much of a punishment. But on the other hand, I mean, I guess maybe I know a bit more about Scottish castles than you. They are quite miserable, to be fair. Like, England is full of, like, twiddled-d-D country houses that people call castles. But every single Scottish castle is like a solid cube of stone with no windows and no roof. You know, they're not that much fun. They were built to keep the English out and the misery in.

Although, I would say that if they really do exile Andrew to a Scottish castle, the next series of celebrity traitors is going to be absolutely incredible. Yes, Prince Andrew, the 65-year-old former It's a knockout contestant, and 14-time national embarrassment of the year nominee, is to be rebranded. The man who long put the horrific into honorific title will no longer be called by the Motley Collection of Taggart. he's acquired over the years. Robert Jenrick, the shadowy justice secretary and controversy

addict, said Prince Andrew should leave public life. Now, obviously, Jenric finds it hard to complete any sentence without suggesting that someone should leave somewhere. On this occasion, he could be right. Moving sideways and upwards in Team Windsor, who this week did what, with whom, for the first time in ages? Is it that, did Nigel Farage speak to someone who lives in his constituency? Definitely not that, I'm afraid, definitely not. I know that it hadn't been done for 500 years, which knocked out my original guess

because it has only been 400 years since we executed a king, so it's not that. It's not that, no. Imagine if that happened, a news quiz was the way you found out. Who lost his head this week? Yeah, so who did what, with whom for the first time in ages? You're getting closer 400 years, and not quite far enough?

It was the magical family. dad playing with the magical family overlord, wasn't it? The Pope and the King. Yes, those are... Yeah, they prayed together because Charlie's gone to Italy and, oh, his Vatican Italy technically

is there's a little thing, isn't it? A little pocket. He's probably gone through Italy. You can't land in the Vatican I think. Oh, imagine if he did though. What? Just a chocolate. Yeah, like the queen in that James Bomb bit. That would be... That would boost his right. We just boom appeared by the Pope like, guess what? I'm divorced two.

Second one. Is the Pope divorced? From reality, yes. Yeah, Charles and Leo the 14th. I mean, what do you think they should have been praying? What do you hope they were praying for in this historic meeting of churches? I like to think that the Pope prays for pretty mundane things on the day to day. Because if you were fully the Pope, like you'd worked up to becoming the Pope,

and every night you prayed for world peace, and it didn't happen, you would start to think, well this doesn't seem to work at all and given I am the Pope you'd think it had work unless and so I reckon to play it safe he just goes with I hope Liverpool break their losing streak and then 5-1 in Frankfurt the Lord's Willis probably also they're praying that Prince Andrew doesn't seek sanctuary in the Vatican. They wouldn't really be able to make up much of an excuse, right? Because the crime would fit in there, right? I'm Jewish, so this is fine.

I'll do you one better. I'm Catholic, so it really is funny. Charles has always been kind of progressive on this, because he always said that he wanted to be the defender of faiths, not the defender of the faith. And in a post-Brexit world, I kind of think this is our way back into Europe. If the king converts to Catholicism, I'm quite excited, frankly, because let's be honest, Anglicanism, it's had a good run, but it never really kicked in as a religion for me, you know.

It's a bit like Paul McCartney's wings. It's fine. What's it about? Cucumbus sandwiches, tombolas, when was the last time anybody caught a witch? Come on. Full Catholicism now That would be so exciting I'm not saying I grew up really sheltered

but I met my first Catholic at 13 and that was the most racially diverse person I'd ever met I grew up in Somerset in a very small house and it was if we all went Catholic now and we could do like spicy church that would be so exciting spicy church is actually what my people call it

you'll find me there from time to time yes King Charles I settle down for a cup of tea and a three-way chinwag with the Pope and their joint boss the long-away to catch up between the heads of the Anglican and Catholic churches it's hoped that the joint power of the two figureheads will bring a pretty spectacular response from God

but we are still waiting for results on whose prayers proved more effective the pre-off which was live on Sky Sports 23 I think The pre-off took place in the Sistine Chapel, the church, famously given a slightly over-elaborate lick of paint in the early 16th century by celebrity interior decorator Michelangelo, also known as Mickey Paintbrush,

prompting then Pope Julius II to say in Latin, of course, you know Mickey P, there is such a thing as too many willies on a ceiling. Right, at the end of that round, it's three points all Yay Right I'm another sort of royalty related question

