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KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR News quiz. I'm Bill Kurtis. We're playing this week with Faith Salie, Bim Adewunmi, and Peter Grosz. And here again is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you so much.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: In just a minute, Bill qualifies for the Olympic downhill limerick team. He set a new record rhyme. It's the Listener Limerick Challenge coming up. If you'd like to play, give us a call at 1-888-WAITWAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. Right now panel, though, some more questions for you from the week's news. Bim, you might know this. Great Britain, your home country, made history recently when they appointed their first ever minister of what?
BIM ADEWUNMI: Jesus.
PETER GROSZ: Minister of Jesus?
SAGAL: No.
(LAUGHTER)
FAITH SALIE: Minister of Jesus (laughter).
GROSZ: America has a lot of those.
SAGAL: They've technically already got one of those down in Canterbury. This is new.
ADEWUNMI: You would think.
SAGAL: You would think.
ADEWUNMI: Let's see - a new minister.
SAGAL: Yes.
ADEWUNMI: I didn't know we still made ministers.
SAGAL: You do.
ADEWUNMI: May I have a hint, please?
SAGAL: You may. As befitting his position, he has no staff and no aides and just wanders around his office by himself and wishes the phone would ring.
(LAUGHTER)
ADEWUNMI: Is it the minister of the Prince of Wales?
(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: No. But I'm sure the minister will minister to the Prince of Wales now that all his kids have moved out and gotten married.
ADEWUNMI: Oh, loneliness.
SAGAL: Yes, indeed.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
GROSZ: Oh.
SAGAL: It's the Minister of Loneliness.
ADEWUNMI: Yeah.
SAGAL: It's both an official government position and the title of the next Morrissey album.
ADEWUNMI: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Britain says - the government says 9 million people in the country suffer from social isolation. So they just appointed a Minister of Loneliness to help. That person's first job will be to show up at the 9 million birthday parties no one else wanted to come to.
(LAUGHTER)
SALIE: Is this considered to be a particularly British problem, or do we think that Americans are also so lonely?
ADEWUNMI: Wait. I resent the accusation. We are...
SALIE: No, it was a question. No.
ADEWUNMI: Oh, I'm sorry. I'm just very sensitive of our loneliness.
SALIE: You're very sociable.
SAGAL: Yeah.
ADEWUNMI: I'm just - I've been lonely for so long, Faith.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSZ: That's what gets the guy to come here.
SALIE: Group hug. Hug over the radio. Yeah.
GROSZ: Who is he?
SAGAL: And now they have a Minister of Irritability, too.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: It's great that Britain created a position to help with loneliness. Or, you know, you could've just not voted to be the only country in Europe who officially doesn't have friends.
(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)
ADEWUNMI: OK. So this is the point at which I leave this stupid show.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Faith, this week, a beauty pageant was torn apart by scandal when a dozen contestants were forced to withdraw after it was revealed they had illegally used Botox. What is this beauty pageant?
SALIE: Well, the contestants were very hairy.
SAGAL: Yes.
SALIE: Probably smelly.
SAGAL: Indeed.
SALIE: Camels.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: It was, in fact, Saudi Arabia's most beautiful camel competition.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: The King Abdulaziz Camel Festival is the Davos of ungulates.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: It features camel races, camel - these are all true - camel best photo award, camel hair art. And, of course, it ends with the most beautiful camel competition. This year, a dozen contestants were kicked out after judges determined that their owners had used Botox to make their lips and forehead more prominent.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: This is all true.
GROSZ: More prominent?
SAGAL: Yes. Apparently, that is a sign of a beautiful camel...
GROSZ: Those are like the things that...
SAGAL: ...Is a prominent forehead.
GROSZ: That's like - a camel's like, 80 percent forehead.
(LAUGHTER)
SALIE: Is this a really big deal in Saudi Arabia?
SAGAL: This is a huge deal.
SALIE: Like, do you think it's televised and everything?
SAGAL: Oh, yeah. Camels...
SALIE: Does Mario Lopez host it?
SAGAL: I don't know.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSZ: This is what they're doing. They do this instead of letting women drive.
SAGAL: That's pretty much it.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSZ: They have two choices - the camel beauty contest or let women drive.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSZ: Let's do the camel beauty contest. We would never let a woman drive. That's insane.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Faith, archaeologists have just finished reconstructing the face of a 9,000-year-old teenager. And to many observers, it turns out the teenager looks what?
SALIE: (Laughter) She looks like modern teenagers.
SAGAL: In that she looks?
SALIE: Sullen.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: She's a Bronze Age, sullen teenager. Scientists were able to take 9,000-year-old remains of a teenager found in a cave in Greece. And they used 3-D-printing technology to reconstruct what she looked like. And as the New York Post perceived, she looked pissed...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: ...Despite the fact that her parents let her sleep in for 9,000 years.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: The Post headline read "9,000-Year-Old Teen Sports Resting Bitch Face."
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: That's the Post. We're quoting the Post...
GROSZ: Oh, my God.
SAGAL: ...Because we've seen her, and we do not want her thinking we said that.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSZ: She was in Greece?
SAGAL: Yes, she was found in a cave in Greece.
GROSZ: So maybe she's like from another country. And she was just, like, I can't believe my parents dragged me to Greece.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Yes. Exactly right.
GROSZ: This is the stupidest country I have ever been to.
ADEWUNMI: And then she died.
SAGAL: Yeah.
SALIE: I think...
(LAUGHTER)
ADEWUNMI: So she was right.
SAGAL: Yeah.
GROSZ: Then she got hit by a woolly mammoth and was like, oh, now I'm dead.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSZ: This is the worst.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSZ: I thought Greece sucked. Being dead is worse than being in Greece.
(LAUGHTER)
SALIE: The scientists said that they had - I mean, there were some liberties they had to take, right? They could decide an eye color and hair color...
SAGAL: Yeah.
SALIE: ...Based on where she was found.
GROSZ: Well, that's fun.
SALIE: But...
(LAUGHTER)
GROSZ: That's got to actually be fun and be, like, OK, now we're scientists. But let's, like, pick eye colors.
(LAUGHTER)
ADEWUNMI: I thought they did it like - you know, in those movies where you have a fashion montage?
SAGAL: Yeah.
GROSZ: Yeah.
ADEWUNMI: You know, makeover. And then, you know...
(LAUGHTER)
GROSZ: (Singing) Walking on sunshine. Oh, oh, oh. Time to feel...
(LAUGHTER)
GROSZ: Then the guy comes in and is like, what are you two doing in here?
(LAUGHTER)
GROSZ: I told you to reconstruct that 9,000-year-old little girl. Oh, what the hell? This is fun.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HAPPY")
PHARRELL WILLIAMS: (Singing) It might seem crazy what I'm about to say. Sunshine, she's here... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.