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Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4

News Quiz Best of 2020 - 1st Jan 2021

Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4

BBC

Comedy

4.213.3K Ratings

🗓️ 1 January 2021

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Andy Zaltzman gives 2020 the treatment it deserves in this compilation episode of News Quiz highlights from planet earth's latest annus horribilis. Producer: Richard Morris A BBC Studios Production

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

0:04.7

Hello, I am Andy Zoltzman, and I'm here to bid an extremely unfond farewell to the year

0:16.3

2020. In this, the best of the news quiz annual compilation. At one second past midnight

0:22.9

on 1 January 2020, as always, I sealed my predictions for the year in this locked envelope.

0:29.9

Let's see how close I was.

0:34.1

Okay, nope, that didn't happen. Nor did that. No, I did not qualify for the Olympics.

0:39.0

Not my fault, really. No, the Queen did not whip out the lightsaber at the state opening of

0:43.3

Parliament. Abraham Lincoln did not win the US election via Ouija Board. All there were more than

0:48.3

zero catastrophic global pandemics. Oh, but I did get one right. Prime Minister Cummings did not

0:52.8

quite last the year. Instead, what we have seen has been a year of heartbreak, confusion,

0:57.6

floundering, community spirit, community division, incompetence, brilliance, blame, counter-blame,

1:01.8

statistical embassements, a disappointing quantity of masks you can interpret that however you want,

1:06.4

a realisation that Premier League footballers are not 200 times more useful than nurses and

1:10.6

care workers despite what their pay packets suggest, and obviously Elon Musk implanted wireless

1:15.0

technology in the brains of pigs. That one I should have predicted. For the news quiz, this has

1:20.0

been the year of three hosts, beginning in January with Nish Kumar back in the before times,

1:24.9

when he still had things like a live audience in a recording studio, and when the biggest

1:29.1

thing we had to worry about was the triflingly irrelevant prospect of a world war breaking out.

1:34.4

Helen, how did President Trump start the new year with a bang?

1:39.3

Basically, what happened is that the US carried out a drone strike on a Iranian general called

1:43.5

Kasem Silimani, who was from the Kudzforce, which is the part of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard

1:47.7

that makes the rest of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard go, those are some bad lads.

...

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