Burnham Fooled by Weak Trump

[00:00:00] Hello, I'm Stephen Allen and welcome to Stephen Allen Almost Daily. The podcast that gets you all of the news you could possibly need in a very short time. Although, to be fair, I don't really understand what's happened today. I was woken this morning by this strange sound. It was like a tapping, but it was frequent small little taps, almost one would say drips, on the roof and window. It was a weird sensation. I looked out and then the floor was wet. I'm not sure what's happened. It's been a while since I've seen anything like it. So, more research needed.

[00:00:29] But, oh, I think that I heard the lawn shout something about like, oh, thank heavens. So, it's nice out there is what I'm saying. It's been a little bit of rain. It's not raining now. It's not often we do weather on the podcast. Normally news. Maybe we're branching out into travel news and weather forecasts. Meanwhile, here's Bill with the weather. So, you're up to date. Let's see the front pages. We can start with the front page of The Times. Would you let your partner track you? Jamie does, is a little plug for Times 2. Who this is by the looks of it? Jamie Oliver.

[00:00:58] He's been tagged. He's been geotagged by his missus. Yeah, but you know when you're that famous and you can't go anywhere without being recognised anyway. You gain more from being tagged in case someone tries to abduct you and, you know, cook for them. Whereas, no, I wouldn't let you tag me if you wanted the answer. I don't think they do. How to improve your 5K run is also in The Times 2. No, I don't get to do 5Ks. I've got an old man knee. So, I guess I could improve it by hopping. I'll look into that.

[00:01:27] Tweaked early release scheme could help PC killers keep, sorry, keep PC killers in prison. Previously on the show, we looked at how the early release scheme could mean that two of the three killers of a police officer could be released onto the streets. Some people weren't happy about this and the government was saying, I don't know what I'm meant to do about it. They were literally, no, they weren't literally. They were figuratively saying, it's the government rules.

[00:01:54] I don't know who came up with these government rules, but what can we do about it, said the government. And I said, oh, you made the rules. You could change them. Look, they're thinking of changing them. Tweaked to this. Look, I love it when I'm right, but I'm terrified that if I'm right and no one, you don't want people like me being your go-to oracle of wisdom. Children left fixated with violence by social media is the main story. Reports back curbs to stop Southport-style attacks. British children are becoming intoxicated by extremism.

[00:02:24] The Children's Commissioner for England has warned that she called on the government to introduce a range of restrictions on social media for under-18s. I thought they did that. Did they not? Why have I had to prove to X that I'm over 18? Which, honestly, when you look at the state of me, me having to prove I'm over 18, it's not fair, is it? Because, like, younger, attractive people, they come to work. I've done it before. I've not done it. I've been sat there at work, and someone comes in and goes, oh, I tried to buy a bottle of wine today.

[00:02:52] And they ID'd me, and I was like, oh, but do I look 18? Yeah, we get it. You've got young-looking skin. Well done. I'm in my 30s, and I got ID'd for a bottle of wine. Oh. And you had to tell everyone, didn't you? And yet I don't get to do the same kind of thing. If I were in the office, and someone, some young, well, 30s woman comes in and goes, oh, I got ID'd today. I guess I look so young. And I was like, what, me be ID'd for wine? Oh. And if I said, yeah, I had to be ID'd to go on a website.

[00:03:23] It's not the same. Not the same. High-fidelity music taste may be key to compatibility. Forget dating apps, personalised quizzes, and sharing values. If you're looking for love, finding someone with the same taste in music may be much better. Pass me my ukulele. Is a sentence that I think would preclude me from most relationships. Telegraph goes with, Rainer paves way for more traveller sites. Paves way. They're about an inch away from doing a joke there, aren't they? Do you know what I mean?

[00:03:52] If they'd have found a way of using that phrase but with tarmac in it, you know the joke they were reaching for. You know exactly what they were trying to do. So, scrapping prostate tests will cost lives. The decision to strip men of the right to a prostate test, and not even like the intrusive one. A little blood test. We men now do not get a blood test. How much is that really going to save you? Why do you hate men? So, there's literally screening programmes to everyone. Should we give men a screening programme? Good God, no. But they can ask for a test.

[00:04:21] Well, you're not allowed to ask for the test now. What have we done? Well, I actually don't answer that. But why do you hate us so much? There was a story where David Cameron, who obviously had some prostate trouble himself, wrote a thing in the Telegraph all the times, and he was saying how this decision is wrong. But he did say the way in which the government made the decision kind of released it without making a public statement. He described that as sleight of hand. And trust me, if you're writing an article on prostate tests, sleight of hand is the wrong phrase to be using.

