The News Quiz: Ep 2. Unconditional Discharge In Charge

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Hello, I am Andy Zoltzmann.

I am currently getting a piggyback on the Statue of Liberty, who finally, ahead of Monday's event, dived off her platform in New York Harbour and is currently about 50 miles across the Atlantic swimming back to France.

I could not take it anymore on the...

I fully understand Libby.

There's only so much hypocrisy one the giant symbolic metal statue can take.

Testify.

Let us swim to France where democracy is healthy and happy.

Yep,

just need to bring you up to speed on a few things there Libs.

Right, well whilst Full Metal Janet here decides whether to turn back or plow on, let's get going with this week's News Quiz.

Welcome to the News Quiz.

Our teams this week, following the announcement of a Middle East ceasefire, and ahead of Monday's inauguration, we have Team At Last against Team Not Again.

On Team At Last, we have Sarah Barron and Glenn Moore.

And on Team Not Again, Nish Kumar and the author and journalist Zing Seng.

Now,

obviously, the big news this week is the Middle East ceasefire.

Now, we don't want to address it in full until we're absolutely sure that the ceasefire is holding.

So, we will come back to it properly in, just to be on the realistic side, let's say, 3,500 years' time.

It will take.

So, I have a quick question for our panelists.

I'm a huge fan of peace, harmony, global stability, human happiness, and stuff like that.

So, I have my personal optimismometer.

I'm just asking you, how optimistic out of 10 should I be, Nish?

I think at the moment I would go for a solid two out of ten only because a ceasefire is something we all desperately want and is desperately needed right the key factor here is you can't trust Benjamin Netanyahu.

This is a man who is still going through a trial for fraud and bribery.

The fraud and bribing community are not necessarily two of the most trustworthy communities.

So what I would say is I wouldn't go as far as saying with Benjamin Netanyahu you can trust him as far as you can throw him.

I'd say you can trust him as far as I can throw him.

And I was placed into remedial PE at school.

Zing,

are you hopeful?

Oh, I will put it at about...

two out of ten.

And I think one of the interesting things that has emerged out of the reaction to the supposed ceasefire deal is that Russia has said it welcomes the deal.

But in the words of their spokesperson, let us wait for the process to be fully finalised.

And you know, when Russia is saying steady on, it's a little bit precarious, that's how you know it's kind of up for debate.

I think I'm putting it eight out of ten and going into it with the same misguided optimism as when I think, despite prior experience, hey, maybe today the McDonald's milkshake machine's working.

Well, two American presidents have given credit for the deal to two American presidents.

I'm going to ask our panelists so they can match the president giving the credit with the president that they have credited for that deal.

So the two presidents giving the credit are A, Joe Biden, and B Donald Trump and they've given the credit to one of A Donald Trump and B Joe Biden.

So I'll pass this to you first Sarah, can you match them up?

Yeah, okay, so I'm I'm just gonna like throw it out there Andy I think Trump is going Trump and Biden are going Biden.

Correct.

And I feel like since they're both claiming credit, the rules say we have to progress from the one who smelled it dealt it to the one who denied it supplied it.

Nisha, who are you giving credit for?

I don't know man.

I think I know the answer, but at the same time, these are two very senile men, right?

But unfortunately, given that Reagan was a two-term president, electing someone with serious mental deficiencies is as American as shooting an apple pie.

But

the thing that sort of concerned me, I think, more than anything else this week, was with Biden, he sort of gave his kind of outgoing address and he warned about what he called an oligarchy that's taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence.

He talked about the tech-industrial complex, and he was warning that that's something that's going to happen.

My brother Joey B, it's here.

Like, why are you warning us about something that has happened?

The horse has bolted, my friend.

It felt like he was about to go on to warn us about the dangers of fidget spinners and Justin Bieber.

I think this was a trick question.

I think Donald Trump gave credit to Donald Trump, and I think Joe Biden gave credit to, I quote, Barack Zelensky.

