About this transcript: This is a full AI-generated transcript of The RARE Pilot Episode & Festive Chaos — The Unbelievable Truth from Comedy Audio Collective, published July 7, 2026. The transcript contains 24,505 words with timestamps and was generated using Whisper AI.
"Hello, and welcome to The Unbelievable Truth, the long-running, award-winning panel game about truth and lies. The games we'll be playing revolve around certain unlikely facts, the sort that appear to be complete nonsense but are actually absolutely true. We know they're true because we check them..."
[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to The Unbelievable Truth, the long-running, award-winning panel game about truth and lies. The games we'll be playing revolve around certain unlikely facts, the sort that appear to be complete nonsense but are actually absolutely true. We know they're true because we check them on the internet. And when that proved about as accurate as a one-legged man in an arse-kicking contest, we bought some proper reference books. Our intensive research has uncovered all sorts of incredible stuff and even revealed the meaning of life. At the moment, it's about five years with good behaviour. Joining me today are four guests whose CVs read like several neatly typed pages of A4. They are, in no particular order, Jeremy Hardy, Andy Hamilton, Neil Malarkey and Graham Garden. The game is quite simple. I'll ask each of the panel in turn to present a short lecture on a given subject that should be largely erroneous. However, each has been pre-equipped with some unlikely but true information which they should lard into their presentation. A player can score points by slipping these truths past his opponents, who can also score points by spotting them. First up is Jeremy Hardy. Jeremy is an award-winning comedian who is also famous for his singing voice. Which is said to hold mystical powers. It once made a blind man death. Jeremy, your subject is hair, which my dictionary defines as a filamentous outgrowth from the skin, found mainly in mammals. Off you go.
[00:01:47] Speaker 2: Hair is probably the most important human organ. It never stops growing throughout our lives. Yes, Andy.
[00:01:54] Speaker 3: I think the bit it never stops growing throughout our lives is in bad taste. But I also think that it's true. It's true that it never stops growing. Yes, throughout our lives, yes.
[00:02:11] Speaker 1: Well, now, in fact, it does stop growing. It grows sort of in spurts. Ninety percent of it is growing at any given time, but ten percent of it isn't.
[00:02:20] Speaker 3: So am I ninety percent right, then? Well, hang on, if that's true, how come ninety percent of mine has stopped growing and ten percent hasn't? It's still growing, just not around you.
[00:02:33] Speaker 2: So, did I...
[00:02:34] Speaker 1: No, you didn't spot a truth, unfortunately.
[00:02:36] Speaker 2: Just think of it as flesh-coloured highlights. It never stops growing throughout our lives and only stops when we die. Yes, Graham.
[00:02:47] Speaker 4: Yes, it does stop when we die, contrary to mythology.
[00:02:52] Speaker 2: Yes, no, that's quite right. It does stop when we die. Fair play. Human babies are born sightless and covered in long, dark hair called placenta, or aftershock. A person with no hair cannot survive for more than a few seconds, because the Earth's atmosphere is much colder than you'd think. What dentists call the bald chill factor means that even if you think you're wrapped up nice and toasty indoors with the heating on, you're quite literally freezing to death without even knowing it. In fact, hot weather is the worst because it's deceptive, but luckily the hot weather also makes your hair grow faster, so you're all right. But that's...
[00:03:27] Speaker 3: Yes, Andy. Does hot weather make your hair grow faster? I think it does.
[00:03:32] Speaker ?: Yes.
[00:03:32] Speaker 3: Yes, it does. Says the hairball in the back bone.
[00:03:35] Speaker 1: Yeah, our independent adjudicator, a complete stranger, confirms that, in fact, hot weather does make your hair grow more. And what I didn't mention, but when you challenged before, erroneously, what I didn't let slip, was that you, in fact, lose a point for that. Oh, right. Good news for you now is that you're on naught.
[00:03:53] Speaker 2: I'm on a roll, is what you're saying.
