its best to watch first one drunk

Her column in the Sunday Times us too right wing for me. That's the way she swings.

I agree, she’s great.

IKR hahaha It always amused me that he's the journo and smart af and he almost NEVER wins. I think it has always been like that or it feels that way anyway. I think whomever allocates the points may not like him lmao

No ten-minute segment of Armstrong flubbing his lines, either!

I think Paul has more time to bone up on the news than Ian,his knowledge is not lost on this show and I think his knowledge is well appreciated by all

An exhilarating streak of form. We walk in the garden of his turbulence

@@iwakuraSanta Ian having a full-time job as editor of Private Eye and all. I think Ian won more often in the early years of the show

I agree, and she feels like someone who could be imminent! They're always filming one season ahead, so who knows!

For that you need tickets to the live recording

@@ecoworrier And they're rare as hen's teeth here in Melbourne, Australia.

Have I Got A Fuckton Of News For You

Maisie is awesome.

Sorry, but I think I could spend months, perhaps even years at sea and never imagine a a need for that. And giving it such a distressed finish makes it look as if the artist didn't have much faith in their own work - they felt they needed to give it that ancient "ruins" look to make it appear legitimate. I think it's dreadful.

It's lovely. And for anyone to proclaim it's 'too sexual' is a revolting position to take - it's a woman's body after all, and all women have breasts and buttocks. Some even have generously proportioned parts! ......... *shaking head*

@@YogZab Yeah, but no, it's not a woman's body. It's a mermaid's body with a woman's booty. It makes as much sense as putting a man's butt on a centaur. Women (and men) of all shapes and sizes are beautiful, and I truly do mean that. My criticism is not about human beauty, but about a statue that represents an already absurd mythical creature (though conventionally accepted as a symbol of beauty) with an even more absurd anatomical addition that pulls focus from the rest of the piece. And it's made to look old and worn, giving it a false air of legitimacy. It's art, so I get it, other people will like it, and my impressions are my own, but please don't dismiss criticism of this statue as people hating on "generously proportioned" women. Now I do agree that criticism about it being too sexual is misplaced. People confuse nudity with sexuality to the point that neither word has a useful meaning.

@@beenaplumber8379 I appreciate your comment. I think we're talking about different thing? There was a quotation in the reported item that the figure was too sexual, and I thought the journalist who said that (or town council or protest group) was misguided . Artists have typically rendered mermaids with breasts over the millennia. This artist added a bum, no big deal. The texture probably made them happy, nobody is fooled that it's an ancient artifact! The viewing public can focus on any portion of the sculp they wish. Including you and me! Anyway sure, we can agree to disagree! To me the piece is fun, lively, appealing and playful. I like the look of it and don't wish to overthink it. I value the mythologies of all nations and the mermaid is a colourful recurring character which I struggle to find absurd. We're all different! Best regards.

@@YogZab Yeah, I agree with your comment that calling it too sexual is ridiculous. Mermaids have always had breasts (except when they've been covered by seashells or long golden curls). A depiction of breasts, or any nudity, is not inherently sexual without a sexual context, which this statue, IMO, lacks. I think we're on the same page there. When you referred to it as playful that opened something for me. I do sometimes get this bias about artists taking themselves and their work too seriously, and clearly that's not a fair assumption on my part. As a playful piece, I think it works. I could see myself as a kid playing around the mermaid with the big butt, or planning to meet friends by the mermaid with the big butt! It really is a bit of playfulness. There's a short distance from absurd to silly to playful. Thanks for challenging me!

Can you explain the issue, as I don’t get it.

@@djpaulhannon Basically its a voter suppresion tactic because the IDs that are 'valid' are those older people tend to have (who would vote Tory/conservative) and the IDs which aren't 'valid' tend to be those young people have (who tend to vote not Tory/conservative). There's no reason whatsoever some of the IDs aren't 'valid' other than to keep younger more leftwing voters from voting. Its a disgusting and cynical powerplay.

@@djpaulhannon In the recent local elections in the UK, voters were required to show an official government ID, one of several types that were listed in advance, in order to cast their votes. BBC reporting said some 6000 Brits were not allowed to vote because they didn't show a proper ID, including one nurse who brought her government-issued NHS nurse ID card. The controversy, which is the same as it is here in the US, is that there has never been (in recent history anyway) a problem of widespread voter fraud (enough to sway any election at any level), in the UK or in the US. It's a fake issue that stirs up right-wing passions in both countries. The requirement for voter ID disproportionately keeps poor and marginalized people from voting - people who perhaps don't understand the requirements because of marginal language fluency, literacy, or disability, or maybe they are homeless and have no home address, which is required in some US states to get an ID, or perhaps people who would prefer to avoid government contact or leaving official government records of their whereabouts for whatever reason, perhaps because of government mistrust - whatever, that's their right, and people should not be penalized for exercising their rights. (You can tell which side of this issue I'm on.) There have also been numerous cases (in the US anyway) of Muslim women being required to remove their hijabs for their ID photos, something they are prohibited from doing by their religion, and something many women have said they felt ashamed for being required to do so. The sum of these effects is that there is a law now that addresses a problem that never existed, and the (predicted and actual) effect is that it suppresses voting by people who are likely to vote against conservatives, both in the UK and in the US. It is sometimes a matter of systemic racism, sometimes Islamophobia, and sometimes xenophobia. Here in the US, such laws are the prerogative of the states, and fortunately my state of Minnesota, which has huge immigrant populations from all over the world (Hmong, Somali, Karen, Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Central and South American, many others), has to this date not been infected with such nonsense. Voter ID came up for a vote as an amendment to our state constitution in 2010 (I think?), and it was roundly defeated.

