915\. The World News Quiz 2024 🌍 with Stephen from SEND7 Podcast
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Get started with Noom GLP-1 today. Not all customers will medically qualify for prescription medications. Compounded medications are not reviewed by the FDA for safety, efficacy or quality. You're listening to Luke's English Podcast. For more information, visit teacherluke.co.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. Today on the podcast, it's time for the World News Quiz 2024. 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.

I'm joined in this episode by Stephen Devinchenzi from the Send7 podcast. Hello, Stephen. How are you today? 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 South East England. I can see my neighbour's plastic chairs rolling around the garden.

But other than that, yeah, I'm doing very well. How are you? 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 grey and just sort of a bit overcast and generally a bit miserable. I mean, this doesn't feel like Christmas, Stephen. Christmas doesn't look like this, does it?

No, it's supposed to be snowing, isn't it? But instead, it's just grey. Yeah, it's grey here as well. Yeah, no snowflakes, none of those Christmassy things, no icicles or anything, just kind of generally grey and overcast. So yeah, Stephen, 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 2023 World News Quiz. That's right. It's flown by. It has, hasn't it? How has 2024 been for you? 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 Send7 and doesn't know why I wasn't there last week, it's because I was in Bulgaria for a thing. A thing?

A thing? Well, actually it was my, uh, my partner's thing. I just tagged along to her thing. It was like some sort of thing that you can't talk about, like some kind of special mission in Bulgaria or some kind. I don't know what that would 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. I totally understand. No, I understand completely. Okay. So you were in Bulgaria. Okay. For a thing. Yeah. That sounds pretty cool. How was Bulgaria?

Yeah, it was great, actually. Yeah, really, really fun. It was 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 in a lot of coffee shops. And yeah, they've got lots of ancient Roman ruins in Sofia.

One of them is all in a metro 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. Yeah.

Those Romans, they got around a bit, didn't they? They really did, yeah. Everywhere, just hiding ruins under the ground. 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, when you try to build a metro station in the future, ha, remember the Romans. Going to have all these ruins in the way. That's nice. Okay, so Stephen, what is the plan then for this episode? What are we going to do? Because you're kind of...

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. Yes. So I've got 20 questions that I've written about things that have happened in the world over the last year, so in 2024.

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, 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 2023. 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 last year, but it definitely wasn't 100%. It was a pass. It was like at least...

I don't know what 60% at least, but 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 um trying to cover up for any mistakes or uh questions i get wrong is that i feel like i haven't really been keeping up with the news this year um although yeah i said that last year um

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? There's kind of the news landscape is quite complicated these days. I mean, it used to be, you know, my younger days, 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, different social media platforms, email newsletters, news agencies which are online, podcasts as well.

So for me, I don't really go on Twitter or X.com, as it's called, of course, these days. I don't really go on there these days so much. I mean, since it changed to X, 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 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.com very much this year. I think probably I get my news from

A little bit to radio that I listen to, and some podcasts as well I listen to. The rest is politics sometimes, and it's interesting to listen to those guys. 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.

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 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, I've been doing this for four years or a bit more. And it's, yeah, I think what you were saying there, 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 than from older traditional types of media, which might be

bring into question the term mainstream media, because actually, if more people are getting their information from social media, then you could say that that now is mainstream. But anyway, yeah, the podcast gets most of its information from professional journalists and things like that.

So the questions that we're going to be talking about in today's episode are not going to be based on, excuse me, are 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 in the world in 2024 and

We spoke about it a little bit and we thought maybe after doing this quiz in 2022 and 2023, we thought maybe in 2024 we would keep the questions to not necessarily positive things, but just not negative things about war and other issues.

topics like that so that we don't trivialize these world events. So all of the 20 questions that we've got for today are going to be about random other events, if that makes sense, Luke. 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. Generally speaking, the tone of my episodes is quite lighthearted and entertaining and humorous. That's the way I try to do it, to help people learn English in a fun way. I try to be insightful. I try to go into depth about things. Overall, the tone is supposed to be fairly light and entertaining and humorous.

Now, the World News Quiz, I love doing these because I just love a quiz. And it's also 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 with the kind of tone of the podcast itself. But I did want to mention some of the more serious events in the world. And 2024 has seen plenty of very serious and very troubling events in various places. And I think it's important to acknowledge this and mention it.

Before 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. You do talk about those serious big news stories in your podcast episodes, right? You always talk about those things, and then here you are.

doing something a bit more, uh, humorous. So that, that's, that's also a little, a bit of a, um, uh, a tone shift, uh, for you as well, right? Actually, it could be both ways. So if somebody is, uh, used to listening to Send7, 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 happen in the world? And then of course, if people are, uh,

listening to LEP all the time and then come over to Sense7, they think, why is he always talking about all these terrible world events? It might not make sense. So yeah, it's probably worth mentioning this. 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, 2024 and some of the 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 page for the year 2024, which is actually quite a neat summary of some of the most serious and somber stories of the last 12 months.

Actually, in my mind also, I've got a question about news and what makes things newsworthy. In the news, they always prioritize these very serious stories. We could talk about that briefly in a moment. Anyway, the Wikipedia page for the year 2024. This is what it says.

2024 is the current year and is a leap year, starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2024th year of the Common Era and Anno Domini designations, the 24th year of the third millennium and the 21st century and the fifth year of the 2020s 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, leading to the toppling of Baathist Syria, with Bashar al-Assad fleeing Syria in December.

The ongoing Israel-Hamas 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, Israel escalated an offensive against the group, including an attack using explosives-laden communication devices and carrying out a bombing of its headquarters, which resulted in the killing of the Secretary General, Nassan Nasrallah.

Ismail Haniyeh, I hope I'm pronouncing that properly, the political leader of Hamas, had already been assassinated in the Iranian capital, Tehran, in July. The year also saw a rise in activity by the Houthi 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 first two paragraphs of the page about 2024, 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 organisations who 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 you kind of feel a little powerless sometimes.

Um, 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. Um,

One of the organisations that people can help out by donating to is Médecins Sans Frontieres, which is in English Doctors Without Borders. 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. This is not a paid promotion of any kind.

We don't want to preach to everyone or anything like that. 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. Doctors Without Borders is a renowned international humanitarian organization that

that provides medical assistance to people affected by conflict, epidemics, natural disasters, and exclusion from healthcare.

