The Naked Week: Ep1. Lobbying, art, soup, and farms

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Speaker 1 Hello and welcome to The Naked Week, a brand new show slipping seamlessly into the slot marked Friday Night Comedy on Radio 4.

Speaker 15 The plan is simple.

Speaker 16 We'll be looking at, in, beneath, and behind the headlines to find out just what's really going on.

Speaker 19 Just like Justin Welby didn't with that awkward report.

Speaker 15 Coming up in the next 28 minutes then, farms, bots, soothsaying, lobbying and soup.

Speaker 21 Plus a Greg Wallace joke that may or may not make the edit depending on the lawyers.

Speaker 22 But first, this week on The Naked Week, Donald Trump announced the latest nomination to his cabinet.

Speaker 2 A two-kilogram garden gnome made of the drug MDMA.

Speaker 24 To be fair, not his worst pick.

Speaker 25 Elsewhere, Jeremy Vine's Christmas penis seems to be completely out of control.

Speaker 27 I was accidentally projecting snowflakes onto the ceiling of my neighbour's bedroom

Speaker 5 without realizing.

Speaker 27 So I had to use a special blinker on it.

Speaker 28 Merry Christmas, everybody.

Speaker 13 Speaking of which, Talk TV totally destroyed the magic of the school nativity.

Speaker 30 Schools are telling them that they could be a cat or a wolf or a lizard or a dog or a giraffe.

Speaker 31 Well no, you can't.

Speaker 29 Get a bloody job.

Speaker 15 Okay.

Speaker 12 After vandalizing three of the four Mount Rushmore presidential monuments, Sir Keir Starmer was asked why he left one unscathed.

Speaker 32 I've got absolutely nothing against Lincoln.

Speaker 24 Good to know.

Speaker 26 And understandably, the archers went big on the farmers' inheritance tax issue.

Speaker 33 There's a lot of anger about this new inheritance tax on farms. Yeah, but David, we need those taxes to pay for things like the NHS.

Speaker 5 All right.

Speaker 21 You can feel the raw anger coming out of Ambridge right now.

Speaker 13 But yes, let's talk the National Farmers' Union.

Speaker 17 The last couple of weeks have seen the NFU saying an FU

Speaker 23 to Rachel Reeves for applying inheritance tax to agricultural land.

Speaker 1 But here at the Naked Week, we had a different take.

Speaker 36 We heard there was a tax dodge going and we wanted in.

Speaker 26 According to the Times, one-third of agricultural land being bought today is specifically for tax avoidance purposes.

Speaker 13 And despite Rachel Reeves' literal land grab, you can still pass on the smallest farms tax-free.

Speaker 26 And thus we sensed an opportunity.

Speaker 13 So ladies and gentlemen, I'm very pleased to announce that the Naked Week has officially entered the agricultural industry by genuinely buying a square foot of land in the Scottish Islands from a dubious online-only gift registry.

Speaker 12 Yes, and we have a downloadable certificate to prove it.

Speaker 39 Now, I'm just going to pop into the audience with it. Hang on a second.

Speaker 14 Madam, could you please read out what's on the certificate just here?

Speaker 43 Lord of the Glen Certificate of Rights, Lord Andrew Hunter Murray of the Naked Week plot and 222.

Speaker 25 That's correct.

Speaker 21 Thank you very much. Yes!

Speaker 26 We are now officially Big Farmer.

Speaker 24 This is very exciting. So

Speaker 13 the Naked Week is now the proud owner of a one square foot tract of farmland in Kilnaish, wherever or whatever that is.

Speaker 18 Now, I want to say, fear not, people of Kilnaish, I'm going to rule my domain with a gentle hand.

Speaker 16 Imagine a farming version of Greg Wallace, only with none of the things Greg Wallace has been accused of.

Speaker 1 But how to turn a profit from this land?

Speaker 44 Well, it turns out that we can't because the land is so small, we would have to stack livestock on top of each other like a cow ladder.

Speaker 13 It can't be done. There is no money in vertical beef.

Speaker 46 We have checked.