[00:04:50] Burnham to block water firms using surge pricing during drought. Good. It's another time. And the government's now agreeing with me. No, I am starting to worry that I might be right. The Daily Mail. What's the little plug for the inside thing? The women who won't give up fat jabs even though their hair's falling out. Would you rather be bald or fat? It's one of those would you rather questions. Me? I'm glad you asked. I'm happily doing both, so crack on.

[00:05:18] So who was White House hoaxer who duped the PM? Did you hear about this? Andy Burnham was left red-faced after he was fooled by an imposter posing as Donald Trump's chief of staff. To be fair, I'd fall for that because I don't know the names of Donald Trump's chief of staff. And even if I did, I wouldn't know what they sound like. It wouldn't take much for me to be like, oh. I mean, I'd be thinking, why are you calling me? Isn't that weird?

[00:05:45] Why would Donald Trump's chief of staff be calling some guy who plops out a thing on the internet called a podcast and that's it? Whereas Andy Burnham would be thinking to himself, I'm mad for it, Manchester. And that's all he thinks. And that's probably why he was distracted. I think we've solved that one. The front page of the Mirror today. Wine buffoon. Nigel Farage is number two, as in second in command. Not a poop.

[00:06:09] Trivialised the deadly heatwave yesterday saying if it means English wine and sparkling wine gets better, fantastic. Hmm. Yeah. Reforms UK Richard Tice was branded out of touch by environmental experts. Let's not make it wine people versus environmental people. Most people don't give two flips about fancy wines. I don't even drink, which is why I get very annoyed at this whole how I'm into care. Do I have to learn about types of wines?

[00:06:37] I've done enough to learn that that's not the same as a peri. Or a peri is a, you see already, I've hit me max. A peri is a subcategory of wine. I'm done at that. That's enough, mate. Do I have to remember the years? Oh. I have to remember the birthday of the darn thing next. Do I have to send it a card? I will say, as a non-drinker, I wish they did a thing where when they brought soup to the table, they'd give you a little thimble. You could go, hmm, you can leave the tin. But they don't do that in the restaurants I go to. Anyway, maybe I don't go to the fancy ones.

[00:07:07] The Daily Express, smugglers use Britain as transit hub for migrants. This follows in the hot on the heels of the story that the mega dinghies, Misha dinghies, you know, the big boats. They're bigger than planes. Some of them have more people on than planes. So calling it a dinghy, bit of a stretch. And apparently they get made in China. No one can be surprised about that. Everything's made there.

[00:07:33] But they get flown into the UK, or shipped in, I suppose, alongside all the team ogre for keep buying. And then they get sent to Europe to then be sent back over the channel. So it really feels if we paid attention to our ins and outs, our goods receiving, we could be solving this. It's part of our own thing. And Queen's having bags of fun on holiday. Queen Camilla, who's just carrying some shopping bags there. And that makes front page news, apparently. The star has Andy's faked the story about him not knowing who was at the end of the phone.

[00:08:03] And Trump says, according to The Guardian, he'll bomb Oman if it gets in the way of the Iran deal. But I do think the Metro phrases it better. That doesn't sound like a piece, much like piece, Mr. President. You might be onto something there. Them's your front pages. Them's your front pages. We'll get into the news next. Johnny Depp is back. Back. Back. He's set to make a swashbuckling Hollywood comeback. Back.

[00:08:31] I slowed down on that phrase, thinking if I said it wrong, I might never work again. Captain Jack Sparrow's back. Jerry Bruckheimer, producer of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, is keen to get the star back on board with a sixth, sixth film. I always say, whenever you're up in the number of films that Police Academy did, it's time to stop and check. And I think they might have, I would say jumped the shark, but this is literally the Pirates of the Caribbean. There might be a scene where they jump the shark. I don't know. I stopped watching after the third one.

[00:08:59] The Movie Mogul 82 says, we're in talks with Johnny. Hopefully we can get this done. I bet you can, because then their court cases can be expensive. So I get a good feeling about this one. There's some Donald Trump news in the news, and it's one of those where everyone, I'm a contrarian, right? So I'm not saying I love Donald Trump, but sometimes you end up having to defend him just because everyone else will be having a go. Here's the story.

