Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - NEWS QUIZ: Tracking Apps, Babies and Kim Jong-un
Episode Date: May 1, 2020Angela welcomes Michael Deacon, Kiri Pritchard-McLean, Suzi Ruffell and Andy Zaltzman....
Transcript
Discussion (0)
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.
Hello, I'm Louis Theroux and I've got a new podcast on BBC Sounds called Grounded with Louis Theroux.
Stick around after the show to hear what it's all about. Hello, I'm Angela Barnes and you're listening to the Friday Night Comedy podcast. Friday nights feel different these days. I used to come home,
make some dinner, maybe have a cheeky glass of wine, settle down on the sofa and listen to the
Friday Night Comedy podcast. Actually, maybe it's not that different after all. Wherever you're
listening from, I hope you enjoy this episode of the News Quiz.
I hope you enjoy this episode of The News Quiz.
Welcome to The News Quiz with your host, Angela Barnes.
Hello, you are listening to another lockdown edition of The News Quiz coming from our very own front rooms.
Now, while I miss Broadcasting House, there are pros to recording at home.
No rush hour travel, the constant vicinity of biscuits.
But on the other hand, my chances of running into fit weatherman Thomas Schaffernacker in the corridor are now virtually zero.
We'll start tonight with this unusual prize giveaway in the Park Rapids Enterprise newspaper, Minnesota, read by Zeb Soans.
Enter the Enterprise's I Need a Haircut contest and you could win a chainsaw.
And thank you to Ellen Flynn for sending that in.
Now let's meet the teams.
In Team A, we have Kiri Pritchard-McLean and Michael Deacon.
Hiya.
Hello.
And in Team B, it's Andy Zaltzman and Susie Ruffell.
Hello.
Hello.
How are you all doing?
Good, thanks.
I'm absolutely knackered, which sounds like a ridiculous thing to say because I'm not a nurse or a doctor or anything actually important.
I'm just a silly journalist. But, I mean, apart from working all day, I'm
basically pulling a shift as a primary school teacher at the same time. So I remember, you know,
sort of covering Brexit and general elections and referendums and thinking, well, this is chaos. I'm
so tired. It's never going to be as bad as this again. And now I look back and I think, wow,
those were golden days, the lovely relaxing days of endless Brexit votes in the House of Commons.
So, yeah, I kind of I weirdly miss that now. And I never thought that would happen.
It's a weird time. This week I had to cut my dog's hair with my fella's beard trimmers.
I think anyone else learn any new skills?
Well, like the rest of the country, I've learned to make banana bread.
I learned I can go up a dress size in three days.
I've learned to make banana bread.
I learned I can go up a dress size in three days.
Good, well now we've found out how exciting your lives all are in lockdown.
I reckon it's time to crack on.
Kiri, who is back in business?
Guess who's back?
Back again.
It's Boris.
Boris is back to work after obviously being unwell,
having COVID-19, and also he's back to work after the birth of his son.
His partner's given birth to a healthy baby boy.
Apparently as well, he was present at the birth,
which feels quite modern, doesn't it?
I think he was just in the background somewhere shouting, just get birth done, Carrie Simmons.
I saw there's some really pearl clutching going on from a lot of the reporting that they're focusing
on the fact that Carrie and Boris are the first couple to live in Downing Street who are living
in sin they are unmarried oh yeah they made quite a big deal out of this and I just think it's such
a weird sort of moral thing to project onto people but then maybe i'm saying that because my parents i've been together nearly 50 years and they got married about eight years ago which is quite
strange but it's also lovely like it was so beautiful and i remember sitting down with my
mum on the wedding day and i said why after all this time if you decide to get married and she
looked at my dad she had the most incredible look in her eyes and she said we just sat down
and we had a little chat and we decided that it made sense for tax purposes.
That's the absolute dream.
And there's also loads of chat going on with Boris now about whether he's going to take paternity leave or not.
And so paternity leave, I didn't realise, is about two weeks, one or two weeks.
And also it's weird that he's announcing his children now.
That is a big thing.
I think we've stepped forward as a country.
It's always strange to be announcing something
that happens so frequently.
It'd be like me announcing every time I finish
one of those share bags of crisps.
Do you see that line from Jacob Rees-Mogg?
Because he's got six children.
And he said,
Boris has joined the exclusive club
whose members are fathers of six.
I thought, I like his confidence in that number.