The reasons why it's a good idea to donate to them, they work on the front lines, often in the most dangerous and neglected areas, providing emergency care to those who might otherwise have no access to medical assistance. Donations directly support life-saving interventions such as surgeries, vaccinations and maternal health services.

Also, MSF, Médecins Sans Frontières, is independent and neutral, which is a really important thing. They refuse funding from governments or from political entities for its emergency programs. This makes sure that their work remains neutral and independent.

This independence allows them to provide aid solely based on need. That's, I think, a really important thing. I could go on. People can find out more by Googling Doctors Without Borders. That's also where people can donate in order to support the organization if that's what you would like to do. Anyway, I just wanted to mention those things.

I think that was really, really, really nice, Luke. Well done. Well said. Okay. Well, so shall we do our quiz now? I think we shall. I think we shall. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's go to it. Okay. Ready for question one? Yeah. 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 12 months.

It's been a lot of podcasting, I can tell you that much, but other things as well. There's no podcast-related question, I'm afraid. It's all things that have happened, including question number one in January. There we go. So before 2024, only four countries had landed spacecrafts on the moon. The United States, the Soviet Union, China, and last year, India.

Which country became the fifth country to land a spacecraft on the moon in January 2024? 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. 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 to land something on the moon. 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 were 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. They did it in January 2024. 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. And also the question does say which country, 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 say what's the point? You know, um,

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 beat me this year, but so who was it? Which, which country? Do you want to choose one at random just in case? I don't know. Only 195 other countries to choose from. So yeah. Yeah. Um,

I'm just trying to think what's the most unlikely of countries to put something on the moon. I don't know, Wales. Wales, yeah. Is Wales your final answer? I think the Welsh have been putting all of their resources into putting a Welsh flag on the moon. I think it's Wales. Okay, well, I can tell you that you are not correct, I'm afraid. It is not Wales. What a surprise. What a surprise. Unfortunately, it's not Wales.

The correct answer is Japan. Japan was the fifth country to land on the moon. They did that in January. Yeah, that's right. Really? Yeah. Okay. I'm surprised. Why didn't I know about this? What were they doing up on the moon then? Japan?

Japanese listeners, what's all that about? 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 1969 and 1972. And they haven't done it since then. So nobody has been to the moon since 1972. What's the reason for that, do you think?

Just because there's nothing there? 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 2027. So yeah, that'll be exciting in a few years' time, two years' time. Yeah. 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. I mean, what...

There's no swimming pools, no golf clubs. I mean, you can play golf on the moon. The Americans did that, didn't they, in the 70s, I think. But yeah, it's going to cost you billions. And when you get there, there'll be nothing to do. So nah, probably best just stay at home.

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? Do you reckon it's possible to whack a golf ball out of the orbit of the moon? I don't know. We're going to have to try that one day. Maybe if...

Because it's got gravity. It's got gravitational pull. It's just obviously 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 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, 300 billion pounds for, I would say. Yeah.

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 does Neuralink do? What does Neuralink 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, Neuralink is a way to connect the human brain to the internet or to a computer. And it allows you, I think, to control a computer and

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? That is absolutely right. Well done, Luke. Got one right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's completely right. Yeah. So Neuralink 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 around with his, just by thinking it, which is, it sounds so insanely futuristic, but that is actually happening. So yeah. Wow.

I don't know if I am excited or terrified or some sort of combination of the two at this idea. 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 paralysed. So they are... Not as a result.

No, no, no, no. Okay. No, no, of course not. No, they are paralyzed people. They were fine before. So 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 taught. This is not the case. They weren't paralyzed as a result, of course, but... No, no, no, 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. 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, to do things like, as I say, moving a mouse around a keyboard screen and that kind of thing. I saw one guy playing Mario carts, which is pretty incredible with his brain. So if you think about it from the perspective of somebody who has lost all of their, uh,

ability to to use their body parts this is really fantastic yes yeah absolutely this is a really good positive application of it yeah that's great that that someone who's paralyzed can can play mario kart and as well do so many other really important things yeah absolutely yeah yeah and hopefully this is just the beginning of it okay question number three in june and july the euro 2024 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 a Euros tournament and score in a Euros tournament when he scored against France in the semi-final, aged just 16. God. It was his name. I don't know. No.

but I remember him because he was both 60 he turned 17 during the competition didn't he yeah a couple of days after scoring that goal against France he was both 16 and 17 you know during the tournament I remember that and obviously it made me feel very old and uh

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. So I'm really sorry that I can't remember your name, mate. But you're really good at football.

you know, so swings and roundabouts, isn't it? So, Oh, what's the matter? Oh, Luke Thompson. Couldn't remember my name. Oh, well, but at least you're really good at football. So yeah. Yeah. At least he's the youngest player to ever score a euros 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? Yeah.

How do you say I'm sorry? Lo siento, right? Yeah, lo siento o perdón. What do you say? Yeah, perdón, lo siento. How do you say I'm an idiot who can't remember important things about Spanish footballers? Soy tonto y no me acuerdo nada de los futbolistas de España.

Right, exactly. What he said. Okay, everybody, I'm really sorry. Especially to the man himself. Is he a man? Anyway, right. Actually, do you know what? I don't think he is technically a man. I mean, by law, he's still 17. So he's still a boy, I guess. Still a minor. Anyway, this minor's name is Yamin Lamal. Yamin Lamal is a man. Yamin Lamal.

That's right. Yamil Lamal was 16, now 17, and scored an absolutely incredible goal. 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 stick to sports. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I was going to say, I'm just, you know, I'm failing at this point. I've only got 33.3 recurring percent, which is definitely below the general pass mark of 60%. You know, this is like, what? This is like an IELTS championship.

what level four or three and a half. I'm basically like a kind of elementary level, uh,

If this was IELTS, then no university will accept me with this current score. So I need to improve quickly. 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? Oh, I love this question. Are you going to give people a moment to think? Yeah, yeah, 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 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 Seine itself. They were going to go in Seine. They were going to go in Seine and actually jump in the Seine. And I say in Seine because

For some people, that was a crazy idea because the Seine is not very clean. Although these days, according to the mayor of Paris, 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 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.

