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Speaker1:
Tonight's top terrors. Astronomer's ear abused by cosmic whisper turns out to be quite important.
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Speaker1:
Nashville nightmare Grand Ole Opry gobsmacks cowboys with airwave ambush.
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Speaker1:
And royal society forms without actual royals. Is this the end of civilization?
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Speaker1:
Plus, we'll investigate the shocking reports that aardvarks are behind the great
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Speaker1:
avocado heist of San Francisco.
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Speaker1:
Those are the headlines. Stay toasted.
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Speaker0:
News bang!
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Speaker3:
Dragging fact from the putrid pond of fiction one splash at a time.
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Speaker3:
1967.
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Speaker6:
Shocking news from the world of science. In 1967,
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Speaker6:
a female student, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, was allowed to touch scientific equipment,
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Speaker6:
leading to the discovery of
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Speaker6:
a pulsar, a cosmic lighthouse spinning faster than a top on a hot plate.
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Speaker0:
The pulsar emitted regular bleeps.
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Speaker1:
Leading some to suspect alien contact or a rogue microwave in the observatory cafeteria.
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Speaker1:
Dr. Herbert Twiddle recalls, We thought it was the janitor's pocket watch.
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Speaker1:
Then Miss Bell explained it was a dense ball of neutrons showing off.
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Speaker6:
The Nobel Prize, however, went to her male supervisor, proving that in science,
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Speaker6:
as in ballroom dancing, the man gets the trophy.
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Speaker6:
The pulsar, meanwhile, continues to bleep mockingly from across the galaxy.
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Speaker3:
1925.
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Speaker1:
Country music's origin story takes a bizarre turn.
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Speaker1:
It appears the entire industry was launched when Uncle Jimmy Thompson,
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Speaker1:
77, accidentally hijacked a radio frequency with his fiddle and a mournful ballad
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Speaker1:
about his deceased cow, Bessie.
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Speaker6:
The broadcast knocked birds out of the sky and caused temporary deafness across 14 states.
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Speaker6:
Listeners couldn't stop tapping their feet, leading to a surge in workplace accidents.
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Speaker1:
Cletus Moonbeam recalls his grandpappy's account.
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Speaker1:
Uncle Jimmy was fuelled by moonshine. His fiddle bow caught fire,
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Speaker1:
then his beard, but he just kept playing.
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Speaker1:
The incident sparked an epidemic of banjo playing and yodeling that plagues Nashville to this day.
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Speaker3:
But Drees 16. 60.
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Speaker6:
Chaos in London. Twelve men, including Robert Boyle and Christopher Wren,
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Speaker6:
were caught conducting unauthorised experiments in a pub cellar.
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Speaker6:
They called it the Royal Society, but witnesses described dangerous substances and maniacal cackling.
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Speaker1:
Tavern owner Thomas Two Pints Wadsworth reported they kept yelling for bacon
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Speaker1:
and dropping apples on people's heads.
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Speaker1:
Surprisingly, King Charles II approved, marking the first time a pub crawl birthed
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Speaker1:
a scientific institution.
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Speaker6:
Their first experiment, proving a bishop falls faster than a feather by chucking
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Speaker6:
one off St. Paul's Cathedral.
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Speaker6:
Christopher Wren was heard to mutter, well, I built it, I can do what I like with it.
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Speaker3:
Die still. News bang. Deconstructing the misinformed masses' matrix of misconception, one broadcast at a time.
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Speaker1:
Now, for the meteorological miseries of the day, here's our resident doomcaster
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Speaker1:
of drizzle and frostbite, Shakanaka Giles.
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Music
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Speaker0:
Right then southeast england's looking.
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Speaker1:
Grimmer than your aunt's turkey leftovers with a thick gravy-like fog rolling
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Speaker3:
In faster than black friday
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Speaker1:
Shoppers at dawn temperatures hovering
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Speaker3:
Around five Pave de
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Speaker1:
Gossiecks, about as warm as your in-laws welcome.
