World News Quiz 2024 (Luke's English Podcast)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning. This is Stephen Devinchenzie. If you've never listened
to Simple English News Daily before. Normally we give seven
minute news updates of everything that is happening in the world,
five days a week, but we are having a one
week break between Christmas and New Year. We will start

(00:21):
again with our normal episodes on the second of January. However,
recently I was a guest host on Luke's English podcast,
and I've asked Luke if I could release the episode
here as well. In this episode, I ask Luke twenty
questions about what has happened in the world this year.

(00:41):
You can get a pen and paper and see if
you can beat him. If you'd like to become a
supporter of sent seven and have access to the news
transcripts that we write every day and are weekly worksheets
and world news quiz, then you can go to seven
dot org. Until the end of December, there is a
ten euro discount on becoming a yearly supporter using the

(01:06):
discount code December twenty twenty four. We give ten percent
of our profit to highly effective charities. Please note that
there is no transcript for today's episode because it's actually
an episode of Luke's English Podcast. Okay, here is Luke's
English Podcast twenty twenty four World News Quiz.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
You're listening to Luke's English podcast. For more information, visit
teacher Luke dot co dot uk. Hello listeners, welcome back
to Luke's English podcast and season's greetings as well, and
happy New Year. And I hope everyone's doing well out there.

(01:51):
Today on the podcast, it's time for the World News
Quiz twenty twenty four. WHOA, Yeah, that's right. It's become
a sort of long running tradition. I say long running.
It's the third year that we've been doing this and
I'm joined in this episode by Stephen Devin Chenzi from
the Send seven podcast. Hello Stephen, how are you today?

Speaker 1 (02:15):
Hello Luke, It's great to be back. Merry Christmas and
happy New Year for when that comes. It's a pleasure
to be here. It's extremely windy outside here in southeast England.
I can see my neighbour's plastic chairs rolling around the garden.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
I'm really glad.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
But other than that, yeah, I'm doing very well. How
are you.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
I'm doing fine. Thanks. It's not quite as windy here,
just a few degrees south of you in Paris. It's
not windy at all today, but it is gray and
just sort of a bit overcast and generally a bit miserable.
I mean, this is this doesn't feel like Christmas, Stephen,
Christmas doesn't look like this, does it.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
No, it's supposed to be snow, isn't it? But instead
it's just gray. Yeah, it's gray here as well.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah, no snowflakes, snow, none of those Christmasy things are
no icicles or anything. Just kind of generally gray and overcast.
So yeah, Steven, welcome back onto the podcast. I think
it's been actually a year since the last time, because
the last episode that we did together was the twenty
twenty three World News Quiz.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
That's right, it's been a flown by. It's flown by.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
It has, hasn't it. How has twenty twenty four been
for you?

Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yeah? I think it's been pretty good. Yeah. I drove
to Spain in the summer, as I have done for
the last three summers, which is always fun. Spent a
lot of time in France on that journey, as you
can imagine, and just came back from Bulgaria. So if
anybody listens to sen seven and doesn't know why I

(03:56):
wasn't there last week. It's because I was in Bulgaria
for the thing. A thing. Well, actually it was my
partner's thing. I just tagged along to her thing.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
So it was like some sort of thing that you
can't talk about, like some kind of special mission in Bulgaria.
I don't know what that would.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
Be, actually, no, I just it was my partner's job,
and I've never asked her if I can talk about
it on a podcast, so I'm not going to just
in case for some reason.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
You totally understand now, I understand it completely. Okay, So
you're in Bulgaria, okay for a thing. Yeah, that sounds
pretty cool. How was Bulgaria?

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Yeah it was great, actually, yeah, really really fun. It
was in just in Sofia, in the capital. Because my
partner was doing work related stuff all the time, I
had lots of time by myself, so I just walked around,
drank a lot of coffee and a lot of coffee shops.
And yeah, they've got lots of ancient Roman ruins in Sofia.

(04:58):
One of them is all in a met station. So
they were excavating to make a metro station and they
found all these Roman ruins in the place where they
were excavating. It's really interesting.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah, those Romans they got around a bit, didn't they.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
They really did.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
Yeah, everywhere, just hiding ruins under the ground. Why would they?
Why would they? Why would they do that? Put loads
of ruins underground and then just bury them and go
there you go when you build a metro station where
you try to build a metro station in the future. Ha,
remember the Romans going.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
To have all these ruins in the way.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
Okay, So Stephen, what is the plan then for this episode?
What are we going to do? Because you're kind of, yeah,
I'm sort of what's the word for it, at your
mercy in this episode in the sense that you're kind
of like going to be the host of this one.
So tell us what the plan is.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
Yes, So I've got twenty questions that I've written about
things that have happened in the world over the last year,
so in twenty twenty four, and the idea is for you, Luke,
to see how many questions you can get, right, and
for everybody who's listening or watching, if you're watching on YouTube,

(06:15):
they can well they can try and get as many
questions as they can, maybe even try to beat you,
which I think some people did in twenty twenty three, so.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
I'm sure, yeah, yeah, Again, this reminds me of last
year because last year, I think I said that I
couldn't remember what score I got the previous year. I
can't remember either or last year, but it definitely wasn't
one hundred percent. It was a pass. It was like,
at least I don't know what sixty percent at least,

(06:47):
So there's definitely listeners. You definitely have a big chance
of beating me this year again, especially since and again
this is another kind of caveat that I made last year,
is maybe, you know, trying to cover up for any
mistakes or questions I get wrong, is that I feel

(07:07):
like I haven't really been keeping up with the news
this year, although yeah, I said that last year. One
of the reasons for that is that I think I
used to get a lot of my news on social media,
which is kind of the way it is these days. Right,
The kind of the news landscape is quite complicated these days.
I mean it used to be, you know, my younger days,

(07:29):
it used to be a bit more straightforward. You basically
had the TV news, you had the radio news, you
had newspapers and that was it, and you would, you know,
always watch the news on TV. You'd have newspapers lying
around at home, and that's how you got your news.
These days, we've still got those things radio, TV, newspapers,
but then there's all this other stuff online, the social media,

(07:51):
different social media platforms, email, newsletters, news agencies which are
online casts as well. So for me, I don't really
go on Twitter or X dot com as it's called
of course these days, don't really go on there these
days so much. I mean, since it changed to X,

(08:12):
it just for some reason it just became less enjoyable
as an experience to go on the platform. I just
found that my feed was full of stuff that I
didn't want to see and from accounts that I wasn't following,
and it was pretty nasty, like some of the content
was very unpleasant, the sorts of things I didn't really

(08:34):
want to see, and it was always being thrown at me,
and I've just found it to be not as enjoyable.
So I haven't been on X dot com very much
this year. I think probably I get my news from
a little bit to radio that I listened to and
some podcasts as well. I listened to the rest is
politics sometimes and it's interesting to listen to those guys.

(08:56):
But you will be I mean, obviously you're the quiz
master today. And the reason for this is that you
do a podcast about the news for learners of English,
and so you are way more informed than I am
because you spend so much time researching global news and
then turning it into your episodes. Tell us just briefly
about your podcast again if you would.

Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yeah, sure, So, just in case anybody doesn't know me,
I'm Stephen Devinchenzi and I'm the presenter and the founder
of Simple English News Daily, which is a daily podcast
as the name suggests, and it's only seven minutes long.
So every day we cover stories from all parts of
the world. A couple of stories from Europe, a couple

(09:38):
of stories from Africa, a couple of stories from Asia
and Oceania, a couple of stories from the Americas, and
just in really simple language, we just say what's happened.
It's kind of like headlines. It's just a seven minute
episode of the real base of the story. And so, yeah,

(10:00):
I've been doing this for four years or a bit more,
and it's yeah, I think what you were saying their
luke about people getting their news from social media more.
I've seen some statistics, some data which suggests that more
people are getting their news from social media these days

(10:23):
than from older traditional types of media, which might bring
into question the term mainstream media, because actually, if more
people are getting there their information from social media, then
you could say that that now is mainstream. But anyway, yeah,

(10:43):
the podcast gets most of its information from professional journalists
and things like that. The questions that we're going to
be talking about in today's episode are not going to
be based on excuse me, I'm not going to be
based on everything that's happened in the world, because, of course,
there are a lot of negative things that have happened

(11:06):
in the world in twenty twenty four, and we spoke
about it a little bit, and we thought maybe, after
doing this quiz in twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three,
we thought maybe in twenty twenty four we would keep
the questions to not necessarily positive things, but just not

(11:27):
negative things about war and other topics like that, so
that we don't trivialize these world events. So all of
the twenty questions that we've got for today are going
to be about random other events, if that makes sense, Luke.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah, so I wanted to say something about this as well,
and that was that I was thinking about the potential
complexity of navigating the world of global news on my
podcast and generally speaking, my episodes. The tone of my
episodes is quite kind of lighthearted and entertaining and humorous.

(12:11):
You know. That's kind of the way I try to
do it, you know, to help people learn English in
a sort of fun way. I try to be insightful,
I try to go into depth about things, but overall
the tone is supposed to be fairly light and entertaining
and humorous. Now, the World's News Quiz. I love doing
these because I just love a quiz, and it's also

(12:32):
quite a nice way for me to kind of, you know,
just think about what's been going on this year. But yeah,
so it's tricky to navigate that keeping the tone of
this lighthearted podcast while also talking about some very serious
events in the news. So yeah, we've decided to go
for questions that are perhaps a bit more in line

(12:55):
with the kind of tone of the podcast itself. But
I did want to mention, you know, some of the
more serious events in the world, and you know, twenty
twenty four has seen plenty of very serious and very
troubling events in various places, and you know, I think
it's important to acknowledge this and mention it. So before

(13:17):
we start the quiz, I just wanted to say a
few things. In fact, both of us wanted to say
a few things on this. So you know, you do
talk about those serious, big news stories in your podcast episodes, right,
I mean you always talk about those things, and then
here you are doing something a bit more humorous. So

(13:39):
that's that's also a little a bit of a tone
shift for you, all right.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
Actually it could be both ways. So if somebody is
used to listening to seven, my podcast, Simple English News Daily,
and then listens to this episode, they might think, oh,
why is he not talking about the serious things that
happened in the world. And then, of course if people
are listening to LEAP all the time and then come

(14:07):
over to seven, they think, well, why is he always
talking about all these terrible well spent it might not
make sense. So yeah, it's it's probably worth mentioning this.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
Yeah, So we're going to start the quiz in a moment, everyone, right,
But first of all, I just wanted to say a
few words about, you know, twenty twenty four and some
of the you know, serious things that probably should be
mentioned in an episode like this, and then we will
start the quiz properly. Okay, So, actually what I wanted
to do was read out an extract from the Wikipedia

(14:42):
page for the year twenty twenty four, which is actually
quite a neat summary of some of the most serious
and somber stories of the last twelve months. And actually,
in my mind also I've got a question about news
and what makes things newsworthy, and you know, in the
news they always prioritize these very serious stories. We could

(15:04):
talk about that briefly in a moment. But anyway, so
the Wikipedia page for the year twenty twenty four, right,
So this is what it says. Twenty twenty four is
the current year and is a leap year starting on
Monday of the Gregorian calendar, the twenty twenty fourth year
of the Common Era and Anno Domini designations, the twenty

(15:27):
fourth year of the third millennium and the twenty first century,
and the fifth year of the twenty twenties decade. The
year has seen the continuation of major armed conflicts, including
the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Myanmar Civil War, the
Sudanese Civil War, and the Islamist insurgency of the Sahel.
In November, heavy fighting resumed in the Syrian Civil War,

