1. 1. It's a fez. I wear a fez now. Fezzes are cool.

   Fill in the blank in this catchphrase from a classic British children's TV show:

   As if by magic, what appeared?

   A fully written topical news quiz with fifteen pants-wettingly hysterical questions.

   A plan fully agreed by world leaders to address inequality at the national and international level, end all wars, and address climate change.

   I'll scale back my ambitions here: a twelve-pack of freddos and a coffee.

   The shopkeeper.

   As if by magic, the shopkeeper appeared is the most memeable line in 70s children show Mr Benn. The line presages the apperance of a befezzed shopkeeper who opens the door to another adventure.

   Mr Benn was a staple of BBC children's schedules into the 90s, despite 13 episodes only having been originally commissioned. And it was narrated by Ray Brooks. Sadly, Ray died from dementia on Sunday, aged 86. But despite starring in some early 60s hits, EastEnders, and Ken Loach's Cathy Come Home his legacy will undoubtedly be this mesmerising children's TV which touched so many hearts.

   Will you be back?, asked the shopkeeper.
   Oh yes, very much, replied Mr Benn. Very much indeed!

   Reveal

2. 2. Biddy farewell

   Staying with departing greats of children's TV, Biddy Baxter died this week, aged 92. In 1962 Biddy was put in charge of a struggling children's magazine programme called Blue Peter. She turned the show into a juggernaut of British telly, remaining at the helm for twenty-three years.

   One of Biddy's innovations was awarding viewers badges of the show's blue galleon logo. Annoyingly, the fastidious Baxter never recorded how many Blue Peter Badges she issued, so I can't ask about that. Instead, tell me who designed the Blue Peter logo itself:

   Biddy herself.

   Creator of Morph and TV artist, Tony Hart.

   Yes, it was, designed by another much loved face of children's TV, Tony Heart.

   I wonder who the generations raised on YouTube and TikTok will commemorate when they pass?

   It was based on a design by one the show's viewers; a precocious eight-year old called Kate Bush.

   Pop Artist, Peter Blake.

   Reveal

3. 3. The League of Inequalities

   Last Saturday, Jen Pawol became the first woman to umpire or referee in which sports league?

   Major League Baseball (MLB)

   Yes, it was baseball that took one small step for man, and one giant leap for women.

   So far no women has refereed an NHL game. And, likewise, only snowmen have umpired competitive snowball throwing.

   National Hockey League (NHL)

   Pan-International Slalom Snorkelling

   The Alpine Competitive Snowball Throwing Championship (ACPSTL)

   Reveal

4. 4. Shattered the peace

   The idylic rural quiet of the Cotsworlds was shattered this week by the arrival of the world's biggest number two. (That joke, with love, to my nieces.) Yes, US Vice President, JD Vance, decided to overnight in an upmarket B&B somewhere in the Chilterns. But which tiny hamlet faced the onslaught of 18 Black SUVs, countless men in black, and a no-fly zone that disrupted filming by petrolmouth-turned-farmer Jeremey Clarkson?

   Charlbury

   Coward's Bottom

   Dean

   Charlbury was where the protests took place (and it was mean of me to include it) but he was actually staying in the Grade-II-listed Dean Manor, in the hamlet of Dean, in the civil parish of Spelsbury.

   Let's hope staying in Manor house taught him a few manners because, as English manners guide Debretts famously notes, it's rude to flay a war hero you've invited as guest to the White House just because you're envious of how much they're loved.

   Upper Clavicle

   Reveal

5. 5. This is not just protest; this is an M&S protest...

   Okay, now to the protests in Charlbury. Obviously, the British public took the opportunity to tell the toady-in-chief how they felt. Many of the protests featured Vance's face transformed into a baby. But which of these was it most notably pasted onto?

   A Colin The Caterpillar cake.

   Yes, for some reason, Vance's memeified face was pasted onto a chocolate caterpillar cake. (He's a creepy crawly?) The cake was ritually decapitated for the cameras.

   However the most astonishing feature of the demo was 80-year old grannies were able to wave offensive placards without the police carting them off as suspected terrorist sympathisers.

   A giant inflatable pen. (I was going to say giant inflatable penis, but apparently safety filters are classifying this site as pornographic and so I've thought I'd omit the -is so they didn't see it was supposed to be rude word.)