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Speaker3:
Midlands folk can expect precipitation thicker than Uncle Bob's post-dinner
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Speaker3:
snoring, with occasional breaks just long enough to dash to the shops for more cranberry sauce.
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Speaker3:
Up Scotland Way is proper brass monkeys weather, a nippy Tintudegroo Gossie,
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Speaker1:
Making those Highland cows look like they're wearing
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Speaker3:
Designer fur coats.
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Speaker1:
Expect snow flurries gentler
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Speaker3:
Than your grandmother's
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Speaker1:
Load full transcript
Judgment about your life choices.
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Speaker1:
In summary then, foggy bottoms,
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Speaker3:
Wet middles and frozen tops, rather like a badly defrosted
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Speaker1:
Christmas pudding and that's all the weather.
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Music
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Speaker6:
1470. And now, history's pages turn to the year 1470, when Emperor Le Tantong
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Speaker6:
of Dai Viet decided diplomacy was for amateurs, and launched a colossal military
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Speaker6:
campaign against the Kingdom of Champa.
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Speaker6:
Champa's capital, Vijaya, was captured, its autonomy reduced to a vassal state,
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Speaker6:
and its institutions left looking like a particularly aggressive yard sale.
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Speaker6:
Trade routes. resources, and a clash of Buddhist versus Hindu-Buddhist ideals
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Speaker6:
all played their part, cementing Dai Viet's regional dominance and Champa's unfortunate decline.
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Speaker6:
Brian Bastable has more from the ancient battlefield.
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Speaker2:
This is Brian Bastable reporting from the blood-soaked shores of ancient Champa,
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Speaker2:
where Emperor Lathan Tong's quarter-million-strong army has just crashed through
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Speaker2:
the jungle like an angry rhinoceros with a particularly nasty head cold.
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Speaker2:
The air is thick with arrows and I've just watched three men being catapulted
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Speaker2:
over the walls of Vijaya.
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Speaker2:
One was playing a lute on the way down.
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Speaker0:
Quite remarkable composure, really.
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Speaker2:
The Dai Viet forces are using these fascinating new weapons.
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Speaker2:
Just yesterday I saw a man's pagoda blown clean off. Speaking of which, there goes another one.
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Speaker1:
Explosion.
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Speaker2:
The naval force is absolutely massive, I counted them out and I counted them
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Speaker2:
back in, though I must admit counting becomes rather difficult when you're dodging flaming projectiles.
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Speaker2:
One just singed my eyebrows.
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Speaker2:
Adds a rather rakish quality to my appearance I must say.
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Speaker2:
The Cham defenders are putting up a spirited resistance but it's like watching
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Speaker2:
a butterfly I fight a steamroller, a very angry, well-organized steamroller
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Speaker2:
with 250,000 moving parts.
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Speaker2:
Oh, there goes the temple, and the palace, and my left shoe.
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Speaker2:
The Hindu-Buddhist artifacts are being scattered like confetti at a particularly violent wedding.
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Speaker2:
This is rapidly becoming less of a battle and more of a complete dismantling,
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Speaker2:
rather like watching someone take apart a jigsaw puzzle with a battering ram.
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Speaker2:
Brian Bastable, newsbang, ducking for cover behind what used to be the royal
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Speaker2:
throne, now being used as a rather elaborate doorstop.
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Speaker3:
1912 A momentous
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Speaker1:
Occasion from this day in 1912 as 83 delegates gathered in Vlor to declare Albania's
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Speaker1:
independence from the Ottoman Empire.
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Speaker1:
Amid the chaos of the Balkan Wars, Albania boldly stepped into the spotlight,
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Speaker1:
supported by Austria, Hungary and Italy, while Russia and Serbia looked on with
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Speaker1:
furrowed brows and clenched fists.
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Speaker1:
The great powers eventually nodded in agreement, but the fledgling nation faced
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Speaker1:
the Herculean task of building a state from Ottoman rubble.
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Speaker1:
Hardeman Pesto is in vlor to dig into the details of this historic declaration
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Speaker1:
and the aftermath. Hardeman,
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Speaker1:
Yes, Martin, I'm here in Vlor, where the mood is absolutely electric.