[00:03:57] Speaker 3: Excellent.
[00:03:58] Speaker 2: But that's only true of the male of the species. Women only have hair on the tops of their heads and sometimes just a little strip on the lower abdomen in the shape of Brazil. Women with hair under their arms are witches, as are women with dark hair. Its demonic potential is the reason why nuns cut their hair off and use it to make ridiculous clothes for the children of over-disciplinarian widowed Austrian naval captains. It has been argued, though not proven, that witches use their hair to control the weather and that snow is actually their dandruff. And the darker the hair, the more wily and evil the woman. There are proven scientific reasons why gentlemen prefer blondes. It's not just because men are shallow and stupid. Blondes are favoured by God, which might be why they actually have more hair per square inch. Redheads come last and their hair burns and peels in the sun, which is why they're... Yes, Neil. I think this thing about red hairs and blondes, about growing slower and quicker, I think that could be true.
[00:04:57] Speaker 1: Yeah, well, the thing he said about redheads and blondes was true, which is that blondes have more hair per square inch and redheads have fewer hair.
[00:05:05] Speaker 3: Did you know that you need to use more anaesthetic to anaesthetise redheads? That is true. The anaesthetists...
[00:05:14] Speaker 5: Andy just said something true, so I should get a point for that, surely.
[00:05:20] Speaker 2: Shall I carry on? Carry on, yeah. Assertive employment. It's been proven that you don't need to wash your hair because it self-cleans like ovens. Shampoo actually makes your head dirtier, that's why it says, for greasy hair on it. Hair is a lot stronger than you'd think. A head of hair could, in theory, support the weight of two elephants, assuming the person also had an incredibly strong neck and their head didn't come off in the process. Graham. Yes, it could support the elephants.
[00:05:49] Speaker 1: A head of hair could support two elephants. Only financially, though. Yes. Yes, that is absolutely true, that a head of hair could, in theory, support the weight of two elephants, but obviously, the person's head would come off. So, thank you very much, Jeremy. Hair care has come on in leaps and bounds lately. Who these days feels the need to take two bottles into the shower? Apart from Charles Kennedy, of course. So, Jeremy, you managed to smuggle just one truth past the rest of the panel. It was once thought by some people that witches use their hair to control the weather. So, at the end of that round, Jeremy just gets one point.
[00:06:32] Speaker 2: Damn.
[00:06:37] Speaker 1: Okay, we turn now to Andy Hamilton. Andy is not only a writer and comedian, but is also Luciano Pavarotti's stunt double. And how much better that joke would work on TV. Your subject, Andy, is one we don't hear nearly enough about these days. Football. Football, or soccer, is a ball game played between two teams which outlaws the handling of the ball. The object being to score points by conveying said ball into the goal defended by the opposing team. Well, that's news to me, anyway. So, fingers on buzzers, everyone else.
[00:07:10] Speaker 3: Off you go, Andy. Well, football is a subject on which I am perfectly qualified to speak. Because I, in fact, have played football at international level. I'll tell you, in the 1970 World Cup, I played sweeper for Chile as part of my gap year. And Chile got to the semi-finals that year with a team that astonishingly included a goalkeeper with a glass eye. But that's not the most astonishing disability I've seen. Because in the early 70s, Chelsea played a team from Luxembourg who included a player with one arm. And he was quite skillful, but he did give away quite a lot of foul throws. There is confusion about the origins of football. One theory is that the game was invented in what is now Mexico around 1200...
[00:07:59] Speaker 2: Yes, Jeremy. It's true, there is confusion about the origins of football.
[00:08:06] Speaker 3: That's pedantry, really.
[00:08:07] Speaker 6: I don't think there's much confusion about the origins of football. You know, it's pretty clear.
[00:08:12] Speaker 1: People were bored.
