Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The Now Show - 25th November

Episode Date: December 23, 2022

Hugh Dennis and Glenn Moore (standing in for Steve Punt) present the week via topical stand-up and sketches. They're joined by Alex Kealy, Athena Kugblenu and Ignacio Lopez.Athena Kugblenu looks at Shamima Begum’s citizenship appeal, Alex Kealy walks us through crises in cryptocurrency and Ignacio Lopez is an England fan singing about the meaning of the World Cup.The show was written by Steve Punt and the cast with additional material from Simon Alcock, Alfie Packham, Vicky Richards and Jade Gebbie.Voice actors: Jason Forbes and Roisin O'MahonySound: David Thomas Executive Producer: Richard Morris Producer: Sasha Bobak Production Coordinator: Sarah NichollsA BBC Studios Production

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. All day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. I'm Hugh Dennis. And because Steve Punt has inconveniently got COVID, I'm Glenn Moore. And with us are Alex Keeley, Athena Koblenu, Roshino Marni, Jason Forbes, Ignacio Lopez.

And this is... The Now Show! After the frenzied excitement of July to October, the news seems to be trying to return to normal, only to find that normal just means going back to the same old stuff we have heard a million times. Even the Brexit debate re-emerged this week, like the Tory party's unwashed comfort blanket.

Yes, the Sunday Times reported plans for a Swiss-style arrangement with the EU. Before you could say shameless opportunism, Nigel Farage popped up saying that he will simply not accept any deal which allows the free movement of people across international borders. The EU quickly responded

by saying that they will simply not accept any deal which allows the free movement of Farage across international borders. The original Brexit debate may have been characterised by nostalgia but if the resurgence of arguments about our future relationship with the EU tell us anything,

it's that we have now moved on to nostalgia for the nostalgia of the original Brexit debate. Brexiteers had soon worked themselves back up into their state of perma-fury. Jacob Rees-Mogg stamped his feet so hard he inadvertently fracked under his own garden. Which you will have enjoyed. While the Prime Minister had to make a speech claiming that Brexit was... he inadvertently fracked under his own garden. Which you will have enjoyed. While the Prime Minister had to make a speech claiming that Brexit was... Already delivering enormous opportunities for the country. He didn't spell out what these were, although we do know at least two. First, that lorry drivers now have the opportunity

to use the hard shoulder of the M20 as a toilet without attracting police attention. And secondly, that while productivity is generally down, we are producing conservative prime ministers at three times the normal speed. Mr Sunak also pointed out that the UK will have the ability to pursue trade deals with the world's fastest growing economies. Sadly, according to the Statista website, the world's fastest growing economies are currently Guyana, Iraq, Ireland and Kuwait. If you think trade with Iraq and Kuwait is going to benefit the UK economy more than trade with Germany and France, then it's possible you're not clear on the difference

between economies that are fast growing and economies that are big. The next four fastest growing economies are Saudi Arabia, Colombia, Panama and Vietnam. Although, to be fair, Colombia's leading export is highly valued in the City of London. Just eight years after the Scottish independence referendum... The Supreme Court has turned down Nicola Sturgeon's request for a second Scottish independence referendum. Her reaction was swift. I now intend to move on to Plan B

and treat the next general election as a de facto referendum of independence. And if that fails? I then intend to move on to Plan C, whereby if my pinned tweet reading Scotland is cool, sunglasses, smiley face, thumbs up gets more than 1,000 likes, this shall constitute a binding plebiscite

in full and final settlement of the question in perpetuity and no returns. Even the showbiz news all seems very familiar. The Last Legs Adam Hills has held a surgery for Matt Hancock's constituents in Suffolk while their sitting MP is in the jungle. Maybe entertainers should just run everything.

We could put Paddy McGuinness in charge of negotiating with the rail unions. No strikey, me likey. Or we could let RuPaul decide on Scottish independence. Ha! Scotland, just sashay away. The US also seems to be going back to the future with lots of stuff we've heard before. 53 years after landing on the moon,

NASA's Artemis mission arrived there this week to test the safety and protocols for regular manned flights. Although strangely, no astronauts are involved. Instead, there are three mannequins on board, along with a Sean the Sheep toy strapped into a seat and a free-floating

Snoopy, which means that Houston has got a problem because he ought to be Velcroed to the roof of his kennel. Ultimately, the point is to build a permanent base on the moon as a staging post to get Elon Musk to Mars, and then once he's there, dismantle the staging post and pretend we can't hear him.