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Speaker1:
I'm standing with Professor Artemis Chalkdust, expert in Ottoman decline and decay.
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Speaker3:
Actually, it's Professor Alexandra Chalkdust.
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Speaker1:
Pesto, what's the situation there?
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Speaker0:
Well, Martin, as you can see behind me.
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Speaker1:
83 delegates have just signed the declaration. The Ottoman Empire is finished
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Speaker1:
here, kaput, done and dusted. And what's the Turkish response?
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Speaker1:
They're taking it rather well, actually.
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Speaker1:
Very sporting. That's completely incorrect.
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Speaker3:
The Ottomans are furious.
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Speaker1:
Well, that's your opinion, Professor, but I've just had lunch with the Turkish
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Speaker1:
ambassador, and he seemed perfectly cheerful.
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Speaker1:
Did you really
have lunch with the Turkish ambassador?
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Speaker1:
Yes, lovely chap. Had the fish.
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Speaker1:
The Turkish ambassador was recalled to Constantinople three days ago.
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Speaker1:
Well, that explains why he was in such a hurry to leave the restaurant.
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Speaker1:
Pesto. What's that sound behind you? That's just the celebrations, Martin.
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Speaker1:
Bit of local colour. Those are artillery shells. traditional Albanian firecrackers. Very festive.
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Speaker1:
And where exactly are you right now? I'm in the assembly hall where... This is impossible.
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Speaker5:
The assembly hall was cleared
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Speaker1:
Hours ago due to the shelling. Well, as you can see, Martin,
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Speaker1:
I'm getting some excellent coverage of this historic moment.
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Speaker1:
Back to you in the studio.
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Speaker1:
Pesto, are you actually in Albania? Define in. That's Hardeman Pesto, allegedly in Vlor.
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Speaker1:
Coming up after the break, why did Napoleon really lose at Waterloo?
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Speaker1:
Our man in Belgium blames the sandwiches.
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Speaker3:
1925.
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Speaker6:
A seismic shift in the airwaves occurred this day in 1925, as Nashville's WSM
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Speaker6:
barn dance fiddled its way into history, led by 77-year-old Uncle Jimmy Thompson.
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Speaker6:
With a 5,000-watt signal so powerful it could probably cook breakfast in Boston,
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Speaker6:
the broadcast marked the dawn of what would later be known as the Grand Ole Opry.
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Speaker6:
Nashville, henceforth dubbed Music City, became the epicenter of country music.
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Speaker0:
For more on this twangy tale.
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Speaker6:
We turn to Melody Wintergreen.
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Speaker5:
Nashville, Tennessee, 1925. Melody Wintergreen here, at the birthplace of country
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Speaker5:
music, where the fiddles are tuning up, the banjos are a-plunking,
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Speaker5:
and history is about to be made.
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Speaker5:
Tonight, the WSM barn dance is taking to the airwaves, And thanks to a 5,000-watt
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Speaker5:
signal, folks from Maine to
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Speaker5:
Mississippi are about to get a taste of that sweet, sweet country sound.
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Speaker5:
Leading the charge is 77-year-old Uncle Jimmy Thompson, a fiddler whose bow
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Speaker5:
can make a grown man weep, or at least tap his foot.
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Speaker5:
This ain't your grandpappy's hoedown, folks. This is the dawn of a new era,
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Speaker5:
the birth of the Grand Ole Opry.
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Speaker5:
George D. Hay, the visionary behind it all, is about to transform this humble
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Speaker5:
barn dance into a national phenomenon, a cultural touchstone,
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Speaker5:
a place where rhinestone cowboys and heartbroken crooners will become legends.
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Speaker5:
Nashville, get ready for your close-up. You're about to become Music City,
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Speaker5:
the heart and soul of country music, the place where dreams are made and broken, often in the same song.
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Speaker5:
From Uncle Jimmy's fiddle to the rhinestone-studded stage of the Opry,
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Speaker5:
it's a journey from humble beginnings to iconic status,
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Speaker5:
the Grand Ole Opry, a testament to the power of music to unite,
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Speaker5:
inspire, and make you want to grab your partner and do see dough.