[00:08:14] Speaker 3: So, no, I'm not going to allow that. No, no. Carry on, Andy. One theory is that the game was invented in what is now Mexico around 1200 AD by the Aztecs. Of course, the Aztecs were also the inventors of chocolate. And some scholars... Yes, Neil. I think the Aztecs invented chocolate.
[00:08:32] Speaker 1: Do you know, I think it is very arguable that they were, well, the inventors of chocolate. So, I'm going to give you a point for that.
[00:08:41] Speaker 3: Of course, some think that the football the Aztecs used was, in fact, a chocolate egg. Indeed, it's a little known fact that early footballs were egg-shaped, till the discovery of India rubber in the 1860s gave the ball greater roundness. But it also made the ball bouncier, and thus harder to control. So, consequently, the pitch was made longer and wider, and the goals much, much bigger. So big, in fact, that if they were being used today, Peter Crouch might score.
[00:09:12] Speaker 4: India rubber in 1863, that's true.
[00:09:14] Speaker 1: Yes, that is true. The change of the shape of the ball. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, that came in quite late.
[00:09:19] Speaker 7: I thought you got past it.
[00:09:21] Speaker 3: Yeah, I know. No, that... No, it just looks that way. It might not have been the Aztecs, though, who first created football, because there are ancient Chinese manuscripts, which mention a game called Zhang Tao, which involved two teams kicking the dismembered body parts of a dead prisoner. Jeremy. I think that's true.
[00:09:43] Speaker 1: Of all the horrible things that happened in China, that's not one of them. Didn't happen at Eton.
[00:09:54] Speaker 3: Carry on, Andy. Similarly, Kingston-on-Thames and Chester. The story goes that the game was played for the first time with the severed head of a defeated Danish prince. Although, around 900 AD, Saxon footballers started to complain that the new, lighter Danish prince's heads swerved too much in the air and made life difficult for goalkeepers. Jeremy.
[00:10:16] Speaker 2: I think that they did play with a Danish prince's head. You're absolutely right. Ah, I knew there was something there. Yeah.
[00:10:27] Speaker 3: In 1860, Thomas Arnold, head of rugby school, laid down the first truly standardised rules for an organised football game. Though less violent than the ruffians' version of the game that was being played in towns and cities, it still permitted kicking an opponent's legs below the knees, with the proviso that the player should not be held still whilst his shins were being kicked. Graham.
[00:10:48] Speaker 4: Yeah, I think you were allowed to kick below the knee, weren't you?
[00:10:50] Speaker 1: Yes, you absolutely were. And that whole bit was true, from, you know, Thomas Arnold having laid down the rules and him saying you can give someone a good kicking as long as you're not part of a gang holding them down.
[00:11:01] Speaker 3: Now, of course, football is a global game, and even as I speak, ladies and gentlemen, Brazil are playing Lapland in the... Yes, Graham. Football is a global game. That's like saying the sky is blue. Would you have buzzed me off? No, I'm not going to allow that. Oh, sorry. Brazil. No. No, it's the only language I understand. Hopefully, it won't go to the cruel lottery that is the penalty shootout, first invented by a German in 1918. The first recorded penalty scorer was Alf Stobart of Aston Villa on the 3rd of March 1922 against old Carthusians. Yes, Gerry.
[00:11:55] Speaker 7: True. No, that's not true. Fucker. No.
[00:11:58] Speaker 2: I just don't want to believe, Andy. Nothing you ever say will mean anything to me anymore. I'm like Brown to your Blair.
[00:12:11] Speaker 1: He said that the penalty shootout was invented in 1918 but the first penalty was scored four years later.
[00:12:19] Speaker 2: But they were busy fighting the war. They didn't have time to do the penalty shootout.
[00:12:23] Speaker 3: But I have written in the margin here, Jeremy will fall for this. Yeah, because the penalty was actually a 20th century invention called the kick of death. It could be taken from anywhere along a line 12 yards from goal and not only was the goalie not allowed to move, he wasn't even allowed to stand in the goal. It was a free kick into an empty goal. Oh, those were the days, eh, Peter Crouch. So, there you have it. Loads of interesting facts about football. All of them were absolutely true or my name isn't Andrew Stanley Hamilton. Thank you very much, Andy.