But it's really common. Apparently only one in three men take paternity leave. And I think it's
because people see it like a holiday, but it's not really a holiday if your holiday is with a
screaming child looking into the face of the person you love who's just had to be stitched
back together because of you. No, exactly. That was my experience because I took two weeks paternity leave.
I've taken 13 years of paternity leave.
No real intention to end it.
And you've got no children either, have you?
I was just thinking to myself the other day that what we really need now is a Prime Minister
with a major massive life distraction at this difficult time.
I was a prime minister with a major massive life distraction at this difficult time.
I think he must be thinking,
this is so much harder than I thought it was going to be.
He's had such a hectic few months.
He's won an election, Brexit stuff, divorce, got a dog,
got his girlfriend pregnant,
very quickly had to announce an engagement,
then told everyone to wash their hands because of corona,
then carried on shaking hands in spite of Corona, got Corona, intensive care, week out, new baby. I mean, I think the whole time he just must be looking at David Cameron and
thinking, you had it easy with that pig, mate. So this is the news that Boris Johnson is back
at work just 18 days after nearly dying of COVID-19 and 36 hours after his fiance
gave birth to his sixth child. Is it just me or is his term of office starting to feel like he's
being produced by the Hollyoaks team? Two points to Kiri. Okay, everyone have a listen to this. To a starship trooper Crashing line in hyperspace
Running for the Federation
Hand in hand we'll conquer
So what disaster did planet Earth avoid this week?
As if we didn't have enough trouble on our plates,
we very nearly got absolutely dinosaured out of existence
by an asteroid.
Although I was reading that Dr Brad Tucker,
a self-proclaimed and indeed qualified astrophysicist,
said this asteroid poses no danger to the Earth and will not hit.
It is one catastrophe we won't have,
which is a classic line you hear in the first three minutes
of a disaster movie.
We know how this is going to end.
I like the idea that this is
one catastrophe we won't have.
We're going to have all the others.
So we've got this one this year.
Next year I think we're down for the plague of
locusts. The year after that it's
going to rain frogs. Year after that
Hitler's back.
It feels like this is the
last series of the world
and Wright is just throwing everything at it.
Just like, yeah, deadly virus, sure.
Asteroid, sure.
UFO, yeah, why not throw it in?
This is the tram crashing in Coronation Street,
but for the world, isn't it?
This part of me wanted to see the asteroid hit
just to see how Donald Trump would respond to it,
you know, how he's going to find a way
to blame the Democrats and Chinese for an asteroid.
Well, actually, ironically, disinfectant
would actually probably be more effective on the asteroid
than it would on coronavirus.
I mean, I think, well, I mean,
America's had a lot of asteroid strikes in the past.
I think here in Britain, we can take great national pride
in being one of the best nations in the world
at avoiding asteroid strikes.
Of the 190 confirmed impact craters on Earth,
not a single one is in the UK.
That shows what we can do in this country when we pull together.
A force field of pure Britishness protects us from all evil.
Susie, you mentioned just now a UFO.
Yeah.
Did anyone see what was released from the Pentagon this week?
Yeah, and every time I watch footage of something like this, I'm like, oh, OK. just now a ufo yeah did you anyone see what was released from the pentagon this week yeah and
every time i watch footage of something like this i'm like oh okay and for anyone that doesn't know
what this is there was a unidentified flying object as we would call it but the pentagon
preferred to call them unexplained aerial phenomena in case you know unidentified flying
object was a bit too specific because this footage is from like 2015.
So it feels like the ultimate distraction technique.
They're literally going, look, what's that up there?
What could the US Defence Department possibly be wanting to distract us from?
I can't imagine. I mean, the president's just advocated drinking disinfectant.
Every time he said something outrageous,
they're going to have to keep putting out stuff to be like,
look over here, look over here.
How long is it going to be before they release the JFK tapes? Like they're coming out.
We're going to find out. So this is the news that this week, the US Defense Department officially released videos of Navy pilots reacting to what looked like UFOs. Personally, I've never seen a
UFO, but that might be because of all the tinfoil I've put on my windows. Two points to Susie. Michael, have a listen to this.
Michael, what's going to happen next?
Yeah, this is kind of what the government's next steps
for handling this crisis.
And I think just generally as a country, we don't really know what the government should be doing next.
But that's kind of been the story of the whole thing, hasn't it really?
At each stage, none of us seem sure what the government should be doing.
But then about a month later, we say, well, obviously what the government should have been doing a month ago is X or Y.