[00:09:25] Donald Trump has it in the bag as he left his young blonde aide to carry all the heavy lifting. It says he ambled off Marine One chopper while his executive assistant, Natalie Harp, had her hands full. And you can see in the picture she's carrying like a really big holdall and he's not carrying anything. Yeah, it's not the best example of chivalry. But he is like nearly 80. And he's the president.

[00:09:53] There's a couple of reasons here why he's not doing all the heavy lifting. It would look odd if the president, you know, obviously his ego, he wouldn't carry things anyway. But remember when he had to take a drink from that bottle of water with both hands? So he's not your go-to guy when lifting's involved. She's 35. I get that sometimes on the tube where you see people who clearly go to yoga every day and you think, well, they don't need the seat. Why are you after the seat? And they end up getting the seat.

[00:10:23] Oh, no, it irks me. We actually need those signs that tell you who gets the priority seats. I need them to be done in order. I need some less than and greater than signs to tell me who gets priority. Because if someone's, I suppose it depends, doesn't it? Someone's got a limb missing, pregnant woman, old person. Do you make them fight it out? I have in the past. And it's honestly, you'd be surprised who won. In royal news, Princess Eugenie.

[00:10:50] But then it turns out, posh people tell us we have to pronounce it Eugenie. Have you noticed, posh people on the news. I've worked with some recently. I never used to. So I always thought it was Princess Eugenie. But posh people tell me. Princess Eugenie has named her baby daughter Adelaide. But I've not spoken to any posh people in there. I don't know if you call it Adelaide or Adelide. Princess Adelide. It could be. You can't prove me wrong. Do you know what I mean? I don't know why they've called it Adelaide.

[00:11:19] I'm worried it's that trend that happened in the early 2000s of naming your baby after where they were conceived. You know, Brooklyn Beckham named because that's where they were when I don't want to teach you the birds and the bees. But you know what happened. That's why when we had kids, I did suggest naming one of them bins around the back of Mecca Bingo. But, you know, it was vetoed by the other half. And I think that's fair enough. We're better off with what we've got.

[00:11:44] In movie news, superhero movie Spider-Man, the latest Spider-Man, has officially passed the $2 billion global box office taking mark. $2 billion. Wow. That means as a film, it's bigger than some countries' economies. Wow. Also, I did see someone do a very funny tweet saying the news that Spider-Man's earned $2 billion. So that's amazing.

[00:12:11] That means combined, Supergirl and Spider-Man have made $2.1 billion. And I thought that was so harsh and yet so absolutely on the money. I know I've not seen the Spider-Man film yet. I'm looking forward to it. But I did bother watching the Supergirl one. Because I wanted to prove all the naysayers wrong. Hmm. It's kind of annoying when the naysayers are right, isn't it? But then what can you do? I almost feel bad about finding this next story vaguely amusing. But, no, it is. Actually, let me preface this.

[00:12:41] I'll preface with a caveat. Ooh, I've gone all Latin. Any wasting of 999 time is bad. But, a boozer dialed 999 to report he'd been given non-alcoholic gin. So, he's after a drink. He wants a gin and tonic. He got himself a non-alcoholic gin and tonic. And he called 999. Now, look, I understand that that's the wrong number. I don't even think you call 111 with that.

[00:13:09] That's not a medical emergency either, is it? But I understand. Have you seen how expensive non-alcoholic gin is? It's literally the same price as alcoholic gin. But, it don't have any gin in it. It's daylight robbery. And who do you call when you've been robbed? So, it kind of makes sense. But at the same time, please don't try this at home. I know this next story is filed under worthless news from a tabloid that no one needs.

[00:13:34] But police were baffled after a blue TARDIS portable toilet was left abandoned in a lane near Lutterworth, Leicestershire. I'm not going to go and visit it. But as someone, I don't mind a bit of Doctor Who. I quite like the idea of having the portable toilets made up to be like Tardai. Do you know what I mean? I don't like a portable toilet. But I do love one that's bigger on the inside than the out. Imagine.

[00:13:59] No, the best thing about using a TARDIS toilet is that if there's a queue, right? You're in there. And you open the door and someone's about to go in. And instead of saying, I'd give it a minute if I were you, you could say to them, I've already given it a minute actually. No, it's a time machine. I went back in time and I pooped 15 minutes ago. Would that help? I don't know if it would. I know the last story we talked about was fairly pointless news. This one's worse.