Speaker 12 So instead, we got the Naked Week agricultural storyline advisors, they're the same ones who do the archers, actually, to crunch the numbers, and we have come up with a cunning plan.

Speaker 17 On Monday, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Pat McFadden, launched a tactical speech in the direction of the NATO Cyber Defence Conference, warning that Kremlin bot farms could launch cyber attacks targeting the UK.

Speaker 17 Here is our idea, and we think it's something that all British farmers can get behind.

Speaker 23 We are turning our single square foot of land in Scotland into a good old-fashioned British bot farm.

Speaker 1 That is the way forwards.

Speaker 15 Hugely profitable farms that grow attacks on foreign infrastructure rather than carrots.

Speaker 4 And in fact, in the last 10 minutes, I have organically grown a robotic cyber Jeremy Clarkson to be in charge of the whole thing, hog the limelight, and farmsplain it all to Victoria, Derbyshire.

Speaker 49 I have christened my farm Diddly Bot, of course, and Robo Clarkson joins me now. now.

Speaker 49 Hi, Jeremy.

Speaker 50 The good news is, he's even got lifelike Clarkson opinions.

Speaker 3 I can get a chicken from abroad. Yeah, you can.

Speaker 3 He's so full of quarry.

Speaker 3 It tastes like a swimming pool with a peak.

Speaker 9 Thank you, Robo-Clarkson. Wonderful.

Speaker 46 Now, as Donald Trump's appointments to his top team continue to channel Gladiator 2, specifically the bit where the Mad Emperor appoints his own monkey as chief consul,

Speaker 13 The media circus on this side of the Atlantic continues to pontificate on it all.

Speaker 14 An awful lot of people ended up looking awfully stupid on election night, not least the lineup of expert mouths on Smash Hit Gobcast.

Speaker 53 The rest is politics. Anthony Scaramucci, Harris or Trump?

Speaker 5 Harris, Marina Hyde.

Speaker 53 Harris? My prediction is it's Harris, Rory Stewart.

Speaker 5 I am incredibly...

Speaker 54 Confident that Kamal Harris is going to win this and win this by a large margin.

Speaker 13 Rory Stewart, their former Conservative Minister, for getting it wrong. In fact, no one has been wronger than Rory Stewart since Captain Tom Moore's daughter said it's what he would have wanted.

Speaker 26 Stewart's tag team partner in this centrist dad podcasting Thunderdome is Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's former spin doctor and silver medalist in the hotly contested 2003 edition of Iraq's most overenthusiastic landscape gardener.

Speaker 12 And you can see why the two of them have become so successful.

Speaker 26 For example, where else are you going to get this level of first-hand, rigorously researched analysis of the impact of Trump's victory on the war in Ukraine?

Speaker 53 Somebody posted something that said Donald Trump's son had posted this video of Zelensky being showered with dollar bills that were sort of coming out of the sky. I don't know whether this was real.

Speaker 53 And

Speaker 53 I decided not to check.

Speaker 40 No.

Speaker 21 Why would you? Why would you?

Speaker 13 With this level of insight, there is no wonder that the Restus Politics has slipped the stifling bonds of the podcasting studio to conquer the live circuit.

Speaker 12 The pair recently played to 13,000 of their listeners at the O2.

Speaker 18 Stewart and Campbell, they are like Simon and Garfunkel.

Speaker 13 If Simon was complicit in Theresa May's hardline anti-immigration rhetoric of the mid-2010s, and Garfunkel was in The Hague.

Speaker 44 Clearly, though, Rory Stewart is a soothsayer for our age.

Speaker 26 And to prove it, we're now going to ask him for some of his hot takes on other events.

Speaker 12 So, Rory, welcome to The Naked Week.

Speaker 13 Thank you very much for having me.

Speaker 23 Firstly, Rory, can I just get your thoughts on the invention of the mini-disc player?

Speaker 54 It's completely amazing. I mean, there's huge demand for it.

Speaker 8 I'm sure you're right.

Speaker 26 And I was just wondering, are you at all concerned about the Hindenburg airship?

Speaker 54 Don't worry. It's all going to be fine.

Speaker 56 Good.