Right, moving on now to a subject we've touched on already, Sarah and Glenn.

Which former peaceful transfer of power sceptic has seen the error of his ways, learned from his mistakes, and will on Monday be peacefully transferred back into power?

Well, I do believe it's Donald Trump.

Can I say, I find it like that British people don't fully understand how huge of an event and spectacle the inauguration is.

Because when you guys get a new prime minister, it's just a handful of people hanging around the gates of Downing Street.

It looks less like a transition of power than it does parents doing school pickup.

I have to say, I'm quite surprised that the village people are performing at the inauguration.

They're performing their hit YMCA, which I think the lead singer has said that the YMCA is not actually a gay anthem at all.

It is in fact totally appropriate to open the inauguration with.

I always preferred the village cricket people, must have.

Well, I read that the village people over the years in total have had 27 members.

Now, I'm not saying he's trying to up the inauguration attendance statistics, but I think that's why they're there.

Aren't the village people like the sugar babes?

Like, they sort of rotate in and out.

You get conscripted.

I was wondering if he was going to ask for the Native American to be replaced with the guy with the horns from the January 6th row.

Don't you also think it's like a weird statement of how crazy everything is at the moment that the so-called leader of the free world likes dancing to the YMCA at public events, but he doesn't ever do do the YMCA dance.

He can't spell it.

I was going to say.

If he did, you know he's doing the C backwards.

I mean, if they're going to choose a 70s disco classic to play at Trump's second inauguration, I'm not sure that YMCA is the most appropriate.

Surely it should be staying alive.

Well, here comes a niche view.

What do the following people have in common?

Okay, Michelle Obama, Keir Starmer, Nish Kumar, Ronnie O'Sullivan, and Elvis Presley.

Only one of them was asked to perform at the inauguration.

I'm guessing the answer is none of us are going to be there.

Yes.

So Michelle Obama hasn't given a reason, and I was trying to think, well, why would Michelle Obama be skipping the inauguration?

And then I thought, maybe it's a bit like, you know, how it's best to go to Alton Towers during term time because it's less busy.

I thought, well, maybe she's trying to take advantage and she's trying to go somewhere where there's going to be no people.

And I've had a think, and I think she'll be at the inauguration.

Well, let's look now at who will be alongside Trump, not just at the inauguration, but in his four-year term as president.

Of course, it's good to familiarize yourselves with the names and faces of the Trump cabinet just so you can work out whose memoir denouncing their chaotic and unworkable time in government you want to pre-order in time for Christmas,

or more realistically, for your summer holiday reading book this year.

So, let's start with Pete Hegseth.

He could become the first U.S.

Defense Secretary to have what nation's in.

Oh, he's got an interesting tattoo, right?

I think it's of a gun.

He's got a tattoo of a gun.

A semi-automatic rifle.

Yes.

Well, I don't think any previous Defence Secretaries had that.

I know Donald Rumsfeld famously had a tattoo of Evil Edna from Will o' the Wisp

on his face.

Actually, that might just have been his actual face.

On reflection, I was watching it on the telly.

Do we actually know where the tattoo is, though?

That's my question, because I think that says a lot about the person.

Right.

Does it?

I mean, I've got one tattoo.

I've got a tattoo on my scalp that says if you can read this please stop shaving my head.

He loves guns so much one of his you know has seven children which he couldn't remember the names of all of them but one of the children is named Gunner and that was one of the ones he remembered very promptly.

I was thinking to be fair to him who else has seven children?

Captain Von Trapp.

So I'm thinking that what he needs to do is instead of working to remember their names, he just has to get a system together with his children where he blows a whistle and each child steps forward and says their name.

Liesl, Brigitta, Gunner.

Or like the film, does he need to hire a housemate to stop him from being a Nazi?

He's denied allegations of inappropriate behavior towards women, but despite this, Trump has stood by him.

Every one of Trump's picks, you just want to get it out of the way and just go, just tell us what's insane about them.