(15:51):
leading to the toppling of Baptist Syria, with Bashah al
Asad fleeing Syria in December. The ongoing Israel Mams War
has led to spillover into numerous countries, most notably Lebanon,
who Israel invaded in October. This followed an intensification of
the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. In the preceding month,

(16:15):
Israel escalated an offensive against the group, including an attack
using explosives laden communication devices and and carrying out a
bombing of its headquarters, which resulted in the killing of
the secretary General Nassan Nasrallah Ismael Haniyeh I hope I'm
pronouncing that properly, the political leader of Hamas had already

(16:39):
been assassinated in the Iranian capital Tehran in July. The
year also saw a rise in activity by the Huthi movement,
which has contributed to a crisis in the Red Sea
that has impacted global shipping. The ongoing conflict has sparked
widespread protests against the war. So that is just the

(17:00):
first two paragraphs of the page about twenty twenty four,
which is much longer. Of course, it's all very serious stuff,
and we know that there are millions of ordinary people
caught in the middle of these events and situations, and
this is obviously tragic and deeply saddening. But I wanted
to mention that thankfully there are people and organizations who

(17:23):
are working very hard to bring relief and medical aid
to those who are directly affected by things like this,
and we can actually contribute to their efforts by giving
them support, because sometimes in the face of these news stories,
we read about these things and you kind of feel
a little bit obviously feel saddened, and it's horrendous, and

(17:44):
you kind of feel a little powerless when you understand
that there are these huge, seismic global political situations, and
you know, most normal people are just kind of like
subjected to it. So one of the organizations that people
can help out by donating to is Medicine Sans Frontier,

(18:06):
which is in English Doctors without Borders. So I just
wanted to mention that people could consider donating to Doctors
Without Borders in order to help people in need around
the world. Let me just give a little bit more information.
So this is not a paid promotion of any kind,
and I don't mean to you know, we don't want
to preach to everyone or anything like that. You know,

(18:28):
you can do whatever you want. But I feel like,
since we are talking about these global events, it just
wouldn't really be right not to mention the serious stuff
while also mentioning something that we can specifically do. So.
Doctors Without Borders is a renowned international humanitarian organization that
provides medical assistance to people affected by conflict, epidemics, natural disasters,

(18:51):
and exclusion from healthcare. The reasons why it's a good
idea to donate to them they were on the frontlines,
often in the most dangerous and neglected areas, providing emergency
care to those who might otherwise have no access to
medical assistance, and donations directly support life saving interventions such

(19:15):
as surgeries, vaccinations, and maternal health services. Also, MSF med
sen san Frontier is independent and neutral, which is a
really important thing. They refuse funding from governments or from
political entities for its emergency programs and this makes sure
that their work remains neutral and independent, and this independence

(19:39):
allows them to provide aid solely based on need. Okay,
and that's I think a really important thing. I could
go on. People can find out more by googling Doctors
without Borders, and that's also where people can donate in
order to support the organization, if that's what you would

(20:00):
like to do. But anyway, I just wanted to mention
those things.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
I think that was a really really really nice luke.
Well done, well said.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
Okay, well, shall we do our quiz now?

Speaker 1 (20:12):
I think we shall? I think we shall. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
let's go to it. Okay, ready for question one.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
I wonder what you're going to ask I'm now thinking,
oh my god, what is he going to ask me about?
And I'm just trying to cast my mind back over
the last twelve months. There's been a lot of podcasting,
and can tell you that much, but other things as
well progress.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
There's no podcast related question. I'm afraid things that have happened,
including question number one. Yes, in January, there we go.
So before twenty twenty four, only four countries had landed
spacecraft on the moon, the United States, the Soviet Union, China,

(20:54):
and last year India. Which country became the fifth country
to land a spacecraft on the moon in January twenty
twenty four.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
Oh my god, because as you were asking me the question,
I was thinking, Oh, it's India. India, right, India is
the answer. But no, they were the fourth, So I
need the fifth. I need to try and think aloud
when I'm responding to these questions. You do think I'm
thinking at this point, I don't know the answer off
the top of my head. So is there any way
that I can kind of work it out? Fifth country

(21:29):
to land something on the moon?

Speaker 1 (21:32):
Yeah, I'll just remind people which countries it isn't by
the ones that have already done it. So the countries
that had already landed on the moon, where the United States,
the Soviet Union aka Russia, let's just say, because it's
not Russia, China, and India. So it's not one of
those ones. It's the fifth country to land on the moon.

(21:56):
They did it in January twenty twenty four.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
So I don't really know, but I'm pretty sure it's
not the UK. I don't think there's been a British
spaceship landed on the Moon, although maybe it's the European
Space Agency. Maybe it's the although I don't think they've
got the funding to put something on the moon.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
And the question does say which country?

Speaker 2 (22:15):
Which country? Yeah, it's not Britain, because you know, what
would we be doing on the moon? Just be like,
you know, there's no you can't drink tea on the moon,
can you? So what's the point? You know, no fish
and chips on the moon. I don't know, Stephen, I
don't know. I'm sorry to say that. I don't know
everyone out there. I can tell already you're going to

(22:36):
beat me this year. But so who was it? Which?
Which country?

Speaker 1 (22:41):
Do you want to choose one at random? Just in case?
Five other countries to choose from?

Speaker 2 (22:46):
So yeah, yeah, I'm just trying to think what's the
most unlikely of countries to put something on the moon.
But I know Whales, Wales, Wales, Wales.

Speaker 1 (22:58):
Your final answer.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
I think the Welsh have been putting all of their
resources into putting a Welsh flag on the moon. I
think it's Whales.

Speaker 1 (23:08):
Okay, well I can tell you that you are not correct.
I'm afraid it is not Whales. What a surprise. Unfortunately
it is not Wales. The correct answer is Japan. Japan
was the fifth country to land on the Moon. They
did that in January.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
Yeah, that's right, really, yeah, okay, I'm surprised. Why didn't
I didn't I know about this? What were they doing
up on the moon? Then? Japanese listeners, what's all that about?

Speaker 1 (23:34):
It's a good question. Yeah, but they were the fifth
country to arrive to the moon. Do you know that
the US is the only country that has ever sent
people to the Moon, and they only did that between
nineteen sixty nine and nineteen seventy two, and they haven't
done it since then. So nobody has been to the
Moon since nineteen seventy two.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
What's the reason for that? Do you think just because
I think there's nothing there.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
I think it might be because it's quite dangerous and
extremely expensive. But the US has said that they are
going to put people on the moon again in twenty
twenty seven, so yeah, that'll be exciting in a few
years time, two years time.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
It's mainly just sort of dirt, isn't it. Really. It's
not like there's much to do. There are no good restaurants,
you know, no, I mean there's no no swimming pools,
no golf, clubs. No, I mean, you can play golf
on the Moon that the Americans did that, didn't they
in the seventies, I think. But yeah, it's like it's
going to cost you billions and when you get there

(24:32):
there'll be nothing to do. So nah, probably best just
stay at home.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I wonder if a space golf course
would actually ever be a possible thing to do. I
suppose the ball would just go really high, wouldn't it.

Speaker 2 (24:48):
Do you reckon it's possible to whack a golf ball
out of the orbit of the Moon.

Speaker 1 (24:53):
I don't know. We're going to have to try that
one day.

Speaker 2 (24:58):
If it's got gravity, it's got gravitational p it's just
obviously not as not as strong as it is on Earth.
So I wonder if it's possible to whack a golf
ball into space from the Moon. That's what I would
do if I went there. So anyone listening from any
of the space agencies, and you know, you're thinking, we'd
like to go to the Moon because a lot of

(25:18):
countries are doing it. It seems to be a really
cool thing to do, but we're not quite sure what
we would do when we got there. Well, I've got
I know what we would do. We'd try and hit
a golf ball out of the gravitational orbit of the
Moon that I think is probably worth spending what three
hundred billion pounds for.

Speaker 1 (25:38):
I would say, well, if there's anybody that can help
you with that, Luke. It is the main character of
question number two. Question number two is the world's richest person.
Elon Musk has got lots of companies. One of them
is SpaceX as you just were talking about there, and
one of them is called Neuralink. Question two is what

(26:03):
does neuralink do?

Speaker 2 (26:07):
What does neurolink do? I think it connects the brain.
It's basically step one in the It's like a Matrix prequel,
isn't it. Basically it's like a prequel to the Matrix.
So they've as far as I understand, neurolink is a
way to connect the human brain to the Internet or

(26:30):
to a computer, and it allows you, I think, to
control a computer from your brain rather than some other
interface like a keyboard or a mouse or something. You
can do it from your own mind. Is that right?

Speaker 1 (26:45):
That is absolutely right? Well done? Log got one right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
that's completely right.

Speaker 2 (26:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:53):
So neurerlink actually has implanted. I think they've done it
to two people now microchips into their brain, which is
such a crazy thing to think about, and they are
actually able to control, for example, things on a computer screen,
like I've seen a guy playing chess moving a mouse

(27:13):
around with his just by thinking it, which is it
sounds so insanely futuristic, but that is actually happening.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
So yeah, wow, I don't know if I am excited
or terrified or some sort of combination of the two
at this idea.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
Yeah, yeah, it is a pretty crazy thing to think about.
But if you think about it in this way, the
two people who have had it done are paralyzed, so
they are made as a result. No no, no, no, okay, no, no,
they were fine before another so.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
They can move a mouse, they can move a cursor
in a computer, but they can't move their body anymore.
I hope that they were top this is not the case.
They weren't paralyzed as a result, of course, but.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
No, no, they are people who were previously paralyzed of course,
so that means that they did not have the ability
to move their hands or legs or any part of
their body like they were paralyzed from the shoulders down
and having this chip has been able to give them
a little bit more freedom of being able to do

(28:26):
things like, as I say, moving a mouse around a keyboard,
screen and that kind of thing. So one guy playing
Mario Karts, which is pretty incredible with his brain. So
if you think about it from the perspective of somebody
who has lost all of their ability to use their

(28:47):
body parts, this is really fantastic.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
Yes, yeah, absolutely, this is a really good positive application
of it. Yeah, that's great that someone whose paradized can
play Mario Kart and as well do so many other
really important things.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah, and hopefully this is just the
beginning of it. Okay, question number three. In June and July,
the Euro twenty twenty four football tournament took place in Germany.
Spain were the winners, and one of their players broke
the record for being the youngest player to play in

(29:23):
a Euro's tournament and score in a Euro's tournament when
he scored against France in the semi final aged just sixteen.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
God was his name, I don't know, but I remember
him because he was both sixty. He turned seventeen during
the competition, didn't he Yeah, a.

Speaker 1 (29:46):
Couple of days after scoring that goal against France.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
Yeah, he was both sixteen and seventeen, you know, during
the tournament. I remember that and obviously made it made
me feel very old and and all the rest of it.
But I can't remember his name. I'm sorry, mate. I
know he's listening, because obviously everyone listens to this podcast,
but so I'm really sorry that I can't remember your name. Mate.

(30:09):
But you know, you're really good at football. You know,
so swings roundabouts, isn't it. Oh, what's the matter, Luke
Thompson couldn't remember my name? Oh well, but at least
you're really good at football, so yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:21):
Right, yeah, at least he's the youngest player to ever
score at a Euro's tournament. Okay, well, all of the
Spanish listeners are obviously helping you right now, Luke, I'm
so sorry. How could you not remember his name?

Speaker 2 (30:38):
I'm sorry? Los Ciento, right.