[00:13:02] Speaker 1: Yes, football, footy, soccer, the beautiful game, call it what you will, it's quite amazing how much simple pleasure has been derived from 22 footballers by Ulrika Johnson. Football is so popular it's even played by blind teams who use a special ball with little bells inside. The first blind game was played in a village in Sussex but was abandoned at half-time when both teams tried to kick the crap out of a Morris dancer.
[00:13:26] Speaker 2: I'd pay to see that.
[00:13:33] Speaker 1: So, Andy, you managed to smuggle past the following truths that in the early 70s Chelsea genuinely played a team from Luxembourg who included a player with only one arm. And the other truth was that the penalty was actually a 20th century invention called the kick of death. So, Andy, that means that you've scored two points. Right, it's now the turn of Neil Malarkey. Neil is an actor, comedian and master of improvisation. He was once responsible for the shortest ever run of a Beckett play when he improvised the opening line, hello, Goddo, what are you doing here? Your subject, Neil, is the cat, by which I mean the domestic or house cat, a small carnivorous mammal related to the African wild cat. Fingers on buzzers for the rest of you. Off you go, Neil.
[00:14:27] Speaker 5: Cats have lived with humans for about 4,000 years. Julius Caesar was so fond of cats that he created his own line of cat food named after himself. Julian cat food. He would give out free branded calendars with pictures of his own cat, Tibbles, named after the river Tibba in Rome, in various states of repose. This became known as the Julian calendar.
[00:14:53] Speaker 2: Jeremy. I think it was true when you said at the very start that humans and cats have lived together for 4,000 years.
[00:14:59] Speaker 1: Yeah, you're absolutely right. Cats have lived with humans for about 4,000 years.
[00:15:03] Speaker 2: There you go.
[00:15:08] Speaker 5: The Mesopotamian black cat sometimes has an extra tail. The Russian blue cat...
[00:15:14] Speaker 4: Graham. Whatever you're going to say about the Russian blue cat is true.
[00:15:21] Speaker 1: I can't help feeling that... I've got cold feet about the two tails. As a tactic, I think that puts Neil in quite a strong position. Neil, what were you going to say about the Russian blue cat?
[00:15:38] Speaker 5: The Russian blue cat lives at Graham Garden's house. Yeah, Graham. It does. What a fool I was. So we included that fact. Anyway, the Russian blue cat often has an extra toe.
[00:15:54] Speaker 2: Jeremy. The Russian blue cat having an extra toe is true.
[00:15:58] Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I'm... I don't think I can let you buzz in on that, Jeremy. I think the point goes to Graham.
[00:16:04] Speaker 2: That's fine. I've got other work coming in. That's fine.
[00:16:09] Speaker 1: So a point to Graham for the Russian blue perceptiveness. Carry on, Neil.
[00:16:15] Speaker 5: For many years, some obscure cartoons by Leonardo da Vinci were thought to be early designs for a cat flap. Recently, expert graphologists have realised they were in fact blueprints for what is now known as the iPod. In fact, Sir Isaac Newton is credited with the invention of the cat flap.
[00:16:31] Speaker 3: Andy. Isaac Newton was a pretty mad sort of cove, so I think he might have invented the cat flap. He did. You're right. Because you are talking about a man who decided to experiment with light by turning his eyeballs inside out and things like that.
[00:16:51] Speaker 1: I think it's good that he had more down-to-earth ideas as well as gravity. Gravity today, cat flap tomorrow.
[00:16:57] Speaker 5: Am I rubbish at this? That's true.
[00:17:08] Speaker 3: But he did put it as a question rather than a statement.
