Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The News Quiz - Friday 21st May 2021

Episode Date: May 21, 2021

Andy Zaltzman is joined by Geoff Norcott, Anand Menon, Felicity Ward and Eleanor Tiernan for a look back at the week's headlinesItems on this week's agenda include foreign holidays and sheep. Stories range from red to green via amber in terms of national importance.Producer: Richard Morris Production Coordinator: Cherlynn Andrew-Wilfred Sound Editor: Marc WillcoxA BBC Studios Production

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello. We have just received the latest government guidance for how to interpret the latest government guidance. What is currently advised is read the latest advice very carefully with your eyes shut by the light of a full moon on a cloudy night, then apply none of that advice all of the time,

all of it none of the time, and some of it whenever it just kind of feels right. Or while sprinting through an airport departure lounge shouting, you'll never take me alive. Please now ignore this advice. It has been superseded by coded messages which appear when you listen backwards to this episode of The News Quiz. I'm Andy Zoltan. Welcome to The News Quiz.

And in case you need a statistic during the show to corroborate and or disprove something that has or hasn't been said, here is a kit to construct your own statistic. Just include some or all of these terms in any sentence. Zero, 614, increasing, no, actually decreasing, context, schmontext, deliberately misleading, and 147 in the frame. If you've known his words, you should be able to make any statistic

to prove anything. It's time to meet our teams this week. We have this week Team Amber List against Team Amber Fuddled. On Team Amber List, we have Eleanor Tiernan and Geoff Norcotts. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE On Team Amber List, we have Eleanor Tiernan and Geoff Norcott. And on Team Amber Fuddled, Anand Menon and Felicity Ward. And the first question goes to both teams. You are in a car at the traffic lights. The light turns amber.

What should you do? Go. Always go. Think to yourself, does that mean go? Then go. And that, Andy, is why I haven't had a driving licence since 2011. It depends on what mode of transport I am in. So if I'm on the bike, you know, I've got to stop. While if I'm in the car, obviously, I think I can chance it. But yeah, I've had a few situations on the bike where I've been going,

sorry, sorry, everyone, I thought I was in a car. Has someone's pie just gone off? I thought somebody just took a phone call from 1918. With some advice, maybe, on how to deal with a pandemic. It could be quite a happening. And the government's been accused of being imprecise and confusing. Is that fair? And if so, do you think this is what they're aiming for,

that imprecision and confusion seems to be electorally very successful for the Conservatives at the moment? I think this is total genius because they've manufactured a situation where we're all in the wrong, whatever we do. And so, ultimately, it's our fault. Have any of you been on holiday in the last couple of days since the traffic lights shifted? I haven't been anywhere.

My favourite country with Diabolos, though, is Greece. We've become very liberalised suddenly about COVID because it's almost like they've got a massive tourist industry. Come to Greece, we'll let you in as long as you've had the vaccine or as long as you've heard of vaccines. Look, if you can spell vaccine, you can come to Greece. And you know what? It does have two Cs in it, but in you go.

We're allowed to go on holiday. Like, can we, can't we go? We are allowed to go on holiday, of course. The only problem is no one wants us to go on holiday in their country. That is the problem. Except for Portugal. And that's very convenient for those travelling Brits who just really fancy a Nando's all the time.

And they end up looking very amber, usually. Well, essentially the general thrust from the government is it's fine if it's essential, or in layperson's terms, just make sure you make up a decent excuse. And we have three BBC holiday excuses for all our listeners. Use one of the three following excuses when travelling. We're going on a scientific research project on the effect of lying on a beach for ten hours

before drinking cheap cocktails until 3am. Or we are visiting relatives, great-uncle Quintus and auntie Flavia, who run a lovely little taverna in a suburb of Naples called Pompeii or something. Haven't seen them in a while, be nice to catch up. It's been a bit awkward between them since she found his stash of pornography

in a mosaic on the spare room wall. Not enough gags about erotic Roman frescoes these days. Or excuse three is we are going to teach our children about biodiversity and the circadian rhythms of Mother Nature by taking them to Florida, to a special park where a couple of mice, a dog, a duck, chipmunks, fairies and wicked witches all cohabit in perfect harmony.