The technology they really need to prioritise the
moment is building a time machine so they can go forward a month, find out the incredibly obvious
thing that the government should have been doing now, then come back and do the incredibly obvious
thing. And what they want is they want all of us, or at least most of us, to download a new app to
our phones. So what it's going to do is it's going to follow us all around. And then if any one of us to download a new app to our phone. So what it's going to do is it's going to follow
us all around. And then if any one of us starts to feel ill, you know, we enter that into the app
and then they figure out who we've sort of walked too near to basically. And then they'll let all
those other people know that they've been too close to us. And then those people will be tested.
And so they'll be able to figure out who needs to be tested, who doesn't, who needs to quarantine themselves, who doesn't.
60% of people will need to download this app to their phone.
And I don't know what percentage of people in this country actually have a phone or even know what an app is.
It's very, very complex. But anyway, this is roughly speaking the next step.
You can hear the sort of collective sigh of everyone under 40, can't you?
Knowing that they're going to have weeks of phone calls from their parents going, the app's gone funny.
I don't know what to do. The other part of this story was the 10 people bubble. There's going to be like 10 people that you can hang out with. I mean, what a way to find out you're not in your
friend's top 10. Like absolutely gutting. And also, if you you choose them do they have to see you to choose
because if that's the case Meryl Streep's in my 10 and someone needs to let her know
I like this app it's sort of the opposite of Pokemon Go because on that you've got to catch
them all on this you've just got to not catch one thing that's the rule what they should do is just hide
it on candy crush and then it would be all the problems would be solved i think the i mean the
conspiracy theory lot will hate this because they'll think that the whole virus was a way of
the government to keep tabs on us and it's always when people are saying that they're always people
that you look at and go no one's keeping tabs on and go, no one's keeping tabs on you, mate.
No one's keeping tabs on you.
Don't you worry, Brian.
Your doomsday bunker in Western Supermare is safe.
There have been other apps around.
I think there's 53 different contact tracing apps in 29 countries.
People have been talking about these apps for months around the world.
I'm starting to suspect that the government is broadcasting itself
on a two-month delay.
And I'm pretty sure Matt Hancock the other day wished everyone
a happy Valentine's Day.
So I think it might be.
It's sounding like even with this app, it could be 2021 before major sport
is allowed to take place with big crowds again.
I think optimism isn't due to be relaunched until 2026.
You don't want to rush into it and risk a second spike of mass pessimism.
It's better to build up gradually towards a base level of safe optimism.
Are we worried about lockdown easing?
Are we looking forward to it?
Are we excited?
I'm just a bit confused because I read that, you know,
when they allow the pubs to reopen, they're going to just do it very gently
so that you're allowed to go to the pub,
but you're only allowed three pints.
And I just find that very confusing
because how do you police that?
Because I could have three pints in this pub
and then I could go down the road
and then have three pints in that pub
and so on and so on.
So how do you work out?
There needs to be another tracking app, I think,
just to see how many pints I have had.
They haven't said pints of what?
Three pints of wine?
I can do that over a day.
Fast food stores have said they're looking into reopening.
Is that something that we're happy about?
McDonald's, Nando's, Greg's?
I literally think Mackie's opening is a response to all the UK hangovers
as we're all sort of habitually sliding into alcoholism. They're
like, these people need sausage and egg McMuffins. Let's just get this rolling. Like they're not
about the schools. Like let's get Maccies open. I don't know. I think it's nice we can all return
to our preferred choice of demise in this country, which is death by steak bake. This is the news
that the government is to release a COVID-19 contact tracing app. The app will tell you whether or not you've been in contact with someone with COVID-19
and crucially, whether or not you both like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain.
Two points to Michael.
And that brings us to the end of round one.
At the end of round one, Kiri and Michael have four points.
Andy and Susie have two.
Before we crack on with round two, we've been sent this headline spotted in a Sheffield newspaper.
Sheffield primary school teacher
leaves touching message
for her pupils tied to a lamppost.
And thank you to Paul Bassett
for sending that in.
Andy, have a listen to this.
When will I see you again?
Let's see you again When will our hearts be together?
Andy, which leader is out of sight but not out of mind?
Well, this would be Kim Jong-un, the North Korean number one.
I don't like referring to leaders informally,
so I'll call him Kimberley, if that's all right.
There are various theories as to where he could be
after being uncharacteristically quiet for a while.
One theory is that he's dead.
Another, that he's nearly dead.
A third, that he's pretending to be dead.
Another, that he's just chilling, but not in a dead kind of way.
One theory that's getting a lot of traction on the international
rumour circuit is that he's trying to get an online order
of bread flour to go through.