Speaker 25 Good to know. Good to know.
That's what I think, too.

Speaker 57 What about your thoughts on the number four reactor at Chernobyl?

Speaker 54 Just incredible, and I hugely recommend it. It seemed very safe.

Speaker 28 Rory Steer there, everybody.

Speaker 23 Now, in an increasingly frantic society where too many things are always happening and news moves faster than unsold copies of Boris Johnson's book to landfill,

Speaker 26 you'd be forgiven for thinking it's all a little bit much.

Speaker 52 We agree and we understand, but naturally, your friends at the Naked Week have got your back.

Speaker 17 As such, we are taking time out of the program to offer a quiet space for contemplation, a metaphorical peace garden, as we bring you the news quietly, calmly, and through the medium of short-form Japanese poetry.

Speaker 19 It's one of the week's stories distilled down to its purest form, a crisp five syllables, seven syllables, and five syllables.

Speaker 17 It's the news in haikus.

Speaker 13 Stammer petition signed by many bots turning on one of their own.

Speaker 39 The news in haikus.

Speaker 26 Now, when I was at school, I was often told by my teachers that I lacked focus, to which I replied, huh?

Speaker 49 But here at the Naked Week, we are nothing if not laser-focused on current affairs, and it gets none more current or affairs-y than where we find ourselves now, as a nation, five months on from that huge MP swapping party that Westminster held in the summer.

Speaker 47 One lot out, another lot in, followed by, like any decent swapping party, a copious binning of the wet wipes, or the Conservative Party, as you might otherwise remember them.

Speaker 58 But the question is, where now for Britain's least popular party, if you don't count Tupperware, or the one that number 10 had while everyone else died of COVID.

Speaker 41 The Tories do have a new leader now, Kemi Badenock, not to be confused of course with Demi Badenock, who is half the politician Kemmy will ever be, or Hemi-Demi-Badenock, who is one quarter.

Speaker 34 Well you get the idea with that one.

Speaker 44 But despite Labour's newfound unpopularity, the Tories are still remarkably behind in the polls, so we thought we would help them out.

Speaker 41 And when we focused our minds on it, we realised the best, and by best I mean cheapest, way to do this was to organise a focused group.

Speaker 39 And so it was that our chief correspondent, Amy Hoggett, gathered a small group of prominent Conservatives together to ask them how the party can properly bounce back after its very public school election thrashing.

Speaker 41 She kettled them in a room, she plied them with biscuits, and she set their brains scampering through the wheat fields of true possibility.

Speaker 49 And Amy joins me now.

Speaker 5 Amy, what went down?

Speaker 10 I ran through various scenarios with them by asking a series of carefully constructed psychological questions designed to get to the heart of their slump and popularity.

Speaker 26 So what kind of questions are we talking about?

Speaker 10 Okay, so which member of the shadow cabinet is most likely to get their head stuck in railings at a petting zoo?

Speaker 53 Okay.

Speaker 20 And to be clear, these are real, genuine, actual, and prominent members of the Conservative Party you did this with.

Speaker 10 Oh yeah, 100%.

Speaker 60 Let's meet the group.

Speaker 61 Hi, my name is Yasmin Elatroshi. I'm the former Conservative candidate for Warrington North in the last general election.

Speaker 62 Hi, I'm Alicia Yayende. I'm award chairman for Forest Hill.

Speaker 63 Maxim Parreed, I'm a small business owner and I voted for the Conservatives in 2017, but not in the election since.

Speaker 64 Hi, I'm Ross. I'm a young Conservative and I'm a student.

Speaker 2 I am an old Conservative.

Speaker 64 My name is William Atkinson. I'm the assistant editor of the website Conservative Home, though I'm here today in a personal capacity.

Speaker 29 Okay, great.

Speaker 49 So they all sound very nice. They all sound very pleased to be there as well.

Speaker 10 Yeah, it certainly started that way.

Speaker 38 So what was question one?

Speaker 10 Simply this. If you were queuing in the toilets at Keel Services and Reform's Lee Anderson emerged from the only usable cubicle with the words, I'd give it five minutes if I were you.