To give the expedition more purpose in the short term, FIFA are encouraging the moon to put in a bid to host the World Cup. It's not very hospitable. You can't drink there. It's 250 degrees Fahrenheit in the day, but it does have a relatively good human rights record. Not to be outdone, the European Space Agency

also announced big space plans this week, laying out experimental proposals to set up giant solar farms in space, which could send electricity straight down to the surface. If nothing else, Bish should quickly tell us whether we're alone in space or not. People of Earth, we demand a

planning consultation. Those ugly monstrosities are ruining our view of the Orion Nebula. Of course, what the ESA are doing there, albeit at a very early stage, is trying to do something ambitious to cut carbon emissions. The rest of the world, as usual, decided not to bother, as the COP27 summit ended with nothing really accomplished.

Told you. Thank you, Greta. Meanwhile, Donald Trump announced another run for the White House, partly for his own ego, but partly so he can return the nuclear launch codes he's had hidden behind a kitchen cupboard at Mar-a-Lago for the last two years. Unsurprisingly, it was all a rerun of 2016. He still wants to make America great again. And he still thinks the 2020 election was stolen, which means, I guess, it could be with all the other stuff in his cellar. I was perfectly entitled to keep those papers. And if the FBI wanted to know what they were,

all they had to do was look on eBay. His speech was described as low energy and lacklustre and that was by his supporters. If he gets the nomination, he'll be 78 by the time of the election, which, against the expected competition, makes him the youth vote. Finally, in a world full of news that we've heard before, we learned this week that Tesco have joined Lidl and Aldi in introducing egg rationing,

something we haven't seen since World War II. And it's caused by a combination of energy costs and bird flu. To avoid it, free-range birds have been brought inside and told to socially distance, avoid contact... ..and have no social gatherings. Especially hen parties. Come on, it took nearly a week to write that. It will cost egg farmers a lot of extra starving costs, of course,

as it takes a lot of people to fit the little masks over the beaks. So the industry is taking it very seriously, prompting many sniffly men to ask... Hang on, how come flu is taken seriously when chickens have it? Well, despite the shortage in his speech to the CBI Kiss, Hang on, how come flu is taken seriously when chickens have it? Well, despite the shortage in his speech to the CBI Kiss, Starmer's ruled out bringing in more foreign eggs, insisting we should be focusing on the eggs that are already here.

The resurgence of bird flu also means that this could be the most low-key Black Friday ever. Instead of... We've got this 50-inch Super 4K Ultra HD digital TV for just £899. This year, it's... We've got a dozen free-range large speckled available at 0% Finance. And as Christmas approaches, we may have to face the age-old philosophical question. Which came first, the chicken or the egg shortage?

Now, here to talk about the pressures we put on teenagers, because it's not all just GCSEs and Alco Pops, it's Athena Kublenou. CHEERING This week, Shamima Begum launched her appeal against the revocation of her British citizenship. It was a move because, as a 15-year-old girl, she smuggled herself into Syria to join the caliphate

previously known as ISIS. Flaming heck. In my day, if I wanted to annoy my parents, I just listened to Limp Bizkit. People argue that she knew what she was doing. 15-year-olds do not know what they are doing. Have you seen TikTok? Or been to your local park?

They still smoke menthols. They listen to music called mumble rap. They watch Love Island. We couldn't have done that in my day. During ISIS, I mean. I wouldn't have been able to get myself to Syria in the 80s. I'd have needed to borrow a 30p bus fare from my mum first. Can you imagine?

Can I have 30p for the bus? What for? Uh, to go to the cinema. You're going to the cinema? Yes, I am. Then why have you got so much ammunition? She did not know what she was doing. If 15-year-olds were of any use, we'd be using them, wouldn't we?