Another that he's trying to get an online order of nuclear warheads
to go through.
Everything is under stress at the moment.
It could be that he's just taken a bit of time off
to investigate career options.
I mean, he's in his mid-30s now,
possibly like we all are at this time.
You're thinking a bit about what we've done with our lives.
He's been a despot now for nearly a decade
and you've got to think the novelty's worn off.
It could be just like Bjorn Borg in tennis,
burnt out early after a spectacular young career,
but maybe doesn't have the longevity
of some of the other despots
that history has enjoyed, if that is the right word,
which it emphatically isn't.
Another theory is that he's had surgery.
There's been a lot of talk that he's had surgery
and he's going to emerge with a snout like a crocodile
and a raccoon's tail.
So we just don't know.
In terms of who could replace him,
his younger sister, Kim Yo-jong, seems to be the bookie's favourite
and it's about time the feminist movement started making some inroads
into the dictatorship sector, which really remained distressingly patriarchal.
His older brother Kim Jong Chul is not thought to be a candidate.
He's reported to be a music-loving Eric Clapton superfan,
whereas Kim Jong-un, of course, is more of a Jimi Hendrix believer,
and Kim Yo-jong prefers the more restrained, expressive melancholy
of ex-Fleetwood Mac guitar wizard Peter Green.
Can the Kim family hold on to power,
despite their differing attitudes towards 1960s blues guitar legends?
Only time will tell, Angela. Only time will tell.
Oh, I think sometimes, Andy, you've just got to face reality
and take over the family dictatorship.
You've just got to leave behind childish things.
North Korea has taken some draconian measures
to stop the coronavirus entering the country,
including seven decades of isolationist despotism.
So they've come up with a very good scheme
that maybe we should be thinking
about that kind of thing in case this happens again.
He hasn't been seen, Kim Jong-un, in public since the 11th of April,
like literally all of us.
They noticed he was missing, didn't they, from a celebration
honouring his grandfather, Kim Il-sung.
And I do think, look, mate, I know you're in lockdown and whatever,
but there's always Moonby.
I do think whenever a supervillain goes missing it's never a good sign is it I think the chances are he's hollowed out a mountain somewhere did you um did you hear about
where he's staying so he's staying in this luxury complex that's got four large guest houses a port
a shooting range a jet ski and a horse riding track.
But is he in North Korean centre parks?
You know, one thing I will say is go careful at the bar.
It's far more expensive than you would imagine.
This is the news that rumours abound about the health of North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un.
It's said that in his absence, his sister could be lined up to take on his duties.
Kim Yo-jong has been labelled as the Ivanka Trump of North Korea,
a description Donald Trump immediately shot down,
saying, no way, she's a seven at most.
Two points to Andy.
This is a question for everybody.
Why will people be singing from their doorsteps next week? It's because it's going to be the 75th anniversary of VE Day.
But, of course, people can't have street parties in the actual streets,
so they're all going to have to have street parties by themselves.
And, you know, I'll be turning out in my droves in my living room,
shaking my own hand, giving myself a hug, high-fiving myself,
that kind of thing.
Yeah, that's...
So a normal Tuesday.
Yeah.
In 75 years' time, they'll be having similar events
to mark the end of our war against the virus,
and those of us who are still around, I'll be 120 by then,
but our great-grandchildren will be sitting on our kneecaps saying,
what did you do in the virus war?
And we'll be responding, oh, I stewed myself in a porridge
of introspection and pretended everything would be fine,
and I cleaned out some cupboards.
I was a hero.
I'm struggling to keep up with all the things
we've got to do these days.
You know, it's the 8 o'clock clap for the NHS,
8.30 mass sing-along for the soldiers,
9 o'clock zumba for the post office.
It's hard to keep it all in your head, isn't it?
It is.
Well, I've actually got an automatic clapper now
that I just leave outside the front door,
just two hands on sticks that
at 2 p.m 5 p.m and 8 p.m every day just automatically clap and I figure that it's going to be it's going
to be appropriate for someone it's you know showing an appreciation for you know pretty much every part
of society but just just and just have an app on your phone you can just press when you want to
clap something just for the hell of it. You've got to be careful you don't accidentally found out
you've just done a clap for Nigel Farage, do you?
That would be terrible.
Of course, I mean, like with any war,
the aftermath is going to be crucial as well.
And, you know, I look forward to when we can put the virus
on trial to account for its crimes,
if, of course, it's got the courage to face justice.