This can go to our hearing Ava Who took a blow to the crown jewels this week Sorry Are you accusing me of that No no no Who took a blow to the crown jewels this week Yeah we've got a really solid alibi

We're wet jeunner steel Yep Le jewels Very good That's good enough for me Probably good enough for the French police. I would say it was the most powerful or most unionised group of burglars I'd ever heard about. I mean, have you ever heard of a robbery taking place, like, during the working day?

Like, the French are so well unionised that they're not even getting out of bed to rob somewhere. They're like, we're doing this on your time, pal. I think this is the greatest news story. I think it's so kind of them to do it and give us just like a good old-fashioned news story. that there's no real victims unless you care about art. Which arguably we could just ask Gen AI to 3D print some new jewels and we haven't really lost anything, have we? Because that's art now.

So I just think, I read this and I was like, brilliant. Like in my head it was all being done in stop motion plasticine and Feathers McGraw was there. Because the news, it's always like you're like, Andrew's this, Andrew's that. But at the heart of it, it's just horrible and it's horrible stuff that happened to people. And this is just like, boop, boop, bo, drive a laugh.

ladder up to a wall and steal some jewels. Brilliant. Thank you for making my week. Yeah, in legal terms, a heist is equivalent to a kerfuffle. It's great, everybody's happy. A little while ago, just stopped oil protesters through soup at a van Gogh, causing no damage to the painting. And everyone was absolutely furious.

And these guys stole jewels from the Louvre, and the general reaction has been, Legend! They weren't doing it for a good cause. The diamonds didn't go to a donkey sanctuary. I was listening to something about this quite, but at the beginning they were all like, oh, and then the ladder with the cherry pigger.

You're like, oh, that's interesting. And then at the end of this podcast, they just said, yeah, they only took things where there was really obvious melting down monetary value to the thing, so it's just going to be worth 80 million, but it'll just be like put in a furnace and they'll, like, flog it for less. It's just gone forever.

And you're like, oh, it's like, when you say heist, it sounds fun, but it's always done by the worst bastards ever, isn't it? But is that... Sorry, Le Bastards? Isn't it not like how they originally got the jewels in the first place was through a heist? Because, like, I don't want to, you know, reveal too much here, but most of the things you see in a French or British museum

was not theirs to put there. But that's branding, isn't it? Like, that's called an empire. And this is a hype. Like, can I heist some stuff from ASDA? Is it shoplifting, or is it shop heisting? I think we need to rebrand. That's where the common person screws up.

We're like, I'm a thief. I'm a heistress. That's what I am. I'm so sad that it's ASDA that you pick to rob from. Like, would you know? I love all of the supermarkets. Do you know what I mean? You're not going to go in for like M&S,

like the three for eight deal on the picky bits or something. I don't think you have to do a meal deal when you're stealing. You get a reduced sentence, I think, if you do that. So they took Napoleonic treasures, I think. I read on the BBC that a crown of the Empress Eugenie was taken but was recovered damage near the museum after the thieves seemingly dropped it. And I love the way the BBC has to hedge there and say seemingly dropped it,

like the other possibility being that the crown was the mastermind of the crime and the other thieves double-crossed it on the way out. Well, it's possible, I guess, that they didn't draw. drop it, they discarded it, because it didn't fit. Also, I think that that would fit in with the French heist theme, just them getting to ground level, looking at everything and going, it is inelegant. Not with this, cravat.