[00:14:26] Seven in ten people say that their underpants are uncomfortable. Now, that's fine if it weren't for the according to a survey. I don't have any hot take on whether seven out of ten pants are good or bad. Mine are generally all right. Thanks for asking. But I very much could be in the three out of ten. It's hard to know, isn't it? The weird thing is that someone's doing a survey. Imagine someone comes up to you in the street. Clipboard in hand. Lanyard. Excuse me, sir. Can I just ask you a few questions? Certainly, yeah. What's it about? Your underpants.

[00:14:56] You're a wrong one. I would run in that moment. I would be like, I'd turn and I would flee. Someone's got an official badge and they're going, can I ask you about your underpants, please? You bought that online. You can get yourself a clipboard from Ryman's. This is not market research. This is the conversation of a wrong one. And then I would run away. And I tell you what, when I do run, that is when there is chafing. So maybe, maybe I'm in the seven out of ten. I'm a big fan of Hannah Fry.

[00:15:24] So if this Hannah Fry news, I'm bringing it to you. BBC presenter, Professor Hannah Fry. Big fan. Has been cleared by bosses after she questioned research finding that pigs have human-like emotions. This one shocks me, that you need to be cleared by bosses for being a professor and expressing an opinion on some research. Very much feels like that's kind of her gig. That's what she does. But because someone didn't like what that opinion was, there were complaints. Which is one thing.

[00:15:53] But then the complaints were taken seriously. Bosses waded in. Isn't it bizarre that bosses, whom I am presuming are not professors, think that their opinion is more important than the opinion of a professor on a science topic. Oh, she's winding me right up. An episode of her BBC2 show The Future with Hannah Fry was subject to complaints from animal rights campaigners. Because the research said that, you know, pigs have human-like emotions.

[00:16:19] She says, I'm not sure if pigs are even capable of human-like emotions, like being happy or sad, was her opinion. And it got complaints and people who know even less judged on it. The corporation has now ruled that she did not breach accuracy standards because Fry was expressing a personal reflection on a topic where many questions remained to be resolved. Wouldn't, well, firstly, pigs would have pig-like emotions.

[00:16:44] And the, I'd be more likely to believe humans can have pig-like emotions than pigs can have human emotions. Of course, I realise I'm probably going to get complaints for saying this now. Howdy. I'm really trying to walk together, walk up to a punchline that has the word poor sign in it. You know, when you find yourself worrying about the comments you've made about pigs, that's a very poor sign. That's all you're getting.

[00:17:13] There's one more story to bring you before we go. A Christmas crazy mum has put her tree up five months early in the middle of a heat wave. Kelly Jones, 46, hauled the tree and decorations out of storage on the 16th of July. She said she was sick of the heat and wanted to create a cosy atmosphere. I don't believe anyone wants a cosy atmosphere. What's the, that Nordic phrase, hygge? No one wants hygge. I think I might be pronouncing that incorrectly.

[00:17:43] But we went through that thing where people had a cosy based fashion. It was one of those, they gave us some, is it Swedish or Norwegian? I can't remember. Some sort of word from up there that there's no English translation for. It kind of means cosy. Oh, do you mean cosy? It's a bit like cosy. But there's no English translation for this cosy word. And people were really getting into that vibe. Yeah, but not in a heat wave.

[00:18:09] The last thing I want during a heat wave is for anyone to touch me, let alone big socks. Get off. Anyway, so this woman, she was wanting cosiness during a heat wave. I think she wanted the attention of being in the newspaper. And it worked. And I don't know why I don't do this myself. I keep trying to plug the flipping podcast. All I've got to do, just something daft like halfway through April, putting the Christmas tree decorations up, which previously would have been a sign of mental health issues, but now gets you in the tabloids.

[00:18:38] So actually, make a note. No, in April, we're doing it. Not April Fool's, actually. Yeah, that's true. Everyone does stupid things in April. We're doing Christmas in May. Write that down. It takes less letters. You're up to date. Thank you very much for listening today to today's news in podcast form, giving you all that you needed. If I were you, and I'm not, I'd subscribe to at Mr. Stephen Allen on social medias, to wherever you found this podcast for your podcast version,

[00:19:07] giving you your nearly daily updates of news. And have a look at youtube.com forward slash at Mr. Stephen Allen for the visual version. Till next time. Thank you for listening to Stephen Allen almost daily. This podcast is part of Podomity, the UK's podcast comedy network. Why not laugh at what else we've got? Visit Podomity.com.