Speaker 10 How long would you actually give it?

Speaker 10 A, under five minutes because you lost your sense of smell in an electrical fire. B, more than five minutes.
You take the man and his trousers very seriously.

Speaker 10 Or C, you'd hold it in till you reached Stoke.

Speaker 9 Just to be clear, before we hear these answers, these are genuine prominent Conservatives and you actually did this.

Speaker 10 I can't stress that enough.

Speaker 24 Roll the tape.

Speaker 10 C. You'd hold it until you reached Stoke.

Speaker 63 I would, I would. Why take the risk?

Speaker 64 Was it B, the one where you took him at his word?

Speaker 5 Yes, B.

Speaker 64 Yeah, as a former Conholm backbencher of the year, you know, I trust that Lee Anderson, even though he's found himself in the wrong party, is a man to be believed when he says how long his toxic waste takes to be disposed of.

Speaker 61 I would be very concerned to see a man in my private space of a woman's toilet.

Speaker 61 That would really set me back.

Speaker 10 So you'd hold on till you reach Stoke? I would.

Speaker 22 Well, you would, though. You would.

Speaker 21 Longer, probably.

Speaker 26 But I do think this is helpful. I genuinely think this is helping.

Speaker 21 What came next?

Speaker 10 Which of the following noises best represents the Conservative Party's approach to climate change? Is it A?

Speaker 8 Okay.

Speaker 8 B.

Speaker 60 C.

Speaker 10 Or D?

Speaker 5 Oh, God, Brownie.

Speaker 56 C.

Speaker 63 100%. It's got to be C.
C.

Speaker 9 That's incredibly enlightening stuff. Amy, how long did this focus group go on for?

Speaker 10 Two and a half hours.

Speaker 56 Wow.

Speaker 22 Well, I like to think the Naked Week focus group has really helped the party out.

Speaker 41 It hasn't, but I like to think it has.

Speaker 12 Now, seeing as the Naked Week is new to these Friday night Radio 4 parts, we are all braced for the inevitable backlash from people who want everything to stay exactly the same all the time, forever.

Speaker 17 Which, if you're listening, Craig and Stylebridge, is why your wife left you.

Speaker 17 The traditional forum for Radio 4 outrage venting is, of course, Feedback, who, when faced with emails written in green crayon, will summon the producer of the offending program on to try and defend it.

Speaker 17 Now, we're all busy people, and sensing what's going to happen come Monday, we have decided to get ahead of the curve and have our producer, John Holmes, pre-respond to your views.

Speaker 49 He joins me now.

Speaker 55 John, what would you say to the accusation that the Naked Week is a typical so-called excuse for a typical so-called BBC, so-called satirical, typical, so-called comedy, so-called programme that's typically not as so-called good as Dead Ringers?

Speaker 33 See, I think it's probably fine.

Speaker 26 Typical BBC response.

Speaker 17 Rory Stewart's actually still with us.

Speaker 34 Rory, you're not going to complain about us to feedback, are you?

Speaker 49 How are you finding the show so far?

Speaker 54 So boring.

Speaker 56 Boring beyond belief.

Speaker 67 Hello, I'm Greg Jenner, host of You're Dead to Me, the comedy podcast from the BBC that takes history seriously.

Speaker 67 Each week, I'm joined by a comedian and an expert historian to learn and laugh about the past.

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Speaker 12 So, in the words of Taylor Swift, or if you prefer, Bananarama, it's been a cruel summer.

Speaker 17 Not least for Keir Starmer, as he got all caught up in a scandal involving freebies, tickets, and multiple pairs of glasses for his increasingly worried-looking face.

Speaker 21 But freebies and lobbying go hand in hand, like say Benjamin Netanyahu and arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu.

Speaker 18 And lobbying the government is, of course, both legal and legitimate for groups or individuals.

Speaker 17 But obviously, big corporations can more easily whisper into the ears of MPs if, for example, they happen to have treated them to first dibs at the Toby Carvery, followed by front-row tickets to see Conor McGregor's next fight in the Irish High Court.