I don't know how the athletes felt about this. It was delayed by a day and they checked the quality of the water again. On that particular day, it was okay. I don't know if they had a pass mark like I've got in this test where it's like the previous day, it's 61%. No, sorry, this is dangerous. The next day, 59%. Yeah, that's fine. You can swim in that. Just don't open your mouth if possible.

it sounds like it yeah yeah so that's the reason is because they had to the the first day the water wasn't considered clean enough but the next day it was it was clean enough i don't know what happened in that 24-hour period where just people didn't use the toilet in the entire city for for a day although you know there was um because people were so annoyed about this the idea that um

And the mayor of Paris, Anne 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 river with a

with a full wetsuit on and everything. And because people, she's not that popular with some people. And so there was this thing going around social media, I think, where some people in Paris were saying, right, so Anne Hidalgo is going to go in the river on this date. Everyone flush their toilet. Everyone use the toilet and flush at exactly the same time. You know,

So anyway, that was my answer. Okay. Well, yeah, as you can tell, you know your stuff. Yeah, 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 answer 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 the next day, they said, oh, no, it's OK now. And I've been asking myself the same question ever since. What happened? How is it possible that one day it's not OK and just the next day it is OK? But yeah, you're right. And Anne Hidalgo, 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, actually, it wasn't clean the day before the triathlon. And then they said it was. Anyway, that is the correct answer. Well done, Luke. Have you been swimming in the Seine? 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 a, 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 silt from the riverbed. 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 Ratatouille.

We know that there are rats in the city, so no thanks. I think I'll stay on dry land. Thanks very much. There's not really any good reason to swim in the Seine, really, is there? Yeah, only if there's a gold medal up for grabs, perhaps, or if 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, 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,

Obviously, that introduces a lot of rainwater, which washes in from the streets and from the land and stuff. The system also gets filled with dirty water in that way. It must be very difficult to manage it, but there are probably different factors that influence the changing cleanliness of the water. But still, no, not for me. Yeah, absolutely right. Okay, we're going to stay at the Olympics for question number five. Yeah.

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 in later. Up to you. I'll probably have to put that in later. 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 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 a square that would block her vision completely from that eye. And the second person is Yusuf Dikec from Turkey. I'm probably saying his name wrong. Yusuf Dikec, something like that. And he is just wearing normal glasses. So the question is...

What sport did these two participate in? And these 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. It's a 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 um they were like the the heroes of the of the olympics in a way there's just so much so many memes and so much entertainment uh around these two so uh they're i think the event is called simply shooting is that right it's just yeah i think

Yeah, I think technically it's air pistol, but it doesn't matter. Shooting is fine too. Shooting is right. So if you said shooting or pistol or air pistol or something like that, you have got a point. 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 look like they were straight out of an action film or something. Yeah.

But the interesting thing is like the difference between the two. So Kim Ye-ji, she looks really cool because she looks like some sort of cyborg assassin from the future, right? She looks like a side character from, you know, Star Wars or the Terminator or something like that. Like if there was a new Terminator, I mean, they could be two characters in a Terminator film. Like Kim Ye-ji has been sent back from the future to kill, you know, you or something.

because you make your podcast just too informative. Anyway, and Yusuf is the guy who the humans sent back to try and defend you against Kim

Yeah, yeah. I want to watch this film. Yeah, totally. But yeah, Yusuf is the complete opposite, right? He is so cool because he looks like he just doesn't try 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. Yeah, totally. She looks like a James Bond villain with all of the technology and she's like...

got all the tech technical gear and everything. And, uh, and then Yusuf just rocks up and just literally stands there and puts his hand in his pocket.

as well. He just, the most casual stance, he's got one handed his pocket and he's just uses his eyes with some glasses on. And then Kim has got all these super duper technology with the, with the monocle and everything. Yeah. Yeah. Really, really funny stuff, but they were successful, right? Kim won a medal, didn't she?

Yes, I think, sorry, I should know this. I think one of them got silver or maybe both of them got silver, I think. I think they both got medals of some kind. 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? I don't remember that. In her pocket or maybe in one of her hands, she had this little fluffy elephant thing.

which was kind of an interesting combination of like this badass 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, to, to shoot accurately. Um,

And I think in interviews, she's a much more smiley and warm person. But obviously she had to focus really hard. She was wearing the cap on.

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, 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, you know, different things for different people, 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...

can like listen to their heartbeat and know to shoot based on the rhythm of their heartbeat so that they know that they can hold the position meta or something like that which is just incredible yeah you've got to hold your breath and yeah because the the heartbeat obviously creates a pulse that runs through your whole body

And that can 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 you ever play Metal Gear Solid, by the way, the computer game?

My friend's houses. I don't think I had it myself, but I remember going around to their houses. It's like a shooting game, but it's more based on spy side of things, right? So you're doing everything really slowly, no? 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 play as you're playing. You know, you kind of realize that his breathing affects your ability to shoot accurately. And also you realize that he needs to take diazepam

And 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. Diazepam is Valium, right? 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 absolutely okay moving on question six in July millions of Windows computers crashed around the world you remember this

Yeah, I do remember this. But as an Apple Mac user, I was just like, yeah, fine. Carry on, everyone. Good for you. 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 $10 billion. But what caused the problem? And I've got some options for you for this one, A to D. So what caused the problem? A, 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? Yes, please. Okay, so what caused 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, C, a

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 had all their applications running? If it's my wife's computer, then it would be that her browser has got about a million different windows open, a thousand tabs running on her computer.

on her computer. That's enough to bring down. The last thing I did 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 10 billion problem on our hands. So faulty security update. So a security update that did the exact opposite of what it was supposed to do. Right, right. A cyber attack.

Yeah. Yeah, it's possible. Broken cables under the water. Yeah. Because they got eaten by fish or something. Or jaws. Jaws 2. Fire at an important server. I don't think a fire at a server would probably cause all those computers to get the blue screen of death. I don't think a fire in a server would do that. It would just cut out some of the internet. Broken cables...

Cyber attacks, faulty. I'm going for faulty security update, I think. I think that's probably it. It's probably just something as annoying as that. 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. Oh, yeah. Don't download that security update. Okay, whatever you do. Oh, no. Millions of people have already downloaded it. I think it's the security update.

Yeah, you are absolutely right, Luke. It is a faulty security update. So there's this company called CrowdStrike, which is a 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 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 to fix 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 they their system was down and they had to do everything on the phone instead. The old fashioned way. And 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 system.

security update. That was it. 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?