[00:17:12] Speaker 5: Alright, well, in the Gobi Desert where there are no trees and thus no twigs, kittens were often used to help start fires by 15th century tribesmen. This is why a group of kittens is known as a kindle. This barbaric practice was stopped in 1492 when they started using ugly children instead.
[00:17:31] Speaker 3: Andy? I think a group of kittens is known as a kindle.
[00:17:34] Speaker 1: Absolutely right. A group of kittens is known as a kindle.
[00:17:40] Speaker 5: Winston Churchill had a pathological fear of cats. He also felt uneasy in the presence of nuns and once head-butted and once head-butted a traffic warden at the Yalta conference.
[00:17:51] Speaker 2: Jeremy? I think he did have a pathological fear of cats. Winston Churchill? Yeah. No, he didn't. You don't know that.
[00:18:00] Speaker 1: Did he have a cat? I'll tell you, I don't know whether he had a cat, but what I do know is that his affectionate nickname for his wife was cat.
[00:18:08] Speaker 5: Did you put her out at night? I'll be doing the blitz. Anyway, Henry VIII didn't like cats. Also, instead of a wooden racket with cat gut on it, he used a real cat when playing tennis at Hampton Court. Hence, it was called Real Tennis. A famous cat, of course, is the one belonging to Dick Whittington. In reality, the only feline thing about his life was his highly successful trading ship, which was called The Cat, named after Winston Churchill's wife.
[00:18:39] Speaker 2: Jeremy? I think that stuff about Dick Whittington is true, as far as a bit about the ship.
[00:18:46] Speaker 1: Yes, you're absolutely right. The only feline thing about his life was his trading ship, which was called The Cat. Yeah.
[00:18:52] Speaker 5: Was he the mayor of London who banned football because it upset the cat?
[00:18:56] Speaker 1: On the basis that the cat was a ship, I don't know how football could have upset it anyway. I don't think sports upset boats. I suppose if you played rugby on a small boat, it would be upset, but not emotionally.
[00:19:12] Speaker 8: Well,
[00:19:13] Speaker 1: how do you know that? I didn't get to be the host of this show without knowing the emotions of inanimate objects.
[00:19:21] Speaker 2: That's true. there was Nicholas Parsons and handjobs sprang to mind.
[00:19:30] Speaker 3: Oh, that thought has really upset me. Thank you very much,
[00:19:37] Speaker 1: Neil. Oh, I'm finished. Neil mentioned that cats have lived with humans for about 4,000 years, although for about 3,000 of those years, they were next door pretending they hadn't been fed. So, Neil, you managed to get none of your truths past the panel, which means that you've scored no points. Okay, it's now the turn of Graham Garden. Graham is a comedian, writer and actor who, as the quiet genius in the goodies, destroyed the post office tower with a kitten. Imagine how stupid the IRA felt when they saw that. Your subject is the bee, a flying insect that feeds on nectar. It commonly stings, makes honey and lives in a hive. That bee. Things on buzzers, everyone else. Off you go, Graham.
[00:20:30] Speaker 4: Right, bees have very highly developed senses. In fact, they have eight noses, four at the front and four at the back. They have seven ears, three on the left side and four on the right, but they only have five eyes. Andy. I'm going for five eyes.
[00:20:46] Speaker 1: You're quite right. Bees only have five eyes or you might say they've got as many as five eyes.
[00:20:51] Speaker 8: Yeah.
[00:20:52] Speaker 1: It depends who you are. If you're a fly, you'd feel sorry for them, only five eyes. I'm jealous.