Every single person he suggests, suggests you go, let's just get it out of the way and be like, I've got a new head of security.

And you're like, just tell us who it is.

He's like, it's Feathers McGraw.

All right.

Robert F.

Kennedy is set to be the US health secretary.

Despite having no relevant experience or qualifications,

can you explain why this is actually a good thing?

I mean, it's hard to in some ways, because in terms of him, he doesn't look like the picture of health.

If you look at a photo of him, it looks like someone's put fake eyebrows and a wig on some some beef.

But

the only positive in this situation is that once they get in the White House, Kennedys don't tend to last long one way or another.

I think it is a good thing.

He looks like a cautionary tale.

No, but that's what you want from a health social.

He's like the pictures you get on cigarette packets.

Don't end up like me.

The problem is, obviously, he is against things like vaccines, and it is difficult to convince some of the American population that that is a bad thing.

And I think a lot of people in America have the attitude of, well, if I die from polio, that's my opinion.

I mean, I'm not sure it is necessarily a problem, because I mean, surely he's got no background in medical science, and he's a sceptic of vaccines and facts in general.

But

the way I see it is medical science is it's not one of those things that you can learn, is it?

You've either got it or you haven't.

Yeah, it's like being left-handed.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't know how deep everyone goes with the Zaltzmann law, but Andy actually delivered his own son.

So technically, you have more experience than RFK Jr.

being a medical professional.

Yeah, I did.

I mean,

that was a real

man caught his own son in the toilet.

Did I mention it was in the toilet?

What whilst Test Match Special was on the radio?

Who won the match?

India won.

Yes!

I knew I liked your son for a reason.

Did you owl that when you caught it on?

Threw him in the air, high five.

It turns out that Aggers' voice is worth two epidurals as well.

I think if he is against vaccines and people are against vaccines, part of me sort of thinks, well, let those people find out for themselves.

No, no, genuinely, I feel this way every year.

Whenever Easter rolls around and Cadbury's cream egg, do that big Easter egg, but it's hollow.

And I'm like, well, why don't they fill it up with the cream egg filling?

And Cadburys are like, because you'd die.

I'm like, but let me find that out.

He also famously survived a brain worm.

So, you know, there's that, a big boost to the brainworm survivor community.

He actually openly admitted that the brain worm ate a portion of my brain and then died.

So the brain itself was so toxic that the brain worm was like, let me out of it.

Also, they've just announced the Secretary of State for Nominative Determinism, which is a key role in a Trump government, and he's gone to Helena Handcart for that one.

Before we move on from America, whose punishment did not fit any of the 34 crimes?

It's the guy.

Yes, it is the guy.

I mean, Donald Trump.

Yep, this was over his sort of hush money trial that he supposedly paid the porn star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about their affair.

It's been referred to as his unconditional discharge.

And I just want to come in hot on this one, Andy, and say that is also the subject of my most recent email to my gynecologist.

But I think the important thing to say is that Trump is now saying that this means he's innocent, which he isn't.

He has been convicted and he is the first convicted felon in the White House, which is, of course, a truth that he is completely ignoring.

And listen, he won't be the last.

This is a real inspiration for convicted felons everywhere.

He is the Obama of convicted felons.

He described it as a witch hunt.

It's a witch to be aware of.

Yeah, the rest of that quote was, it's a witch hunt and not the good kind.

Not the one that's a laugh where we get to drown a whining lady.

So let's look ahead to the next four years.

I looked at my crystal ball this week and it was just a sad eye weeping salt tears.

No, it was a mirror, not a crystal ball, but it was pretty reliable, I think.

What are your predictions and hopes, Sarah?

All right, prediction for the first hundred days, slaughter the Jedi, seize powers from the Galactic Senate, blow up Alderan as a show of strength.

What about he'll buy Greenland and then sue Denmark when he realizes it's not the same thing as Legoland?

I think they're going to put some stone balls at the base of the Washington Monument.