Yeah, but the Millennium Bug didn't really exist, did it? It was just something that we were all planning for. And we're showing our age here, Luke. But yeah, I mean, we were all planning for it just in case something would happen, and then nothing did happen. Nothing happened. But people were talking about planes falling out of the sky because computers weren't ready for the year to change to 00. They thought that would just end civilization. But no, it was fine, thankfully. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. I'm doing a little bit better now. I've got three out of five, 60%. No, no. Better than that, Luke. You've got four out of six. Oh, have I? That was, that

That was question six. You've got four out of six. Yes. Yeah, well done. You've really... What's that as a percentage? That is 66.66%, isn't it? 666. Brilliant. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Good. This is better. Let's carry on. 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 25 years.

Before the growing number of humans, there were probably over 25 million of this animal in the world. However, today there are only just over 400,000. So today there are about 400,000 of this animal. The good news is that the population seems to have stabilised and even grown significantly.

a little bit over the last 25 years, mostly because of conservation efforts. What animal am I talking about?

Let me just whack the microphone there. All right. So there used to be 23 million. But before the population of humans went crazy, there was probably, people think that there were probably 25 million of these animals. And then the population came down and down and down and down. And today there's only 400,000 and they are, they have been considered at risk of extinction.

But over the last 25 years, and recently, the 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 25 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 there being too many of them in some areas. And yeah, I don't want to give too much information, but that'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 um 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 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 uh the us humans decided that wolves were a really bad thing and a lot of them got killed um you know um

And then they've been sort 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.

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 that this is an

African animal. It's an animal which is in Africa and a bit in Asia, but mostly in Africa. Oh, right. What animal? Half a point if you can get it with that info. Elephant. It is elephants. Well done. Okay, great. Okay, there you go. You salvaged half a point there. So now you've got four, four and a half.

Four and a half out of seven. It is elephants. So elephants, they say probably, I don't know when exactly, but people think that there were 25 million elephants on the planet at some point, most of them in Africa, some of them in Asia. And people were hunting them for their ivory, that is their tusks and their teeth, and

And of course, when people build cities and things like that, this also has 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 25 years ago. And positive news, it's actually worked. And today, the situation 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 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, OK. And they've taken a few thousand. They've taken a few thousand. And there was a story about the president of Botswana threatening to send 20,000 elephants to Germany,

Because the German environment minister was complaining about the Botswana, about the way that Botswana was treating its elephants and saying that some of them should be able to be killed, essentially, because they have too many. And so the president of Botswana said, OK, well, look, all right, fine, then you can take them then.

So they said, you can have 20,000 elephants. That didn't actually happen, but he did threaten to send 20,000 elephants to Germany. Wow. Incredible. Imagine if he'd actually done it. And then, you know, in Germany, they'd just be like,

Oh, God, we've got all these elephants. What are we going to do? This is really difficult to get to work. There's just too many elephants. Ride them. Send them into a new Uber service, Uber elephants. Yeah, maybe. Oh, wow. Okay. Interesting story. 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 Kaokyo Zoo. She is called Mu Deng. What does Mu Deng mean? Does Mu Deng, A, mean dirty cat, B, bouncy pork, C, sticky chicken, or D, spicy pigeon? I'll go through them again. A...

Here we go. So this is what does Mudeng, the name of the hippopotamus, mean? A. Dirty cat. B. Bouncy pork. C. Sticky chicken. Or D. Spicy pigeon.

It sounds a little bit like you're reading from a menu in some random restaurant. Translated really badly. Spicy chicken, please. Because the other ones don't sound very tasty. No, it's spicy pigeon, wasn't it?

Oh, God. A, Dirty Cat. Dirty Cat. B, Bouncy Pork. Yeah. C, Sticky Chicken. Right. Or D, Spicy Pigeon. Which one of those is Moodeng?

So bouncy pork, the word pork in English refers to the meat. So you would 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. But sometimes people mix up the words pork and pig. So I was wondering if maybe it's bouncy pork because...

A 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. I think it's that.

Luke, you are absolutely right. Yeah, it is bouncy pork. That is completely, completely right. You 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 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 changed the word for chicken.

for pig and pork, cow and beef, but we don't change the word for fish or for chicken. But I don't know. There'll be some story about, about the Norman invasion of Britain and something poultry versus, you know, upper class people eating beef and pork, but not chicken. Cause that's for, you know, lower class people, something like 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 risen dramatically in the last two years. Yeah, tell me about it. Yeah, my wife and I have noticed it. Anyway, yes. Do you know why? Inflation. Inflation.

Or why has the price of chocolate risen around the world? Just to be clear, this is not question nine, but do you know why? There could be all kinds of factors, but I suppose it's something to do with one of the ingredients involved in making chocolate has become harder to get. So cacao, is it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cacao. Yeah.

or cacao or coca uh yeah so okay here's question nine the price of chocolate has risen dramatically in the last two years all around the world because of a rising uh 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 pay for chocolate is probably going to keep on rising and

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? 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. West Africa. Yeah, that's right. If you can name either of these countries, 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, 65% of the world's cocoa comes from these two places. So they're probably going to be the more 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'm going to be wrong about this, right? Nigeria, Cameroon, but... So the... I'm not sure how to say this, but the question...

says, can you name one of those two countries? Can you name it? So because there's two of them, I'm giving you an opportunity to get one of the two. I tell you what, I'm going to let you have two guesses to get the two, or one of, to get one of the two. So having said, sorry, having said Nigerian and Cameroon, I don't really remember ever hearing Nigerian

That's not a phrase I've heard in my life very much. I thought Nigerian cocoa, Cameroonian cocoa, the finest cocoa from the Ivory Coast, the finest cocoa from Senegal, Senegalese cocoa. I'm just trying to decide which of those phrases I've actually heard before.

It's none of those countries. I feel like, um, Nigerian cocoa, Senegalese cocoa. Well, well done for already naming four or five countries in West Africa. Luke, you've, uh, you're showing that your, uh, geography is not too bad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's not as good as it could be. Uh, I don't know. Senegal, uh,

Okay, it is not Senegal. So Senegal is not one of them. I'll give you... Okay, so if anybody else... Yeah. You can just tell me the answer. Just tell me the answer. All right. No half point for a second guess? No, no, it's too generous.