Yes, an audacious heist at the Louvre in Paris resulted in the heisting of 100 million euros worth of France's crown jewels. Celebrity Louvre resident, the Mona Lisa, herself a veteran of being stolen from the gallery after she was whipped off the wall back in 1911. was reported to be looking concerned, or was it disappointed? Or was it mildly amused but unsurprised or nonchalantly disinterested? It's so hard to tell.

Experts say the heisters do tend to go for jewellery, which can be broken up and sold rather than paintings, which can't. Would you like a square inch of canvas with a small bit of an enigmatic smile on? I can do it for two mill. It's not going to cut it, is it? Right, at the end of our French thievery round. It's now four to our here at Ava and five to Alistair and Laura.

Hello, it's Ray Winstone. I'm here to tell you about my podcast on BBC Radio 4, history's toughest heroes. I've got stories about the pioneers, the rebels, the outcasts who define tough. And that was the first time to anybody ever ran a car up that fast with no tires on. It almost feels like your eyeballs are going to come out of your head. Tough enough for you? Subscribe to history's toughest heroes wherever you get your podcast.

Moving on, this can go to R here and Ava. According to Did That Really Happen, Feverdream Vortex of Chaoticized Befuddly, former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, who paid a huge price in the COVID pandemic? Presumably, in his mind, himself. Yeah, but that's not what he said out loud. Any other guesses? The children, he best believe, yeah. The children paid a huge price, which is strange because they don't pay tax. And actually, it was the taxpayer who paid a huge price

because he kept giving away all those contracts to his friends. That is, well, an alarmingly factual answer. Sorry. Did I ruin the game? No, no, no. It's staggering to see Boris Johnson come to this conclusion in 2025. And in fairness to him, it's not like in early July 2021 when he was the Prime Minister, Sir Kevin Collins, who was appointed as the education catch-ups are post-pandemic,

said that £15 billion of funding was required to bring children up to scratch after the fact that they had been removed from full-time education for so long and resigned because Johnson's government themselves would only give the equivalent of £50 per pupil per year in catch-up funding. And if you think that that £15 billion is a lot to ask, do remember that half of it would have gone to Boris Johnson's own children. It's really wonderful that Mr Johnson has been in. able to see the light after four years. Really, really lovely stuff. I'm not super

political. Which one was Johnson? I think it was quite a self-serving apology from Boris Johnson. No, no, hear me out. I'm going to criticise him here because last week Gavin Williamson said that the government was overly focused on the mission to keep schools open and this week Boris Johnson is apologising basically for closing schools at all. So it's a bit of sort of fancy footwork where he's saying, oh, I'm sorry we did the thing that I never really wanted us to do, and I take full personal responsibility for Gavin Williamson's failure. Basically, he's saying, I'm sorry if you felt like I closed schools? Moving on, well, to other child-related issues and education, having taken a bit of a battering over the years.

According to a government white paper published this week, what does not stop at 18? Or indeed 21, according to this white paper. me when playing and losing at blackjack no it's education they're changing all of what education's called aren't they she said sounding like she's never had one at all but I think it's mean because I remember being a kid and you'd say like oh I'm doing my GCS is

and then like the oldest person in the world would go what's that in our levels and you'd be like oh get away from me that's disgusting You were educated before GCSE's die already. Like, you shouldn't still be here. And now that's me. And that's horrible. Like now not only, when you say to kids like,

oh, I got an A once, they're like, what's that in numbers? Because we get graded in numbers now, and you're like, ugh, disgusting. And now they're changing it all. They got like T levels, which I thought was what you got when your hormones were imbalanced. And V levels, which,

That feels like a prank, doesn't it? Yeah, so the V-level is going to run alongside A-levels. V stands for vocational. A-and-A-level stands for absolutely no idea why we make our children specialise in so few subjects at such young age, but we do, and also because France and Germany don't do it, so we can't be like them, can we? So that's what in A-level stands for.