When last you seen a 15-year-old drive a bus or provide early years childcare provision? If you got on a plane and a captain sounded like this... Oh, my days, you lot are clearly living your best lives going to Ibiza. I'm going to keep it 100 and tell you we might reach a bit late because the turbulence is a bit shifty still.

And we know turbulence is long, but we'll get there around, like, 5, 5.30, 6-ish, fam. Date us, you don't know. Let's have a look at our teenage GP. What? I had an appointment to see you at 3pm about my arthritis. Oh, old people, man. You look so annoying.

This isn't about whether 15-year-olds know what they are doing. We already know they don't know what they are doing. As demonstrated by Ms. Bagram. Imagine rebelling against your family and their rules by joining a caliphate which has, I would argue, stricter rules.

How strict are your parents when ISIS starts to look attractive? sydd wedi cael, byddaf yn ystyried, rheoliadau mwy strych. Sut mae'r rhain yn strych pan mae Isis yn dechrau edrych yn ddiddorol? Yn llwyr â'r gwartheg ffoddwyd yn gweithredu. Dydw i ddim yn amgylcheddol bod y Llywodraeth wedi cymryd ei gyhoedd. Roeddent wedi cymryd ei gyhoedd o lawer o bobl yn y genedlaeth Gwynfrod sydd wedi cymryd y ddynion o beidio â chyflawni eu pasborthau. Nid yw'n unig iawn cael ei gyhoeddi o rywun sy'n ymuno â grwp terorol sy'n fad. Fel bobl sydd wedi bod yma am ddegau, renewing their passports. It's not exactly a stretch to take it away from someone who joins a mad separatist terrorist group. Like people who had been here for decades, they were going to the Home Office and telling them

they were definitely British, and the Home Office basically said, Computer says no. Began's parents were born in Bangladesh, and on account of that truth, the government decided she could apply for nationhood there. Doesn't that scare you? It scares me.

But to make it a bit less scary, I'm going to start saying I'm from Barbados. Barbados is nice. If I'm not going to be British, then I'm going to go where the beaches are. I don't agree with taking away Shamima Begum's citizenship, but how do you punish a kid who runs away to Syria? Take away their Xbox.

I think discipline is the only thing that is going to save these kids now. I remember when it was first reported they joined ISIS. Her poor parents gave a really moving press conference begging all the girls to come home. It was really emotional. But I couldn't help thinking, if that had been my mum... I dare you to come home!

She would have been so mean and aggressive. ISIS would have been like... Can we do a swap, please? We want her. She would have been so mean and aggressive, ISIS would have been like, can we do a swap please? We want her, she'd be handy. Saying you can't be British if you're a criminal means I don't know who our current prisoners cheer for at the Olympics. There's nothing un-British about criminality, like have you seen the vast majority of modern history? Telling someone they're too naughty to be British is like telling a cat it's too standoffish to be feline we live in the United Kingdom not utopia

you can tank the economy for no reason and keep your citizenship and you even get to keep your lifelong expenses you should be able to be a bloody stupid naive senseless adolescent and keep yours too we've got a British person stranded somewhere

who was the only teenager in the world looking forward to hearing the words... Just wait until I get you home. Athena Caprero! So, Eurovision changed its rules this week, saying it's had problems with vote rigging, making it the perfect event for people who are not interested in football but still want a bit of corruption in their lives.

Also, for those not interested in football, the World Cup offered plenty of off-pitch entertainment. Budweiser, the vast US beer conglomerate, having paid millions in sponsorship money, were abruptly told at the very last minute that beer was banned in stadiums. Although, FIFA

president Gianni Infantino tried to cheer fans up by showing that you don't have to be drunk in order to rant incoherently. Today, I feel gay. I feel Qatar. And I feel migrant worker. I understand the discrimination members of the LGBTQ community face. He understands it, he said, because he had ginger hair and freckles as a child. Now, the relevance of that isn't clear.

The only way people with ginger hair and freckles are discriminated against in Qatar is that it's 29 degrees in November. As the games began, the media tried to focus on regular World Cup stuff, introducing us to the tournament mascot, Laib, which in English translates as super-skilled player. A description they seem to have taken from Matt Hancock's LinkedIn bio.

