BONUS EPISODE: Newscast and Americast live from the Edinburgh Fringe

19:50So I flicked my hand on the back of it and it was off and I thought, that's great. So I clamber under this electric fence, over another fence into the next field, there's the next electric fence never assume. so I scramble oh it's off isn't it obviously so I scramble under that one and halfway under it I realize it is very much not off it's on my back and it was quite painful it was not it was all right and then even better this is really unfair to poor Aidan who's like not here to defend himself and is actually a brilliant and smart guy but Aidan goes is that on

20:26Adam Fleming:Oops Well I'm glad you survived And get well soon Aidan I'm sorry your colleagues don't seem to care about your busted ankle He got some great shots Aidan did Right we've got some questions Claire said Oh actually this is quite a broad question but maybe it is related to all of this What's your scariest live TV moment Sarah? Ooh Insects usually Large ones There was a wasp bothering me as we were recording Scottcast the other day, but that was our podcast that's less dangerous. But especially if you're talking about something really quite serious and there's no room for jokes, if you've got something buzzing around here, a fly threatening to fly into your mouth, if it's one of those years in Washington where the cicadas are out, it's not unknown for them to get up your skirt.

21:14Say. Insects can be extremely hazardous for live broadcasting.

21:20Adam Fleming:I've got an insect story which is when I was doing my Brussels stint and basically the picture behind you is a big TV with a live picture of Brussels behind it so it looks like you're outside but you're actually no it is real it's in real time it's a live feed it's not made up pictures, it's not AI generated or like a watercolour but it means the scale's a bit off so one day a bug landed on the lens and it looked like I was being attacked by like a seven foot wide bug and then I was doing a careers talk at my friend's and son's primary school and we played them some clips and it was like all stuff like we've just seen there but the one that they loved the best was the attack of the giant bug on daily politics so there we go inspiring the next generation.

22:06It's a great YouTube clip of me outside the Scottish Parliament from a few years ago and what's fairly common if you're doing live broadcasting especially at night is that there will be people hanging around watching you maybe just deliberately trying to distract you having a bit of fun and you wouldn't necessarily know about that unless my eye line's going very very peculiarly so i was trying to ignore as i was talking about some deeply serious vote in hollywood and some kids going round and round and round me on their bikes and the point at which it was almost impossible to ignore was when one of them did finally um cycle into the shot and then immediately fall into one of those ponds outside Holyrood very noticeably over my shoulder and I think that's had more YouTube views than anything else I've done in a 30 year career.

22:52Adam Fleming:Please do not attempt to recreate the situation Sarah has just described James have you had any scary, you've already had your electrocution well yeah I mean that was bad enough I just, I remember one in particular in Perth at the referendum on Scottish independence when it wasn't scary as such it was just really difficult because um i was doing this it was onto the bbc news channel and it was a very complicated sequence of seven headlines because for some insane reason i was co-presenting a program and we decided to do a headline for every day of the week but i couldn't hear the comms i couldn't hear the control room in london i could it was going to be a shambles and as soon as i started there were pro-independence people here and pro-union people here and as soon as I started to speak, everyone started to cheer and jump up and down and I couldn't hear a word that was going on.

23:42And so when we got into the first recorded piece, which was like 12 seconds long or something, I said to them, I'm really sorry, but would you mind terribly just to keep it down? And because it was Perth, they all said, yeah, no problem.

23:53Adam Fleming:Oh, lovely Perth. Perth's quite a genteel city for newscasters who are not aware of Perth. Right, we'll get some more insights into Sarah and James' life a bit later on, but let's go back to some news, although some of that was news to me. I can't believe we've done this. So basically, we've taken some of Donald Trump's latest comments and posts on Truth Social, and we got Matt Ford, the comedian, who does an amazing Donald Trump impression to voice them up. So much so that when Chris, the editor of Newscast, sent it to me, I was like, have we got Donald Trump to do a voice note for Newscast? Because it's so convincing.

24:29Adam Fleming:So here is the first clip from Matt Ford, and this is Donald Trump's post on Truth Social from the end of last week, where he talked about repositioning those US nuclear submarines in response to some posts on social media from one of Vladimir Putin's allies. So please take it away in pre-recorded voice note form. Matt Ford, a.k.a. Donald Trump. Based on the highly provocative statements of the former president of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, who is now the deputy chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, I have ordered two nuclear submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that.

25:09Words are very important. They cannot lead to unintended consequences. I hope this will not be one of those instances. Thank you for your attention in this matter.