Speaker 3 (30:40):
Yeah, Losiento Ordon? Oh you say, yeah, how.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
Do you say? I'm I'm an idiot who can't remember
important things about Spanish footballers.

Speaker 3 (30:58):
The football lists this Spana.

Speaker 2 (31:03):
Right exactly what he said? Okay, everybody, I'm really sorry,
especially to the man himself. Is he a man anyway, right?

Speaker 1 (31:12):
Actually, do you know what, I don't think he is
technically a man. I mean, by law, he's still seventeen,
so he's still a boy. I guess the miner's name
is Yamin Lamal. Yamin Lamal is that's right. Yaman Lamal
was sixteen now seventeen and scored an absolutely incredible goal.

(31:36):
I don't know a lot about football, but I knew
that that was an incredible goal when I saw it
against France from really far away outside the penalty area.
There you go. Okay, Luke, you are on only one
out of three so far. You've got one out of three, right,
So listeners, if you've got two out of three, right,
you're already beating Luke at the moment. We're going to

(31:58):
stick to sports.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
Okay, Yeah, I was going to say, I'm just you know,
I'm failing at this point. I've only got thirty three
point three recurring percent, which is definitely below the general
past mark of sixty percent. You know, this is like
what this is like? I ELT's what level four three
and a half. I'm basically like a kind of elementary level.

(32:23):
If this was i ELS, then I'm no university will
accept me with this current score. So I need to
improve and quickly.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
Here's your chance, because this one is from your home city,
and by home city, I mean where you live, not
where you were born. Of course, here we go. In
July and August, the Olympics took place in Paris. Why
was the men's triathlon event delayed by one day?

Speaker 3 (32:54):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (32:54):
I love this question.

Speaker 1 (32:56):
Are you going to give people a moment to think? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (33:00):
Yeah, so the men's triathlon it was delayed by one day. Now,
this is one of the talking points that everyone finds
very amusing and it's something that a lot of Parisian
people have sort of quite interested in. Let's say, so,

(33:22):
the triathlon involves three different disciplines. There's running, there's cycling,
and there's swimming, right, and so the swimming part was
planned to take place in the river Sen itself. They
were going to go in Sen. They were going to
go insane and actually jump in the Seine. And I

(33:46):
say insane because for some people that was a crazy
idea because the Zen is not very clean, although these days,
according to the Mayor of Paris, that it's fixed. It's
just clean now. But no, So the reason it was delayed.
The reason that it was delayed is because every day
they had to take water samples from the river to

(34:08):
check the level of for example, very harmful bacteria and
other things that you don't really want to be swimming with.
And the day it was supposed to happen, they checked
the water quality and it wasn't considered safe to swim in, which,
you know, the athlete I don't know how the athletes
felt about this. But then that so it was delayed

(34:29):
by a day and they checked the quality of the
water again, and on that particular day it was okay.
I mean, you know, it's I don't know if they
had like a past mark like I've got in this
test where it's like the previous day sixty one percent. No, sorry,
this is dangerous, but the next day fifty nine percent.
So yeah, that's fine. You can swim in that. Just

(34:50):
you know, don't open your mouth if possible.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
It sounds like, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
So that's the reason is because they had to the
first day the water was considered clean enough, but the
next day it was it was clean enough. I don't
know what happened in that twenty four hour period where
just people didn't use the toilet in the entire city
for a day, although you know, there was because people
were so annoyed about this, the idea that and the

(35:19):
mayor of Paris and Hidalgo, in order to prove her
point that it was safe to swim in, she actually
swam in the river itself. She went in with a
few other people and swam in the in the river
with a full wet suit on and everything. And because
people she's not that popular with some people, and so
there was this thing going around social media and I

(35:39):
think where some people in Paris were saying, right, so
and Hidalgo is going to go in the river on
this day, everyone flushed their toilet, Everyone used the toilet
and flush at exactly the same time, you know. So anyway,
that was my answer.

Speaker 1 (35:55):
Okay, well, yeah, as you can tell you know your stuff,
that is absolutely right. Well, you've stolen everything that I
was going to say in my nice explanation of this question,
because you knew the answered just too well. But yeah,
the triathlon event was delayed because on one day they
said it was a bit too polluted, and then on

(36:16):
the next day they said, oh no, it's okay now.
And I've been asking myself the same question ever since.
What happened? How is it possible? But one day it's
not okay, and just the next day it is okay.
But yeah, you're right. And ani'd Algo, the mayor of Paris,
swam in the river two weeks before I think it
was just before the opening ceremony to try and show
that the river was clean. And then of course they said,

(36:39):
actually it wasn't clean the day before the triath lunch
and then they said it was anyway, that is the
correct answer, Well done, Luke. Have you been swimming in
the Seine?

Speaker 2 (36:48):
I've never swum in the Seine and I don't plan
to at any time. No, thanks, I mean, yeah, it's
got it. It doesn't look appealing either, I mean it's
quite The current in the river is quite strong as
far as I can see, and as a result, it
kind of brings up a lot of the earth and

(37:10):
silt from the river bed, so the water is quite
dirty looking anyway, and it's quite the current is quite strong,
and then you think, well, all sorts of stuff goes
into this river from the city. And also, I mean,
we've seen that Disney movie Ratatui, but we know that
there are rats in the city, So no, thanks, I

(37:31):
think I'll stay on dry land, thanks very much.

Speaker 1 (37:35):
There's not really any good reason to swim in the Seine, really,
is there.

Speaker 2 (37:39):
Yeah, only if there's a gold medal you know, up
for grabs perhaps, or if you know, you've got no choice.
I suppose I understood. I think that they had ways
of introducing other water into the river system. Upstream. They
have these kind of I don't know how they do it,
but they've got these kind of pools of water with gates,

(38:03):
sluice gates, and they can open these gates and release
cleaner water into the system, which apparently improves the water
quality for a limited time. And I don't know exactly,
but I understood that it was something like that. This
was their way of managing the cleanliness of the water.
But when it rains a lot, you know, obviously that

(38:25):
introduces a lot of rain water which washes in from
the streets and from the land and stuff, and so
the system also gets filled with you know, dirty water
in that way, so it must be very difficult to
manage it. But there are probably different factors that influence
the changing you know, cleanliness of the water. But still
no not for me.

Speaker 1 (38:46):
Yeah, absolutely right. Okay, we're going to stay at the
Olympics for question number five. So and Luke, whilst I'm
reading this, maybe you can open that photo file which
I found. I don't know if you can share that
picture on the screen somehow, or we can put that

(39:06):
in later. Up to you.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
You'd probably have to put that in later.

Speaker 1 (39:09):
Okay, that's fine, okay, okay, question number five staying at
the Olympics. In one event, these two participants were spoken
about as being the coolest Olympians. If you're watching on
YouTube then you can see the photos, and if you're
just listening to the podcast, that's fine as well. I'm

(39:31):
going to describe them to you. So the first person
is Kim Yeji from South Korea, and she is wearing
a backwards baseball cap and some interesting technical eye gear
over her eyes. Over her right eye there is a
black monocle and over her left eye there is just

(39:52):
a square that would block her vision completely from that eye.
And the second person is use Kitch from Turkey. I'm
probably saying his name wrong, Usef Dekitch something like that,
and he is just wearing normal glasses. So the question
is what sport did these two participate in? And these

(40:16):
are the people who were called the coolest Olympians in
some media around the time. So what sport do these
two people participate in? That's the question.

Speaker 2 (40:29):
Oh, it's very generous question, and I appreciate that because
I think it was impossible to live on Earth and
not know about these two this summer, right, they were
like the heroes of the of the Olympics in a way.
There's just so much, so many memes and so much
entertainment around these two. So I think the event is

(40:53):
called simply shooting, is that right?

Speaker 1 (40:55):
It's just yeah, yeah, I think technically it's it's air pistol,
but it doesn't matter. Shooting is fine to shooting is right.
So if you said shooting or pistol or air pistol
or something like that, you have got eight points. Yeah,
well done. And I've got to say I can understand
why there were so many memes because they really did
look super cool. They looked like they were straight out

(41:18):
of an action film or something.

Speaker 2 (41:21):
But the interesting thing is like the difference between the two.
So Kim Yag she looks really cool because she looks
like some sort of cyborg assassin from the future right
where she looks like a side character from you know,
the Star Wars or The Terminator or something like that,
Like if there was a new Terminator, I mean, they

(41:41):
could be two characters in a Terminator film, like Kim
yag has been sent back from the future to kill
you know you or something. You know, because you make
your podcasts just too informative. It's the yeah, anyway, and
Yusef is the guy who the humans sent back to

(42:01):
try and defend you against Kim.

Speaker 1 (42:04):
Yeah, yeah, because she looks yeah totally yah, but yeah,
use is the complete opposite, right, He is so cool
because he looks like he just doesn't try it at all.
He's got his hand in his pocket and he's just
like bang, you know, just like it's the easiest thing
he's ever done in his life.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
Yeah, totally. She she looks like a James Bond villain
with all of the technology, and she's like got all
the technical gear and everything, and and then Use just
rocks up and just literally stands there and puts his
hand in his pocket as well. He just the most

(42:44):
casual stance. He's got one hand in his pocket and
he just uses his eyes. Yeah, with some glasses on,
and then Kim has got all this super duper technology
with the with the monocle and everything. Yeah, really really
funny stuff. But they were successful, right, Kim won a medal,

(43:06):
didn't she? Yes?

Speaker 1 (43:07):
I think I'm sorry I should know this. I think
one of them got silver, or maybe both of them
got silver. I think yeah, I think they both got
medals of some kind. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:18):
Yeah, just interesting the two different approaches. And also Kim,
she looks so kind of badass, like a ninja or
assassin or something. But also she was holding like this
cuddly toy or something as well, wasn't she.

Speaker 1 (43:30):
Oh, I don't remember that. I didn't that.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
Pocket or maybe in one of her hands she had
this little fluffy elephant, which was kind of an interesting
combination of like this bad ass looking assassin with a
little cuddly elephant toy in her hand. But in reality,
I think she's not. You know, this is just she
just looks like that because she was being so serious
and doing her best to shoot accurately, and I think

(43:57):
in interviews she's a much more smiley and warm person.
But obviously she had to focus really hard. She was
wearing the cap because she wanted to try and keep
the hair out of her eyes, you know, and the
technology is probably something that works for her, whereas Yusuf,

(44:17):
I think according to him, he just prefers to shoot
without the encumbrance of the technology attached to his head,
and he finds that just using the naked eye is
what works for him. So, you know, it's an interesting sport.
You know that you can use the technology or maybe
just simply the naked eye is the best approach. But

(44:38):
you know, different things for different people.

Speaker 1 (44:40):
I suppose, yeah, and all about having a steady hand
and controlling your breathing and stuff like that, and I
think that I'm not sure if this is for air pistol,
but for some shooting things, they even know they can
like listen to their heartbeat and know to shoot based
on the rhythm of their heartbeat, so that know that
they can hold the position meta or something like that,

(45:03):
which is just incredible.

Speaker 2 (45:05):
Yeah, you got to hold your breath and yeah, because
the heartbeat obviously creates a pulse that runs through your
whole body and that can yeah, probably move your arm
by just millimeters or micro you know, very small amounts
micro millimeters. So yeah, you just like wait for your
heartbeat and you shoot between each beat. Yeah, incredible. Did

(45:27):
you ever play Metal Gear Solid? By the way, the
computer game.

Speaker 1 (45:32):
My Friend's Houses. I don't think I had it myself,
but I remember going around to their houses. It's like
a it's like a shooting game, but it's more based
on spy side of things, right, so you're doing everything
really slowly.