[00:20:58] Speaker 4: Three eyes on top of the head and two in front. And nowadays, sniffer bees are being used to find drugs. Their sense of smell is far better than dogs and they can be trained to recognise a particular smell in about three days. Bees have a remarkable memory for faces and will return again and again to the same person to sting them. In Slovakia, beehives are carved to look like the beekeeper and his wife so that the bees will learn to recognise them. The offspring of a wasp and a bee is known as a wee. The wee has no sting but its honey is rubbish. Which is why it's never been commercially exploited. Trained bees have been used for entertainment since Egyptian times and in the early years of the 20th century the Moscow Bee Circus toured the capitals of Europe to great acclaim. The undoubted star of the tiny ring was Goliath, the strong bee. And Goliath performed feats of strength such as lifting coins and small brooches or knocking peas across the room with his wings. Now Goliath was what is known as a carpenter bee. The carpenter so called because it's right foreleg is sharply serrated and it uses it to saw twigs and reeds into short sections.
[00:22:19] Speaker 3: Yes, Andy. Well, I've got to confess here someone in the audience said true and I presume that that man is an expert in carpenter bees so if I don't get a point for this he's dead. Well, he's dead.
[00:22:40] Speaker 5: Well done, Dad.
[00:22:49] Speaker 4: It's not surprising that Goliath was strong as the carpenter the world's largest bee has been known to try to mate with almost anything that flies including light aircraft and hang gliders. So from the largest to the smallest the world's smallest advertisement commissioned to celebrate the launch of the Guinness World Records website was actually worn on the knee band of a bee. Beeswax is much in demand as an ingredient for the manufacture of pasta although it is so inflammable that honeycombs are not permitted on commercial air flights. Andy. Well, that bloke's nodding again.
[00:23:27] Speaker 3: Is it? I think it's true that honeycombs are not allowed on commercial air flights. I don't know. They ban everything else. I mean, they've got pen knives and it seems to me that any terrorist worth his salt would have investigated the possibility of taking a honeycomb on board a plane and possibly attacking the crew with it.
[00:23:46] Speaker 1: It all seems so plausible. But no. No, it's not true. I think that for some reason they're sticking to bombs. But I don't know. You can't talk sense into some people. So thank you very much, Graham.
[00:24:00] Speaker 8: Thank you.
[00:24:05] Speaker 1: And there you have it. The bee. One of the few insects to have a bra size named after it. The others being the melon wasp and you wouldn't want to pay the postage on those butterflies. So, Graham, you managed to smuggle four truths past the panel which are firstly that sniffer bees are being used to find drugs and they have a better sense of smell than dogs and they can be trained within three days. In Slovakia, beehives are carved to look like the beekeeper and his wife so the bees will learn to recognise them and presumably go and live in them. the carpenter bee is the world's largest bee and has been known to try and mate with almost anything that flies including light aircraft and hang gliders. I mean, I've never heard that on an airliner saying, sorry, a bit of turbulence. A massive bee is humping us. I've seen a 747 get quite turned on. Now you say boats don't have an emotion
[00:25:04] Speaker 5: but now planes do. Earlier, didn't you say I have no understanding of the emotional life of Viv?
[00:25:10] Speaker 1: It's well known, Neil, that planes aren't inanimate. They're actually very carefully trained dragons. And the fourth truth that Graeme got past you is that the world's smallest ad which was commissioned to celebrate the launch of the Guinness World Records website was worn on the kneeband of a bee. How many times have you gone and bought something you've seen on a bee's knee? Because it's the bee's knee. I actually just discovered what they were doing there. Well done them. So Graeme, you've scored four points. Which brings us to the final scores and in fourth place with minus three points is Jeremy Hardy. Jeremy Hardy. Joint second are Andy Hamilton and Neil Malarkey on one point. And in first place with a handsome 11 points is this week's winner Graeme Garden. That's about it for this show. All that remains is for me to thank our guests Andy Hamilton, Jeremy Hardy, Neil Malarkey and Graeme Garden. They were absolutely marvellous and that really was the unbelievable truth. Good night.
[00:26:36] Speaker 9: The unbelievable truth featured David Mitchell with panellists Graeme Garden, Jeremy Hardy, Andy Hamilton and Neil Malarkey. The programme associates were Ian Pattinson and David Quantick. The producer was John Naismith. It was a random production of the BBC Radio 4.