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Speaker5:
Melody Wintergreen, Newsbang, from Nashville, where the music is playing,
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Speaker5:
The stories are flowing and the twang is strong.
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Speaker3:
Audio Newsbang. Serving a strictly fact-based breakfast of champions every day.
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Speaker3:
Brequit in my destooker seal. A chitin 95.
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Speaker1:
Ryder Boff, our man with a racket for recounting the absurdities of sport, takes us now to Chicago.
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Speaker1:
1895, where wheels met chaos in America's first automobile race.
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Speaker3:
And now, broadcasting live from Chicago in 1895, where the first American automobile
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Speaker3:
race has just concluded in conditions that would make a polar bear reach for
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Speaker3:
its thermal underpants.
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Speaker3:
Six mechanical contraptions, looking like the bastard offspring of a garden
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Speaker3:
shed and a steam locomotive, battled it out over 54 miles of treacherous terrain.
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Speaker3:
And they're off. Or rather, they're slowly chugging along, like a line of particularly
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Speaker3:
asthmatic tortoises. Duria's spluttering duchess is in the lead,
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Speaker3:
although spluttering is putting it mildly.
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Speaker3:
It sounds like a hippopotamus with a bad case of the hiccups.
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Speaker3:
And behind him, oh dear, is that smoke.
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Speaker3:
Yes, I believe Throttle Bunny's mechanical marvel is spontaneously combusting.
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Speaker3:
Someone fetch a fire extinguisher, or perhaps a bucket of water and a large handkerchief.
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Speaker3:
This is more exciting than a ferret race down a trouser leg.
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Speaker3:
Frank Duria's motorised wagon, nicknamed the Spluttering Duchess,
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Speaker3:
took first place despite resembling something my Aunt Mabel might have cobbled
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Speaker3:
together after too much sherry trifle.
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Speaker3:
The winning machine featured what observers are calling a lightweight frame,
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Speaker3:
though at £600 it's hardly what you'd call svelte, rather like my second wife
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Speaker3:
after her healthy eating phase.
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Speaker3:
Speaking of which reminds me of my own attempt at mechanical innovation back
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Speaker3:
in 82. tried to build a motorised deck chair for the garden,
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Speaker3:
ended up in casualty with third-degree burns and a very angry neighbour whose
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Speaker3:
prize-winning petunias will never be the same.
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Speaker3:
But back to Chicago, where the severe snowstorm turned the race into what
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Speaker0:
Locals are dubbing the great mechanical.
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Speaker3:
Waddle of 95. Only six out of 83 entrants actually made it to the starting line.
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Speaker3:
The others presumably got cold feet, or in the case of Professor Windlebottom's
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Speaker3:
steam-powered penny farthing, simply exploded during preliminary testing.
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Speaker3:
And here comes young Timothy Sprocket, desperately trying to crank his mechanical
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Speaker3:
marvel while being overtaken by... Yes, I believe it's an elderly gentleman
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Speaker3:
on a penny farthing. The crowd is roaring with laughter.
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Speaker3:
They're having more fun than a barrel of monkeys on a sugar rush.
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Speaker3:
This race is descending into absolute farce.
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Speaker3:
It's like a Monty Python sketch come to life.
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Speaker3:
The $5,000 prize money has caused quite a stir in the automotive world.
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Speaker3:
That's enough to buy several thousand horses, though admittedly horses don't
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--> 00:15:13,343
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require the constant tinkering and elaborate swearing that these horseless carriages seem to demand.
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Speaker3:
Notable moments included Herbert Throttle Bunny's device catching fire near
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Speaker3:
Evanston, and young Timothy Sprocket's mechanical marvel being outpaced by an
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Speaker3:
elderly gentleman on a particularly determined donkey.
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Speaker3:
The whole affair has been declared a roaring success by the Chicago Times-Herald,
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Speaker3:
though I suspect that has more to do with newspaper sales than actual roaring.