25:20Adam Fleming:And thank you, Matt. I mean, it's very convincing, isn't it? Yes. Let's hope he doesn't get the nuclear codes. Sarah, I mean, there's loads of things to say. I mean, another one of those Trump stories where at first glance it seems really quite significant and maybe quite scary and a real upping of the ante. But then you're like, well, actually, is it really that significant? It sounds quite blustery as opposed to actually a big kind of military diplomatic manoeuvre that changes the world. It does. And this is a perfect example of how careful we have to be when it comes to reporting Donald Trump.

25:51Now, I was here enjoying Edinburgh the day he posted that, so I wasn't responsible for putting it on air. But I know what discussions my colleagues will have been having. So first of all, you have to look at the content of it. It says nuclear submarines. In London, the phones are going to be automatically ringing. News editors from London saying, right, we need to put this on the news. We're going to say, just take a breath. Nuclear submarines. Nuclear powered submarines and nuclear armed submarines.

26:17Adam Fleming:Which are two different things. Exactly. Moving closer to the region or the appropriate region. Well, they can hit Moscow from pretty much everywhere, can't they? and how much closer to the region to the point where we're actually you know talking about butting up against russia's maritime borders or just a you know couple of miles closer no i think that which was very very headline grabbing didn't actually tell us anything at all except that he'd seen what medev had said and didn't really like it frankly and i think it's a perfect example of something not to get too excited about because there's so much going on with this administration in foreign policy as well as domestically that urgently does need to have a lot of attention paid to it we need to be careful that we don't use up too much of our airtime or just too much of our own mental and emotional bandwidth on the flam like that that he puts out and not concentrating on the serious stuff and your analysis is borne out completely by what the Kremlin said in response, which was basically in the last couple of days we're not really that worried about this.

27:25The Kremlin went out of their way to play it down and also to say Dmitry Medvedev does not speak for Russia in these matters, Vladimir Putin does. So I think that was, you know, that basically makes your point for you.

27:38Adam Fleming:And also we can't even really take it as another data point in where's the Putin Trump relationship going, because actually it was aimed very much at a Putin proxy, somebody who's seen as a bit of a hothead on social media. So it doesn't even really tell us that much about that changing dynamic, does it? I also think, I think one of the things that helps me understand Donald Trump a bit and try and anticipate what he might do or what he's thinking is to understand that he's a real creature of the 80s. So it's a mindset that you and James are probably too young to remember to the same extent. But everything from his playlist, you know, and his taste and interior decor to his politics are very much rooted not just in the 20th century but kind of in the 70s and the 80s and I think he will have a visceral terror of nuclear war because everybody who's as older older than me will remember what it was like in the 70s and 80s the the warnings that we had at school the procedures that we were taught about what to do if you heard the three minute warning the real fear that there was actually about a nuclear war I think that will be quite deeply embedded in him and i think he might bluster all he wants but i think actually the idea of him risking nuclear war would be pretty unthinkable well that's good and i should say we are recording these episodes of newscasts at the national museum of scotland which has this amazing auditorium and stage and one of the temporary exhibitions they've got on at the moment is called scotland in the cold war and that's going to be my little pre-newscast treat tomorrow on Wednesday when I have a couple of hours off to do that.

29:14Adam Fleming:Right, another news story, and actually this is one I'm going to be working on later this week because my other show, Antisocial, on BBC Radio 4, it's like I'm flyering at the Fringe, isn't it? Come to my show, midday Radio 4 Friday. It's about this advert that Sydney Sweeney, the actor did, for American Eagle where she's wriggling around in that pair of jeans and it then says Sydney Sweeney's got great jeans and that's caused quite a lot of uproar for people who think that's an offensive thing to say or it's kind of a bit racist or it's a bit kind of getting into eugenics. Anyway, of course, Donald Trump then commented on that.

29:44Adam Fleming:And he did one of those classic sort of drive-bys. He was about to get on a plane or a helicopter and people are just shouting random questions at him. He's like, what, what, what? And then he picks up whatever thread he fancies. And in this case, he picked up Sidney Sweeney. Who was? Sidney Sweeney. She's a very hot actress right now. She's a registered Republican? Oh, now I love her ad. Is that right? Is Sidney Sweeney? you'd be surprised at how many people are Republicans. That's what I wouldn't have known, but I'm glad you told me that. If Sydney Sweeney is a registered Republican, I think her ad is fantastic.