Speaker 12 Across this series, we are going to hold our nose and go for a paddle in the fetid Thames waters of Westminster lobbying, starting with the wonderful world of gambling.

Speaker 51 Now, this week, Labour announced state limits for gambling slots on online betting, which, on the face of it, would seem to be good news.

Speaker 39 But it's not quite the whole story, and it's not quite as much of a result as the headlines might have you believe.

Speaker 26 This is actually not a shiny new announcement at all.

Speaker 41 It is, in fact, precisely what the Tories proposed earlier this year while they were taking a short break from calling nurses greedy.

Speaker 41 A month before that proposal, Flutter Entertainment, the company which owns Paddy Power and Betfair, among others, coincidentally sent a generous invitation to the then conservative gambling minister Stuart Andrew.

Speaker 47 And we have the email.

Speaker 41 Here it is.

Speaker 60 Dear Stuart, it is my great pleasure to invite you to this year's Cheltenham Festival with a ticket to the race course, full hospitality in a suite, and a great view of the iconic Cheltenham Finishing Strait.

Speaker 60 I do hope that you're able to join us at this unique and thrilling occasion, but in any case, we look forward to continuing our engagement with you and your team in the months ahead.

Speaker 16 Now, I do have to point out that Andrew ultimately declined the offer, but other MPs didn't.

Speaker 21 Amy is back with me.

Speaker 14 Amy, who rocked up at the races?

Speaker 10 Well, former Tory MP for Shipley, Sir Philip Davies for one, and equally former Tory MP for Tewkesbury, Lawrence Robertson for two.

Speaker 10 They got posh tickets to Cheltenham from Kindred, which owns Unibet and 32 Red, which, in case you were wondering, are websites, not horses.

Speaker 12 And that was all declared and totally above board.

Speaker 26 So what are the odds that the two of them would both decide to speak out against gambling affordability checks in Parliament within just a few weeks of their big day out?

Speaker 70 Here's Davies. The government is only snobbishly treating Pontas as some kind of pariah, which I do not appreciate.

Speaker 47 And here's Robertson.

Speaker 31 A Conservative government actually should not be telling people how much money they should spend.

Speaker 26 Of course, we are not suggesting for a moment that their interventions were influenced by something as meagre as Prosecco and a view of the finishing line at Cheltenham.

Speaker 14 Far from it.

Speaker 26 Well, not that far from it. I imagine the views were really good.

Speaker 13 But how much money would you put on them both retaining their seats come polling day?

Speaker 24 They were both out of a job.

Speaker 16 But don't worry. I know, I know, I'm sorry.

Speaker 23 But don't worry, the gambling industry was prepared.

Speaker 13 Ever since they knew there was an election looming, they had been indulging in each way bets.

Speaker 47 Amy? Yeah.

Speaker 10 In May 2023, the Betting and Gaming Council, the main lobbyist for the gambling industry, gifted Labour MP Stephanie Peacock a hospitality box ticket for a football match worth almost £600.

Speaker 17 Bets on the table, please.

Speaker 58 Would she get a senior position under Keir Starmer?

Speaker 13 It came in.

Speaker 41 In September 2023, Peacock was appointed Labour's shadow gambling minister.

Speaker 40 It'd be like making Begby from Train Spotting, the shadow minister for heroin, or Russell Brand, the shadow minister.

Speaker 46 Okay, let's just play it safe and say heroin again, actually.

Speaker 49 Now, shall we go double or quick?

Speaker 30 Yes!

Speaker 21 Always better on red.

Speaker 26 Come this summer's election, R. Steph duly became Labour's sports minister with responsibility for gambling when discussed in the House of Commons.

Speaker 4 And what did Peacock have to squawk in the Commons?

Speaker 72 I have visited most of the betting shops in my own constituency of Barnsley South, and I've seen the firsthand

Speaker 72 the difference they make in helping support and combat loneliness. I take that really seriously.

Speaker 24 She's right, isn't she?

Speaker 16 Gambling is a terrific way not to be lonely.

Speaker 36 You know,

Speaker 17 you get loads of visits from people, mainly bailiffs, yes.