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Speaker3:
Duryer crosses the finish line. He's won. He's, wait, he's stalled.
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Speaker3:
The spluttering duchess has given up the ghost just yards from the finish.
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Speaker3:
Duryer's out of the car. He's tinkering under the hood. He's muttering curses
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Speaker3:
that would make a sailor blush.
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Speaker3:
Oh, the ignominy. It's like winning the marathon, only to trip over the finish
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Speaker3:
line and land in a vat of port.
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Speaker3:
I've been Ryder Boff reporting from 1895, where the future of transportation
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Speaker3:
looks decidedly wobbly, but undeniably entertaining.
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Speaker3:
Back to the studio, assuming it exists yet.
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Speaker6:
And now, a familiar voice in environmental calamity with a penchant for poetic despair.
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Speaker6:
Here's Penelope Windchime to guide us through yet another grim chapter of Nature vs. Humanity.
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Speaker5:
Oh, the oily injustice! Tonight, viewers, we journey back to 1903,
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Speaker5:
where the pristine waters off
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Speaker0:
The coast of Australia suffered a most grievous insult.
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Speaker5:
The SS Petriana, a metal monstrosity with a heart of coal and a hull full of
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Speaker5:
oil, decided to redecorate the coastline.
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Speaker5:
This nautical nightmare, this oily behemoth, ran aground, spewing 1,300 tonnes
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Speaker5:
of crude oil into the sea.
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Speaker5:
Imagine the scene, viewers, a slick, black as a politician's heart,
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Speaker5:
spreading across the waves, choking marine life and turning the once-pristine
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Speaker5:
beaches into a tar-stained wasteland.
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Speaker5:
The local pelicans, those elegant aviators of the coast, became oil-slicked
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Speaker5:
fashion victims, their once pristine feathers matted and blackened by the toxic goo.
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Speaker5:
The seals, those playful puppies of the sea, developed a rather unfortunate
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Speaker5:
addiction to petroleum.
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Speaker5:
They were seen rolling around in the oily,
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Speaker0:
Slick, like, well, like seals on drugs.
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Speaker5:
And the human response? A farce, viewers. A travesty.
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Speaker5:
A man named Bruce stood on the beach repeating, Crikey, as if that would somehow
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Speaker5:
magically clean up the mess.
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Speaker5:
Politicians, ever eager to capitalise on a crisis, promised to teach the fish
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Speaker5:
to swim with their mouths closed. The absurdity.
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Speaker5:
This is Penelope Windchime, lamenting the loss of innocence,
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Speaker5:
the despoiling of nature and the oily injustice of it all. Remember the Petriana?
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Speaker5:
Boycott fossil fuels. And for the love of all that is green and good,
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Speaker5:
never trust a ship with more oil than brains.
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Speaker1:
And now, for all the travel news you never knew you needed, here's Polly Beep
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Speaker0:
With tonight's historical traffic and travel update.
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Speaker4:
Good evening, Road Warriors. Polly Beep here with tonight's historical traffic and travel update.
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Speaker4:
Breaking news from Antarctica, where Air New Zealand Flight 901 has just had
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Speaker4:
a rather unfortunate encounter with Mount Erebus.
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Speaker4:
If you're planning on taking the ice road B901 past the Ross Ice Shelf,
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Speaker4:
expect significant delays and a complete whiteout.
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Speaker0:
Recovery vehicles are struggling to reach the scene due to penguins forming
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Speaker0:
an impromptu protest march.
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Speaker4:
Meanwhile, in the balmy Indian Ocean, South African Airways Flight 295 is experiencing
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Speaker4:
what we in the business call a bit of a warm spell.
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Speaker4:
The cargo hold appears to be hosting an impromptu barbecue at 35,000 feet.
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Speaker4:
If you're sailing the M295 maritime route between Taiwan and South Africa,
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Speaker4:
watch out for falling debris
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Speaker0:
And floating suitcases.
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Speaker4:
In other news, the M6 near Birmingham is at a standstill after a lorry carrying
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Speaker4:
navigation equipment shed its load.