There's your excuses for our holidays. Felicity, JVT, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Fain Thrombosis, said this week that everything is relative and the other bit of relativity is whether you're, when you go abroad, jumping into a pond with one shark in it or jumping into

a pond with a hundred sharks in it, it changes the likelihood that you're going to get bitten. Now, you, Felicity, those are his exact words. That is a direct quote from the Deputy Chief Medical Officer. You are from Australia where an estimated 83% of people are eaten by sharks every year. And, of course, yourself, you're a qualified shark station.

What is the exact likelihood of getting bitten by a shark in a pond? Oh, heaps. Right, heaps. pond? Oh, heaps. Right, heaps. Just make me one, a hundred sharks in a pond. Has there ever been a hundred sharks in a pond? I don't think it constitutes a pond anymore after a hundred sharks. And surely they'd start fighting each other. Actually, I would argue that once you get beyond 50 sharks in a pond, you actually reduce the chances of being eaten just amid the confusion. Just by saying that, there are now 500,000 people heading to an airport saying,

well, Geoff Norcott said it was all right. We are all right. No-one has ever said that. Is there anything the government should be doing to be a bit more clear in its advice to the people, do you think? Yeah, I don't know, man. They just riff it out. It's like doing new material for them at the Edinburgh Friends. They throw out a line, it gets a reaction, they build on it, and by the end of the week, they'll have a policy. Yes, Britain's faced fresh holiday traffic light.

You may go. No, please don't go. You've gone anyway, but can you please obviously not go? Bishmozzlement this week. The most tedious global crisis in human history dodges onwards and the government's been criticised once again for offering the kind of clarity you would expect from a warthog trying to explain the rules of Monopoly. The amber list of countries was wrongly assumed to refer to the amber of traffic lights.

In fact, it means amber in the style of one of those pieces of amber containing a trapped insect that has not gone anywhere for 20 million years. Moving on now, a question involving Grant Shapps, who said this fragmentation, confusion and overcomplication. What aspect of national life was he talking about that is now set for a major overhaul? I don't know, but it does sound like the beginning of a song in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, doesn't it?

Fragmentation, confusion and overcomplication. This is their bringing British Rail back, aren't they? Correct, yes. Very exciting. But they're calling it Great British Rail, so it's better. What I'm looking forward to now is the government is going to have all sorts of fun, because they can rename everything. So the Flying Scotsman can be the Flying Union of Great Britain

and Northern Ireland, to rub the noses of the SNP in it. You can maybe rename First Great Western as Cecil Rhodes for the snowflakes. I mean, it's just going to be so much fun. It's going to make absolutely no difference to the trains, but it'll be fun. I mean, a lot of people gave me stick that last general election, voting Conservative. They said, you should be voting for a socialist.

I was like, I am voting for a socialist. They're just doing it by stealth. Who knew? Not only that, they've, you should be voting for a socialist. I was like, I am voting for a socialist. They're just doing it by stealth. Not only that, they've gone super northern. They've gone northern as well. Boris now calls Rishi our kid. I like our kid. He's putting gravy on his eggs, Benedict. I mean, it is...

The thing is, it's absolutely true to say that, you know, I know a lot of Corbynites say Corbyn won the argument, but on trains, he did win the argument. And this isn't... A lot of Conservative voters feel like this. I would say that it's much easier for the right to track left on economics than it is for the left to track right on culture. Now, I don't actually know what that means, but I've read it somewhere.

And it felt like something I should say on the news quiz, yeah. Yeah. It felt good. Geoff, I remember when I heard Ken Loach say, pity is a right-wing construct, and I'm like, I better say that somewhere. And is this sort of reorganisation of the railways, which basically means that there's going to be a state-owned body

managing the infrastructure, setting timetables and the prices, but private companies still running most of the trains. Is this the idea, then, that we can blame both privatisation and state ownership simultaneously and call for both more and less of both? Absolutely. It's just profoundly centrist all round, isn't it? Because they've got the wheeze that they're going to encourage private companies to run a better train service.