Speaker 2 (45:45):
Yeah, it's a strategic espionage kind of shooting game. And
there's just one scene where he has to use a
sniper rifle and these things come into players you're playing,
you know, you kind of realize his breathing affects your
ability to shoot accurately, and also you realize that he

(46:07):
needs to take diazepam, and that part of the way
you actually succeed the mission is that you have to
get some diazepam and he takes the diazepam and it
slows down his heartbeat and it allows him to complete
the mission. So it's kind of interesting.

Speaker 1 (46:25):
Diazepam is valium, right.

Speaker 2 (46:27):
Yeah, that's right. I mean I expect that using valium
in the Olympics would not be allowed, but it's just
interesting to see the different factors involved in a sport
like that.

Speaker 1 (46:41):
Absolutely Okay, moving on question six. In July, millions of
Windows computers crashed around the world.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
You remember this, Yeah, I do remember this, but you know,
as an Apple Mac user, I was just like, yeah, fine,
carry on everyone.

Speaker 1 (47:00):
Well let's see if you were paying attention to the
problem for other people. Then this affected all types of businesses,
most notably government services, airports, and hospitals, and it is
believed to have cost the world ten billion dollars. But
what caused the problem? And I've got some options for

(47:22):
you for this one A to D. So what caused
the problem? A faulty security update, B a cyber attack,
C broken undersea cables, or D a fire at an
important server. Should I say those options again?

Speaker 2 (47:44):
Yes? Please?

Speaker 1 (47:46):
Okay, So what caused this all of those computers to
crash all around the world. Was it A A faulty
security update? So a problem with a security update, B
a cyber attack, broken undersea cables, or D a fire
at an important server.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
Hm. I noticed that one of your options is not
just someone with too many windows open on their computer,
which is normally the thing that does it. Like if
it's a zoom call and the zoom call crashes, it's
like who who had all their applications running. If it's
my wife's computer, then it would be that her browser

(48:31):
has got about a million different windows open, a thousand
tabs running on her on her computer. That's enough to
bring down.

Speaker 1 (48:40):
The last thing I did before I was before I
started talking to you, Luke today, was close everything that
I could possibly close, just to make sure that we
didn't have a ten billion problem on our hand.

Speaker 2 (48:54):
So faulty security update. So a security update that did
the exact opposite of what it was supposed to do.
A completely a cyber attack, yeah, yeah, possible broken cables
under the water, Yeah, because like they got eaten by
fish or something or jaws, jaws too. Fire at an

(49:17):
important server, I don't think of fire at a server
would probably cause all those computers to get the blue
screen of death. I don't think of fire and a
server would do that would just cut out some of
the internet. Broken cables, er, cyber attacks, faulty, I'm going

(49:40):
for faulty security update. I think I think that's probably it.
It's probably just something is annoying as that that you
like security update. Yeah, I want to make sure that
my computer doesn't crash and that all my data is secure. Yeah,
I'll do that. Meanwhile, millions of other people around the
globe are doing it. And then oh god, so oh yeah,

(50:00):
don't download that security update. Okay, whatever you do. Oh no,
millions of people have already downloaded. I think it's the
security update.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
Yeah, you are absolutely right, Luke. It is a faulty
security update. So there's this company called crowd Strike, which
is a security cybersecurity company, and they pushed out an update,
and millions of people downloaded it, as you do, and
they realized very very quickly. I think it was within

(50:31):
one or two hours, they realized that it had a
mistake in it which was going to stop all of
these computers from working. But it was too late, and
even after just a couple of hours, so many millions
of people had already downloaded it, or so many millions
of computers had already downloaded it that it caused all
of these terrible problems, and it caused problems for weeks

(50:51):
to fix all of these all of these computers which
needed some other kind of manual update to correct them.
So yeah, I even had just booking an appointment at
the doctors that their system was down and had they
had to do everything on the phone instead the old

(51:12):
fashioned way. But there were a lot of a lot
of problems around the world, especially airports have a lot
of problems. But yeah, it was all down to a
faulty security update. That was it.

Speaker 2 (51:26):
Oh God, imagine being the person responsible for that. You'd
be absolutely devastated, wouldn't you. Yeah, terrible. I mean that's
worse than the millennium bug. Do you remember the millennium bug?

Speaker 1 (51:37):
Yeah, But the millennium bug didn't really exist, did it.
It was just something that we were all planning for
and showing our age here, Luke, But yeah, I mean
we're all planning for it just in case something would happen,
and then nothing did happen.

Speaker 2 (51:52):
Nothing happened. But people were talking about planes falling out
of the sky because computers weren't ready for the year
to change to zero zero. They thought that would just
end civilization. But now it was fine, thankfully. All right,
I'm doing a little bit better now. I've got three
out of five sixty percent.

Speaker 1 (52:12):
I know better than that, Luke, You've got four out
of six. That was question six. You've got four out
of six y, Yes, yeah, well done.

Speaker 2 (52:21):
You've really a percentage up.

Speaker 1 (52:23):
That is sixty six point six six percent.

Speaker 2 (52:26):
Isn't it six sixty six brilliant? Yeah? Okay, yeah, good,
this is better. Let's let's carry on.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
Okay, let's carry on like that, all right? Question seven.
One animal which is considered vulnerable to extinction, has seen
some positive trends over the last twenty five years. Before
the growing sorry, before the growing number of humans, there
were probably over twenty five million of this animal in
the world. However, today there are only just over four

(52:58):
hundred thousand. So today there are about four hundred thousand
of this animal. The good news is that the population
seems to have stabilized and even grown a little bit
over the last twenty five years, mostly because of conservation efforts.
What animal am I talking about?

Speaker 2 (53:18):
So let me just whack the microphone there, all right,
So there used to be twenty three million.

Speaker 1 (53:23):
But before the population of humans went crazy, there was
probably people think that there were probably twenty five million
of these animals, and then the population came down and
down and down and down, and today there's only four
hundred thousand, and they have been considered that risk of extinction.
But over the last twenty five years and recently. The

(53:46):
reason that this was in the news this year is
because there was some positive reports about this animal, showing
that the population has stabilized and has even grown a
little bit over the last twenty five years. And I'll
give you a little bit more information. They've actually in
some places have even caused a bit of problems by

(54:06):
them being too many of them in some areas. And yeah,
I don't want to give too much information.

Speaker 2 (54:13):
I'll do, okay. So an animal that used to be
doing really well and then humans came along and not
so good anymore, and they've dropped down to a fraction
of their former numbers, but they're now getting their kind
of coming back a little bit. The only animal I
could think of, I mean, obviously I can think of
a lot of animals, but might not be the right ones.

(54:36):
But the only animals that I can think of that
might fit the bill for this is possibly wolves. Are
we talking about wolves here? Because obviously there used to
be a lot of wolves, and then, as you can
see from so many children's stories, us humans decided that
wolves were a really bad thing and a lot of
them got killed, you know, and then they've been sort

(54:58):
of we've realized how important they are to natural habitats
and stuff. And I think a lot of them have
been in a lot of places. Wolves have been reintroduced
quite successfully in places like Yellowstone National Park and stuff.
So I'm going to say wolves, but I could easily
be completely wrong.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
Okay, I'm going to tell you that the answer is
not wolves. The answer is not wolves, and I want
everybody who's listening to remember the answer that they've got
right now. I'm going to give you the opportunity to
get half a point instead if I give you one
extra piece of information, so you can have half a point.
Luke and everybody else who's listening. If I tell you

(55:34):
that this is an African animal, it's an animal which
is in Africa and a bit in Asia, but mostly
in Africa. Oh all right, well animal half a point
if you can get it with that info. Elephant it
is elephants? Well yeah, great, Okay, there you go. You

(55:55):
Salvoot's half a point there. So now you've got four
four and a half. Four and a half out of
seven is elephants. So elephants, they say, probably, I don't
know when exactly, but the people think that there were sorry,
twenty five million elephants on the planet at some point,
most of them in Africa, some of them in Asia,

(56:17):
and people were hunting them for their ivory, that is,
their tusks and their teeth, and of course when people
build cities and things like that, this also hasn't a
bad effect on the elephants. And they came down and
down and down and down, And there were lots of
conservation efforts that mostly started about twenty five years ago,
and positive news, it's actually worked, and today the situation

(56:42):
for the elephants has stabilized and in some areas they've
actually been growing. And there was one story that came
out this year from Botswana. Botswana has says that it's
got too many elephants and they've been trying to send
them to other countries, some other African countries. They've said,
can you have some and they've gone okay, and they've
taken a few thousand. They've taken a few thousand, And

(57:03):
there was a story about the president of Botswana threatening
to send twenty thousand elephants to Germany because because the
German environment minister was complaining about the Botswana about the
way that Botswana was treating its elephants and saying that

(57:24):
some of them should be able to be killed, essentially
because they have too many. And so the president of
Botswana said, okay, well look all right, fine, then you
can take them. Then, so they said you can have
our twenty thousand elephants. That didn't actually happen, but he
did threaten to send twenty thousand elephants to Germany.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
Wow, incredible. Imagine if he'd actually done it, and then
you know, in Germany they'll just be like, oh God,
we got all these elephants. What are we going to
do this? It's really difficult to get to work. Just
too many elephants.

Speaker 1 (57:59):
A new uber service, Uber Elephants maybe.

Speaker 2 (58:04):
Oh wow? Okay, interesting story.

Speaker 1 (58:06):
Sticking with animals, Number eight. A baby hippopotamus went viral
this year a few months after being born in Thailand
and caused a massive surge in visitors to the cow
Kio Zoo. She is called Moo Deng. What does moo

(58:28):
deng mean? Does moodng a mean dirty cat, b bouncy pork,
sticky chicken, or the spicy pigeon. I'll go through them again.
A here we go, So this is what what does

(58:48):
moo deng the name of the hippopotamus mean a dirty cat,
b bouncy pork, see sticky chicken, or D spicy pigeon.

Speaker 2 (59:05):
It sounds a little bit like you're reading from a
menu in some random.

Speaker 1 (59:10):
Restaurant translated really badly.

Speaker 2 (59:17):
Spicy chicken, please, because the other ones don't sound very tasty. No,
it's spicy pigeon, wasn't it. Oh God, a dirty county cat,
bounce pork.

Speaker 1 (59:31):
Yeah, the sticky chicken or D spicy pigeon, which one
of those is mood.

Speaker 2 (59:40):
So bouncy pork. The word pork in English refers to
the meat, so you would, you know, eat or not
eat pork. Pig is the animal, right, So the animal's
name is pig, and the meat that comes from a
pig is called pork. So, but sometimes people mix up
the words pork and pig. So I was wondering if

(01:00:01):
maybe it's bouncy pork, because baby hippopotamus is a bit
like a bouncy pig, isn't it in a way. So
I think it's probably bouncy pork, meaning bouncy pig.

Speaker 1 (01:00:14):
I think it's that, Luke, You are absolutely right, yeah,
in bouncy pork, that is completely completely right. You've got
five and a half points. I actually, in some translations
that I could see of the name, sometimes it was
bouncy pig and sometimes it was bouncy pork. So I
think it might be that in Thai they don't have

(01:00:35):
two words. They just say the same thing for pig
and pork, which makes sense, the same as we do
for chicken. I don't know why we change the word
for pig and pork, cow and beef, but we don't
change the word for fish or for chicken. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:00:50):
There'll be some story about the Norman invasion of Britain
and poultry versus upper class people eating beef and pork
but not chicken because that's for you know, lower class people.
Something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
Would be that. Yeah, yeah, you're probably right. Yeah, yeah, Okay.
Should we move on to question nine, Yes, let's do it.
The price of chocolate has been has risen dramatically in
the last two years.

Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
Yeah about it. Yeah, I've my wife and I've noticed it. Anyway, Yes,
do you know why inflation inflation or why has the
price of chocolate risen around the world.

Speaker 1 (01:01:37):
Just to be clear, this is not question nine, but
this is not question nine. But do you know why?

Speaker 2 (01:01:43):
Well, it could be all kinds of factors, but I
suppose it's something to do with one of the ingredients
the involved in making chocolate has become harder to get.
So cacow is it?

Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, cocou or cacou or coca yeah. So okay,
here's question nine. The price of chocolate has risen smatically
in the last two years all around the world because
of a rising coca bean prices. Because of rising coca
bean prices, the price of coca beans has doubled over
the last year. So unfortunately, the price that we all

(01:02:15):
pay for chocolate is probably going to keep on rising.
Heavy rain and other poor conditions have made bad cocoa
harvests in the two West African countries that produce most
of the world's cocoa. Can you name either of those countries?

(01:02:36):
So all you have to do is name one of
the two countries which is in West Africa, which produces
most of the world's cocoa. Together, these two countries make
two thirds of the world's cocoa. So if you've eaten chocolate,
it's probably come from there.

Speaker 2 (01:02:58):
Africa.

Speaker 1 (01:02:59):
Yeah, that's right. If you can name either of these countries.

Speaker 2 (01:03:01):
You can have a point, right, So you'd imagine you
would imagine, wouldn't you that these countries are going to
be fairly developed if like something like what was it,
sixty five percent of the world's cocoa comes from these
two places, so they're probably going to be the more

(01:03:22):
well established countries. So I'm thinking of the bigger nations,
the sort of perhaps richer nations like Nigeria, Cameroon. Nigerian Cameroon.
I don't know, so I'm just guessing. I'm trying to
make an educated guess, but I mean, there's a large
chance I've got to be wrong, but about this, right,

(01:03:44):
Nigeria Cameroon. But so the.

Speaker 1 (01:03:50):
I'm not sure how to say this, but the question says,
can you name one of those one? Can you name it? So,
because there's two of them, I'm giving you an opportunity
to get one of the two.

Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
I'll tell you what.

Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
I'm going to let you have two guesses to get
the two or one of them to get one of
the two.

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
So having said sorry, having said Nigerian camp and Cameroon,
I don't really remember ever hearing Nigerian coco. That's not
a phrase I've heard in my life, very much like that.
Nigerian coco, Cameroonian coco, coco, the finest cocoa from the

(01:04:28):
Ivory Coast, the finest cocoa from you know, Senegal, Senegalese coco.
I'm just trying to I'm just trying to decide which
of those phrases I've actually heard before. You know, it's
none of those countries. I feel like. Nigerian coco, Senegalese cocoa.

Speaker 1 (01:04:52):
Well, well done for already naming four or five countries
in West Africa. Luke IV you're showing that your geography
are too bad.

Speaker 2 (01:04:58):
Yeah, yeah, yes, it's not as good as it could be.
I don't know Senegal.

Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
Okay, it is not Senegal. So Senegal is not one
of them. I'll give you, okay. So if anybody else said, yeah,
you can just tell you the answer. Yeah, tell you
the answer, all right, No, no half point for a
second guess.

Speaker 2 (01:05:19):
No, No, it's too generous, Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:05:21):
I'm being too generous. The answers are unfortunate. You did
actually say one of them one of them is Corde Divois,
Ivory Coast, ah, and the other one you didn't say
the other one is Ghana. So cord Divois and Ghana
they make two thirds of the world's coco So if
you said either Cordivois or Ghana, you can give yourself

(01:05:41):
a point for that. Some of the other ones that
you said there, I'm not sure about Senegal, but Cameroon
and Nigeria they are in the top ten, but they're
not but they're still very far down because the top
two cordi War and Ghana, they make yeah, like two
thirds of the world's cocoa. Number three I think is Ecuador,
so obviously in South America, in South America, and then

(01:06:03):
most of the others are in other parts of West Africa.
But there's still quite a long way down just because
Codibir and Ghana make so much of it. And yeah,
so the price of chocolate, if you've noticed that the
price of your chocolate has gone up recently, is largely
because of this. Well, as we all know, there's been
a massive inflation in the world in general for everything,

(01:06:27):
so it's not just your country, guys, it's all countries
have had big inflation in twenty twenty four, but chocolate
has been particularly bad because the cocoa harvests have been
terrible here for the last two years in Kotivois and
Ghana and other places that make cocoa, there's been too

(01:06:47):
much rain and that's made some kind of rot on
the trees and it's made some of the trees die
and things like this. So that's pushed the price of
cocoa up a lot. So unfortunately it might still go
up a little bit more in twenty twenty five. Things crossed.

Speaker 2 (01:07:06):
Wow, very interesting. Yeah, okay, well, sorry to all my
Garneyan listeners because I didn't get that one right, and
Ivory Coast as well. But so I don't get a
point for that, because let's be honest, I said Senegal.
That was my final answer, which was not the right answer,
So I don't get it. So that was question nine, right,

(01:07:27):
So it was five out of nine.

Speaker 1 (01:07:29):
Now five point five out of nine, that's right, five
point five out of nine. Okay, number ten, Here we go.
The world's biggest cruise ship, the Icon of the Seas,
launched this year and made its maiden voyage after being
christened by Lionel Messi. But how big is the Icon

(01:07:50):
of the Seas? And I'm going to give you a
length in meters and how many people it holds. And
by the way, for the people it holds, about a
quarter of them our crew. So whatever you hear, you
can think about a quarter of them a crew and
the other three quarters are passengers.

Speaker 2 (01:08:06):
So here we go.

Speaker 1 (01:08:07):
A one hundred and sixty meters and four thousand people,
B two one hundred and sixty meters and seven thousand people,
C three hundred and sixty meters and ten thousand people,

(01:08:29):
or D four one hundred and sixty meters and fifteen
thousand people. I'll say that again.

Speaker 2 (01:08:38):
No, I've got it. I've got it. You've got sixty
meters A one hundred and sixty meters long, holding four
thousand people. That would be about one thousand crew members
and three thousand passengers. Check out my maths. Everyone, B
is two hundred and sixty meters and seven thousand people,
C is three sixty meters ten thousand people, and D

(01:09:00):
is four hundred and sixty meters fifteen thousand people. So
my ability to think about distances is not quite as
good as I think as my ability to picture a
certain number of people in one place. So I can
think of like a concert venue that holds about ten
thousand and fifteen thousand people. I sort of get a
general idea of what that looks like. Four hundred and

(01:09:23):
sixty meters long, so I'm going I'm looking at Option
D and thinking fifteen thousand people. That's like a kind
of a you know, a modest sized football stadium, right,
not one of the bigger ones, not like a Manchester
City or whatever, but you know, maybe a sort of
smaller Premiership club like a Fulham or something smaller than that.

(01:09:46):
Maybe Wolves will go back to wolvesinge.

Speaker 1 (01:09:49):
Of course, bear in mind that they're all going to
be having their own bedrooms on this right.

Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
So yeah, because a football a small football stadium is
already massive. And that's just seats, just people sitting in seats.

Speaker 1 (01:10:03):
People having a place to sleep.

Speaker 2 (01:10:04):
Everyone's got their own cabin. Everyone's got their own cabin.
There's a restaurant, there's all the fifty people.

Speaker 1 (01:10:11):
Or maybe or maybe half or something, you know, imagining
that you've got two people in the same room or
three people or something like that.

Speaker 2 (01:10:16):
But still there's a lot of space. Fifteen thousand people
seems too much. But this is the biggest This.

Speaker 1 (01:10:23):
Is the biggest ship in the world. So it's got
a cinema and swimming pools and a gym, and you
know some I think it's even got slides and things
going into the pool and.

Speaker 2 (01:10:33):
Plus four hundred and sixty meters long. I'm still looking
at option d's that's really far. I mean, that's like
nearly half a kilometer long. That's ridiculous. I can't remember
how long a football pitches. That's normally the kind of
yardstick for this sort of thing, isn't it's like the
length of four football pitches. You know, you get an
idea of how big it is. I think D is

(01:10:55):
too big. That's just that's that's insane. That's far too big.
Probably going to be D now. But seven thousand people,
I think. I think two hundred and sixty meters seven
thousand people seems feasible, And for that reason, I think
it's not going to be the answer. I think it's

(01:11:16):
going to be something astounding, like ten thousand people, but
not quite as astounding as fifteen thousand people, which is
just too much. So I think fifteen thousand people is
unimaginable for me. Seven thousand people seems quite reasonable for
a huge ship. So I think it's going to be
somewhere in between. I'm going ten thousand people, three hundred

(01:11:39):
and sixty meters long, with about a third of a
kilometer long option C. Yeah yeah, well that's right.

Speaker 1 (01:11:50):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, well done. It is three hundred and
sixty meters long and it holds ten thousand people, something
like seven thousand, five hundred messengers and twenty five hundred
crew staff. So wow, yeah it is. It's pretty insane.
It looks like a city. Yeah yeah, absolutely amazing. That's

(01:12:12):
the feats of humanity. Well done, Luke, you've got, speaking
of speeds of feats of humanity, you've got six and
a half out of ten. That's pretty good. It's pretty good.

Speaker 2 (01:12:22):
It's still a pass, isn't it? Point five? That will
get me into a fairly decent university.

Speaker 1 (01:12:31):
Okay, that's right, okay, okay, we're coming on to elections
for the next two questions. Here we go. Eleven. Donald
Trump became the first president in over one hundred years
to win a non consecutive term as president after winning
in twenty sixteen and losing in twenty twenty. But by

(01:12:52):
what percentage of votes did Trump beat Kamala Harris? Is
it a one point five percent B three percent, C
four point five percent or D he didn't. She got

(01:13:12):
more votes than him, but he won the presidency anyway
because of the electoral college system. So by what percent
did Trump beat Kamala Harris in the US presidential election?
Was it a one point five percent, B three percent,
C four point five percent or D. He didn't beat

(01:13:36):
her on percentage of votes. She got more votes than him,
but he won the presidency anyway because of the electoral
college system.

Speaker 2 (01:13:44):
So this is interesting, like option D there, just to
kind of talk about that a little bit more. Yeah,
in the way that these presidential elections are done in
the United States, you have the popular vote, which is
like a direct just hunting all the votes and working
out who got more. That's called the popular vote, but

(01:14:06):
that's not the way it works. They have electoral cottage
college electoral colleges, which is kind of I guess, something
similar to the British first past of the post system,
which has what they called, I can't think of them

(01:14:28):
constituencies kind of anyway. So I think that Trump won
the popular vote and that he won the electoral colleges.
I think he won both, and it was a significant margin.
So I think again, it's option. See, I think he
beat her by at least four point five percent? Am

(01:14:51):
I right? You are not right.

Speaker 1 (01:14:54):
I'm afraid that's wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:14:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:15:00):
Surprisingly, even though he won the electoral college easily, like
he got way more, way more electoral college votes than
she did, because he won a lot more states than
she did. Just going to pull up the Wikipedia Presidential
twenty twenty four page. So even though he won three

(01:15:23):
hundred and twelve electoral college votes and she only won
two hundred and twenty six, the amount of the percentage
more votes that he got than her was only one
point five percent. So it's a a is a correct answer.