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Speaker4:
Drivers are now going in circles, much like those flight coordinates that weren't
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Speaker4:
properly communicated to our Antarctic friends.
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Speaker4:
And finally, there's heavy congestion on the A40 after someone attempted to
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Speaker4:
transport a fire suppression system to Heathrow.
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Speaker4:
Unfortunately, it suppressed itself right across three lanes.
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Speaker4:
Back to you in the studio and remember, whether you're driving on roads or flying
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Speaker4:
into mountains, always check your coordinates twice.
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Speaker3:
1967. Our resident oracle of the odd and
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Speaker6:
Overseer of all things scientific, Calamity Prenderville, takes us to the stars,
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Speaker6:
or at least to Cambridge, where groundbreaking discoveries meet British eccentricity.
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Music
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Speaker5:
Good evening, viewers. Today we're looking back at a remarkable British innovation
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Speaker5:
that changed astronomy forever.
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Speaker5:
In 1967, while examining data from the Cambridge Tea Time Radio Array,
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Speaker5:
a device originally built to monitor BBC Radio 4 signals,
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Speaker0:
Young researcher Jocelyn Belbinel spotted what she called a bit of scruff in her printouts.
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Speaker1:
Initially dismissed as interference from a nearby Wimpy Bars microwave,
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Speaker1:
this regular pulsing signal, occurring every 1.337 seconds, turned out to be
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Speaker1:
something far more extraordinary.
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Speaker1:
Some suggested it might be signals from Yorkshire television,
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Speaker1:
others claimed it was Margaret Thatcher's pacemaker acting up.
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Speaker1:
The signal was briefly nicknamed Little Green Men, though it clearly wasn't.
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Speaker1:
Everyone knows aliens prefer to communicate via CFAX.
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Speaker5:
Using the cutting-edge British technology of the day, namely three miles of
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Speaker5:
paper charts, two pencils and a ruler from W.H.
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Speaker5:
Smith, Bell Burnell proved this signal came from what we now call a pulsar,
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Speaker5:
a rapidly spinning neutron star that sends out regular pulses of radio waves,
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Speaker5:
much like a cosmic lighthouse or an over-enthusiastic disco ball in space.
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Speaker1:
The discovery was made possible by the unique British engineering principle
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Speaker1:
of having a proper look at things, combined with Bell Burnell's dedication to
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Speaker1:
analysing data while simultaneously making tea, a skill taught exclusively at Cambridge University.
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Speaker5:
This bit of scruff turned out to be PSR B19192.1, the first pulsar ever discovered,
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Speaker5:
proving once again that British scientists can find anything if they look hard
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Speaker5:
enough, even tiny spinning stars thousands of light years away.
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Speaker5:
This is Calamity Prenderville. Back to the studio.
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Speaker3:
News bang putting a boot to the posteriors of predatory pundits
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Speaker1:
And that's nearly it. Just time to round up tomorrow's papers.
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Speaker1:
The Times leads with Brits win backfort from colonials. That's about a fight in Canada.
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Speaker1:
The Telegraph goes with Brits on holiday plan invasion of Mauritius.
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Speaker1:
They've got a map of the place there.
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Speaker1:
And the Independent leads with FC Barcelona. Started by footballing pioneer.
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Speaker1:
That's a picture of the bloke who started it.
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Speaker1:
While the mail says, love dogs become thief detectives. No idea what that's about.
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Speaker1:
Today has a follow-up on that strawberry-themed party they had last week.
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Speaker1:
I'm sure it'll be absolutely fascinating.
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Speaker0:
And that's it.
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Speaker1:
Thanks to all our critics who have managed to keep this bloody show on the air for yet another year.
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Speaker1:
I don't know how you do it, because it's actually turned into as effective a
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Speaker1:
method of clearing streets as Glastonbury Weekend.
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Speaker3:
Tune in next time for more artificially intelligent hilarity.
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Speaker3:
Newsbang is a comedy show written and recorded by AI.
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Speaker3:
All voices impersonated. Nothing here is real.
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Speaker0:
Good night.
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Music