If you haven't seen him, Laib looks like the Michelin Man after he had a heart attack and came back as a ghost. Which isn't surprising, as he's said to come from the mascotverse, a sort of extended universe for mascots. All the previous World Cup mascots

actually made an appearance during the opening ceremony, including ours from 1966. This is a very brave move on someone's part. Getting World Cup Willy to make an appearance in Qatar is really asking for trouble. After some first game shocks,

Argentina, beaten by the Saudi Arabians at football, and Germany, beaten by Japan, also football, it, sorry, at football. And Germany beaten by Japan, also football. It all got quite serious. The England camper confirmed there'll be no more wag visits until next week. Yes, and a sign that the local culture's really rubbing off on Gareth Southgate. Women have been banned from entering the men's hotel.

England caving in over the one-love armbands reportedly dismayed Blackpool's Jake Daniels, who this year became the first British footballer to come out as openly gay in 32 years. Making the Qatari Authority's worst nightmare, Jake Daniels holding a Jack Daniels. Perhaps the most noticeable change FIFA have made, though, is that over the first five games of the tournament,

the total amount of time added on came to 85 minutes, just five minutes short of a whole other game. FIFA have decided that there's too much time wasting, which is ironic considering how much of Budweiser's time they're wasting. This new policy, however, does beg the question, who gets to decide what constitutes a waste? And now the referee is signalling that this is going to be referred to VAR. Is that last shot a goal?

Looks like he's trying to decide if it counts as a waste of time. Was there an offside position in the build-up? No, it's just crap. This whole game's been a waste of time so far. We could be looking at a full 90 minutes' time added on. That's great for the England fans. It took them 88 minutes to get in. Thank God that doesn't happen in politics.

They'd think it was an advantage. Since the election of 2019, we have stuck to almost none of the commitments we made in our manifesto because we have been concentrating on our own internal strife. So I should like to apologise to the electorate. For almost three years, we have been wasting

your time, and as a result, this time will therefore be added on at the end. The next election will be in 2028. British politicians have largely kept out of the World Cup controversies, although Labour leader Keir Starmer said The World Cup doesn't belong to FIFA

and it doesn't belong to the host nation. Which is kind of an odd thing for a lawyer to say because legally it very much does belong to FIFA. That's why it's called the FIFA Trademark World Cup and why FIFA, like the IOC, expect to be able to march into a host nation, override their tax laws for a month, and walk away with a vast sack full of money.

The fact Qatar's making FIFA's life so difficult is actually quite entertaining, and you feel like they deserve each other. After all, what is the alternative? As soon as it's over, we're back to the doom and gloom of austerity and seasonal rail strikes. But are rail strikes necessarily doom and gloom anyway? If Netflix seasonal rom-coms have taught us anything,

is that a bit of unplanned disruption could lead to a Christmas miracle? Oh, no. I'm a busy corporate woman on my way to an important meeting. But due to train strikes, I'm now stuck waiting for a replacement bus in this small but very quaint and Christmassy town. Well, hello there, miss.

I see you're a stranger in town because remarkably I know every single person here. Do you need directions from this humble train driver on to picket line? Oh, a handsome stranger with a rustic charm that comes from him doing some sort of vaguely manual job. Despite his stubborn need to take industrial action at a time that is personally inconvenient,

I am in love. I'm also in love, despite a metropolitan lack of consideration for the rights of workers. Let's get engaged. Yes, and fear not. As big city girl boss, I pay for all the expenses. Oh, it's no problem, honestly. I'm on 80 grand a year.

What? For driving a train? Why? What do you do? I'm FIFA's Deputy Director General of Marketing, Communications and Tournament Experience. Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy. Wow. Do you fancy a Budweiser? I've got a suitcase full here. Merry Christmas. Do you fancy a Budweiser? I've got a suitcase full here. Merry Christmas.

Now here to walk us through crises in cryptocurrency, it's Alex Keeley! Hello, my name's Alex Keeley and I'll be talking to you about cryptocurrency. Don't panic, I'm not here to ask you to invest, and I'm not trying to scam you. Although, to be fair, that is exactly what someone trying to scam you would say. As a side note, it is a fantastic time to get in on the ground floor of my new digital currency, Keelscoin. Come speak to me about it after the show. Put simply, imagine you put all your money into a bank, only the bank is entirely run by 21-year-olds,

and they're all wearing t-shirts of an internet meme that you don't understand. And then you ask if you can withdraw your money from the bank, and then they tell you no, because they put all your money into Updog. And you say, what's Updog? And they say, nothing much, what's the matter with you? And they all laugh together for absolutely ages.

