PHIL
Hello and a very warm welcome to episode 0355 of Five in the Eye, right here on Colourful Radio. This is Phil Woodford in the hot seat here in London for our review of the news stories that have tickled our fancy over the past week. We’ve given Michael a week off for a very special occasion (I’ll explain a bit more when we get into the show), but I’m welcoming a very special guest.
She’s an old friend of the Eye, who regular listeners will remember well. It’s our Paris bureau chief Julie McDonald. Bonjour, Julie!
JULIE
Bonjour, Phil! It’s great to be back on Five in the Eye. And I can reveal our top story is going to be the aftermath of the French presidential election last weekend. President Macron won a second term in office, but the vote for his opponent – the far-right Marine Le Pen – seemed worryingly high. With parliamentary elections coming up in June, how are things going to play out in the period ahead?
PHIL
For story number two, we noticed that turnout was down in the French election, although it’s still above what we’ve seen in UK general elections in the twenty-first century. In Australia, voting is compulsory. We look at the pros and cons.
JULIE
What’s story number three? Well, the richest man in the world – Elon Musk – has had his offer to buy Twitter accepted. The eccentric businessman says he champions free speech. But what will this mean in practice? And should we care?
PHIL
For our fourth story this week, it’s the street in Ukraine that has been renamed after… wait for it… Boris Johnson!
JULIE
And finally this week, to wrap up the show, how far would you go to retrieve your phone? A woman in a remote area of Washington state in the US dropped hers in what’s known as a ‘vault toilet’. And she decided to fish it out. It was an idea that didn’t quite go to plan!
PHIL
It’s not just the phone that needed cleaning up, put it that way! And that’s this week’s Five in the Eye!
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