30:20Okay, thank you very much, everybody. Thank you, Mr. President.

30:23Adam Fleming:And just to be clear, he was saying, I think her ad is fantastic. Because when I first heard it, I was like, wow, he's gone even further than normal. Actually, Sarah, before we discuss this, can you just explain that concept of being a registered Republican, actually, because that's quite unusual to British ears, that whole thing. Yeah, so when you register to vote within your state, just as you do here with your address and details, you can take a box to say that you are a Republican, a Democrat or an Independent. The rules vary, very slightly from state to state, but that's it in most cases.

30:55And it doesn't require you to vote that way. You can be a Republican who registered as such in 1980 and hasn't voted Republican since, but just never got around to changing your registration. What it does mean is you can vote in the primaries, so for the presidential elections, but also when you're choosing who the candidate's going to be for a representative or a senator or something. If you're a registered Republican, you can go and vote to pick between Nikki Haley and Donald Trump to be the presidential candidate. You probably can't vote, depending on what state you're in, for the Democrats.

31:25So that's the incentive to not just say independent all the time, to choose means you can then get involved in the democratic process. on your side of the aisle. And it tells you a bit about some states. You could say that, you know, Texas has far more registered Republicans than it does Democrats. Doesn't mean they'll always vote that way, but I think it's more an indicator of your political background, probably, than of views right now.

31:49Adam Fleming:And then, this was obviously playing on Donald Trump's mind, because he then wrote quite a lengthy post on Truth Social about the Sydney Sweeney phenomenon, drawing in all sorts of other celebrities who'd got involved in politics tangentially, And so please welcome back Matt Ford with another voice note. Sidney Sweeney, a registered Republican, has the hottest ad out there. It's for American Eagle and the jeans are flying off the shelves. Go get him, Sidney. On the other side of the ledger, Jaguar did a stupid and seriously woke advertisement that is a total disaster. The CEO just resigned in disgrace and the company is in absolute turmoil.

32:27Who wants to buy a Jaguar after looking at that disgraceful ad? Should they have learned a lesson from Bud Light, which went woke and essentially destroyed in a short campaign? The company. The market cap destruction has been unprecedented with billions of dollars so foolishly lost. Just look at woke singer Taylor Swift. Ever since I alerted the world to what she was by saying on truth that I can't stand her hate, she was booed out of the Super Bowl and became no longer hot. The tide has been seriously turned. And being woke is for losers. Being Republican is what you want to be. Thank you for your attention in this matter.

33:07Adam Fleming:I think the record was show Taylor Swift is still pretty hot when it comes to showbiz success. So that's a little bit of fact-checking there for Donald Trump. And thank you very much to Matt for those amazing voice notes. He is in Edinburgh. For the next few weeks, he's doing a show called Defying Calamity. And if you're in Edinburgh, you cannot escape his posters because he's done a Mickey take of the wicked posters where he's both characters, pink and green. And he's also recording his podcast, The Political Party, here as well, with lots of good guests. So hopefully some of you will get to experience some of that.

33:37Adam Fleming:James, what's interesting there about the whole Sidney Sweeney thing, and I'm not going to get you to wade into the potential eugenics or not of that advert, is that Trump is good at tapping into the zeitgeist and talking about things that, well, everyone is talking about, and actually a previous generation of politicians just wouldn't have gone there. He is very good at that. And also, his opponents, I think, very often fall into his trap. And this is, I think, a case in point of his opponents falling into a trap. Most people, I think, probably just see an advert of an attractive actress wearing jeans and don't really read all that much more into it than that.

34:20You know, she has great jeans. She says in one of the adverts, you see what I did there? yes Sydney we see what you did there we get the pun but then for that to become an argument about eugenics I just think that the people who, some people not all by all means of Donald Trump's opponents have jumped onto that bandwagon quite a lot of people have said that's mad that's a silly road to go down for a white blonde blue haired actress to say she's got good genes to immediately jump all the way from there to the Nazis and eugenics and fascism seems a long leap and not necessarily, almost certainly not a leap that's going to win you very many, if any, votes.

35:02But again, Donald Trump jumps into this, is doing quite well out of jumping into it, and his opponents, again, are on the back foot. I don't know what you think, Senator, but he just seems repeatedly on these issues, he seems to have an instinct, which is your point, Adam, for when to jump in and how that seems to be good for him and bad for his opponents. Absolutely, because all the time that his opponents are talking about these kind of issues, whether it's about transgender issues or anything that the Republicans can paint as crazily extreme woke stuff, is when Democrats are losing. Now, there are people who believe that, but they're already committed to the left.