And then you realise you've lost your life savings. So you can see the appeal. At the centre of the story this month was FTX, the world's second largest crypto exchange. It seems that they secretly use clients' deposits to make a bunch of investments that went horribly wrong. This led to panicked customers trying to withdraw all of their funds from it at once.

FTX had previously been valued at $32 billion, with the wealth of the founder, Sam Bankman, freed, crashing 94% from $16 billion to around $1 billion. with the wealth of the founder Sam Bankman Freed crashing 94% from $16 billion to around a billion. Yes, you heard me correctly. The man at the centre of this financial scandal is called Sam Bankman Freed. Bankman Freed, that's like if the captain of the Titanic was called Jim Horny for icebergs. As of the 20th of November, court documents show that the various divisions of Bankman Freed's companies had $1.2 billion in cash, but owed $3.1 billion to its top 50 creditors. To put that into context, Liz Truss was at home reading the papers this week, shaking her head and going, oh, what a mess.

The new appointed boss of FTX, John Ray, has said, Never in my career have I seen such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here. in my career have I seen such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here. This is not ideal because John Ray was the man tasked with sorting out Enron when it collapsed in 2001 after it was discovered that the energy company's accounting techniques

were essentially two parts interpretive dance and one part good old-fashioned lying. Basically Enron was to fraud what Lionel Messi is to football and to be fair also fraud. He's very good at that too. I'm not watching the Qatar World Cup on principle but at least I can spend my

evenings enjoying the sheer flair and creativity expressed by Lionel Messi in his 2008 tax return. Sam Bankman-Fried or SBF as he's often called has been followed around for the past six months by the author Michael Lewis the man who exposed the 2008 housing bubble in his book, The Big Short.

That has to have rung some alarm bells, surely. Like, if Hercule Poirot has been staying at the same country house as you for the last fortnight, your grandad probably didn't die of natural causes. To be fair, Sam Backman-Fried's confidence that he could get away with this is impressive. Like, I'm not even that confident as a performer. I think the only time I've been that proud of my performing abilities

was in GCSE Drama when I was asked to do an encore. They called it a retake, but I think, you know, it still... It still counts on some level. Like, a lot of tech bros, Sam Bankman-Fried being a business maverick basically bores down to a young man who wears a scruffy hoodie instead of a suit. It's like, well, that doesn't make you a genius. It's such a cliche. And also, that's so annoying because whenever I do that,

it's never Alex is a pioneer in financial technology, but always, why have you ruined another funeral? Much has been made of the fact that the outwardly charitable Bankman Freed ran FTX from his luxury $40 million penthouse in the Bahamas, along with nine polyamorous roommates. That they were into polyamory, that should have been the clue right there. What's more of a scam than open relationships, right? Yeah, we all sleep with other people and we're all completely fine about it.

No one gets jealous. I'm not crying. You're crying. You're crying. If people are surprised that this happened, the fact that FTX was incorporated in notorious low-regulation tax haven, the Bahamas, suggests an element of shadiness. Like, my rule is the warmer your corporate HQ, the more unethical the business. Monaco, the Cayman Islands, hell. The exception that proves the rule, the Isle of Man. Beyond this scandal cryptocurrency has a larger problem. Its limited uses don't really justify its inflated value. It's a symptom of speculation that took off after 2008 when instead of addressing the root causes of the financial crisis,

we just bailed out the banks and stuck interest rates at 0% for over a decade to keep the economy on life support. Any boomers listening might be thinking, bloody Gen Z and millennials, well, my generation would never invest early in an asset that rockets in value despite not increasing in quality just because the supply is constrained, benefiting those who happen to buy it first. Let's just quickly check newspaper headlines when house prices go down 1%.

Brits hit with housing misery. Is negative equity coming for your kids? Semi-detached from reality. Terraces of terror. I'm not saying we shouldn't have a financial system. It's just it needs effective regulation that spurs proper, productive investment and not destructive speculation.