Okay, I'm being too generous. The answers are, unfortunately, you did actually say one of them. One of them is Côte d'Ivoire, Ivory Coast. And the other one you didn't say, the other one is Ghana. So Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, they make two thirds of the world's cocoa. So if you said either Côte d'Ivoire or Ghana, you can give yourself 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 10, but they're still very far down. Because the top two, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, they make two thirds of the world's cocoa. Number three, I think, is Ecuador. So that's obviously in South America. And then most of the others are in other parts of West Africa. But they're still quite a long way down just because Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana make so, 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, it's largely because of this. Well,

As we all know, there's been massive inflation in the world in general for everything. So it's not just your country, guys. It's all countries have had big inflation in 2024. But chocolate has been particularly bad because the cocoa harvests have been terrible for the last two years in Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana and other places that make cocoa. There's been too 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 2025 fingers crossed wow very interesting yeah

Okay. Well, sorry to all my Ghanaian listeners because I didn't get that one right. And Ivory Coast as well. 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 a point. So that was question nine, right? So it's 5.5 out of nine now. 5.5 out of nine. That's right. 5.5 out of nine. Okay. Number 10. Here we go. Yeah.

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 of the Seas? And I'm going to give you a length in metres and how many people it holds.

By the way, for the people it holds, about a quarter of them are crew. So whatever you hear, you can think about a quarter of them are crew and the other three quarters are passengers. So here we go. A, 160 metres and 4,000 people. B, 260 metres and 7,000 people. C, 360 metres and 10,000 people.

Or D, 460 meters and 15,000 people? I'll say that again. No, I've got it. I've got it. You've got it? 160 meters, A, 160 meters long, holding 4,000 people. That would be about 1,000 crew members and 3,000 passengers. Check out my maths, everyone.

um b is 260 meters and 7 000 uh people c is 360 meters 10 000 people and d is 460 meters 15 000 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 um

A concert venue that holds about 10,000, 15,000 people. I sort of get a general idea of what that looks like. 460 meters long. So I'm going, I'm looking at option D and thinking 15,000 people. That's like a kind of a, you know, modest sized football stadium.

Not one of the bigger ones, not like a Manchester City or whatever, but maybe a smaller premiership club like a Fulham or something smaller than that maybe. Wolves. We'll go back to Wolves again. Of course, bear in mind that they're all going to be having their own bedrooms on this ship. Right. A small football stadium is already massive enough

And that's just seats. That's just people sitting in seats. But yeah, you need people having a place to sleep. Everyone's got their own cabin. Everyone's got their own cabin. There's a restaurant. There's all the 50,000 people or maybe half or something, you know, imagining that you've got two people in the same room or three people or something. Yeah. But still, there's a lot of space. 15,000 people seems too much.

but this is the biggest, this 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, um, yeah. Plus 460 meters long. I'm still looking at option D that's, that's really far. I mean, that's like nearly half a kilometer long. That's ridiculous. Um,

Can't remember how long a football pitch is. That's normally the kind of yardstick for this sort of thing, isn't it? It's like the length of four football pitches. You know, you get an idea of how big it is. I think D is too big. That's just, that's, that's insane. That's far too big. Um, it's probably going to be D now, but, um, 7,000 people. I think, I think 260 meters, 7,000 people seems feasible and, um,

For that reason, I think it's not going to be the answer. I think it's going to be something astounding, like 10,000 people, but not quite as astounding as 15,000 people, which is just too much. So I think 15,000 people is unimaginable for me. 7,000 people seems quite reasonable for a huge ship,

So I think it's going to be somewhere in between. I'm going 10,000 people, 360 meters long, about a third of a kilometer long. Option C.

Yeah. Well done. That's right. Yeah. Well done. It is 360 meters long and it holds 10,000 people, something like 7,500 passengers and 2,500 crew staff. So, well, yeah, it is, it's pretty insane. It looks like a city. And yeah, yeah, absolutely amazing.

That's the feats of humanity. Well done, Luke. You've got, speaking of feats of humanity, you've got six and a half out of 10. That's pretty good. It's pretty good. It's still a pass, isn't it? IELTS 6.5. It is a pass.

That will get me into a fairly decent university. Okay. That's right. Okay. Okay. We're coming on to elections for the next two questions. Here we go. 11. Donald Trump became the first president in over 100 years to win a non-consecutive term as president after winning in 2016 and losing in 2020. 12.

But by what percentage of votes did Trump beat Kamala Harris? Is it A, 1.5%, B, 3%, C, 4.5%, or D, he didn't, she got 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, 1.5%, B, 3%, C, 4.5%, or D, he didn't beat her?

on percentage of votes. She got more votes than him, but he won the presidency anyway because of the electoral college system. So this is interesting, like option D there, just to kind of talk about that a little bit more. In the way that these presidential elections are done in the United States, you have the popular vote, which is like a direct election

just counting all the votes and working out who got more. That's called the popular vote, but that's not the way it works. They have electoral cottages, not cottages, electoral colleges, which is kind of, I guess, something similar to the British first past the post system, which has what they called

I can't think of them. Constituencies. Constituencies. Yeah. Anyway, so I think that Trump won the popular vote and he won the electoral colleges. I think he won both. And it was a significant margin. So I think, again, it's option C. I think he beat her by at least 4.5%. Am I right? Yeah.

You are not right, I'm afraid. That is wrong. God damn it. Yeah, surprisingly, even though he won the Electoral College easily, he got way more Electoral College votes than she did because he won a lot more states than she did. I'm just going to pull up the...

Wikipedia, presidential 2024 page. So even though he won 312 electoral college votes and she only won 226, the amount of the percentage more votes that he got than her was only 1.5%. So it's A, 1%.

A is the correct answer. So in terms of the popular vote, he got only 1.5% more votes than her. Wow. Yeah. So she got 48.4%, 48.4%, and he got 49.9%. So he got just under half, and she got...

a bit, a bit less than just under half. Uh, there you go. So in terms of millions of votes, he got 77.2 something million and she got 74.9 million. Uh,

Yeah, so 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 1.5%. 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. I overestimated how successful Donald Trump was. I mean, obviously, he still won the election, but it wasn't quite as huge a victory as perhaps we've been led to believe or such, because...