Because if you've sort of defaced the tradition of American democracy, you may as well just go the whole hog and draw a penis on it.

So, why not huge balls at the base.

That monument already looks somewhat on the phallic side.

Why not whack some testes on it, get it biologically inaccurate?

Maybe we can get four suspended stone lines at the top of the monument as well.

And a fountain at the top.

I think what we've got to do is we've got to stoop to his level.

You've got to lie, you've got to cheat, you've got to take what you want, when you want.

Good artists borrow, great artists steal.

I came up with that.

Well, it will be interesting to see how it all pans out with Trump the great disruptor in charge.

As the old saying goes, if you want to make an omelette, you have to strafe the chicken enclosure with machine gun fire.

See how it pans out.

Personally, I'm quite relieved that Trump won.

I think it's great because I think it's reached the point where it's safer for the world and for America that Trump was put back into the White House rather than released back into the wild.

At the end of that round, the scores are six points all.

I'm in Washington.

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Right, moving to this side of the Atlantic, Nish and Zing.

Other than the harrowingly unignorable impact of climate change, why this week might you have heard people saying, oh, the tulips are out early this year?

Well, famously, the anti-corruption minister Tulip Sadiq has stepped down after people drew associations between her and her aunt, who is the former leader of Bangladesh, who is also being accused of corruption.

So it's not looking good for either party.

Yes, if I may quote from a text message my father sent me this week, if you want corruption done right, get a South Asian on it.

we are to corruption what Brazilians are to playing flamboyant attacking football

I don't know I kind of found it refreshing for a millennial to lie about how they afford to live in central London by saying her parents did buy her house

I don't understand.

If you're going into a position that is literally called the anti-corruption is in the name of your position, who have you hired?

Did you get Prince Andrew to to do the background check?

Like,

it sort of beggars belief that this

has happened.

We should say that the ethics advisor has actually looked at this entire case and said that she hasn't violated the ministerial code, but she should have been more alive to the reputational risks, which you know is kind of putting it mildly, I would say.

The sleazes are, or independent advisor on ministers of interest, is Laurie Magnus, aka the big truck.

And he

he said that

Tulip Sadiq told him that the visit to Russia, there's a photograph of her with Vladimir Putin and her aunt, the former leader of Bangladesh, in 2013.

And Tulip Siddique told Magnus that the visit was, quote, solely for the purpose of joining family and enjoying tourist access to the city.

And obviously, she was a bit unfortunate, her aunt, very busy woman, and the only family time she had available was whilst signing a billion-dollar arms deal and a nuclear power plant project deal with one of the world's leading shitbags.

So

everyone has different ideas of what constitutes a holiday.

And obviously a lot of people, yeah, in the days when you could go to Moscow on holiday, queuing up to see a Russian leader was all part of it.

Generally it was just the dead one in the mausoleum rather than the

we've all ticked the wrong box on the tourist ticket buying website haven't we?

You know she ended up visiting Vladimir Putin and I fondly remember thinking I was booking a guided tour for the Colosseum in Rome but I ended up in a gun battle with Pablo Escobar in the Columbian jungle.

They both began with coal, I just didn't read it all the way through.

What a school trip that was.

There was that lad's holiday you and I took with Robert Mugabe.

Robbie Moogs.

Big Robbie Moogs, yeah.

Right, moving sideways in Labour politics.

Not going anywhere.

Keir Stahlmer insisted this week.

Can you narrow it down from what it must be said is a wide range of possibilities to the specific thing he was talking about?

Is it all the stuff in the British Museum?

It's ours.

If you want it back, you're going to have to assemble a multi-ethnic Ocean's 11 style team to heist it.

And I'm now thinking, as I'm saying out loud, that sounds like a great movie idea.

I would watch the movie.

I've forgotten the question.

It's Rachel Reeves, isn't it?

He said that she is not going anywhere.

Yes.

So as Chancellor, she's been in sort of a bit of trouble with regards to the pound being low.