35:45They're progressives who are speaking to each other, who do in America tend to perform quite a lot on social media for each other about who can be more woke and more politically correct. And that's a very, very small section of politically active people who don't represent swing voters, for instance, in the American heartland. and by bringing this up Donald Trump is making sure that he highlights the fact that his opponents are not talking about healthcare they're not talking about immigration they're talking about whether or not an advert with Sidney Sweeney in it is racist or not and that's exactly the kind of thing where people think this is what Democrats obsess about and waste their time over rather than looking at the things that matter to me and my family around our kitchen table here

36:30Adam Fleming:And what I found doing antisocial, Radio 4, midday on Friday, is that these conversations in America are much more extreme than they are here. We get versions of them, but they're the kind of like the diet version of the culture wars that you get in America around these issues. I think that's true. But also, in fairness, I suppose, that's not to say there's not structural inequality in the United States of America. That's not to say that there is not deep and entrenched racial equality in the United States of America. that's just not necessarily I mean you know these things obviously and clearly exist but the question is what do you use to make those arguments and and do you pick the right vehicle with which to advance that case if you were on the left that you would be advancing that you want to try to dismantle those structural inequalities and you know I think the record will probably show in this case that this has not been successful as Sarah says it might be successful with some people with a certain political leaning but if you're trying to win back the heartland of the country is this the issue to choose and I strongly suspect it won't be right let's have another clip now and this isn't Matt Ford but it is Kamala Harris making a bit of a comeback because she's got a book out called 107 days which is about her unsuccessful presidential campaign which lasted precisely that long.

37:50Adam Fleming:And she was actually on the chat show of someone we were talking about a second ago, Stephen Colbert, just before it gets cancelled. So let's have a listen to what Kamala Harris was saying. I just, for now, I don't want to go back in the system. I think it's broken. I think it's, there's so much, I mean, there are so many good people who are public servants, who do such good work. Teachers and firefighters and police officers and nurses and scientists. Scientists!

38:23And so it's not about them, but, you know, I believe, and I always believed, that as fragile as our democracy is, our systems would be strong enough to defend our most fundamental principles. and I think right now that they're not as strong as they need to be and I just don't want to, for now, I don't want to go back in the system. I want to...

38:53Adam Fleming:Do that Kamala Harris thing I love where she does a list of things and then randomly emphasises one of them. Breakfast. Coffee. Lunch. Lunch. Afternoon tea. Dinner. I love them all. Sorry, that wasn't very good. Bring back Matt Ford. What was interesting about that clip though is actually the question he asked her that provoked that answer because he said are you going to run for the governorship of California because Gavin Newsom who's in that job in the moment cannot run again and so there's going to be a vacancy in a couple of years time and so she has to have quite a compelling reason for her own supporters why she doesn't go for that job hasn't she and also she has to not look like a scaredy cat for not going for it because she might have her eye on another job yeah I wouldn't be too worried about those millions of Kamala Harris supporters all around the country for eagerly egging her on to run for elected office again.

39:43I mean, I thought that was a very good example of why she shouldn't be running and taking up the democratic mantle. What is she talking about? I don't know. And if the system is broken, who broke it? And if it is that badly damaged, who on earth is going to repair it if it's not senior Democrats taking on the system? Now, I don't think she's a great one to do it. I mean, she lost very comprehensively, largely because she couldn't articulate a message very clearly to voters just as she wasn't doing there I think she'd be a hopeless choice to represent the Democrats again whether in California or nationwide but yeah I think a lot about that clip showed us we don't need to read the 107 days book to know why she's not in the White House right now.