Speaker 34 Now, there's lots more of this gambling government loving.

Speaker 12 And suffice to say, Two former Labour shadow ministers, a former Labour advisor and a former Labour parliamentary candidate, have all gone to work for our old friends, the Betting and Gaming Council.

Speaker 41 And that brings us back to this week's news about online gambling limits.

Speaker 26 Because you would think placing restrictions on online slot machines might be hailed as a step in the right direction.

Speaker 19 Kind of like a rubbish dressage,

Speaker 20 or as it's better known, dressage.

Speaker 59 And it is sort of good, but only in the way that Liz Truss was sort of a Prime Minister.

Speaker 57 This legislation places a £5 per spin limit on people aged over the age of 25 and a £2 limit on people aged 18 to 24.

Speaker 17 But back in February, when this proposal was first floated, the charity Gambling with Lives described it as a missed opportunity to reduce the number of suicides caused each year by addiction to these slot games, of which there are many hundreds.

Speaker 12 They pointed out a blanket £2 limit could easily be imposed if there was any political will on either side to do it.

Speaker 46 But then, Gambling with Lives probably didn't get VIP hospitality tickets to the Cheltenham Festival.

Speaker 44 They will have to settle for the Toby Carvery like the rest of us.

Speaker 13 This is the Naked Week on Radio 4, where this week, not only are the government continuing to make errors, they're also losing furniture.

Speaker 32 I had a big round table this morning.

Speaker 24 More allegations emerge about Greg Wallace's behaviour towards colleagues.

Speaker 43 He would give them a nice bowl of food and shoot them.

Speaker 42 Just time now to catch up with singer-songwriter Kate Nash, who was raising eyebrows and possibly other body parts with the revelation that she is partly funding her next tour through the adult platform OnlyFans.

Speaker 22 As she told Emma Barnett on the Today programme on Monday, I'm selling pictures of my arse.

Speaker 15 A noble endeavor.

Speaker 1 And in fact, we've decided to raise money for the BBC by setting up Radio 4's first ever OnlyFans.

Speaker 32 Why do you think Michelle Hussein is leaving the Today programme?

Speaker 21 It's this.

Speaker 24 But Nick Robinson is on board. He's flogging marital aides.

Speaker 35 This is just a very simple, inflatable rib. And at the back, an engine, what, 30 horsepower?

Speaker 5 Wow.

Speaker 11 Wow.

Speaker 21 Powerful stuff.

Speaker 25 And with a range of familiar faces on board, there's something for everyone.

Speaker 52 Isn't that right, Melvin?

Speaker 33 Prostitutes and there's homosexuals. There's plenty of stuff about.

Speaker 5 Right. Right.

Speaker 52 Well, Radio Falls OnlyFans. Subscribe now.

Speaker 16 So, last weekend saw the chaotic end to the COP29 Climate Summit.

Speaker 18 And you know what they say?

Speaker 1 The 29th time is the charm.

Speaker 26 This one was hosted by oil-rich Azerbaijan, which is only massively hypocritical if you stop and think about it for a fraction of a second.

Speaker 21 So, you know, don't.

Speaker 55 The generally perceived outcome was that it was too little, too late.

Speaker 22 Much like when your Uber driver eventually arrives and it's Rishi Sunak.

Speaker 37 And in case you're wondering, it's called cop because it disproportionately targets black people.

Speaker 14 That, my friends, is satire.

Speaker 5 Ring the bell.

Speaker 41 So anyway, with the climate can safely kick down the road yet again, it's only a matter of time before someone from Just Stop Oil rinses the can out, fills it with cream of mushroom, and Google's nearest art exhibition, Not by Banksy.

Speaker 26 Back in October, the National Gallery banned visitors from bringing in any liquids after climate protesters chucked soup at two of Van Gogh's Sunflowers pictures less than a year after they'd pulled exactly the same stunt, which, depending on your own bias, both proves and disproves how effective it was the first time.

Speaker 55 Now, for those of you who heard the words National Gallery and are already shouting, oh yeah, here we go, another tofu-licking, London-centric story from the liberal Metropolitan Media.