And then she not dodged questions, but then flew to Beijing.

And so Kistama said, she's not going anywhere.

And everyone's like, where is I?

And he's like, okay, right.

She is in China.

For many years to come, he said, not going anywhere for many years to come.

How realistic is that?

And he seized her passports.

I mean, the reason why he's saying that is because it's actually looking slightly better for Rachel Reeves.

So inflation is slightly down.

The economy has grown by all of 0.1%, which tells you how bad it was doing before.

So, you know, when 0.1% is considered good, that's how you know we're in real trouble.

I guess that most of the complaints have come from the Conservatives, but people are obviously arguing that the economy was in in a sort of worst position when they're in power, so she's doing the best with a bad lot, I guess.

And I feel that way.

It was a few weeks ago.

I went to a bar and I had a big pint of Diet Coke and I left.

And then I really needed a wee.

So I went back to the same pub and I said, can you use your bathroom?

And they went, we have to order a new drink.

And I was like, but you did that.

This is your wee.

Rachel Reeves is dealing with their wee.

They keep saying that in order to get the kind of economy out of this hole, there needs to be a bout of ruthless spending cuts.

Here's my question.

What is there left to cut?

I don't know if you've tried to take a train to see a doctor recently, but the entire infrastructure of this country is crumbling around us.

Are they now just going to like sell off the car parks outside hospitals and we're just going to have to 10 pin bowl the vulnerable into A ⁇ E?

If they want to raise more money for the exchequer, then we're going to have to start embracing some increasingly extreme things like turning all care homes into Amazon warehouses and just putting the extremely old to work.

In fairness to the Amazon warehouses, there are reports that they don't let people go to the bathroom.

In fairness to the people in care homes, they often do it in their nappies.

Let's put two and two together, solve the social care crisis and put some more money in Bezos's pockets.

At last, you're providing some much-needed political balance, Nisha.

Yeah.

Kirstam went to Ukraine this week, where Vladimir Zelensky gave him some much-needed encouragement at this difficult time.

Well, perhaps related to this, a poll next week is set to reveal that one in five people in this country prefer what to what.

Is it saying yourself instead of you at the Traitors' Roundtable?

It's one in five prefer unelected leaders to actual democracy.

Yes.

One out of five isn't too bad.

North Korea is six out of five.

That's.

There's only one lesson that we can ever learn from history, and that is that we will never ever learn it.

And perhaps coming to the rescue, the government has announced plans for an AI strategy for the nation.

But what unorthodox method of delivery did they announce for it this week?

Every?

And if we're not in, they'll deliver it to France.

Sending Angela Rayner door-to-door addresses the Terminator.

They said that they want to mainline it into the veins of this enterprising nation.

And, like, I don't know how much stuff that's cool gets mainlined into people's veins, but like, generally, it is something that in my mind I associate with narcotics.

And I actually found some of the rejected items from the drafts of the speech.

Kirstama was going to say, we're going to pick AI, dry it out, crush it into a fine powder, and then roll it up and smoke it.

No tobacco in there, just pure AI blunt.

It's so weird.

It does seem like Kirstama now desperately is trying to go, oh yeah, you think I'm boring?

I'm going to treat AI like it's drugs.

I mean, we might be misinterpreting it because they might be using the term mainline in the sense of the West Coast mainline.

And the AI revolution will just consist of a single ZX spectrum thrown out of the window of a Ford Fiesta into a ditch on the A46.

Where's the AI?

It's actually on a rail replacement service.

It's having us sit down on the floor because there just isn't enough seats.

Starmer said, mark my words.

All right, usually about four out of ten.

I just don't know which departments we're meant to be using it in.

I know that they want to use it for the NHS.

I do not trust AI with the NHS whatsoever.

And to prove this, earlier on today, I literally typed in my symptoms of a cough into ChatGPT.

I got word for word the following response.