40:28I thought that what was interesting as well about that clip was the applause for the word scientists and she doesn't set out her case there but the Trump administration has in its attempts not least alongside Elon Musk to to to curtail the power of the state and to shrink the power of the state and whether or not it's shrink the size and curtail the power of the state has among other things um made life very difficult for people working in science in the administration whether that's in meteorology or whether that's in research for diseases and I was speaking to an old friend of mine not that long ago who works not in the United States but works in tropical medicine very senior scientist in tropical medicine with very good contacts and this person was telling me that they are now in the position where they can have no contact whatsoever with the people they've been dealing with in the US administration for years even not even in the administration itself but associated with the administration anyone working in public science in the United States because those people are so fearful because they've been told you must have no interaction with international aid whatsoever but that has extended so far the chilling effect of that that they can't even have a private or they feel they're too frightened to have a private messaging conversation with an international a scientists abroad about general topics because they're fearful of losing their job so i thought that i thought when i heard science there it just reminded me of that's not entirely on topic with kamala i thought it's quite an interesting story about the ripples spreading out from the the trump administration and some of the decisions that he took in the early days of his second term that we have talked about but i mean as sarah says it's just such a tsunami of news every day that it moves on and it moves on but these things are still having very profound effects it's not just science as well of course I mean there's basically a war on truth which we saw quite a lot of in the last seven days firstly he as I'm sure you all know and hired fired the top statistician because she came out with jobs numbers that he didn't like as though that was her fault and as though he's going to change the numbers of jobs that have or haven't been created in the United States by firing the statistician and this is at the same time as on a much smaller basis.

42:53Things like in the National Parks and the Smithsonian Museums, details about America's history are being excised. It no longer says an exhibit in one of the Smithsonian Museums in Washington that Donald Trump is one of the presidents who has been served articles of impeachment. It just has Bill Clinton, Nixon never was, was he? And whoever the historical ones are, whose names I can't remember. Donald Trump's name's been taken out of that, as racial history is being rewritten in the museums. It's not just scientific research, it's fact and truth that is being attacked. But I mean, what we're talking about there is extraordinary.

43:33I mean, that's the sort of thing that totalitarian... I'm not calling the United States under Donald Trump a totalitarian regime, but it's the kind of thing that totalitarian regimes are accused of doing. And we're talking about, supposedly, the world's most powerful democracy, leading democracy. I mean, it's unbelievable.

43:53Adam Fleming:I mean, we've had a pair of related questions from both Angela and Paul asking the same thing, really, about how the Democrats actually are getting on. Like, okay, you've shown, you give us a one-star review of Kamala Harris there. What about the others? Yeah, it's been tricky because they're in this position where they don't have a figurehead because, obviously, Kamala Harris, not a very successful and a defeated candidate. Joe Biden, of course, I mean, I was going to say disgraced. Is that fair? I mean, I think in the way he's perceived by a lot of American voters, yes, ever since so much information has come out, since he stood down as president about his cognitive and physical abilities in the White House and the extent to which people around him were covering that up.

44:42That's a real scandal, regardless of what your politics are. I think that is a real scandal that's consuming people as well. That means people who were very close to him, it's difficult for them to put their heads above the parapet because they have some big questions to answer about what you knew and when about the state of Joe Biden going into the 2024 presidential election. And then you have other people who will go for the nomination when it comes up from J.B. Pritzker, the governor of Illinois. You've got Senator Alyssa Slotkin in Minnesota, Missouri. Yeah, a bunch of people. Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, very kind of glamorous, media-savvy guy who'll almost certainly go for the nomination.

45:27Pete Buttigieg. These people are around, but they don't really have a national platform. They don't have somewhere to appear. And in Congress, the leader of the Democrats in the House and in the Senate where they don't have a majority at all and they can very, very rarely win a vote. They appear on the news issue by issue, but yeah, they don't have a significant following. So there's a lack of face and name recognition really to put behind the fight back.

45:54Adam Fleming:We've had an excellent question from Pamela. Thank you for this, Pamela. You sound really surprised. No, I don't. Oh yeah, Pamela, she's famous for her rubbish questions. No, I mean, it's an excellent question. Come on, it's from Pamela. so thank you Pamela may I ask Sarah and James I mean I'm not doing a very good job of reading it out but if being Scottish has ever benefited them while being in the United States that's a good question isn't it yes so as I think of ways in which it might have done it certainly means if you meet Scottish people or people who have a Scottish background you have a little bit more of a connection with them I've got colleagues who are either Irish or have Irish names and Irish backgrounds I think they do a bit better out of it because there's a lot more Americans consider themselves to be Irish than to be Scottish.

46:38So if you're, you know, whether you're standing in a queue to get into a Trump rally, trying to make polite conversation with people around you or trying to persuade some poor family that what they really want to do is spend their dinner time with a BBC television camera at their dining table talking about politics to me instead of just having a pleasant evening among themselves. If they know, yes, a long lost relative from some part of Scotland that I can describe to them, You're more likely to get in there. But there is a flip side as well, because I have to assure you all know, not everybody in America completely understands the difference between Scotland, England, the United Kingdom, Great Britain.