Speaker 1 Typical BBC.

Speaker 36 Firstly, welcome.

Speaker 26 You must be new to Radio 4.

Speaker 48 And also, yes, the National Gallery may be in London, but it does truly represent the United Kingdom in that it's increasingly hard to get in legally.

Speaker 41 And even if you do, you'll walk around for a bit having a look and soon wish you hadn't bothered.

Speaker 14 According to the gallery's website, the only exceptions to the no-liquid rule are baby formula, expressed milk, and prescription meds.

Speaker 19 Or, as I like to call them, brunch.

Speaker 44 But scientifically speaking, just what is a liquid?

Speaker 36 Amy Hoggett rejoins us now and she has been looking into this. Amy.

Speaker 10 Yes. It turns out that it really is complicated.
A minefield, really, and worse still, a minefield that's been flooded with soup.

Speaker 10 And that's why I went to meet Mark Mir Dofnik, professor of materials and society at University College London. And I asked him, what is a liquid?

Speaker 74 Well, liquids, they're a bit of a tricky one to define. Our best definition so far is it's something that flows and it takes the shape of the container it's in.

Speaker 10 That's your definition of a liquid.

Speaker 74 I know it doesn't sound great and there's a lot of disquiet about this in the physics world because, under that definition, cats.

Speaker 74 Well, because cats quite frequently get into bowls and they assume the shape of the bowl, so they are liquids. And it is upsetting.

Speaker 10 What if I was to bring something to the National Gallery with me that was visibly wet, but also technically a solid? Someone like Tommy Robinson.

Speaker 11 Now, if you smashed him up into a smoothie,

Speaker 64 he's a liquid.

Speaker 4 Fair enough. There you go.

Speaker 21 Thank you, Amy.

Speaker 42 Now, it's fair to say that Justop Oil has copped a ton of criticism for its soup chucking tactics.

Speaker 26 Recent surveys suggest that while 58% of British adults support their demands, 57% are against the group itself.

Speaker 17 So while they might agree with Just Stop Oil's aims, the public is largely uncomfortable with the method they're using to get there.

Speaker 14 This, of course, is known as the sausages paradox.

Speaker 42 We all want to eat sausages, of course we do, but the method of getting two sausages isn't something many of us feel comfortable with.

Speaker 66 I have heard they puree the lips.

Speaker 26 And it's not as if climate change is the fault of the National Gallery staff, is it?

Speaker 57 Unless one of them is constantly fiddling with a thermostat.

Speaker 46 The staff of the National Gallery should not have to spend their time protecting artworks from protesters.

Speaker 26 They should be allowed to get on with their actual jobs of sitting on chairs all day and staring vacantly at people walking by.

Speaker 17 But tactics aside, we at the Naked Week, we want to prove that actually, in spite of what Justel Poyle's critics think, a soup art interface can genuinely be a force for good we are going to use jso's tactics that the public dislike but we are going to reverse it and in the name of climate change awareness we are now going to throw some art

Speaker 37 at some soup

Speaker 24 we are going to then donate the soup to a food bank rather than spaff it up an old master and sorry what no

Speaker 12 it's a win-win and that is why this morning we went out we bought ourselves three works of art and 82 tins of tomato soup just like Andy Borjoy used in lieu of being actually able to draw and we are going to reveal them now one two three good brilliant superb so okay this is pretty straightforward albeit unnecessarily visual for a radio program

Speaker 37 we have stacked up these tins of soup into three pyramids the three piles of soup tins we have three works of art with us According to BBC Verify, this is actually what Lord Wreath would have wanted.

Speaker 17 And to give our three artworks a fair appraisal and to perform the official throwing, please welcome in the blue corner art historian and critic Verity Babs.

Speaker 12 What we do have is a few works of art, and I wonder if we could talk them through.

Speaker 26 So, number one, over here, we have a human-size, albeit not life-size, replica of Michelangelo's David.

Speaker 42 So, can you just talk us through this?

Speaker 75 Yeah, Michelangelo's David is one of the most famous artworks in the world. And one of the best things about it is the fact that it's disproportionate.