So that's bound to work. Yes, the UK's rail network is to be rebranded Great British Railways as part of a restructuring process intended to simplify the franchise system and rebuild passenger numbers. The restructuring aims to avoid further chaotic timetable changes. Another much-loved British tradition falling by the wayside. Is nothing sacred in this country anymore. We can't live without

our chaotic timetable changes. Thank you Brussels. Boris Johnson said the plan would, quote, deliver a rail system the country can be proud of. Now, let's just take this one thing at a time, Prime Minister. Can we aim for delivering a rail system that doesn't grind to

a halt when a pigeon craps on it at the wrong angle? That's why I like being called a snowflake. It's like snowflakes can stop the entire rail system in this country. I'm powerful. Well, that brings us to the end of this part of the show. The scores currently, Team Amber

List have seven, and Team Amber Fuddled also have seven. Just some breaking news coming through. The International Foundation for True Crime TV Shows and Podcasts has issued a plea for more crimes to be committed. A spokesperson said there are almost no remaining crimes

that have not had some form of TV or audio documentary made about them. We're basically down to an eight-part TV series about an unlicensed motorbike. Meanwhile, the new multi-billion dollar podcast network Bandwagon has announced the launch of Uncommitted, a new false crime podcast about the crimes that could have and maybe even should have happened but never did. Where nobody was ever found, no-one went missing

and things ostensibly and actually stayed the same as they were. But why? Moving across the hemispheres, now this question is for Team Amber Fuddled and Felicity. What things that are used to living on hills and mountains are now demanding a level playing field? They're going to do some kind of deal where they import more Australian and New Zealand lamb and beef

because they're going to do a zero tariff thing. It's about animals. Yeah, it's a trade deal. It's very exciting. We're going to sign a trade deal with Australia. And it turns out it'll be... One of the funny things about Brexit is the fact that Australia has become an adjective for fantastic. So, you know, an Australian style point system is a good thing. Australian type

Brexit deal. I mean, with the exception of Australian sportsmanship, which means cheating, clearly. You're a teammate. So we're going to have this deal with the Australians, and it's a great thing because it lets the Prime Minister have a photo shoot with the Australian Prime Minister in June when everyone comes here for the G7. The problem is we've just realised that it will wipe out sheep farming in this country.

But it strikes me that's a small price to pay for the 0.02% of GDP we will gain over 15 years from this fantastic deal. Obviously, I'm passionate about Australian farmers having more demand, especially given the fact that lots of parts of the country have been in drought for 20 years. But all I can think about is after a 24-hour flight from Sydney to Heathrow, I smell terrible. So I don't want to eat day-old lamb, you know? I'd rather eat a Welsh sheep off a megabus from Aberystwyth. That's how I feel. I mean, I would say, have you tried flying after freezing yourself? I mean, they said, you know, British farmers are worried, right? And that might be legitimate in this case, but has there ever been a time when British farmers weren't worried? Do you ever remember any headline going, actually, British farmers are really relaxed about this?

It's one of the absolute mainstays of our national news cycle. British farmers are worried. The NHS's moment's from extinction. Chocolate is both good and bad for you. Meghan and Harry have done another interview about how much they hate publicity. This is just what we do. I'm confused about what a farmer even is anymore. Go down to these farmers markets now and

some of the produce on sale there, I don't know, it doesn't seem very farmy. To me, there was a guy selling fudge down there. How do you grow fudge? Well done.

There's a lot to talk about, a level playing field in these trade deals. How important is that level playing field? I would refer you to sport and the famous rugby match between the 1997 New Zealand All Blacks and the Biggles weighed under nines. It was played on one of the levelest playing fields you could wish to see, but it didn't really make it a fair contest. We've got the same problem here, that the British farmers can't compete with the size and power and flair of the Australian farmers.

I mean, if they're flying that beef and lamb, what is it, 8,000 miles, and they can compete on price point, I think we might be paying quite a lot of money for our beef. Do you know what I mean? If all the British beef has got to do is get a West Coast mainline train down to London. Although they

are really expensive, those trains. Let's do the deal. Yes, British farmers are up in arms about rumours that the government is planning a trade deal with Australia that would make food and farming imports cheaper than their UK counterparts. Very difficult for UK farmers to compete

with the size and scale of Australian farms and the fact that, thanks to the Australian climate, their meat has been deliciously slow-cooked for its entire life. Opponents of the deal say this is far from being an improvement on life in the EU and is in fact just a way of watching the farming industry go the other way down the plug hole. Felicity, another question for you. Which country has beaten old foes England in the

who can produce the world's most plastic waste ashes or as they're also known, the melted remnants? I take pleasure in any time we beat the Brits, and this one is us. So pretty stoked, guys. UK are fourth in the world for the most single-use plastic. Australia came first. Suck it.