So, I mean, the things that could be available under these new V-levels include criminology, also known as government procurement studies. Hair, beauty and aesthetics. None of those terms I understand, to be honest. The problem with this, the problem that I've been trying to figure out over the last couple of days,

it seems to me that they're worried that too many young people are delaying their life by going to university, and that might have been okay under the Blair government, but now it's so expensive to go to university. They want young people to be confused at an earlier age. And then make that decision and make the mistakes, so that they can get into work at 18.

actually I think it would be really helpful if we just said to young people you can make mistakes for the first sort of five years of your adulthood and that's absolutely fine but then that's not really great for government figures right now no it isn't but then I guess you know if you took the government or indeed the royal family

as an example you could say you could make mistakes for maybe the first 50 years of your adult life also I feel like if it were Kirstama delivering that message and he turned the chair backwards and sit down on it that way and just be like, listen up, kids. It's all right, and it would be harrowing. Yeah.

Hey, kids, when I first became Prime Minister, no one liked me. I'm still cool. It's a harrowing image of Keir Starmer is the 21st century Christine Keeler there. Yes, the government's post-16 skills in a higher-education white paper has been published. The higher-education white paper

highlights concerns about how many pupils struggle in particular with English and math, which are five of the thingies, what, uh, point proved. Right, let's move on with the score at six, seven. Move on to some politics questions. Why are the people of Kefili particularly cheesed off at the moment, potentially leaving Labour in a pickle? Silly.

There's a Senate by-election in Keffili. Correct. We don't know the results at time of recording, but it seemed that Labour were not doing particularly. well and plied kumri and reform both seemed as though they were doing better we've had the current government for over a year now and i feel like the whole thing started with them all sort of turning up to the country and doing a sort of plumber's sharp intake of breath uh right it's gonna cost you right and uh that's been going up but the sharp intake of breath has now lasted

for over a year and that might be too long to not provide any glimmer of hope. I'm not an electoral strategist or masterminder yet. They could be that sort of thinking, though. Yeah, yeah. Like, have your message be something other than, yeah, I know, mate. Which is enough to win an election. I think a lot of it though with Kifili is that, you know, when you have a by-election, typically the sort of incumbent government won't go because you know that you're going to get a kicking. You know that normally they are a protest vote and you don't want to end up in a situation

like when, I don't know if you remember when Kirstama was in Bath and he got shouted out of a pub you don't want to have that repeated and you also don't want to have to pay for the privilege to keep doing it because it's very expensive to run an election campaign.

The train tickets alone from London that would be bankrupt. How big a deal would this be for UK Labour if they lose in Kifili? I mean electorally it will make absolutely no difference because he has obviously a huge majority and he'll say he still has a huge mandate But I think it's sort of about the battle of like the soul of the Labour Party, right?

And if you are turning your back on Wales, which is traditionally Labour voters who work in industry, if you are just saying we don't care about you anymore, then I think that that's a good sign for people who haven't already got their eyes open that Labour might not be the party of working people anymore. There is an election whose result will be announced this weekend that Labour is nailed on at least to come second in. What election is that, anyone? The deputy leader of Labour?

Look, I can't engage with the politics of this. I was told very specifically about politics that I was too idealistic. Me and a lot of people my age, and with my hopes and dreams and political aspirations, we were told to stop hoping and stop caring. And I think we've really done that. A year and a half. I tried. I really tried.

On current political trajectories, it is still possible that they will both lose. And Rishi Sunak could unexpectedly... On the inside, the result of the Deputy Leader Showdown will be. Stroke is being, stroke has been announced, delete according to whether you're listening to this on or before or after Saturday. It's going to be announced at a star-studded gala ceremony in Los Angeles hosted by a dream team combination of Beyoncé and David Blunkett. Stroke in a sparsely populated windowless from a Labour Party HQ,

delete according to whether you want to be disappointed by the mundane drabness of reality. Right, the scores are now 10. points all, which means we go into a tie-break-around. Right, so who here thinks things are worse than they were? And who thinks things are better than they were? Well, you're all correct on both counts. This is the way in places like the world. Some things progress, some things regress.