Your account with OpenAI remains suspended after too many requests to generate Captain Tom erotica.

The public apparently still feel concerned about AI.

A recent bit of research said that the top words people associate with AI are worried, scary, and robot.

Sorry, no, that was research into the first words they think of when they scan the Labour front bench.

I'm kind of an AI king.

That's not out of the realm of possibility.

I think there's a couple of members of the royal family that we could have replaced with chatbots, and everyone would have been quietly happy about it.

I'm not sure there's a lot of AI prompts you could put things into and have them say, I am medically unable to sweat.

I think AI would make the perfect king because it just can't get the fingers right.

Now, Kier Stormer has been accused of not addressing the everyday needs of the people, but with AI, with this announcement, he can't be accused of that because he claimed AI could solve what national problem?

Maria.

At last.

I know what the answer is, and I'm humiliated by my response to it.

Because the answer is potholes, I believe.

Potholes is spelt as one word, and I always get confused by that.

And I don't know if it's because I went for tapas a few nights ago, but I read a BBC article when I said out loud to myself in my living room, what is potholes?

No, I think also what he said was it could spot potholes, which is not the problem.

Everyone spots potholes, the problem is fixing them.

How do we see these damn potholes?

Is Kier Kierstalmut constantly falling into traps laid for bears in the forest?

The thing is, with these language models, there are benefits to the doctors who are trying to diagnose lots of diseases, but there are also significant drawbacks.

A study in 2019 found that the sort of carbon footprint for training a single early large language model like GPT-2 was about 300,000 kilograms of CO2, which is the equivalent of 125 round-trip flights between New York and Beijing.

So, really, the thing that it can solve is climate change.

And the thing it's going to solve about climate change is it's not going fast enough.

Can any of you tell me what causes potholes?

Genuine factual questions?

No.

It's snow.

Right, any other guesses?

Any of our audience know what causes potholes?

Freezing thor.

No, it's not freezing thor, it is decades of underinvestment in public infrastructure.

Political culture cutting every corner.

The current national pothole strategy is: hope that it never rains and that no vehicles ever drive on the roads.

Right, well at the end of our AI round, the scores are, well, neck and neck at 10 points all.

Which means, with the scores tied, it means we go to a tiebreaker and the closest to the correct answer will win.

One year ago, BT announced a plan to turn 60,000 of its green street cabinets, the ones that hold phone and broadband cables, into electric vehicle charging points.

This week, they've abandoned that scheme.

But can you tell me of those 60,000 cabinets, how many did they actually turn into electric vehicle charging points?

Closest wins?

I'd say 25.

I'm actually going to guess minus two.

So they didn't turn any of them into electric vehicle chargers, and by accident, they actually ran over two actual electric vehicle chargers.

Well, you are closer, Mish.

We did it, Zinger.

We did it last Zinger.

It was one.

One out of 60,000, and that one apparently doesn't currently work.

So

Nish and Zing are our winners on penalties over Glenn and Sarah.

Thank you for listening to the newspaper.

I've been Andy Zaltzman.

Goodbye.

Taking part in the newspaper were Glenn Moore, Sarah Barron, Nish Kumar, and Zing Sang.

In the chair was me, Andy Zaltzman, and additional material was written by Christina Riggs, Mike Shepherd, Cody Dahler, and Ben Pope.

The producer was Rajiv Carrier, and it was a BBC Studios audio production for Radio Radio 4.

Hello, I'm Robin Inks and I'm Brian Cox.

And this is the Infinite Monkey Hedgerow.

He just was unable to write a funny joke for the introduction.

That's basically the point.

The new series of the Infinite Monkey Cage.

Science with funny bits.

Science with bits.

Funny science plus bits.

So the reason that the Neanderthals died out, you're claiming, is because they weren't astronomers.

Yes, exactly.

That's why.

This is how we investigate cybercrime.

We look for the yachts.

The new series of the infinite monkey cage from BBC Radio 4.

Listen now on BBC Sounds.

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