Hey, UK, Don’t Release Killers

[00:00:00] Hello, I'm Steve N Allen and welcome to Steve N Allen Almost Daily. For Wednesday, the 5th of August, the day when it happened, this is a bit specific, maybe this is not national news, but for a lot of us, especially in the South East, the rain has arrived! Ah, finally! I forgot what to do! I can't remember what you do when the rain arrives, I stripped off and danced naked in the rain, like Blue Pearl. She would have been a fan. The other people at that bus stop, they seemed less keen. Right, let's do the front pages.

[00:00:30] Let's walk through these things together, and I've not read them yet, let's do it together. The front page of your Telegraph today, not yours, I mean in general, I think they're all the same, regardless of which one you buy. There's the love life that drove Nicole Kidman away from A-listers inside in the features. Oof, hello. Do you know, I was once, I received some death threats online from some weirdo, and I looked at his Twitter page to see whom else he was, you know, if he was sending death threats to someone else.

[00:00:57] And he was, and it was me, Nicole Kidman, and Tim Curry. And suddenly from being like weirded out by some weirdo on the internet saying nasty things, suddenly to be like, hmm, Nicole Kidman and Tim Curry. I mean, it's not a bad group to be in, is it really? Elsewhere on the front page, your main story is, setting free PC Harper's killers is not justice. Burnham warned that he must reverse the decision. I think that's quite understandable.

[00:01:21] I'm still, and I hope this isn't too much of a brave take on the news, I'm not in favour of releasing killers back onto the street. Yeah? I don't, we don't all wear capes. I think killers should be not on the streets. There we go. I don't even like the band of the killers being on the streets. They're a bit annoying. Oh, don't tell them that. Although I suppose they'd find some sort of positive spin on it, wouldn't they, if I told them that. But I'm setting up a Mr. Brightside joke that I'm not going to pay off.

[00:01:48] A thousand staff at the Bank of England work from beach. More than a thousand Bank of England staff took up the opportunity to work abroad last year. I don't know if I mind this, because it's the Bank of England. I don't really know what they do anyway. If you can do it on a laptop, it feels like the argument about not working from home would be, yeah, you need, sometimes you need to spitball ideas, and you want people to be able to, like, get mentorship and whatever. That doesn't happen to the Bank of England, does it?

[00:02:18] You're already good at the job if you're working. That's the top job. That's the best of all the banks, isn't it? That one's the A-grade bank. This is no HSBC. This is not Yorkshire Building Society. This is the Bank of England, my friend. Also, working from the beach. The beach is a land thing that separates us from the water, and so is a bank. So, you know, it feels like it's their natural home. Alzheimer's drug could save family thousands. I always like these stories.

[00:02:44] Breakthrough Alzheimer's drugs could save families thousands of pounds, delaying the progress of the disease. And the way I read that means I'm probably going to get tested. You know, it's one of those things I worry about. Everyone in my family had Alzheimer's a couple of years ago. So, it is a worry. There have been lots of talks of these drugs that seem like they're a breakthrough, and then they've not. Hopefully, that one will be. Train drivers travelled free with ticket fraud. What? What?

[00:03:08] Public sector workers have been using fake documents to travel by train without paying in a decade-long fraud? This is worse than the water thing. So, the workers employed by the government to transport nuclear waste. You know what? Let them have it. I've got that far in. And if you are transporting nuclear waste, enjoy the free travel you get. Because you transport nuclear waste. You ain't going to live that long. Enjoy it. They're not going to get a bus pass. Do you know what I mean?

[00:03:36] You feel like they're not going to get the free bus thing when they reach 60. Obviously, before they reach 60, they will be able to fly or whatever else happens to them. But, you know, give them a chance. Meanwhile, back to the front page of the Daily Mail. This summer's plague of flies. What's causing it? And what really works to get rid of them? I've not noticed that. Maybe, Daily Mail, it's just you. There is a chance, the Daily Mail, that these flies are just surrounded by you. Because they do like, shh, beep.