Basically, my relationship with capitalism is a bit like my relationship with death. I'm not a fan, but I think it's sort of inevitable, and my parents are a lot closer to it than I am. And on that note, in the last few minutes since I've been speaking to you, the value of Kiehl's coin has gone up by 350%.

Incredible, right? So speak to me after the show, or follow me on twitter at alex keely if you'd like to make an investment in your future especially if you're a millennial or younger what have you got to lose the value of keels coin can go down as well as up please consult an independent financial advisor before investing all your money into a brand new currency that you heard about on a comedy show the now show takes no responsibility for any losses incurred as a result of investment in keels coin thanks very much that was alex keely all right so

now we come to the audience question. And with it being Black Friday this week, and some Qataris now wishing they hadn't ever bid for the World Cup, we thought this was an ideal week to ask a question about buyers' regret. So we've asked the audience, have you ever bought something you later regretted? What did you buy and why did you regret it? In 2005, I bought an A to Z for my brand-new car.

The next day, I crashed, and as I watched the car go up in flames, I remembered my poor A to Z sitting on the passenger seat. That's from Geoff. I'd regret buying the car. Yeah. Have you ever bought something that you'd regretted? Yes, Ronaldo. What would you regret?

A new Toyota RAV4 with keyless car entry. Why did you regret? A new Toyota RAV4 with keyless car entry. Why did you regret it? Because I found that almost everyone could keylessly get into my car. And finally, we have one of the Twitter responses recorded by Steve earlier today from his sick couch at home. I once bought a cheap Thesaurus that was very disappointing. It was really disappointing, the most disappointing. It was a great disappointment.

And now, seeing as it's the World Cup, we have the most international comedian available to us. He's half Welsh, half Spanish, with an Irish mother and half German sister. Ignacio Lopez imagines what some England fans might be missing about the World Cup. Dad, why are we sitting in the garden freezing our nuts off? John Terry Jr., my son, it's the World Cup.

I remember the World Cups where you could be a proper football fan. None of this nonsense everyone else is worrying about. Pure football magic. Are we painting St George's crosses on our faces and bellies again? Get the paint and your sister Wayne Rooney. I'm going to show you the right way to do football. Buzzing with excitement. This is our night.

Watching the game with my mates and my breakfast pint. Calling sick to work. Fry up by the TV. That's what football means to me. Another pint please. Away with the lads. Sing on the bus, the heater's broken. The toilet will not flush, we are gentlemen.

We don't make a fuss. Two nil down, set fire to the bus. It's all right, they just need a pint to calm my nerves. Overflowing pops, ten pound pints. Kicked out of the fan zone for starting's starting a fight, hyped on a statue. I've lost my phone, one for the road because it's coming home. Six pints, missed a pen, never a red card. Don't they know it's football in Qatar?

Eight pints, extra time, check on VAR. They don't know how to do football in Qatar Dad, the match is nearly over, do you think we should call it a day? John Terry Jr, the fun has only just begun Threatening the ref and shouting abuse I'm throwing chairs now, whether we win or lose As to leave the pub, I'm banned on Twitter Setting off a firework

from your platter. It's not racist if you've got legitimate economic concerns. 15 pints, everything is a blur. My boss saw me on TikTok, flicking the V. Jumpers for goalposts, disciplinary. Post-disciplinary, 16 pints, laser pen in the eye. Don't they know it's football in Qatar? 17 pints in jail overnight. They don't know how to do football in Qatar. Son, I got a bit carried away. A 90 to sell has sorted me right out.

You're such an idiot, Dad. Is this why you lost your job and your band from Matches for Life? Maybe Bud Zero isn't such a bad idea in Qatari stadiums after all. Fina Kuklenu, Jason Forbes and Roshino Marni. The show was written by the cast and Steve Punks with additional material from Simon Alcock, Alfie Packham, Vicky Richards and Jade Geby. The song was written and performed by Ignacio Lopez, the producer was Sasha Bobak and it was a BBC Studios production. There will be six minutes added on for time wasted.

Thank you and goodbye! Goodbye!