   On the tip of one of those large plastic tongues you fit over your own tongue; all the better to lick Trump's bum with.

   The underside of a jack boot - so he could stamp on people's face, forever.

   Reveal

6. 6. History's best value land deals

   Meanwhile, Vance's boss is heading to Russia. Or is it America? Or is it Russia? Yes, Donald Trump keeps getting confused about whether America or Russia currently own Alaska. So let's jog his memory. When did America raise the stars and stripes over the territory, having purchased it from Russia for $7.2million?

   October 18, 1867

   The Russian flag was lowered and the American one raised at a ceremony on 18th October 1867, formalising a purchase that had been made six months previously.

   Alaska cost about a quarter of a billion in today's money. Negotiations were conducted by US Secretary of State William H Seward and contemporaries so viscerally objected to the ludicrous deal that they referred to it as Seward's Folly. Then someone discovered gold. And then someone else discovered oil. And the Russians have felt cheated ever since.

   January 1, 1899

   June 14, 1946

   November 12, 1955, 10:04pm

   Reveal

7. 7. What-a mistake-a to make-a!

   To prove it's not just American politicians who can be prats, MP Rupert How-Lowe-Can-I-Sink got in a bit of a pickle last week. He called out the coastguard thinking he'd seen some dastardly illegal migrants paddling towards his Great Yarmouth constituency. But he was wrong. What had he actually seen?

   A humpback whale caught in fishing gear.

   A Kemi Badenoch press junket with the Royal National Lifeboat Institute (RNLI).

   Charity rowers rowing from from Land's End to John o'Groats to raise money for motor neurone disease.

   I heard this story on the radio in the car with my mum, and we both burst into laughter. So he certainly created a splash. Plonker.

   The docking port of a secret underwater base designed and run by SMERSH as part of their conspiracy to crash the bond markets whenever right-wingers borrow to fund tax giveaways.

   Reveal

8. 8. DoggyU

   Now we can leave the politics behind. Hopefully you might have seen nine year-old springer spaniel, Maple, in the news. But what equipment does the former police dog need for her role at Michigan State University?

   A beekeeper's outfit

   Yes, Maple has been taught to go nosing around honeybee hives and see if she can catch a whiff of the devastating disease, American foulbrood. So, like any beekeeper, she needs to be kept safe from stings, which means the cutest beekeeper's outfit you'll ever see.

   Hives infected with American foulbrood have to be burnt. And the disease's distinctive pong can't be smelt by humans until the infection is advanced. Maple's more sensitive nose can spot it sooner and without having to open the hive.

   The plan is develop a training manual so other sniffer dogs can be taught. I hope they call it Maple State University.

   A paddleboard and harness

   A white coat and safety specs

   Absolutely nothing

   Reveal

9. 9. More research that's creating a buzz

   Meanwhile, also in the field of Honeybee Defence Services, British boffins from the University of Southampton have discovered one simple trick that allows them to locate the secret bases from which invading Asian Hornets are operating out of. How are they doing it?

   By training miniature dachshunds to sniff them out (okay, and probably other more cooperative breeds).

   Using directional microphones as the species has a unique buzz.

   Yes, Asian hornets' hives buzz at 125Hz [~B₂] and with a volume that can be detected from about 20m away by directional microphones. By contrast the European hornets buzz at 110Hz [A₂] and the honeybee at 210Hz [~G♯₃]. So spin a mic around and see what's nearby.

   And if they mount the tech on a drone we could see robot drones facing off agaisnt insect drones and finally the 21st Century might be as exciting as sci-fi writers promised!

   Using MP Rupert Lowe: the hornets are immigrants and Rupert can reliably spot an immigrant at half a mile. He doesn't even want one of those wussy protective suits.

   Using Thursday Quiz favourite the Asian black bear (aka the Moon bear) which adore the larvae of Asian hornets and can track the hives.

   Reveal

10. 10. A mystery worthy of...?

    The creator of computer game Bioshock 2, Jordan Thomas, lifted the game's principle antagonist from a Doctor Who episode, even casting the actress who played her in the show, Fenella Wolgar. Which character from which episode did Thomas pillage?

