Welcome to the Dinner Party Download.

This is your icebreaker.

So why did Jesus cross the road?

I don't know.

Someone nailed him to a chicken.

I'm Brendan Francis Noonam, and this is the Dinner Party Download,

the show that helps you win your next dinner party.

Our icebreaker this week came from author and chef Anthony Bourdain.

You can direct your letters to him, not me.

Coming up, author and humorist Simon Rich, the TAN TACS, a Beard Band,

Muhammad Ali vs. G.I. Joe, honeymoon highlights, and someone still loves you, Boris Yeltsin.

That's a band. But first, time for small talk.

This week in the headlines, the theme was better never than late. There was movement on some of the big stories in the news, but for all of the wrong reasons.

First up, BP. What else? After

weeks and weeks of fouling out the planet and putting its foot in its mouth publicly, we finally

heard an apology. Unfortunately, it came from Congressman Joe Barton, senior Republican on the

House Energy and Commerce Committee, apologizing to BP. Fortunately, Republican leaders were able to stop Barton before

he apologized to cancer. Also in the headlines this week, millions of people around the world

have finally started to pay close attention to the world's poorest and most underdeveloped continent,

even going so far to wake up in the wee hours of the morning to bear witness to the war and

poverty that

ravages that kind of actually they're just watching some guys kick a ball around it's the world

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