[00:27:01] Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to The Unbelievable Truth, the panel show about incredible truths and barely credible lies. I'm David Mitchell. Please welcome Henning Vane, Lou Sanders, Frankie Boyle and Lucy Porter. The rules are as follows. Each panelist will present a short lecture that should be entirely false save for five hidden truths which their opponent should try to identify. Points are scored by truths that go unnoticed while other panellists can win points if they spot a truth or lose points if they mistake a lie for a truth. First up is Henning Vane. Henning, your subject is time, the measured or measurable period during which an action, process or condition exists or continues. Off you go Henning. Fingers on buzz as the rest of you.
[00:27:44] Speaker 10: To quote Goethe, time is a great teacher but unfortunately it kills all its pupils. But what is time? I'll explain that in a jiffy. A jiffy is about one-thirty billionth of a second. A jiffy bag is called that because this is how long it takes the postman to nick your mail order. Lucy.
[00:28:05] Speaker 11: Is a jiffy an official thing?
[00:28:07] Speaker 1: It is an official thing. Yes. And it is a one-thirty billionth of a second. In chemistry and physics a jiffy is defined as the time light takes to travel one centimetre or one-thirty billionth of a second. So, Welder.
[00:28:24] Speaker 10: It's now time to tell you what time is. Or is it? There is no scientific way to prove that time exists. Ironically, the scientists working on this are paid by the hour. There is time and a half on Saturdays. Frankie.
[00:28:37] Speaker 12: There isn't a scientific way to prove that time exists. No, there isn't.
[00:28:42] Speaker 1: You're absolutely right. Yeah. Yes, no scientific experiment has ever been done or indeed could be done to prove that time exists. In fact, quantum physics has many experiments designed to demonstrate that time, as we know and measure it in everyday life, doesn't actually exist at all.
[00:29:00] Speaker 10: Time passes more slowly for your feet than for your head as time runs slower at the centre of the earth. Giraffes in a supersonic aircraft flying through the centre of the earth are among the most confused animals on the planet. Do you think science is a useful subject? Well, when it comes to time, it is completely useless. You'd be better off doing home economics as then, when your casserole is burned, you'll know too much time has passed. Lucy.
[00:29:28] Speaker 11: I mean, if your casserole is burned, too much time has passed. I mean, I know I'm just desperately...
[00:29:34] Speaker 12: Depends on how you like it, isn't it? Is it the case that if we've already established time doesn't exist, isn't it, that too much heat has gone into the casserole?
[00:29:48] Speaker 1: Yes. Well, I think that's a good reason not to give you a point for an inadvertent truth. It's not about time, it's about heat.
[00:29:54] Speaker 10: Britain, which cannot fully get its head around concepts like proportional representation or double glazing is for some reason allowed to be in charge of all the world's time. If you want to change the time in your country, you have to apply to the Greenwich Observatory and closing a cheque for £26.50, which the postman will steal in a jiffy. Well, for this reason, some countries can't afford more than one time zone, whereas others are just throwing money away. Nicaragua has three time zones, even though it's the size of a pea. China gets by with just one, even though it covers more of the Earth's surface than any other country. Frankie.
[00:30:36] Speaker 12: Has China gone with one time zone?
[00:30:38] Speaker 1: It has, yeah. Just one time zone. And it's, by all means, clap. Yes, China is not, as Henning said, the largest country, but the third largest country in the world, but it only has one time zone. This means that during the summer it isn't uncommon for people in the western city of Urumqi to witness a sunset at midnight. And when crossing the border into Afghanistan from western China, you'll need to put your watch back three and a half hours.
[00:31:05] Speaker 10: If it's 5 p.m. in Afghanistan and you cross the border into China and glance at your smartphone, you'll be surprised to find that it has been confiscated. Time is the most commonly used noun in the English language, even though nobody really knows what it is, what it means, or if it's even happening. So very similar to Brexit, really. But there are so many more interesting facts about time, such as, oh dear, run out of time. Thank you, Henning.