They say, is it they're encouraging people
to have stay-at-home street parties,
which has the added bonus of not having to be anywhere
near your neighbours.
I think it sounds pretty fun.
The first thing I thought when I read this story
was Ben Fogel must be absolutely fuming.
Absolutely fuming!
He tried to get a sing-song going for the Queen's birthday
and got so much backlash he had to leave Twitter.
Yeah, but you can bash Ben Fogel.
You can't bash Dame Fira
Lynn. That's the law. The nation
has been invited to have a big sing-along
of We'll Meet Again,
which is about the most information we've
been given about when lockdown's going to end.
A national
sing-along does feel a little
bit North Korean,
doesn't it? When this is all over,
are we all going to come out
with perms like the queens as a national haircut also it's a gorgeous song but not everyone knows
the words if you want something that we can all sing along to it's got to be something that's
played at a working class wedding it's got to be like the time warp or something like that
do you do you guys remember earlier in the year people really kicked off that the bank holiday was being moved?
So it was being moved so that it fell on VE Day,
which feels so laughable now.
Like May bank holiday, I thought it was still March.
They're also asking people to sew their own bunting.
Are you going to be sewing some bunting?
I wouldn't have thought so.
I quite like a bit of bunting, but when you think about it,
it is just crap curtains.
The origin of bunting's quite interesting.
Is it?
Yeah, well, it goes back to the wedding of Queen Victoria
and Prince Albert in 1840, which they're very much in love
and unusual for the time.
And their wedding night got quite, well, enthusiastic, shall we say.
And anyway, there was a great tradition in those days at a royal wedding
that you'd gather outside Buckingham Palace
and applaud the happy couple the following morning.
And people looked up and saw their bits of underwear dangling from the curtain rail.
And people thought, oh, that's obviously what you're supposed to do because prince albem of course had a union jack posing pouch made especially for the
occasion and so there's these triangular bits of fabric hanging down people obviously that's what
you're supposed to do to celebrate a great occasion it's um it's lucky that they didn't
look in the window on the other side of the bedroom otherwise bunting today would involve
gimp masks a whip and a roast chicken andy Zortzman, I marvel at your brain,
but at the same time, I'm so glad I'm not locked down with you.
Have you heard what a town in Sweden is doing
to prevent their locals from gathering for a festival?
Did you read about this?
This is in the town of Lund in Sweden,
where they have a spring festival every year,
which is popular with students in their local
park and in order to keep them away and stop them gathering they've decided to cover the park in
chicken manure we've all done it yeah absolutely in the hope that the but then I just think these
are students that's still going to smell better than their bedrooms I sort of like this idea I
like that we've got like it's V VE Day, we're in lockdown.
Let's make the best of it.
It's a very British thing to do.
And I think we've got Wimbledon coming up.
And I think what we should do for Wimbledon is just have CCTV footage of Tim Henman in his garden, losing a game of swing ball to himself.
This is the story that this year's VE Day 75th anniversary celebrations have been adapted
to take place under lockdown. It'll still be a moving day where the whole nation can say thank
you to that golden generation whose ultimate sacrifice granted us the freedom we all used to
have. That's two points to Kiri and Michael. Before we take a look at the final scores,
has anybody heard about the new research that came out this week
conducted by the audience agency about how men will regularly give up
reading a book before they reach page 50,
while women frequently surpass the 100-page mark?
Are we reading more in lockdown?
I'm slightly sceptical of this, Sian.
I mean, for a start, in terms of the most important research that can be done at the moment,
I don't think this is top ten.
I think we could be focusing our attention as a species
on more important targets.
The audience agency do seem like the people for a vaccine,
I must admit.
To be honest, you know, if you can't say it in under 50 pages,
don't bother saying it at all.
I mean, you know, he fancied her, she didn't fancy him,
but in the end he won her round.
The end.
That's basically most novels, isn't it?
I didn't know that you were a fan of Danielle Steele.
I do find as I get older, I've got less patience with a book.
Like, I used to just read all books I read to the end.
Then as I get older, you're more aware, I think.
I'm in my mid-40s now, the time's running out.
I can't waste it.
Like, I would love
now to go back to 20 year old me and cash in all that damn brown time I wasted I totally agree with
this because um you should just give up if you know if a book is boring after 50 pages give it
up because it's not homework you know the teacher is not going to mark you for this you're allowed
to just stop I think this whole idea that oh you've got to keep on going because it's an acclaimed
work of literature so you've got to go to the end, even if it's incredibly boring.