Speaker 2 (01:15:38):
So in terms of the popular vote, he got only
one point five percent more votes than her. Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:15:45):
Yeah, so she got forty eight point four percent forty
eight point four percent and he got forty nine point
nine percent, So he got just under half and she
got a bit less than just under half. There you go.
So in terms of millions of votes, he got seventy
seven point two something million and she got seventy four

(01:16:08):
point nine million. Yeah. So if you in the terms
of the electoral college, because he won a lot more
states overall, it looks like he got a much much
bigger win, but in terms of percentage just one point
five percent.

Speaker 2 (01:16:25):
So it is a there you go, Okay, God, I
got it wrong. I've slipped into the into the sort
of slip below the past mark here. I think with
that one, because I overestimated how successful Donald Trump was.
I mean, obviously he's still you know, won the election.

(01:16:48):
It wasn't quite as huge a victory as as perhaps
we've been led to believe or such a because yeah, yeah,
how you look at it, I feel like we've come
away from the election, maybe just like someone like me
who is not paying attention to all the details, he
just kind of come away from that story feeling like, well,
he just won it out and out and it was

(01:17:10):
like a really big victory.

Speaker 1 (01:17:12):
I mean he did did did win it out and out.
He definitely won it out and out because he did
get more votes than her, which of course he didn't
do in twenty sixteen. In twenty sixteen, he won the
presidency just because of that electoral college system. He actually
got three million less votes than Hillary Clinton in twenty sixteen,

(01:17:33):
but in twenty twenty four he has got more votes
than Kamala Harris as well. So he's definitely totally out
and out won it. But if you look at the percentages,
the difference is not really that big, so.

Speaker 2 (01:17:44):
It's obviously still a very significant victory. But yeah, it
does put it into perspective though when you see the margin,
it's not that big.

Speaker 1 (01:17:55):
Okay. Number twelve. Sticking to elections, around half of the
world's population live in countries that voted in twenty twenty four.
Can you name five countries excluding the United States, because
I just talked about that, Can you name five other
countries that held elections in twenty twenty four? And the

(01:18:20):
way that we're going to do this is, I'm going
to let you say six countries, so that if you
get one of them wrong, that's okay, you can have
that one wrong. So you can say six countries, and
as long as five of them are countries that have
had elections, then you will win a point.

Speaker 2 (01:18:40):
Oh dear. So I'm sighing now because I'm going to
look stupid. I can just smell it because I'm going
to miss some things. So the UK obviously had a
general election this year. Georgia very recently had an election.

(01:19:04):
He was a European parliament and that doesn't count. Japan.
Didn't Japan have an election this year? Tell me I'm
right or wrong about that? I mean, I'm not going
to change my answer.

Speaker 1 (01:19:20):
You're not going to change your answer. Okay, If you're
not going to change your answer, then yes, you are
right Japan. Shall I just tell you what you've already
got so far? Yes, you've got those three. Those three
that you've said so far are UK, Georgia, Japan. Good.

Speaker 2 (01:19:33):
Yeah, Why is my brain going? France? France? France, France, France.
But no, it wasn't this year, that's mad. It was
the European elections, so Marion the Penn's party, and plus
there have been a lot of political things going on
in France at the moment recently, but there was a no,

(01:19:54):
wait a minute, France had France had had an election,
but not for not a presidential elect They had a
parliamentary any election.

Speaker 1 (01:20:02):
Yeah, it can be presidential or parliamentary.

Speaker 2 (01:20:05):
And France had a parliamentary election this year.

Speaker 1 (01:20:08):
Yes, you are correct, So France is one of them.

Speaker 2 (01:20:10):
Yeah, France is one of the most. She's got to
get one more. Why am I thinking India? Why do
I think that India had an election? This year. There
must be a reason for that, but I mean, I'm
not sure. I know that elections have been a big
deal this year, and know there's been a lot of
significant elections around the world. It's been like a hot
topic all year long of like the year of elections.

(01:20:33):
So the fact that I'm struggling to name five countries
that have had elections is disappointing for me and slightly embarrassing.
But I'm going to add India to the list. But
I'm really sorry.

Speaker 1 (01:20:45):
You are right, you're right, No, you're right, yeah, yeah, yeah,
is India. And I'll tell you what. One little clue
to that was the fact that I said around half
of the world's population lives in countries that are voted,
so yeah, in India really helps that on that as
as we now know, it is the most populous country
in the world because it overtook China last year. As

(01:21:07):
I think this might have been a question in twenty
twenty three that was yeah, yeah, so right. So just
to help a well done, Luke, You've got seven and
a half out of twelve. Well done. So just to
obviously for everybody who's playing at home and has just
said different countries I've got a map of the world,
so I'm just going to go around quickly just in
case you said any of these. So in North America

(01:21:30):
you could have said Mexico or Honduras, or Panama or
Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Ecuador, Uruguay. In Africa, you could have
said South Africa, Botswana and Gola, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic
of Congo, cut Maroo and no, that's not Cameron, Gabon, Togo, Ghana, Senegal, Mauritania, Algeria, Tunisia, Chad,

(01:21:58):
South Sudan and Somaliland and Madagascar. In Europe, you could
have said UK, Ireland, France, Portugal, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, what's that, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia,
San Marino. If anybody said San Marino, then wow, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Belarus, Russia, Lithuania, Finland,

(01:22:28):
and Georgia. In Asia, you could have said Japan, South Korea, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Iran, Azerbaijan,
Syria and Jordan, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, in Denisia, Cambodia, nearly finished, Taiwan,

(01:22:54):
Sri Lanka, did I say that already? And then in
Oceania probably nobody said any of the but just in case,
New Caledonia, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, the tu Valu, Kurbati
and New if anybody said New, I don't even have
to pronounce New then yeah, if anybody said that, then

(01:23:18):
well done. Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:23:20):
So actually it's not a surprise. Then I got five
because it feels like I could have just randomly showsen
five poetries and I probably would have got it right.
Because it's almost that every country had an election this year.
It's insane.

Speaker 1 (01:23:34):
Ye it was a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:23:36):
Yeah, it's tons of countries. Okay, But anyway, I got,
I got my points. So I've got seven twelve Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:23:41):
Yes you do, okay, right? Number thirteen. Which European country
legalized cannabis this year?

Speaker 2 (01:23:51):
Which European country legalized cannabis this year? Okay hmm. So
when you say legalized it, you mean just in the
same way that it's legal in the Netherlands that people
can actually smoke it for just personal use, or you're
talking about medical marijuana.

Speaker 1 (01:24:13):
It's legalized for recreational use. So in this country it
has been legalized this year, and people can grow up
to three plants themselves and can own up to fifty
grams themselves. However, it's not sold in shops and as
far as I understand it to be able to if
you want to be able to buy it and not

(01:24:35):
grow it yourself, then you have to go to one
of these cannabis clubs, which you have to be a
resident in this country to join, and you have to
have been there for six months. It's something like that.
That's more or less the system, which actually makes it
more legal than in the Netherlands, where they have a
really weird system. It's technically illegal, but it's tolerated. The Netherlands,

(01:24:58):
technically it's not legal even though it's tolerated. Yeah, But
in this country now it is actually legalized for recreational use.
So that happened in twenty twenty four.

Speaker 2 (01:25:09):
Which country, And interesting that those laws obviously were to
try and prevent sort of the tourism, the kind of
cannabis tourism that can happen as a result of that
sort of thing where you have to be a resident.
You know what, I don't know. I don't know, and
I really don't know which country this is. I know,

(01:25:29):
it's not France. I mean, you know, unless I unless
it was France and I've just forgotten, which probably would
kind of would be a reason why you know that,
how to describe that? But I don't know, Stephen, I
actually genuinely don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:25:47):
Do you want to choose a country at random?

Speaker 2 (01:25:48):
European country, random European country? God, what kind of country
would do that? They're just they're just smoking weed, They're fine.
Everything's Portugal.

Speaker 1 (01:26:00):
Oh good try, But it's not Portugal. It is Germany, Germany. Yeah,
I know, Yeah, this one really flew under the radar.
Yeah did I not know that?

Speaker 2 (01:26:10):
I know?

Speaker 1 (01:26:10):
Yeah, So since April it's been Yeah, marijuana has been
legalized in Germany and people can grow up to three
plants and can own up to fifty grams. And they
have started these cannabis clubs that people can join to
buy it as well, but you have to be a resident.
So and I think you're right that it probably is
to avoid that Amsterdam situation of people just going there

(01:26:33):
to buy it and then leave. But yeah, there you go.
I know that one has flown under the radar, hasn't it.

Speaker 2 (01:26:39):
So did you say you can't buy it in shops.

Speaker 1 (01:26:41):
You said that, right, they have these No, you can't
buy in shops. They have these cannabis clubs. To be honest,
I don't actually know if they look like a shop
or something like that. I don't know that. Maybe somebody
who knows more can leave us comments.

Speaker 2 (01:26:56):
On the way asking because I'm suddenly buying tickets for Germany.
But I was just curious because I was wondering about
how that would affect the economy. But that you know,
a lot of a lot of countries consider legalizing cannabis
in this way because they can, you know, tax the
sales of it, and if it's just commercially available, then

(01:27:16):
obviously that's going to raise a lot of tax revenue.
You know, if it suddenly takes it out of the
black market into the you know, the common legal market,
then there's a lot of tax that can be gained
from it, which I would imagine would be a good
reason for doing it. So I was wondering if that's
the case in Germany, but I'm not sure. Anyway, German listeners,

(01:27:39):
if you haven't fallen asleep yet, you can let us
know how it's going. How is that has it made you. Yeah,
have you noticed any changes to you know, the society
around you or have you just been staying in a
lot since since the law was changed?

Speaker 1 (01:28:02):
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah, okay fourteen question fourteen. In
the United States and Canada, throughout twenty twenty four, two
rappers have been involved in what has been called the
biggest rap battle since the feud between Biggie and Tupac
in the nineteen nineties. Can you name either of the

(01:28:22):
two rappers involved in this rap feud of twenty twenty four?

Speaker 2 (01:28:29):
Okay, two rappers having a feud. One of them said
one thing and the other one didn't like it and
he got very upset, and the other one was like, Eh,
he said something about my mum or something.

Speaker 1 (01:28:41):
Ah.

Speaker 2 (01:28:44):
It's a bit. It's a little kind of pathetic, isn't it,
the kind of these rap battle feuds. But I think
one of them is Drake. You're not giving me any
clues as to Yeah, that is right, Yeah, you have.
One of them is Drake. Who the hell is the
other one? Who's the other one? I'm showing how uncool

(01:29:07):
I am at this point because I don't know who
the other one is. But you're going to tell me,
and I'm going to go, yeah, of course that's the
Kendrick Lamar.

Speaker 1 (01:29:19):
Well yeah, yeah, yeah, you got both them. It is
Drake and Kendrick Lamar. So if you listener have said
either Drake or Kendrick Lamart, then you can have a
point for that one. That's right. Yes, the biggest rap
feud since Biggie and Tupac. I mean, I don't follow
this stuff either, but hey, that was a big thing

(01:29:41):
in the news.

Speaker 2 (01:29:42):
Do you know. Do you know what one of them
said or did?

Speaker 1 (01:29:47):
No? No, actually, oh sorry, I thought you were going
to tell me. No. Essentially, I think it was just
I've read, like briefly some of it, like they were
for they did some songs together about ten years ago,
and I think one of them said just I think

(01:30:08):
it genuinely was just that kind of snowball effect where
one of them says something small and the other one
says something a bit bigger, and the other one says
something a bit bigger, and then all of a sudden
they're accusing each other of, you know, crimes against humanity,
and that's the way that it goes.