Yeah. I mean, fourth isn't bad for Britain, is it? That's just off the podium with a bit more lottery funding, maybe, you know, in the next Olympic cycle we can... That's waiting for someone to get disqualified for cheating behind the scenes. You're waiting for someone to go, oh, they use that plastic more than once.

Come on, England, you're in. Another plastic-related question. This can go to uh eleanor and jeff who or what has been heading off to turkey to lay around in the sun get burned and end up in the sea well this we've been um we've been trying to help stimulate the turkish economy i think quite um helpfully by sending lots of our plastic there and it does feel like one of those jobs it's like paying someone to deep clean your oven you go morally i should be doing this okay we should be getting our own rid of our own plastic but you go you know what it's quite cheap maybe we're

helping out trickle down economics but they showed a photo it was a very grim photo of all this plastic that had burned but then somebody was holding up something that had evidently survived the burning process and it was a tesco cheese wrapper i thought isn't that incredible we already knew that was the most durable plastic in the world it's basically like the cockroach of the plastic world it survived a nuclear apocalypse i think obviously this is bad news for everybody who takes the job of separating their recycling seriously because you're there, you're putting in the effort you're washing your yoghurt

pots, your little soup containers and you bloody put in all that effort and to think, you're kind of going what will this become in its new life? Will it become a garden chair in an old folks' home, maybe? Or, you know, some costume jewellery for a reality TV star,

something like that. No, it's just going to get stuck on a child's foot on a Turkish beach. That's what's going to happen to it. Flip-flop. Yes, Greenpeace said that UK plastic waste is being exported to Turkey and then illegally dumped and burned. 40% or 210,000 tonnes of the UK's plastic waste exports were sent to Turkey last year.

Turkey has announced plans to ban imports of plastic waste. And it's a rather disappointing revelation that when we chuck stuff lovingly into our recycling bins, it doesn't disappear into the magical greenification grove where happy elves centaurs and unicorns soothingly remodel our discarded bottles of their hands and hooves into artisan puppy blankets and tree trousers to keep our forests warm and snug in winter but you can see then the attraction can't you you, just having one bin labelled Turkey. The time you'd save. But then people would go,

well, where's the chicken bin, where's the lamb bin? Just to show what the world has become, though, that it's now easier for a Tesco cheddar wrapper to go on holiday to Turkey than actual tourists. The scores are now 10 points all. And we're going to look to the future. Now, are you generally for or against the future? Overrated. So this question can go to Felicity and Anand on Team Amber Fuddled.

Why, according to a report, could the UK resemble Italy by the end of this decade? Well, if anyone is likely to go to Italy, well, obviously not, but if they do in the future, this is just a reminder, speaking Spanish in an Italian accent is not the same as speaking Italian. Sadly, this isn't about lazing around in the beautiful sunshine eating fantastic food, is it?

It's not, no. This is about economic decline. Yes. So we're about to become like Italy because we're about to become loads poorer if we don't do anything, so we'll get poorer. And over the next ten years, we're going to be closer to Italy than to Germany, I think terms of the nature of our economy which is something to look forward to

I mean it did come from the resolution foundation and it's fair to say that you know if you're on a stag do they're not the most upbeat ones are they if you're looking at what the weather's going to be like the revenue they're all it's overcast out. You're like, it'll clear up. And I, look, maybe I'm deluded, but I just want to look at the positives. Unemployment is down. The GDP for this year has been upgraded. I mean, the fact that we managed to grow the economy in March by 2%.

I had no idea that schoolchildren buying Milky Bars had that much of an effect on GDP, but evidently it does. Evidently, those little scotch eggs we bought because we could picnic with one person, that has turbocharged the economy. And I just want to speak up for the economy of this country. Consumer resilience during this pandemic has been our generation's equivalent of the Blitz.