Speaker 75 So, everything above the waist is much larger than everything below the waist.

Speaker 35 And that's so.

Speaker 75 And that's because it was meant to be put on top of a roof. So it's meant to be viewed from below.
But that is an excuse that a man once gave me on a date.

Speaker 46 We should say our David is made of cardboard.

Speaker 40 Next, we have a cheap plastic skull from a Halloween shop with some tinsel glued to the top and it's got some sequins glued on around the eyes.

Speaker 75 So this is a beautiful recreation of Damien Hurst's For the Love of God which is an apt title because that's what it makes you want to set. Okay

Speaker 23 and we turn to the final one now.

Speaker 41 Now this is a very famous artwork.

Speaker 21 This is the

Speaker 26 Athena poster of a girl playing tennis scratching her ass.

Speaker 45 Well Verity, as a professional critic, which of these three do you think is going to knock over the most tins of soup?

Speaker 10 Andrew, honestly, I couldn't care less.

Speaker 21 Okay,

Speaker 21 well let's do it.

Speaker 32 So Verity's getting into position now with Michelangelo's David and she's going to see how many tins of tomato soup she can knock over.

Speaker 45 I can't believe we're doing this.

Speaker 8 And she's going for it.

Speaker 11 And

Speaker 26 I would say 15 tins of soup knocked over there.

Speaker 50 Okay, now number two is going to be the Hearst skull. It's good.

Speaker 76 It's got a good shape to it.

Speaker 40 It's good for chucking. Let's see what Verity can do with it.

Speaker 50 Here she goes.

Speaker 21 Moderate, a moderate throw.

Speaker 33 But not over egging it.

Speaker 5 I think that's still

Speaker 5 decent.

Speaker 9 But David's still in the lead. And now we come to some...

Speaker 41 The frame has hefted on this Athena poster.

Speaker 26 I'm going to say that much.

Speaker 49 This is going to be the one.

Speaker 66 She's taking position.

Speaker 50 She's lining up. And she's going for it.

Speaker 8 Very,

Speaker 50 very strong.

Speaker 58 I think I can say the winner is Michelangelo's David, everybody.

Speaker 22 Of course, the real winner is the world's publicly listed oil and gas companies, who in 2022 alone made over $400 billion in profit.

Speaker 24 Yay!

Speaker 76 And that was The Naked Week this week. The Naked Week was hosted by me, Andrew Hunter Murray, with chief correspondent Amy Hoggart and guests Verity Bebbs and Professor Mark Miyadofnik.

Speaker 33 It was written by John Holmes, Gareth Kuredig, Katie Sayer, Sarah Dempster, Jason Haisley, Adam McQueen and Louis Mian.

Speaker 76 Partial nudity was by Mark Haynes and Cornelius Mendez with additional flashing from Alice Bright, Ali Panting, Helen Brooks, Nikki Roberts, Darren Phillips and Kevin Smith.

Speaker 71 The Naked Week is produced and directed by John Holmes and it's an unusual production for BBC Radio 4.

Speaker 72 What happens when at-home DNA tests reveal more than you bargained for?

Speaker 56 My birth mum was still here. She's still alive.

Speaker 73 Six new stories of reconnecting and rupturing families.

Speaker 65 I just couldn't believe it.

Speaker 73 I had a sister after all.

Speaker 65 Lives upended and long-buried secrets.

Speaker 11 I then wrote back and said, look, the ripples from this will be enormous. What do you want to do?

Speaker 65 The new series of The Gift with me, Jenny Kleeman, from BBC Radio 4.

Speaker 75 Listen now on BBC Sounds.

Speaker 67 Hello, I'm Greg Jenner, host of You're Dead to Me, the comedy podcast from the BBC that takes history seriously.

Speaker 67 Each week, I'm joined by a comedian and an expert historian to learn and laugh about the past.

Speaker 67 In our all-new season, we cover unique areas of history that your school lessons may have missed, from getting ready in the Renaissance era to the Kellogg Brothers.

Speaker 67 Listen to Your Dead to Me Now, wherever you get your podcasts.

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