It's a very, very middle class idea. It's a little bit like your mother telling you,
you know, when you're a child, you've got to eat up all your vegetables, even though you hate them.
You don't have to do that with a book. Just stop. I think the men are right on this. They shouldn't
play along. Just in case my children are listening, you do have to do that with your vegetables.
You absolutely have to do it with your vegetables you absolutely have to do it i'm quite into short stories so that's like it's like you sort of takes that out of it like i don't know
if you guys are across the spot series but god he gets up to a lot he's doing different things
there's a party he's got a mate that's an alligator you know and they really whip along
everyone under 50 pages i can't wait to find out what's going to happen to the caterpillar
in the book I'm reading.
He's got a question in his mind.
They're saying that actual book sales are falling in favour of e-books.
Have we got a preference?
Kiri, are you a voracious reader?
I am when I've got time off, yeah.
I've read a couple of books this week.
I like having something physical to have in my hand when I'm reading.
You've had a couple of books this week?
Yeah, mate.
I'm one of those prodigies you hear so much about.
Apparently, romance is the most finished genre of book,
which doesn't make sense to me because they all end the same, don't they?
They all get together.
There's no Mills and Boone book where the stable girl's like,
actually, I'm just going to settle my own business.
And then the rich landowner goes and marries another man
and they breed labradoodles, which is a shame
because that is a book that I would absolutely read.
Also, apparently, according to this research,
poetry is thriving as a genre.
It's one of the fastest developing genres,
which I believe is the third horseman of the apocalypse.
I'm not a poetry fan. I've said it before to people and they can't i'm just i just i can't shake the
feeling that poetry is a medium for people who've never been told they're rubbish at anything yeah
but have you heard the poem there was once a girl from nantucket that one that one is very good did
you see in the report it said and i quote right it said that um there's been a 66 see in the report it said, and I quote, right, it said that there's been a 66% increase in the popularity of poetry because of the online fan bases of poetry influencers.
Can you imagine being the person that is happy to put poetry influencer on your CV?
The world only needs one poetry influencer and that is Pam Ed.
That brings us to the end of the show tonight.
And the final scores are,
Kiri and Michael have six and Andy and Susie have four.
Thanks.
Shocking.
As always, well, you know this stuff matters.
It matters more in lockdown somehow, doesn't it?
It really does.
Thanks to our glorious panel and you, the listeners, for joining us.
We'll leave you with this upcoming ecosystem webinar spotted by Clara Gallagher.
How to create massive transformative moments.
Host, World Toilet Organisation.
And with that, goodbye.
Taking part in the news quiz were Michael Deacon,
Kiri Pritchard-McLean, Susie Ruffalo and Andy Zaltzman.
In the chair was Angela Barnes and the news was read by me, Zeb Soans. Thank you. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts.
1212 1212.
This is a public service announcement for the BBC.
Oh, let me just close.
I've just... Two more minutes, Nancy.
I'm just recording some audio.
Working from home.
My name's Louisis theroux and i'm doing a new podcast for radio 4 it's called grounded with louis theroux i've assembled a series of interviews from my own home
for some episodes i may even be in my pyjamas.
I'll be talking to people that I find interesting, people whose work I admire,
people who, in normal circumstances, I might not have a chance to speak to.
I told a couple of my good friends and they were like,
oh my gosh, what have you done wrong? Have you done something wrong?
Is it one of those weird documentary series?
And I went, no, I think it's just a chat.
The idea is that we can dig a little deeper.
I walked out on stage once and the whole front row were blacked up. Peel back the layers and find out who they really are. I don't think a penis has ever been inside me. Will that do? A free-flowing
exchange of ideas. You spend your life catastrophizing in the most kind of absurd ways.
Reflecting on what's going on now, but also
looking back at the past. Malcolm X went to smithic. Things were so bad in the West Midlands
that the baddest black dude in America flew on his own dime and walked around. All right, Malcolm.
Two people communing through the miracle of the interweb at long distance and yet so very close.
I am not going to do ironing. It's just a rule I have. So it's no good asking me.
We've got to quite a real place all of a sudden.
I'm feeling anxious just even going to the far end of this conversation like we are.
To hear new episodes as soon as they go live, just subscribe to Grounded with Louis Theroux on BBC
Sounds. Let's face it, you've got nothing better to do. Although that's not quite true because
actually there is a lot to do. When I hear people on the radio going like, if you're at home, you're
so bored because you're like, no, I'm not bored. I just, I've got kids that need constant attention.
Put that in there.