We have had photo IDs for voting for as long as I can remember in Sweden. Yes, liberal, socialist, welfare state Sweden, not some gun toting bible thumping US. Voter turnout is about 85%, how much do you manage in the UK and US?

@@zapfanzapfan I'd be curious to know how difficult (or not) it is to get a photo ID in Sweden. I know here in the US, it can be a pain. They all take money. Probably the easiest one to get is a passport or a driver's license. Even if it's not a huge cost to get a photo ID, it still discriminates against us working class people since you might not have the means or the spending money to get a passport, and you might not have access to a car to get a driver's license. It's also pointless because you could easily verify someone's ID based on their social security number, since everybody has one of those. Also, our lower turnout isn't purely due to unnecessary BS like photo ID restrictions. US election days are always on a Tuesday, always during daytime hours, and they're never a holiday, so anyone who's working class might not even get the chance to vote since they could be stuck at work until the polls are closed.

He wasn't really elected. The last 2 Primeministers in the UK weren't elected. With Liz Truss being only elected by the Tory Party and Sunak filling in her role after a vote of no confidence in Truss. The UK is the least democratic it has been since the days of Royal interference in politics.

Ha! You think we elect our PMs? We haven’t done that in a long while

As an American, I became amused by Liz Truss. I began watching PMQs (Prime Minister's questions) which take place for half an hour on most Wednesdays. It's fun to watch the MPs 'diss' each other as they are constrained to the formal language protocols of the House.

We had no say in the matter, Emma. :P

​@@myoldvhstapesIt must be so annoying to have to call someone "the right honourable gentleman" when you don't think they are right and think that they are actually scum. I'm sure they would really like to say "the bullsh!tting tw@t" but are not able to. I don't think our MPs are even allowed to call each other liars in the Commons.

And I remembered the first verse without fail, nothing wrong with my memory!

Actually "chat" has a silent "t" in French, but Chat (as in Chat-GPT) has a hard "t". This sounds like the "chatte", which is French slang for female genitals. No wonder they're unhappy about the name.

Or a female cat - le chat, la chatte.

@@sarahpeart6500 Indeed. "Chatte" has the same double-meaning as "pussy" has in English.

Don't give them ideas! TikTok is already ful of cringe! 🙄

Be the change you want to see in the world.

eh it suits her. who cares how anyone has their hair cut or coloured as long as it ain't in the shape of a swastika or something. :P

The sides need to twisted into a lovely set of Orthodox payot.

It's a curse! 😉

So when should they record ?

@@jamesm9995 Not Thursdays

No no.... The Green Man is completely Pagan! The church adopted this symbol in the hope of attracting more followers and therefore more money!!

Wouldn't it be the product of the church attempting to absorb pagan images, stories and rituals to stamp it out?

Yes churches used a lot of pagan ideas to bring people into them. More people = more money

In Spanish, it's a diminutive of "bed".

In the UK, Camilla is a tart.

I watched 20 minutes then went out to sand the garage doors, suffering from pomp overload.

Did you see the Germans inaugurating their "space command" in the presence of Darth Vader and some Stormtroopers? I'm all for SciFi-nerdery but...

@@zapfanzapfan that was so creepy. It looks like they want to be the bad guys and not have to fake it. I interpret it as a taunt.

Gary Cooper, that’s a super duper Stormtrooper truth.

@@zapfanzapfan Even in “Star Wars,” aren’t the storm troopers the baddies?

@@censusgary Yes, which made the optics quite bad at that inauguration. Now, they were there for some charity thing, but still, looked weird.

It was Mr and Mrs Sunak. He's the prime minister, she's extremely wealthy, and they own a house in Yorkshire whose swimming pool heating costs have become a cliché in British political humour. For trilby hat, try your favourite image search, but the point is that children only wear them because their parents want to dress them up.

@@petertaylor4980 i thot of just googling it but sometimes i wanna here it 'from the horses mouth' lol! Thank u for taking the time to reply.

@@petertaylor4980 i think we might call them pork pie hats here in the states. They look very similar

Also not being a Brit I had to search what kind of hat that was.

​@@finestkindmedicinal5967 Not a Brit, but: Actually, a trilby is more like a fedora than a porkpie. Just like a fedora, a trilby has that uneven crown with a big indentation on top, where a porkpie hat has that ring of indentation running around the crown. I think trilby and fedora often get confused, and the distinction between them may be a bit blurry.

The joke was that the king bringing the stone isn't likely to suppress that history, he hadn't forgot but was making fun of the royals for thinking adding a Scottish custom would endear them, it was sarcasm...

@@StonedIn0z Ian is good at using his tone to indicate sarcasm. His tone was far from sarcastic, but more in tune with his opinion voice.

You can be virtually anything nowadays and still be king...... except a Catholic.

​@@BigBaw because you cant have a Catholic as head of the Church of England - must be Anglican.

@@henryjamesnigel not at all. Do you think you can only be king of England if you're Anglican or Christian? Henrik Larsson wept! Did you know it's all right now if everybody's divorced? You can be a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu. You can even be black. Just as long as you're not a black Catholic.

I knew I had heard that somewhere before!

In fairness, with observational humour I'd be wary of calling something plagiarism. It's not a stretch to imagine a Newton-Liebniz situation is it? Or indeed that he perhaps heard it so long ago that he thinks it's his own thought.

It's a very old joke. I recall Billy Connelly making a similar lifejacket whistle joke way back in the 1980s.

A bit of balance doesn't hurt eh?

Yeah, at the opening credits I was like who's this with the pretty hair? Then she ruined it by talking.

I don't see much balance in HIGNFY in their guests, the balance if there is any, is the shrewd mind of Ian Hislop who is able to criticise just about anything and I love him for it

Ian claims to be the most sued man in England I think. Editor for 30 (?) years or so.

That must have been quite a while ago then! Ian Hislop's been the editor since 1986.