47:16Just for the sake of brevity and time, James, in all of the times that you were asked in America, are you English? Did you say yes? No. Liar. I didn't know, but it did happen. It does happen a lot. Irish quite a lot. Are you Irish? I mean, it does happen a lot. You spend a lot of time explaining Great Britain is made up of Scotland, and the United Kingdom is yada, yada, yada. But no, I didn't. Did you? Have you said you're English? Is that what you're saying? You're in Edinburgh. I've nodded my head in acquiescence sometimes just for time. And yes, if you've got something else complicated you want to talk about, explaining the constitutional relationship between Scotland and the United Kingdom isn't necessarily the best use of that time.

48:06No, fair. And I have said, I have said the words as a foreign correspondent, the BBC of London. I have said that. Well, especially in a non-English speaking context in Mexico or whatever, I've said BBC from London, BBC de Londres, you know. Because like, you know, it's just quick, it's shorthand, London calling, London calling and all that. But I think it is, generally speaking, I can't speak for the English, do we have any English in? Yes. It's like we're doing Panto.

48:36Adam Fleming:That's in five months' time, James. I can't speak for the English, obviously, but I find being Scottish is generally quite well received. But when you mentioned Ireland, I thought that's interesting. The Irish have leveraged their brand and their diaspora better than the Scots, haven't they? Why is that? Just that they have better pubs or... What is it? I wish I'd have asked Brian Cox that. We would have got a tour hour long answer with loads of swear words and then we had to edit out. Couldn't have put any of it on the podcast. I have no idea what the answer to that question is. Other than when you go to America, I mean, my favourite Ireland story about America is when I was on holiday in San Francisco and there was an Irish souvenir shop called Treasure Ireland.

49:22Adam Fleming:Is that the brand going well for Ireland? I don't know. I'll tell you one benefit actually not that long ago was because I was a scot in washington dc I was invited to ast andrew society annual dinner where they obviously wanted enough scottish people um there so I could sit beside brian cox as he was given a lifetime achievement award so that was that yeah that was that was that was a top benefit of being scott did he look like he was enjoying himself

49:47Adam Fleming:we've had a related question from cameron um have you heard your own dead ringers impressions I've recently made my Dead Ringers debut in the last few episodes congratulations thank you very much I would say it's an honour just to be there and Dead Ringers actually do have a show at the Fringe as well so you can go and see them but yeah their impression of me needs a little bit more work I would say so I've become very grand after just being on there twice they do a very good Christmas no no no but certainly I haven't heard it but often Scottish accents this is a problem I think it's not just with Dead Ringers with a lot of impersonators.

50:23They just think if you make it Scottish, then it'll sound right. So they would have me sounding the same as Laura Koonsberg and Kirsty Wark. I don't think anybody ever got Gordon Brown or Alistair Darling very well in those impersonation shows because they just stuck a sort of Glasgow accent. Although Lewis MacLeod is Scottish of Dead Ringers, so he should be able to do some of the Scottish accents.

50:41Adam Fleming:And he's got his own show in addition to doing Dead Ringers on the fringe. I think what's interesting about Dead Ringers now having been on it is what they actually do is they try to capture the person's character as much as they tried to do an actual impersonation, which is why it was really insulting that they described me as the young, enthusiastic puppy you fantasize about locking in the car on a hot day. Aww.

51:06Adam Fleming:To which I say, meow. Right, okay, we're running out of time because there's another show on here in about three minutes. So I'm going to say thank you very much to James and Sarah. Thank you. Thank you, Adam. Thank you.

51:26Adam Fleming:Thank you to Dead Ringers. You're probably now never going to do me ever again. So be careful what you wish for. Thank you very much to you listening at home or wherever you are listening to this episode of Newscast. And also thank you to the newscasters who came and joined us today. You were great. Thank you.

51:47Adam Fleming:Didn't have time to answer the question about what shows I've seen at the Fringe. One of them today included at lunchtime a drag artist quite well known who ended the show completely naked on a stool with a firework up their bum. Five stars. Right, there'll be another episode of Newscast from the Edinburgh Fringe along very soon. Bye.

52:13Newscast. Newscast from the BBC. From one newscaster to another, Thank you so much for making it to the end of this episode. You clearly do, in the words of Chris Mason, ooze stamina. Can I also gently encourage you to subscribe to us on BBC Sounds? Tell everyone you know. And don't forget, you can email us anytime at newscast at bbc.co.uk. Or if you're that way inclined, send us a WhatsApp on plus 440 330 123 9480. Be assured, I promise, you listen to everyone.