Yeah, I feel like we've come away from the election, maybe just like someone like me who's not paying attention to all the details. You just kind of come away from that story feeling like, well, he just won it out and out. And it was like a really big victory. I mean, he did. He 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 2016. In 2016, he won the presidency just because of that

electoral college system uh he actually got three million less votes than hillary clinton in 2016 but in 2024 he has got more votes than kamala harris as well so he's definitely totally out and out won it but uh if you look at the percentages the difference is is not really that big so it's obviously still a very significant victory but um yeah it does put it into perspective though when you you see the the the margin that it's not not that big

Okay, number 12, sticking to elections, around half of the world's population live in countries that voted in 2024. 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 2024? And the 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. Oh dear. Yeah.

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. It was the European Parliament. 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. You're not going to change your answer? Okay. No.

If you're not going to change your answer, then yes, you are right. Japan. Okay. 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, UK, Georgia, Japan. Good. 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 the Marine Le Pen's party, and plus there've been a lot of political things going on in France at the moment recently, but there was a,

No, wait a minute. France had an election, but not a presidential election. It can be any election, yeah? It can be presidential or parliamentary. France had a parliamentary election this year. Yes, you are correct. So France is one of them, yeah. France is one of them. I've just 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've 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. Um, so the fact that I'm struggling to name five countries that have had elections is, um, disappointing for me and slightly embarrassing, but I'm going to add India to the list. But, um,

I'm really sorry. You are right. You're right. No, you're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is India. And I 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 have voted in 2024. So yeah, India really helps on that, on,

On that, as we now know, it is the most populous country in the world because it overtook China last year, as I think might have been a question in 2023. That was, yeah. Yeah, so right. So just to help everyone, well done, Luke. You've got seven and a half points.

Out of 12. 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, you could have said Mexico or Honduras or Panama or Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Mexico.

Ecuador, Uruguay. In Africa, you could have said South Africa, Botswana, Angola, Mozambique, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon. No, that's not Cameroon. Gabon, Togo, Ghana, Senegal, Mauritania, Algeria, Tunisia, Chad, South Sudan, 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, and Georgia. In Asia, you could have said Japan, South Korea, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Iran, Azerbaijan,

Syria, Jordan, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Cambodia, nearly finished, Taiwan, Sri Lanka. Did I say that already? And then in Oceania, probably nobody said any of these, but just in case, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, the Tuvalu Islands,

Kiribati and new. If anybody said new, I don't even know how to pronounce new.

If anybody said that, then well done. Okay. Actually, it's not a surprise then I got five because it feels like I could have just randomly chosen five countries and I probably would have got it right because it's almost like every country had an election this year. It's insane. Yeah, it was a lot. Yeah, it's tons of countries. Okay. But anyway, I got my point. So I've got 7.5 out of 12. Yes, you do. Okay. Right.

Number 13: Which European country legalised cannabis this year? Which European country legalised cannabis this year? Okay. So when you say legalised 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 are you talking about medical marijuana?

It is legalised for recreational use. So in this country, it has been legalised this year and people can grow up to three plants themselves and can own up to 50 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 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 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 2024, 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 it's not France. I mean, you know, unless it was France and I've just forgotten, which probably would kind of, would be a reason why, you know, how to describe that. But I don't know, Stephen, I actually genuinely don't know. Do you want to choose a country at random? Random European country? Yeah.

God, what kind of country would do that? They're just smoking weed. They're fine. It's Portugal. Good try, but it's not Portugal. It is Germany. Germany? Yeah, I know. This one really flew under the radar. How did I not know that?

I know. 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 50 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 I think you're right that it probably is to avoid that Amsterdam situation of people just going there to buy it and then leave. But yeah, there you go. I know that one has flown under the radar, hasn't it?

So did you say you can't buy it in shops? 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 somewhere. I wasn't 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. A lot of countries consider legalising cannabis in this way because they can tax...

the sales of it. And if it's just commercially available, then obviously that's going to raise a lot of tax revenue. You know, if it's 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, you know, reason for doing it. Um,

So I was wondering if that's the case in Germany, but I'm not sure. Anyway, German listeners, if you haven't fallen asleep yet, you can let us know how it's going. How is that? Have you noticed any changes to the society around you? Or have you just been staying in a lot?

since the law was changed. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah. Okay, question 14. In the United States and Canada, throughout 2024, two rappers have been involved in what has been called

the biggest rap battle since the feud between Biggie and Tupac in the 1990s. Can you name either of the two rappers involved in this rap feud of 2024? 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's like, you said something about my mum or something. Yeah.

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 who that's right or wrong. That is right. Yeah, you have one of them. One of them is Drake. Who the hell is the other one? Who's the other one? I'm showing how uncool 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. Starts with a K.

Kendrick Lamar. Hey, well done. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You got both of them. It is Drake and Kendrick Lamar. So if you listener have, uh, said either Drake or Kendrick Lamar, then you can have a point for that one. That's right. Um,

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 in the news. Do you know why? Do you know what one of them said or did? No.

No. Oh, actually, oh, sorry. I thought you were going to tell me. No, essentially, I think it was just... I've read briefly some of it. They were friends. They did some songs together about 10 years ago. And I think...

one of them said just, I think 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. Yeah. And that's, that's the way that it goes. According to Wikipedia.

I've just Googled it and according to Wikipedia, it looks like there's 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 accusing Drake of some

um sort of uh heavy crimes yeah some pretty pretty nasty stuff um that's it that's why i try not to get into my uh rap battles anyway question 15 in october claudia scheinbaum became the first female president of which country so in in october claudia scheinbaum

I'm saying that in the way that people would probably say it in this country, but Claudia looks like Claudia to an English audience. Claudia Scheinbaum became the first female president of which country? Scheinbaum. 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, Claudia can't be the first female president. Where else do 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 are other places where German is spoken, but I'm going to just cut to the chase and I'm going to say Austria.

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 Scheinbaum does sound very German, probably is originally from a German-speaking country. But no, Claudia Scheinbaum is the new president of Germany.

So there you go. Oh, 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 phrasal verbs. I can tell you. But the...

The president of Mexico. I'm sorry I fall down. One good thing about these World News Quiz episodes is that you get to say sorry to all of your different sections of the audience. It's just very English, isn't it? Sorry, everyone. Sorry. Happy New Year. Sorry. Okay, Luke, you've got eight and a half out of 15. It's not looking good. Slightly above half, but there we go. Okay, number 16.

Okay, to which Caribbean country has Kenya sent its police force to try to help fight against gang violence? So this is a 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. Okay.