We have. We fought through. We shut our curtains, but then we opened them again Just to make sure we could see the Amazon geezer And I think I think our desire to buy A pointless tat we don't need is something To be proud of I think it might be

What the Resolution Foundation needs Is a rebrand, they could be the Great British Foundation And I think they'd probably be a lot more effective. I'm into it. Straight away, I'm into it. So, Geoff, you can see in future years, you're sitting there with your grandchildren on your knees, saying, what did you do in the great Covid economic war? And you say, well, tears well in your eyes,

when I bought a 42-inch plasma screen television for the bathroom. Absolutely. And your grandmother bought a glitter gun. We did what we could. Everybody did what they could. I know the UK is supposed to be a very polite place, but is anyone here worried that Italy can hear us talking about them like this? They're too happy to care. It's a bit rude, isn't it, Eleanor? You could be like Italy and they're like, hey! Yeah.

Like there's a girl down the road from me at home who my mum used to say, don't want to end up like her and I'm not going to say her name now because I want to go home sometimes. Was she Italian or a slut? That is a game show that really should never be broadcast. And also, when it comes to being more like Italy, if it gets us the four World Cup wins that Italy has, I think 99% of the population of this country will be right on board.

And also, you know, in Italy, if you see somebody on a moped, you think, young lovers, here, you think, all right, put my mobile phone in my pocket. Another question looking to the future. This can go to Geoff and Eleanor. What could be banned from 2025? This is technology. This is boilers.

Yes. Yes, gas boilers. I mean, those are two quite different answers, technology is boilers yes yes gas boilers i mean those are two quite different answers technology all technology could be banned what's it done for us technology yeah i mean one thing about like if it's going to be i understand that they say we should have hydrogen boilers i mean one of the things about gas is that you can smell it right if there's a leak we know what gas smells like i don't really know what hydrogen smells like. I've got no idea. It could smell like aftershave. I just simply don't know. Could we not use a gas where if we can't smell it,

like if we used helium, then you'd immediately know, wouldn't you? You'd go, can this smell gas? Yes, it can smell gas. I think this could be quite cool, couldn't it? You know, we have these new all-singing, all-dancing nuclear power stations that replace the old ones and stuff like that. The only thing is, in this country, you know for a fact that it's going to be the landlord of Matt Hancock's local

who gets the contract to supply them. And they won't work. Well, I mean, we are looking at new forms of nuclear power station, little miniature ones, micro-nuclear. I think the government's plan is to have a nuclear reactor in every home by the end of the decade. I think when I read about these mini-nuclear reactors, I do sometimes wake up in the middle of the night,

sit bolt upright in a cold sweat and just scream, mini-nuclear reactors, what could possibly go wrong with that? Have you lunatics never watched a disaster movie that begins with an obviously doomed idea that everyone says is awesome? No, I mean, you know, we need more renewable energy forms. Problem is, solar power,

there's obvious problems in this country, particularly over the last two months with solar power. I don't know if James Dyson could have found a way to harness the power of drizzle. That would be a good way that we could... But we don't need Greenpeace or Extinction Rebellion. What we need is dads from the 1970s, OK? They were

obsessed with energy usage in the house, weren't they? You just need dads patrolling the area. You turn that immersion on, who's messed with a thermostat? And we, bless their hearts, we thought that they were just tight gits, but actually they were forerunners for carbon neutrality If the International

Energy Agency has said this week that no new fossil fuel boilers should be sold from 2025 onwards, if the world is to achieve net zero emissions by the middle of this century, what part of the green industrial revolution, which is very much like the industrial revolution, but angrier by the middle of this century, were part of the Green Industrial Revolution, which is very much like the Industrial Revolution, but angrier.

That's one for all the Hulk fans. They pay their licence fees too. They deserve the odd joke. And also, peat will soon be dud. Garden centres will be banned from selling peat compost following a spate of unsolved murders thousands of years ago. That brings us to the end of this week's news quiz

and the final scores are Team Amberlist have 14, Team Amberfuddle, this week's winners, with 15. Thank you very much for listening. Thanks to our panellists, Eleanor Tiernan and Geoff Norcott, Anand Menon and Felicity Ward. I've been Andy Zaltzman. Goodbye. Taking part in the news quiz were Anand Menon, Eleanor Tiernan, Felicity Ward and Geoff Norcott.

In the chair was Andy Zaltzman, and additional material was written by Alice Fraser, Max Davis, Rajiv Kharia and Sachandrika Chakrabarti. The producer was Richard Morris and it was a BBC Studios production. Thank you.