[00:04:06] You know what I'm saying? Elsewhere. Oh, back to this story. The most fantastical life story ever told. The Oxbridge academic. The Cambridge academic. He's been making up so much stuff. Like, he was on 7-Up. And actually, all the newspaper coverage has talked about the TV show 7-Up that was on. It started before he was born. He might have just meant he was on 7-Up. Like, oh, got a bit thirsty earlier. Had myself a fizzy pop. It's probably not that, is it? 9,300 domestic abusers to be released.

[00:04:35] Again, I'm going to go out on a limb here. I don't think domestic abusers should be released from prison. I'm taking so many bold angles today, aren't I? Speaking of bold angles, the Times, inside the Times 2, should you wear flip-flops to the office? No. I mean, I work from home and I wouldn't. Nah. Nah. Although the picture they've got of the lady there, she could. Also, what's going on with the front page of the Times? They've gone pure raunch.

[00:05:02] Not only have you got that woman getting a lower half out, Carol Midgley has the thing. Why I no longer go topless. Well, I didn't ask, but I'm kind of intrigued. The borrowing splurge in bid to boost economy is your main story on the front page of the Times. Ministers set to exploit change in fiscal rules. So the ministers are drawing up plans to boost economic growth by exploiting the fiscal rules to raise government borrowing and spend the money on infrastructure, housing and support.

[00:05:32] So the rule is, as I seem to understand it, you can borrow to build infrastructure. You can't borrow to pay your bills. So you can't borrow money to pay for nurses, but you can borrow money to build a hospital because then the nation has the infrastructure. There was an argument before when Rachel Weed got in that our accounting is wrong, that we don't actually measure the value of the thing we've bought, the asset to the nation.

[00:05:54] So actually, if you did start to do financial profit and loss and all that, if you have the books that measure the nation's assets, then maybe we're not as poor as it looks. I think we probably are still as poor as it looks. Under proposals being worked up before the budget, the Treasury intends to provide billions of pounds in new finance. Borrowed finance. It is taking money from the future, though, isn't it? Also, that was a happy note to leave that newspaper on.

[00:06:21] The Mirror gives, oh, this is not happy either, 40 knives a day off our streets. I mean, I suppose it is happy because they're being taken off our streets, but that's difficult to square that circle, isn't it? It would be good if no knives were being taken off our streets, if that were contingent on there being no knives on our streets. So I'm not really sure whether we want that metric to go up or down. See you in court, PM. Cops vow legal fight to block early release of PC Harper's killers.

[00:06:49] I think I've already given you my hot take on that one. And Super Rain. This is the front page of the Daily Star. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Super Rain because we're not used to it anymore. Hot weather is Britain's kryptonite. Is it? No, it's not. It's not been that bad, has it? It's been a bit warm. I don't know if you've seen any Superman films. But when they put kryptonite near Superman, he isn't like, can you turn that fan on? It's a bit close.

[00:07:16] It would make the films less dramatic if Lex Luthor gets out his kryptonite and Superman's like, hang on, I need to undo this. Although some people would watch, you dirty ladies. Just to see what, what's his name is. Mr. Corn Sweat. The guy who plays Superman now has the surname of Corn Sweat. Anyway, you're up to date. Let's jump inside the newspapers for deeper analysis.

[00:07:44] Price shock profiteers, BP and co, raking it in from the war. Again, this one's not going to achieve it. There we go. BP bosses have been slammed as price shock profiteers. Because of the Iran war, it's made a few things a bit more expensive, including the old petrol. And so the price goes up. And you never really stop and think about this.

[00:08:05] If, as a company, you're making a percentage profit and the price goes up as an absolute figure, your percentage is then an absolute figure. This is boring. This is math, isn't it? It's not even GCSE level of fun. But you know what I mean? If you're earning 2% and something costs 100 quid, you're earning 2 quid. But if suddenly it costs 200 pounds, you're earning 4 quid. No, that's not made it more fun. So imagine there are two trains setting off from different stations heading towards each other.

[00:08:34] That's fun maths, but that is not applicable here at all. So the whole story goes on about how basically BP, they're making more money because the thing that they're selling has become more expensive due to a war. So they're making more money on it. And yeah, sure, they could have actually lowered their percentage and earned the same amount of money. And so could the government. No one seems to be holding the government to account on this as well. They make a percentage on the price that you pay at the pumps. And it's a big, it's a hefty one.