What country is that? Oh my gosh. Oh my goodness. Right, I'm just thinking of Caribbean countries where there might be gang violence. Haiti, possibly Jamaica. Because I know that you get rude boys 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...

Kenya are stepping in to assist them if it is them could it be Haiti Barbados you kind of for some reason 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

And Cuba, is that considered to be part of the Caribbean? Yes. But they're not going to get... Kenya aren't going to be stepping in in Cuba. Puerto Rico, but that's America who's really going to be involved in that, the United States. Oh, I don't know, Stephen. I'm going to go for Jamaica just because I know that they're...

They have had gang-related issues there, and not being in the Commonwealth would mean that maybe another nation might be stepping in to help out rather than a Commonwealth nation like Britain, of course. Jamaica...

It's not Jamaica, I'm afraid. I'm really sorry, but it's actually the first country that you said. Haiti. It is Haiti. Yeah, Haiti. What a shame. Yeah, it is Haiti. Actually, I've kind of broken the original rule that we said at the beginning, because I said that most of these questions were going to be... All of these questions were going to be kind of lighthearted, but actually the situation in Haiti is really terrible. 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 out, to try and stabilize the situation. So yeah, that was Kenya sending its force to Haiti. And I'm afraid that means you are now on eight and a half out of 16. You're still just, just above 50%. But I've got a good feeling you're going to pick it up with question 17. Okay. Okay. Question 17 is...

On December the 4th, look at that, we're in the final stretch. What record high price did Bitcoin pass on December the 4th? So a particular milestone price that Bitcoin has just passed a couple of weeks ago.

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 are going, Luke, you should invest in crypto. 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 just, I mean, I'm, I'm, you know, I've never really been invested, interested in that kind of thing. Um,

Well, Luke, neither am 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 passed.

I don't know if it's a currency that's similar in value to, let's say, the pound or the euro, where it might be like $1, one Bitcoin is considered to be good, or if that's really terrible. Some people who know about this are listening to me going, oh, it's just $1? That'd be ridiculous.

So I 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 this story did not reach me. So I've got no clue. If a Bitcoin is closer to a Japanese yen, where it's in the hundreds per pound, or whether it's closer to a pound or a dollar or something, I don't know, $1.

One dollar. 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 4th was $100,000. So one Bitcoin is worth $100,000. In fact, right now, it's probably a little bit more than that, I think.

we're recording on the 18th of December. So there you go. So a little bit more than a hundred thousand dollars right now. A few years ago, it would have been $1. I think, I can't remember. Maybe. Do you know what it started at?

I don't know, but less than that. I don't know whether it's had a specific value that it started at. It probably didn't. This really is a question where all of the people that own Bitcoin are going to be listening and going, God, what on the list are these guys talking about? Something they have absolutely no idea what they're talking about. No clue. Yeah, same. No clue. Yeah. So sorry to all the people who were hoping I was like a Bitcoin bro.

I would know all about that, but sorry, completely clueless on that subject. January 2009 appears to be when Bitcoin was first introduced. And at that time it was worth basically nothing. And then it kind of rose over the first four years all the way up to about $1,200. Yeah.

At the end of 2013, it dropped in 2014, then picked up again in 2017, and just rose and rose and rose up until the end of 2017, where it dropped again a little bit. But in 2017, December, it was nearly $20,000.

And it dropped all the way over the next 12 months down to $3,300. But by the middle of the next year, 2019, it was back up to $3,000.

10,000 and ended the year at nearly 20,000 again. And then pow, just in one, in about two months, less than two months, Bitcoin rose to 41,000 at the beginning of January, 2021. And then basically over since then it's gone up and down. There's been fluctuation up and down, up and down. And now December, a hundred thousand dollars. Wow. So some people have made a lot of money from that.

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. OK, disclaimer done. Question 18. Yep. Here we go.

Another number related question. So your answer is going to be numbers again here. Number 18 is Taylor Swift finished her Eros tour a few weeks ago after performing 149 shows over 21 months in five continents. The Eros tour is 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, 20 or 200, it's not one of those, by the way, 20 or 200 or 2,000, 20,000, 200,000, it's two with a number of zeros. So how much money did the ERA's tour make? Okay. So it's not going to be 2 million because 2 million, she'd earn 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. 200 million is certainly in the right ballpark. Because you could imagine if it's a million plus per show, and she's done nearly 150 shows, you could do some basic maths and come up with about 200 million. So it could be 200 million.

If you go higher than that, the next figure is 2 billion. And that's ridiculous. That's like that cruise ship containing 15,000 people. It's just like Cloud Cuckoo Land, Alice in Wonderland stuff. So I reckon by process of elimination, the answer is going to be $200 million. But even saying that, I'm thinking...

there's a chance there's a slim chance it's two billion but you know she could go to the moon with that couldn't she not that she would want to as we've 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 um but um 200 million there that's my final answer

I love that working out that you did there. Cause that really made sense. You're wrong. It's 2 billion. It's 2 billion. It's $2 billion. She made $2 billion or the, the era's tour. I don't know how much, I don't know if she got it specifically for herself, but the, the tour itself made $2 billion. Yes. And it is by far, it's way more than any other tour has ever made. Uh,

You know what she could have done? She could have just invested in Bitcoin at the beginning of the tour. She could have stayed at home. The tour was only 21 months. So maybe if she'd have started the tour in 2009 and knew a lot more than we did about Bitcoin. 21 months. So that's 21 months ago. Yeah.

Yeah, that's like, when was that then? Sort of March or something of 2022? Exactly. 2023. 2023? Yeah. Yeah, all right. So let's say March 2023. Yeah, well, Bitcoin bottomed out at $20,000 per Bitcoin in March. So if she'd invested, I don't know, do the maths. If she invested just some of the money that she spent in probably the plane tickets in

She could have just stayed at home and recorded lots of albums instead of going out on tour. But no, where's the fun in that, of course? Millions of people have enjoyed those Taylor Swift concerts. Yeah, 10 million. Apparently it's amazing. My daughter's a huge fan of Taylor Swift. She's a big Swifty fan.

Yeah, 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. Yeah. Might make even more than $2 billion. There you 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 50% mark. That was out of 18 questions, you've now got eight and a half. So you've gone just underneath. So I dropped below my self-imposed pass mark of 60%. And I've now dropped below the general dignity level of 50%. And I'm into the sort of the kind of F range of this. We're in the 40 somethings. This is shameful. Yeah.