In this round, we're going to be looking at some things that are getting better and some that are getting worse. We'll start with something that is getting worse. Now, why are polar bears even less likely to eat penguins than they used to? be. Oh, they're no longer chocolate. Correct. So club bars and penguin bars have had to reduce their chocolate content to a state where they're no longer legally be allowed to be described as chocolate, but instead chocolate flavour, which is coincidentally also my rap name. I was wondering why that had gone when I tried to register it.

It's a climate change story, really. Sorry to be a downer, but it is. Droughts in the Ivory Coast and Ghana and West Africa, where the chocolate comes from are pushing up the cost of making real chocolate. So, you know, we keep talking about the effects of climate change is a thing that's going to happen, but it'll be more accurate to say that it's happening now. We're just looking at the wrong penguins.

Let's have one thing that's getting better. Who didn't want to blow their own trumpet this week, but instead blew their own clarinet? This is actually a really heartwarming story. A woman played the clarinet while having brain surgery and they stimulated her brain. She has Parkinson's and she was able to regain the ability to play the clarinet while they were actually operating on her. So it's on the one hand really touching, but I think it also reveals kind of a double standard because they don't let you play instruments during any other medical procedures.

I can tell you, if you try and play a swanny whistle during a prostate exam, I have no patience for it. Yeah, I mean, it is a really amazing breakthrough this. I don't want to take anything away from the story. It's really extraordinary. Yeah, it's hard to, like, be blaze and hilarious, but something where you're just like, that's really cool. I found myself with two layers of insecurity reading that, though,

because on the one hand, it was like, wow, some people on this planet are so smart that they've worked out that they can regret this may, wow, to be that clever. And then I was also like, man, I can't play the clarinet in the first place. It's Denise Bacon, who has Parkinson's, underwent deep brain stimulation during which he was able to play the clarinet better than for several years. It's a truly amazing breakthrough, and anyone who has family or personal experience of Parkinson's

will know what a remorseless shitbag of a disease it is. So, I mean, it's hugely promising both for the treatment of Parkinson's and for the quality of chamber music recitals. and acabilk impersonators. Of course, the relationship between medicine and musical instruments stretches back through history. The harmonica, of course, was invented by Florence Nightingale as a medical device to monitor the breathing of injured soldiers

in the Crimean War. She just popped one in their mouth and could tell how alive they were and whether or not they had the blues. Well, that means our winners are here and Ava. Bad luck to Alistair and Laura. Thank you very much, sir, for... listening to the news quiz today and indeed for the whole year. We will be back in 2026, assuming there are still some news left.

Until then, goodbye. Taking part in the news quiz were Ahir Shah, Laura Lex, Alastair Beckett King and Ava Santina. In the chair was me and his ultimate. And additional material was written by Milo Edwards, Cameron Locksdale, Marty Gleason and Ruth Husko. The producer was Gwyn Rees-Davis, and it was a BBC Studios production for Radio 4.

language can seem archaic. It's like the light from one of those stars that actually died. Sometimes bamboozling. It's a theme park with a five-foot log flume from one thought to another. And very often, beyond words. I don't mean how to describe the language I use. I'm Amanda Junucci. I'm all

reset and turbocharged to stress, test to destruction, used and abused buzzwords and phrases from the world of politics. I come with a dazzling array of guest presenters and I'll be exploring the verbal tricks of the political trade, the intentions behind them and the effect they have on all of us.

The new series of Strong Message Here with me, Amanda Unucci, from BBC Radio 4. Listen now on BBC Science. Hello, it's Ray Winston. I'm here to tell you about my podcast on BBC Radio 4. History's toughest heroes. I've got stories about the pioneers, the rebels, the outcasts who define tough. And that was the first time anybody ever ran a car up that fast with no. tires on it almost feels like your eyeballs are going to come out of your head tough enough for you

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