[00:09:00] So when the price at the pumps goes up, the government just makes more money. What it could do is reduce that. And well, all they've done is like, what they, what's the phrase? They said that they were not, they're going to make a saving, a cut. But you look at it and actually they're just not introducing a rise that they'd scheduled. I wish I could do that in my relationship. Do you want to have some sort of promise about, I will be getting fatter year on year by 5%.

[00:09:28] And then one year when I've only got fatter by 1% or 2%, I'll send to the missus, I'm looking pretty good. No, you're welcome. What a great weight loss regime. She'll be like, you are fatter. I'm 1% fatter. And I did promise you 5% year on year. That maths wasn't even more fun either, was it? Right, let's go further in. You should, according to the news, be putting your nuts in the fridge. That's how hot it's been.

[00:09:55] I don't know, straight away you're thinking, that makes sense. That sounds good to me. Let me read the story. Crisps, nuts and even wholemeal flour should be kept in the fridge in the summer, according to an expert on food waste. Okay, so it's not immediately what you thought I was talking about, but you still probably agree. But now you are still thinking about the other thing, aren't you? Kate Hall, who's a food waste expert. You don't want that written on your business cards.

[00:10:19] So that everyday foods will stay fresher for longer if they're chilled in hot weather, including apples, berries, peppers, herbs, chocolate biscuits. Bless you for thinking there's a chance chocolate biscuits become food waste in my house. Oh, did those chocolate biscuits go to waste? No, you just see me with crumbs down the front. No, that's what I got. I got them. I absolutely got them. Don't you worry about that, my love. I have not a lot of food waste around here.

[00:10:48] I might as well be the compost. Apples have been struggling. How are your apples? How do you like them apples? There's a story in the news of a farmer who's found an interesting way of dealing with having your apples in the sun. So previously we talked about you've got to have your nuts in the fridge and now you've got to get your apples out in the sun. Sun's out, apples out. But a farmer has been applying sun cream to his apples to prevent them from cooking in the heat wave. Mmm, tasty.

[00:11:16] Clive Baxter has been working on his family fruit farm for 40 years. That's harder to say than I thought. Following in his father's footsteps. Are they doing this deliberately? Do you think newspapers write things that you can't say on radio? He worked on his family fruit farm for 40 years following in his father's footsteps. You try it. This is down in Maidson in Kent. He produces 2,000 tons of apples a year but it's been getting so hot they've been cooking on the tree. So now he's putting some factor 50 on them or whatever.

[00:11:47] Thanks, but I think I'm fine now. No, because I was going to eat an apple. But now I realise it's been all slathered up in some sort of cream. If I wanted fruit and cream, I'd stick to me strawberries. Do you know what I mean? This whole thing's a mess. In tech news, security actually, security tech news, the English National Ballet has revealed it suffered a data hack that has seen customer contact information been leaked. Oh, this is worrying. I know we've got the AI that broke out.

[00:12:17] That was worrying. And Marks and Spencer had a bit of a hack. But this one really worries me. The English National Ballet? Is that a data hack? That means out there on the dark web, it's information about whether you like ballet or not. Imagine the black men. No, if someone got in touch with me, we've found evidence that you like ballet. You're wrongen. You like watching men jump round in them tights and we'll tell the world if you don't give us some crypto. I'll be handing over Bitcoin hand over fist.

[00:12:47] This is a worrying thing, isn't it? In entertainment news, Strigley's Craig Revel Horwood, this is a terrible story, was robbed on holiday. He was attacked with someone who had a knife. And then he said he was strip searched on the way home. Which is either adding insult to injury because you've just been robbed of your stuff so there's less stuff to try and secrete about you. You know, it's an irony, isn't it? What are you searching for? I wish I had something to cram there. I've got nothing like that. I've got my wallet.

[00:13:16] Or it's a story of two halves, isn't it? Good news, bad news. I was robbed. But at least I was strip searched on the way home. It just depends what you're into. I'm normally willing to have a go at young people. There is that clip of me on John Oliver's Last Week Tonight where they have like a montage of people from GB News having a go at Gen Z's. And I still say they misrepresented the joke I was trying to set up. They did all the setup and trimmed out the punchline. So it looked like I was just a moaning old man. But then again, I also am one of those. That's fine.