    The Daleks take Breakfast At Tiffany's / Holly Golightly

    The Girl in the Fireplace / Madame de Pompadour

    The Unicorn and the Wasp / Agatha Christie

    It's amazing what can be uncovered when you get lost in the internet's wasp's nest. But, yes, Bioshock 2 villian, Sofia Lamb, was inspired by Wolgar's performance as Agatha Christie in The Unicorn and the Wasp. The game also contains a character called Grace Holloway who's named for the assistant to the Doctor's eighth regeneration (Paul McGann). And I now absolutely want to see an episode in which the Dalek's take Breakfast at Tiffany's.

    Wolf in the Fold / Sybo

    Reveal

11. 11. Further or nearest with Geordie Alan Shearer

    Yes, the English striker is back. He was last seen as a cartoon in the 100 Aker Wood. Since then, Alan has been transformed into prose and is now bunking up with Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot on the Orient Express.

    So, according Christie's plan of the train carriage, which of the compartments below is closest to the compartment that the Poirot/Shearer crime-fighting duo are sleeping in?

    Cyrus Hardman

    Samuel Ratchett

    When Samuel Ratchett (compartment 2) is murdered, Poirot is sleeping right nextdoor (compartment 1). Both are in the middle of the carriage. Hardman, who was Ratchett's body guard, could only get a compartment at the carriage's far end (compartment 16).

    Well done, sleuths, if you lucked into that!

    Reveal

12. 12. Reactor shut down

    Why did the Gravelines nuclear power plant in northern France have to be shut down this week?

    A 1.3cm slime mould was found inside one of the reactors during routine maintenance. And so all the reactors had to be shutdown and checked for infection.

    A secret cabal of jellyfish terrorists launched a covert assault on the facility.

    It was jellyfish from the North Sea what swamped the filter drums of the pumping station and so the power planet had to be shut down.

    It's always the thermal exhaust port that's the weakeness, isn't it?

    Some boring hackers broke into some of the power planet's systems and, out of abundance of caution, they had to be restored from backup.

    They found a wasp's nest on a cooling tower. A radioactive wasp's nest.

    Reveal

13. 13. All your base are belong to Us

    We all like a lovely holiday in lovely Scotland. But which Loch should you probably avoid on account of Royal Navy's Arms Depot in Coulport having leaked radioactive tritium into it?

    Loch Long

    Yes, it was revealed this week that rusty plumbing allowed tritium to leak into Loch Long.

    The ionising radiation from tritium (a beta particle) isn't dangerous unless it's released inside you. And if you get tritium atom on your skin, they will happily pass through it. You could also drink it in or breath in it in as vapour. So releasing it into the water is solid. Nice work guys.

    Loch Nae Bigger than Trump's Hoo-har

    Loch Out Behind - there's a Pleiosaur

    Loch Wide

    Reveal

14. 14. Are you not entertained? Ragtimes to riches

    The family behind Britain's largest toy shop, The Entertainer have decided to cash out. So what's happening to the firm now?

    Control has been handed to its 1,900 employees, via an employee ownership trust.

    Yes, the firm is part of the wave of mutualisation spreading across the high street as founders, like Gary and Catherine Grant, seek to future proof their hard work against the vultures of capitalism.

    It's weird, isn't it, to see business conducted not for pure greed, and where every last penny isn't squeezed out until nothing remains but ash? Let's hope it catches on!

    It's been sold to foreign investors, who have borrowed against the firm's assets, and the cost of servicing that debt will slowly suffocate another great British business.

    Reveal

15. 15. Apollo 13

    Let's end as we began, with an obit. Jim Lovell, the astronaut instrumental in saving the failed Apollo 13 mission has died at the age of 98. What was his famous message to mission control when the oxygen tank caught fire?

    Houston, hey, did we pack any spare oxygen?

    Houston, my God, it's full of stars!

    Houston, we've had a problem!

    There's almost a British level of understatement about it, isn't there?

    In 2020, Lovell said, You can't suddenly have a problem, and then just[,] you know, close your eyes and...hope there's a miracle coming on[;] because a miracle is something you have to do yourself[;] or having people to help you.

    So take Jim's wisdom to heart, and go be miracle factories pumping out miracles.

    Houston, what's that flare? See it? A green flare, coming from Mars, kind of a green mist behind it. It's getting closer...

    Reveal

And if you think there has been a really egregious error then just accept you are much smarter than me.