Speaker 2 (01:30:24):
I've just googled it and according to Wikipedia, it looks
like this history. But the big major cause of the
beef between these two rappers is that Kendrick Lamar accused,
allegedly accused Drake of sexual predation, including sex trafficking and
fathering a secret child, second secret child. So Lamar is

(01:30:49):
accusing Drake of some sort of.

Speaker 1 (01:30:55):
Heavy crimes.

Speaker 2 (01:30:56):
Yeah, some pretty pretty nasty stuff. Mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (01:31:01):
That's it. That's why I try not to get into
my rap battles anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:31:04):
Question fifteen.

Speaker 1 (01:31:05):
In October, Cloudier Shinbaum became the first female president of
which country? So in October Cloudier Shinebaum. I'm saying that
in there the way that people would probably say it
in this country. But Cloudia looks like Claudia to an
English audience. Claudia Shinbaum became the first female president of

(01:31:30):
which country?

Speaker 2 (01:31:34):
Schinbaum sounds kind of German, doesn't it? Everyone right? But
it can't be Germany because they had Angela Merkel for
all those years, So Cloudya can't be the first president
female president? Where else did they speak German? Austria? There
was an election there this year, wasn't there? We heard
that earlier? Could it be Austria, Switzerland? I'm sure there

(01:31:59):
are other places where German spoken. But I'm going to
just cut to the chase and I'm going to say Austria.

Speaker 1 (01:32:05):
It's not Austria. I'm afraid it's not even a German
speaking country. But that was quite a smart thing to say,
because obviously Shinbaum does sound very German, probably is originally
from a German country, German speaking country. But no, Claudia
Schoenbem Claudia Schinebaum is the new president of Mexico.

Speaker 2 (01:32:26):
Mexican listeners, I'm so sorry that I didn't get that right.
What an idiot? What an uninformed idiot? I am? Ask
me about Fraser Verbs, I can tell you the president
of Mexico. I'm sorry I fall down.

Speaker 1 (01:32:40):
One good thing about these World News Quiz episodes is
that you get to say sorry to all of your
different sections of audience.

Speaker 2 (01:32:50):
Very English, isn't it this? Sorry everyone? Sorry, Sorry, Happy
New Year. Sorry.

Speaker 1 (01:32:56):
Okay, Luke, you've got eight and a half out of fifteen.
Not looking good, slightly above above half, but there we go. Okay,
number sixteen. Okay, to which Caribbean country has Kenya sent
its police force to try to help fight against gang violence?

(01:33:17):
So this country with lots of a big problem of
gang violence in the Caribbean, and Kenya is leading a
task force and it sent its police force to help
fight against gang violence in this country. What country is that?

Speaker 2 (01:33:35):
Oh my gosh, oh my goodness. Hmm right, I'm just
thinking of like Caribbean countries where there might be gang violence, Haiti,
possibly Jamaica, because I know that you get rude boys

(01:33:57):
in Jamaica and there's a bit of gang related stuff
I think there, and recently they dropped out of the Commonwealth,
I think, which might account for why ken you are
stepping in to assist them. If it is them, could
it be HATI Barbados you kind of for some reason

(01:34:20):
I've got I imagine that Barbados is is relatively stable,
sort of a tourist destination for a lot of Brits
and stuff. Where else, I mean there are other obviously
other other Caribbean places, Trinidad and Tobago and Cuba. Is

(01:34:44):
that considered to be part of the Caribbean. Yes, but
they're not going to get ken You aren't going to
be stepping in in Cuba, Puerto Rico, but that that's America.
Who's really going to be involved in that? You know states. Oh,
I don't know, Stephen. I'm going to go for Jamaica
just because I know that they they're you know, they

(01:35:07):
have had gang related issues there and not being in
the Caribe, not being in the Commonwealth would mean that
maybe another nation might be sort of stepping into help
out rather than a Commonwealth nation like you know, Britain
of course, So Jamaica.

Speaker 1 (01:35:27):
It is not Jamaica. I'm afraid. I'm really sorry, but
you actually it's actually the first country that you said,
ha it is Haiti. Yeah, Haiti, what a shame. Yeah
it is. Actually I've kind of broken the broken the
original rule that we said at the beginning, because I
know I said that most of these questions we're going
to be the all of these questions were gonna be
kind of lighthearted. But actually the situation in Haiti is

(01:35:48):
really terrible, Like they've got really bad gang violence controlling
so so much of the country. And that's the reason
that Kenya has sent its police force to try and
help hower, to try and stay allies the situation. So yeah,
that was Keny are sending its force to Haiti, and
I'm afraid that means you are now on eight and

(01:36:10):
a half out of sixteen, you're still just above fifty percent.
But I've got a good feeling you're gonna pick it
up with question seventeen. Okay, okay, Question seventeen is on
December fourth. Look at that we're in the final stretch.
What record high price did bitcoin pass on December the fourth?

(01:36:37):
So a particular milestone price that bitcoin has just passed
a couple of weeks ago.

Speaker 2 (01:36:45):
Oh, I've got no idea about cryptocurrencies or bitcoin, the
value of bitcoin. I don't know what is considered to
be a good value for bitcoin or not. Some of
my listeners, again, Luke, you should invest in crypto because
sometimes I do get messages from people telling me that
I need to be investing in cryptocurrencies. And I know
it's like a big thing for some people, but it's

(01:37:06):
just I mean, I'm you know, I've never really been
interested in that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (01:37:13):
Well, I have no idea, neither of I and neither
have I. I don't know anything about cryptocurrencies either, nothing
at all. But this was in the news because it
was a particular specifically you know, round number high price
that one bitcoin has, like cast.

Speaker 2 (01:37:31):
I don't know if it's if it's a currency that's
similar in value to let's say the pound or the euro,
where it might be like one dollar one one bitcoin
is considered to be good or if that's really terrible.
Some people who know about this are listening to me,
going just one dollar, that would be ridiculous. So I

(01:37:52):
don't know. I've got absolutely no frame of reference for
what is considered to be high value or low value
of a bitcoin. Zero idea, And I didn't This story
did not reach me. So I've got no clue if
a bitcoin is like closer to a Japanese yen where
it's like kind of in the hundreds per pound, or

(01:38:16):
whether it's closer to a pound or a dollar or something.
I don't know. One dollar, one dollar.

Speaker 1 (01:38:22):
One dollar. The answer is not one dollar. It's not
one dollar, I'm afraid. So you've got this question wrong. However,
it could be so, I mean, you know, currencies have
all the kinds of values. No, the record high price
for one bitcoin that was passed on December fourth was
one hundred thousand dollars, So one bitcoin is worth one

(01:38:43):
hundred thousand dollars. In fact, right now, it's probably a
little bit more than that. I think we're recording on
the eighteenth of December, so it goes a little bit
more than one hundred thousand dollars right now. A few
years ago it would have been one dollar. I think
I can't remember.

Speaker 2 (01:38:59):
Maybe really do you know what it started at?

Speaker 1 (01:39:02):
I know less than that. I don't know whether it's
had a specific value that started out. Probably didn't got
This is really is a question where all of the
you know, people that own bitcoin are going to be listening, going, God, well,
the listen to these guys talking about something. They have
absolutely no idea what they're talking about. No clue, yeah, yeah,
clue yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:39:23):
So sorry to all the people who you know, thought
were hoping that I was like a bitcoin bro and
that I would know all about that, but sorry, completely
clueless on that subject. January two thousand and nine appears
to be when bitcoin was first introduced, and at that
time it was worth basically nothing, and then it kind

(01:39:43):
of rose over the first four years, all the way
up to about one thousand, two hundred dollars at the
end of twenty thirteen. It dropped in twenty fourteen, then
picked up again sort of in twenty seventeen, and just

(01:40:05):
rose and rose and rose up until the end of
twenty seventeen, where it dropped again a little bit. But
in twenty seventeen December it was nearly twenty thousand dollars,
and it dropped all away over the next twelve months
down to three thousand, three hundred dollars, but by the
middle of the next year, twenty nineteen, it was back

(01:40:26):
up to ten thousand, and ended the year at nearly
twenty thousand again and then pow just in one in
about two months, less than two months. Bitcoin rose to
forty one thousand at the beginning of January twenty twenty one,
and then basically over since then it's gone up and down.

(01:40:47):
There has been fluctuation up and down, up and down,
and now December one hundred thousand dollars. Wow, so some
people have made a lot of money from that.

Speaker 1 (01:40:55):
You've given us a whole history of the bitcoin there, Luke,
Thank you. I think I feel like, you know, on
those whenever they talk about money on the TV or something,
I think I feel like doing one of those disclaimers.
If you are investing in cryptocurrency, please be aware that
you can lose all of your money. Be prepared to
lose everything that you invest. Okay, disclaimer done. Question eighteen. Yep,

(01:41:21):
here we go another another number related question. So your
answer is going to be numbers again. Here number eighteen
is Taylor Swift finished her Eras tour a few weeks
ago after performing one hundred and forty nine shows over
twenty one months in five continents. The Eras tour is

(01:41:44):
the highest earning tour of any musician. Ever, how much
money did it make? And the answer is a two
with a certain number of zeros after it. So for example,
twenty or two hundred, it's not one of those, by

(01:42:05):
the way, twenty or two hundred or two twenty thousand,
two hundred thousand, it's two with a number of zeros.
So how much money did the Era's Tour make?

Speaker 2 (01:42:18):
Okay, So it's not going to be two million, because
two million, she'd earn that that the tour would earn
that from one or two shows. I think she could
probably feasibly in a big venue get a million from
one show. So it's not two million from the whole tour,
which has been massive. As you said, two hundred million

(01:42:38):
is certainly in the right ballpark, because you could imagine
if it's a million plus per show, and she's done
nearly one hundred and fifty shows. You could do some
basic maths and come up with about two hundred million,
So it could be two hundred million. If you go
higher than that, the next figure is two billion, and

(01:43:00):
that's that's ridiculous. That's like that that cruise ship containing
fifteen thousand people. You know, it's just like cloud cuckoo
Land alas in Wonderland stuff. So I reckon by process
of elimination, the answer is going to be two hundred
million dollars. But even saying that, I'm thinking there's a chance,

(01:43:25):
there's a slim chance it's two billion. But you know,
she could go to the moon with that, and she
not that she would want to, as we even previously established,
unless she wanted to try and play golf up there
with me, in which case, if you're listening, Taylor, I'm
up for it. But two hundred million there, that's my
final answer.

Speaker 1 (01:43:46):
I love that working out that you did there, because
that really made sense.

Speaker 2 (01:43:51):
You're wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:43:53):
It's two billion, it's two billion million. It's two billion
dollars dollars. She made two billion dollars or the eras tour.
I don't know how much. I don't know if she
got it specifically first off, but the tour itself made
two billion dollars, yes, and it's way more than any
other tour has ever made.

Speaker 2 (01:44:15):
You know, what she could have done. She could have
just invested in bitcoin at the beginning of the tour.
You could have stayed at home.

Speaker 1 (01:44:25):
The tour was only twenty one months, so maybe if
she'd started the tour in two thousand and nine and
knew a lot more than we did about bitcoin, then.

Speaker 2 (01:44:33):
Twenty one months, so that's twenty one months ago. Yeah, yeah,
that's that's like when was that then, sort of March
or something of twenty ninety two, exactly twenty twenty three. Yeah,
all right, so let's say March twenty twenty three. Yeah, well,
bitcoin bottomed out at twenty thousand dollars per bitcoin in March,

(01:44:58):
so if she'd invested, I don't know, do the math.
So if she invested just some of the money that
she spent in probably the plane tickets, she could have
just stayed at home and recorded lots of albums instead
of going out on tour. But no, that's where's the
fun in that. Of course, you know that millions of
people have enjoyed those Taylor Swift concerts.