[00:13:45] But I'm going to defend Gen Z now. In the newspapers, Gen Z festival goers would rather lose their mates than their mobile phones, according to new research. Duh. Yeah. Of course you would. So you're at a festival. Would you rather lose the people you went with or lose your phone? I'd say lose the people you went with and then give them a call on the phone. That's what phones are for. Or who even did this?

[00:14:11] Whoever did this survey has never worked out that you can use them to contact people. That's the bigger worry. Because the other way around is you lose your phone. Your mates are there. Great. But then you've lost your phone. You can't ask your mates for it and get it back. This makes no sense to me. Experts fear that they're going to become extinct, according to the newspapers. This is AI has solved math problems that they couldn't manage. Are you surprised by this?

[00:14:39] Robots get really good at thinking about stuff. And I'll tell you what robots tend to be good at. Maths. But OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, said its unreleased model Astra mead 10 mathematical breakthroughs in a week using less than £1,500 worth of computer power. Uh-oh. So if you are some sort of a maths expert, well, you do the maths. This robot can do your job 10 times better for only £1,500. And I say you do the maths.

[00:15:09] Do the maths really quickly, because pretty soon you won't be doing maths. It's quite a tech special today, isn't it? An ex-Navy chief has said that Britain could one day have a fleet of Terminators. At sea. Well, do they float? I've watched the film Terminator and all the sequels. They look like they're not going to be great at swimming. They're made of metal. However, this Terminators at sea thing is the idea that this guy's come up with.

[00:15:35] Sir Nick Hine, former second sea lord, has backed the plans to use AI drone superpowers. So basically, in the future, sailors are going to be robots. There's a story we covered somewhere else ages ago about how there's now robot bricklayers. So builders are robots. There's also speed cameras everywhere, so police are robots.

[00:15:58] I'm just thinking, of the village people, AI is going to replace all of them other than the Native American. So it just goes to show, sometimes the tradition really can help out there. Is that the hot take of this story we needed? I don't think it is. Back to the entertainment news. Adam, what's his name? Adam Sandler. That guy. He said that he keeps his socks on while swimming. And I thought, are you doing one of those bronze life-saving things?

[00:16:27] How are you at getting one of those bricks off the bottom of the swimming pool? It's not that. He said that, to what his daughter was being interviewed, he wears his socks in the pool because he can't bend to take them off. If you can't bend to take off your socks, a couple of questions. Why are you swimming? That feels foolish. How are you going to get out of the pool? But maybe it's just specifically bending to take off your socks. The bigger question is, how did you get them socks on in the first place?

[00:16:53] I think the bigger story here is, Adam Sandler just wears the same socks forever. He has to go swimming to wash them, doesn't he? I think we've actually solved that one. And finally, Brits have settled the debate on the right way to cut a fish finger sandwich. Almost a third, only a third, of the nation agreed that the tasty treat should always be sliced vertically down the middle of the sandwich, cutting the fish fingers in half. Oh.

[00:17:18] Because your other option would be, so look, 31% of fish finger fans were avid about slicing horizontally to keep the fish fingers as a whole. Yes, but you have to make sure you go in a gap between the fish fingers. You don't go through the edge of one, you weirdo, you pervert. No, I, yeah, I'm in that group. So, when it says we've settled this debate, almost a third, 33% is a third, think you should do it horizontally, no, vertically. 31% think it should be horizontally.

[00:17:47] That's darned, I think actually if anything we further, I didn't even realise it was a debate. So if you add up, you've got 33%, that means, so if it's 33% plus 33%, that means just over, over, I'm trying to work out what's left now, 63, 64 leaves you with 30. So most people don't think you should cut it that way. More people think, are there some weirdos out there trying to do it diagonally? Oh, good God.

[00:18:17] Oh, good, oh, good. Do you know what? I think this nation is more riven than it was during the Brexit thing. At least that was, you know, 52, 48, you make your peace with that eventually. These weirdos and their sandwiches. Thank you very much for listening to today's news update podcast. You've got all the news you need from today, but there'll be more news tomorrow. So get subscribed right now. We'll be plopping some more news into your inbox or wherever it lands. Track me down on social media at Mr. Steve N Allen for more.

[00:18:47] Until next time. Thank you for listening to Steve N 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.