It's difficult. It's a hard quiz. I think this might be the hardest one that I've done so far. But anyway, here we go. Let's see if you can boost your score with number 19. Here we go. 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 social media, something which will limit the use of social media. What law is that and is going to come into effect next year? I'm going to just cut straight to the chase here and say that they're banning TikTok.

No, it's not that. I'm sorry. It's not that. They're limiting cat videos because there are too many and it's damaging the infrastructure of Australia's internet connection. There's too many cat videos, mate. I have no idea, but it's okay. They're not banning TikTok. I know some places...

In fact, the United States, if nothing changes over the next two months, the United States is banning TikTok. Maybe you've heard of that one. Okay, so I'm not too far away from the truth then. But yeah, okay, what's Australia doing to control or limit social media? They have become the first country in the world to ban TikTok.

under 16 year olds from social media oh okay okay yeah children children are not going to be able to use uh social media anymore as soon as that law comes into effect uh next year so there you go and they're the first country to do that i understand i understand why because there's like huge mental health uh issues related to kids on social media it's apparently very bad for for the their minds and their mental health so fair thing a fair dinkum mate

Fair do. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Quite right. Okay, here we go. Question 20. Let's see. So you've got eight and a half at the moment. I'm afraid you're not going to be reaching the 50% mark, I'm afraid. But let's see if you can come bring it a little bit closer on the last question. Question 20. In November, a piece of art called Comedian...

by the Italian artist Maurizio Catalan was sold for $6.2 million. Can you describe the artwork? Brilliant. It's really good. $2.6 million, right? It's excellent. Or either that, or it's just fine. Because 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. Yeah, it's fine. 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. I'm, I'm going to leave, uh, 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 Maurizio Catalan. That's not going to help you. It's been sold for $6.2 million. I'm going to tell you one little clue. It's very minimalist. Very minimalist. 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.

No, it's not that. It's not that. No, this one slipped you by as well, Luke, I'm afraid. There's one really key word to this, and it is banana. It's a banana which has been sellotaped to a wall. Brilliant. I mean, just genius. Why didn't I think of that? Why didn't I think of that, Stephen? Did you think of that?

I didn't think of it. I didn't think of it. Neither did I, but Mario did. Was it Mario? We would have $6.2 million. Yeah. Maurizio Catalan. Maurizio. That's right. So this, this, this artwork is a banana, a freshly bought banana. I think the Catalan said that he went and bought it from, from a shop down the road before he put it in the exhibition and duct taped it to a wall and

And this is what has sold for $6.2 million. Somebody who got rich from cryptocurrency bought the artwork and ate the banana. LAUGHTER

Well, yeah, you would, wouldn't you? Because I mean, um, otherwise you're going to get a disgusting banana stuck to a wall. Cause 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 banana, I've got a banana. Oh, I'll stick that in my backpack. Eat it later. Three weeks later. I'm like, what's, why is my backpack wet? Um,

And it's because of some disgusting banana at the bottom of it. So 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 2.6 million on a banana. No, no, no. 6.2. 6.2 even. Yeah, yeah. 6.2.

Yes, that is correct. And it comes with instructions telling you that you, the buyer, the owner, 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 it. This is how conceptual this art is these days. That's bonkers because normally you would buy art as an investment, right? Yes.

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, except for cryptocurrency or maybe investing in Taylor Swift as a commercial entity in some way. Or ideally do both. Imagine if you combined Bitcoin, Taylor Swift and a banana in some sort of investment package.

he would just maybe this is going to be our money making scheme luke maybe we're going to have to come up with some way of combining these three things 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 uh i don't know someone else um duo duo leaper and an apple

And I don't even know the name of another cryptocurrency. That's crazy, though, because what was the buyer thinking? Because he's got $6.2 million just spare to spend on this thing, which is instantly going to drop in value because he's eaten it.

Well, maybe not. I mean, I watched the auction room when it was being sold. And I mean, the reason it was 6.2 million was because there were so many people bidding for it. So the price is 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.

And I suppose he probably does, the owner, now have the owner, you know, despite the fact he's eaten the banana or changed it or something, I suppose he has the ability to sell bananas

The idea, I guess, needs to get an art expert on to explain this concept a little bit more. But yeah, I suppose he, if he wants to, he could actually sell the, he could go to an auction room and duct tape a banana to a wall and then sell it to somebody for $6.3 million or something. Yeah.

Okay. Remind me to buy some duct tape when I go out after this. Yes. And a banana. Just remind me. Don't leave it in your backpack. You've got to duct tape it to a wall. 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?

If anyone wants to buy that in auction, let me know. Bidding starts at $6.2 million. I'm afraid I'm not going to be putting a bid in anytime soon. I'm afraid to say, Luke, that I think that this is probably...

the lowest score that you've got in one of these quizzes so far but you know what i'm gonna cut you some slack and i'm gonna say that this was probably by accident because it's a bit random how i do this this this seems as i've been as we've been going through i've been thinking actually that was quite difficult wasn't it so uh 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 i would say um

If you did better than me, then congratulations, you're brilliant. If you did worse than me, then I don't know, what can I say to you? Commiserations. But I feel like I fluked some of those, so I could have got a much worse score than I actually did. So if you got worse than me, then I feel like we're in the same boat.

Maybe it's that massive boat from earlier where there's 10,000 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. Now we know, though. 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. Um, and, uh, that was good fun. I enjoyed that. I enjoyed that little tour of the world.

And we learned some interesting factoids. I hope so. I hope it's given you some good vibes about 2024. 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. Yeah.

um in july or whatever it was yeah um i hope it's given you some some good memories of 2024 yeah it did thank you very much for that and uh all right good time to i've got to go out now and buy a banana and some duct tape and stuff um but thanks very much for preparing the quiz steven it was really good fun and uh you know all the best for 2024 what's left of it

uh few days now enjoy your christmas break same to you same to you and merry christmas uh i hope you have fun in a few days time uh and uh and uh for for for new year as well happy new year as well 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 far even those germans who uh

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 it in the time-honoured fashion of the Luke's English Podcast. Can I do it with you? Well, you can do it with me too if you want, Stephen. Great. Thank you. Thanks, everyone, for listening. Speak to you next time. But for now, it's time to say good bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to Luke's English Podcast. For more information, visit teacherluke.co.uk. Bye.

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