Speaker 1 (01:45:21):
Impact.

Speaker 2 (01:45:22):
Apparently, it's amazing. My daughter's a huge fan of Taylor Swift.
She's a big Swifty Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:45:29):
Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of them. So when she's
a little bit older, maybe you'll be taking her to
the next Taylor Swift tour.

Speaker 2 (01:45:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:45:38):
Making more than two billion dollars they go, maybe she
can break her own record next time. Okay, right, I'm
afraid to say, Luke, that you have actually fallen below
the fifty percent mark that was out of eighteen questions.
You've now got eight and a half, so you've gone
just underneath.

Speaker 2 (01:45:55):
So I dropped below my self imposed past mark of
sixty percent. Now drop below the general dignity level of
fifty percent. And I'm into the sort of the kind
of f range of this. We're in the forty somethings.
This is shameful.

Speaker 1 (01:46:14):
It's difficult, it's it's a hard quiz. It's hard. God,
I think this might be the hard hardest one that
I've done so far. But anyway, here we go. Let's
see if you can boost your score with number nineteen.
Here we go.

Speaker 2 (01:46:24):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:46:24):
In November, in November, Australia's Parliament voted to make Australia
the first country to make which limit to social media.
The new law will come into effect next year. So
Australia's Parliament has voted to make a particular limit on

(01:46:45):
social media something that with which will limit the use
of social media or is that and it's going to
come into effect next year.

Speaker 2 (01:46:53):
I'm going to just cut straight to the chase here
and say that they're banning TikTok.

Speaker 1 (01:47:00):
No, it's not that, I'm sorry, it's not that.

Speaker 2 (01:47:07):
They're limiting cat videos because there's too many and it's
damaging the infrastructure of Australia's Australia's internet connection. There's like
too many cat videos, mate. I have no idea, but
it's okay. They're not banning TikTok. I know some places
are considering.

Speaker 1 (01:47:23):
In fact, the United States, if nothing changes over the
next two months, the United States is banning TikTok. Right,
you've heard of that one.

Speaker 2 (01:47:31):
Okay, I'm not too far away from the truth then,
But yeah, okay, what does Australia doing to limit, to
control or limit social media?

Speaker 1 (01:47:40):
They have become the first country in the world to
ban under sixteen year olds from social media.

Speaker 2 (01:47:47):
Oh okay, okay, yeah, children.

Speaker 1 (01:47:50):
Are not going to be able to use social media
anymore as soon as that law comes into effects next year.
All right, they go and they're the first country to
do that.

Speaker 2 (01:47:58):
And I understand why because this huge mental health issues
related to kids on social media. It's apparently very bad
for their minds and their mental health. So fair thing
of fair di income mate.

Speaker 1 (01:48:11):
Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah, quite right. Okay, here we go,
Question twenty. Let's see, bekase, so you've got eight and
a half of the moment. I'm afraid you're not going
to be You're not going to be reaching the fifty
percent mark, I'm afraid. But let's see if you can
come bring it a little bit closer on the last question,
Question twenty. In November, a piece of art called Comedian

(01:48:37):
by the Italian artist Mauricio Catalan was sold for six
point two million dollars. Can you describe the artwork?

Speaker 2 (01:48:50):
Brilliant? It's really good two for six million dollars? Right,
it's excellent or either that or it's just fine because
that maybe it's fine art, you know which I love that.
I love the term fine art. It's like yeah, this
is what do you think of this art? Yeah it's fine.

Speaker 1 (01:49:09):
Yeah, it's right, very fine.

Speaker 2 (01:49:11):
Yeah, so I think it's fine. I think this either
this art is really good or it's just fine, one
of one or the other.

Speaker 1 (01:49:19):
I'm going to leave I'm going to leave this open
a little bit longer because just in case some flashbulb
comes into your mind, it's not happening. No, it's called comedian.
It's by Marito Catalan. That's not going to help you's
been sold for six point two million dollars. I'm going
to tell you one little clue. It's very minimalist, very minimalist.

Speaker 2 (01:49:40):
Well, I'm a comedian, and maybe it's like a description
of my brain at this moment. So I'm thinking it's
just a blank white canvas with nothing on it, just
completely empty.

Speaker 1 (01:49:52):
No, it's not that. It's not that. No, this one
slipped you by as well.

Speaker 3 (01:49:57):
Luke.

Speaker 1 (01:49:57):
I'm afraid there's one. There's one really key word to this,
and it is banana. Is it's a banana which has
been seller taped.

Speaker 2 (01:50:09):
To a wall. Brilliant, I mean, just genius. Why didn't
I think of that? Why? Why didn't I think of that? Stephen?
Did you think of that.

Speaker 1 (01:50:20):
I didn't think of it.

Speaker 2 (01:50:21):
I didn't think of it. Need to deny, but Mario,
we would have six.

Speaker 1 (01:50:25):
Point two million dollars. Yeah, your Catalan, this this, this
artwork is a banana, a freshly bought banana. I think
the Catalan said that he went and bought it from
a shop down the road before he put it in
the exhibition and ducks taped it to a wall. And

(01:50:47):
this is what has sold for six point two million dollars.
Some somebody who got rich from cryptocurrency bought the artwork
and ate the banana.

Speaker 2 (01:51:03):
Well, yeah, you would, wouldn't you, because I mean, otherwise
you're going to get a disgusting banana stuck to a wall.
Because like, I don't know if it's ever happened to you,
but have you ever left a banana in your backpack
and forgotten about it? I mean it's happened to me
several times. I've put a bit I've got a banana, O,
I'll stick that in my backpack, eat it later three
weeks later and like, what's why is my backpack wet?

(01:51:25):
And it's because disgusting banana at the bottom of it.
So if you if he hadn't eaten it, then it
would have just turned into some horrible, disgusting, rotten banana.
So yeah, but really though, really he spent two point
six million on a banana. No, no, six point two,
six point two even, yeah, six point two.

Speaker 1 (01:51:47):
Yes, that's correct, and it comes with instructions telling you
that you, the buyer, the owner, can can change the
banana and the duct tape whenever necessary, because it's just
the idea of the art that you're really buying here.
So yeah, that's that's it. This is how conceptual this

(01:52:09):
art is these days.

Speaker 2 (01:52:11):
That's bonkers because normally you would buy our as an investment, right,
you'd buy it as an investment because later on you
can sell it and it's risen in value. In fact,
it can be one of the best investments you can make,
you know, except for cryptocurrency or maybe investing in Taylor
Swift as a commercial in some way, or you know,

(01:52:32):
ideally do both. You know, if imagine if you combined bitcoin,
Taylor Swift, and a banano in some sort of investment package,
you would just maybe this is.

Speaker 1 (01:52:42):
Going to be our money making scheme. Leak, Maybe we're
going to have to up some way of combining these
three things.

Speaker 2 (01:52:47):
Just try and find something look to the future and think, right,
some some sort of cryptocurrency. And I don't know who's
the biggest who's going to be the big pop star
next year. Let's say I don't know, someone else dua
leaper and an apple and I don't know. I don't
even know the name of another cryptocurrency. So that's that's

(01:53:10):
that's crazy though, because what was the buyer thinking, because
he's got six point two million dollars just spare to
spend on this this thing which is instantly going to
drop in value because he's eaten it.

Speaker 1 (01:53:25):
Well, maybe not. I mean the I watched the auction
room when it was being sold, and I mean the
reason it was six point two million was because there
were so many people bidding for it, so the prices
going up and up and up and up and up.
So there were lots of people willing to pay, you know,
millions and millions for this banana duct tape to a wall.

(01:53:47):
And I suppose, for I suppose he probably does the
owner now have the owner, you know, despite the fact
that he's eating the banana or changed it or something.
I suppose he has the ability to sell the idea.
I guess you need to get an expert onto to
explain this concept a little bit more. But yeah, I

(01:54:07):
suppose he if he wants to, he could actually sell
the He could go to an auction room and duck
taber banana to a wall and then sell it to
somebody for six point three million dollars or something.

Speaker 2 (01:54:19):
Hmmm mm hmm. Okay, remind me to buy some duct
tape when I go out after this, Yes, just.

Speaker 1 (01:54:28):
In your backpack?

Speaker 2 (01:54:32):
Maybe that would increase the value of it. Like this
is an actual banana that was left in Luke Thompson's backpack,
I'll duct tape the entire backpack to the wall. How
about that? To buy that in auction? Let me know, Okay,
bidding stance at six point two million dollars.

Speaker 1 (01:54:53):
I yeah, I'm afraid I'm not going to be putting
a bid in anytime soon. I'm afraid to say, Luke,
I I think that this is probably the lowest score
that you've got in one of these quizzes so far.
But do you know what, I'm going to cut you
some slack, and I'm going to say that this was
probably by accidents because it's a bit random, how I
do this? This seems as as we've been going through,
I've been thinking, actually, that was quite difficult, wasn't it.

(01:55:15):
So I wonder whether the audience is going to be
getting really low scores as well. If so, I'm sorry everyone, Sorry,
I'll make it easier next year.

Speaker 2 (01:55:24):
I would say, if you did better than me, then correctly, congratulations,
you're brilliant. If you did worse than me, then you know,
I know, well, if you did worse than me, then
I don't know what can I say to your commiserations.
But you know, I feel like I've fluked some of
those and so I could have got a much worse

(01:55:46):
score than I actually did. So if you got worse
than me, then you know, I feel like we're in
the same boat. Maybe it's that massive boat from earlier
where there's like ten thousand other people in there with me.
We're all in the same boat because we didn't know
the answers to most of these questions. But that's all right,
don't feel too bad. It's okay. We now we know though,

(01:56:08):
so we've learned some things that we didn't know before.
So everyone's a winner at the end, exactly right, Yeah, yeah, okay, Well,
thank you very much Stephen for that. And that was
good fun. I enjoyed that. I enjoyed that little tour
of the world and we learned some interesting factoids.

Speaker 1 (01:56:29):
And I hope it's given you some good vibes about
twenty twenty four. That's made you rekindle some good memories
about being in Paris during the Olympics and having a
mac so that you didn't have to suffer through that
windows crisis in July or whatever it was. Yeah, I

(01:56:49):
hope it's given you some good memories of twenty twenty four.

Speaker 2 (01:56:52):
Yeah, it did. Thank you very much for that, and
all right, good time to I've got to go out
now and buy a banana and some duct tape and stuff.
But thanks very much for preparing the quiz, Steve. And
it was really good fun, and you know, all the
best for twenty twenty four, what's left of it a

(01:57:13):
few days now. Enjoy your Christmas brain, say to.

Speaker 1 (01:57:16):
You, same to you, and Merry Christmas. I hope you
have fun in a few days time and for a
new year as well. Happy New Year as well.

Speaker 2 (01:57:26):
Happy New Year to you too. Okay, everyone, thank you
so much for listening to this. All the way through
to the end. Well done for making it this five
in those Germans who are possibly asleep at this point,
but everyone else, congrats and looking forward to speaking to
you again on the podcast soon everybody. But for now
I'm going to say goodbye, and I have to do

(01:57:48):
it in the time honored fashion of the Lucas, where
you can do it with me too if you want. Stephen,
thank you, Thanks everyone for listening. Speak to you next time,
but for now it's time to say good bye bye
boy born bne bye. Thanks for listening to Luke's English podcast.

(01:58:10):
For more information, visit teacher Luke dot co dot uk.

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