[00:31:35] Speaker 1: At the end of that round, Henning, you've managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel. And they are that time passes more slowly for your feet than for your head. Einstein's theory of relativity dictates that the closer you are to the centre of the earth, the slower time goes.
[00:31:51] Speaker 10: It's all very difficult to comprehend, isn't it, all that?
[00:31:54] Speaker 1: Maybe it will help when I say that at the top of Mount Everest, a year would pass about 15 microseconds quicker than at sea level. So that's pretty clear. But obviously, you have to contextualise that with the thought that we can't prove that time exists and the thing about the casserole. So, you know. And the second truth is that the word time is the most commonly used noun in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.
[00:32:20] Speaker 10: I mean, over the past two and a half years, I've got a suspicion there is another word that's more used than any other. Can we say it on the radio on Brexit?
[00:32:30] Speaker 1: No, we can't. And that means, Henning, you've scored two points. The Incas measured units of time by how long it took to cook a potato, just one of the reasons why it's so hard to follow an Incan recipe book. Cook your potato for as long as it takes to cook a potato. Daydapple is an old Irish term for the time of day when a person can no longer be distinguished from a bush, also known as dogging a clock. OK, we turn now to Lucy Porter. Lucy, your subject is driving the controlled operation and movement of a vehicle. Off you go, Lucy.
[00:33:12] Speaker 11: The first car journey is believed to have occurred in 120,000 BC when a caveman placed a log in between four boulders and used them to roll down a hill. He frightened himself so badly that he had a bit of an accident in his wolfskin pants. The caveman's name, Stig of the Dump, which, by the way, is how Top Gear's The Stig gets his name. The world's second car was driven by an Egyptian prince called Nige El Mancel.
[00:33:39] Speaker ?: Frankie.
[00:33:41] Speaker 12: Did The Stig get his name from Stig of the Dump? No.
[00:33:43] Speaker 1: It derives from producer Andy Willman and Jeremy Clarkson's time at Repton School where new boys had always been called Stig. Oh, God. Yes, I mean...
[00:33:53] Speaker 12: I know people kind of hate their new show but I think as they get older and their motor reflexes decline and cars get faster this could all go somewhere really good.
[00:34:09] Speaker 1: Do you think it'll all turn out to be a prequel to last of the summer wine?
[00:34:15] Speaker 11: The world's fastest car is called the Honda Synapse which can travel at twice the speed of thought. The largest drink driving fine in British history was awarded to a Mr Ant McPartland of Newcastle.
[00:34:30] Speaker 10: Henny. Well, for drink driving the penalty is like several times several weeks pay, isn't it? That's how they determine it and seeing he's on good money so probably that was the highest drink driving fine.
[00:34:42] Speaker 1: That's excellent analysis, Henny. Yes, you're absolutely right. Yes, he was given what's believed to be the biggest drink driving fine in British history although it certainly wasn't several weeks pay because the court was told he earned £130,000 a week and was fined only £86,000. So, yeah, under a week's pay. Just Monday to Wednesday.
[00:35:04] Speaker 13: Makes you want to do it, doesn't it? No, I'm joking.
[00:35:08] Speaker 12: I mean, obviously it's a very sad situation when I'm in Portland but at least we now know which one is Ant.
[00:35:19] Speaker 11: Speaking of celebrity, let's not forget famous celebrity cars. We all remember Dick Van Dyke flying around in his iconic vehicle, Happy Slappy Bum Bum while the Pope drives around in his blue Ford Focus which features its own confessional screen between the front seats.
[00:35:34] Speaker 12: Frankie, does the Pope have a blue Ford Focus? He does indeed. Well done.
[00:35:41] Speaker 1: Yes, Pope Francis drives a 2008 Ford Focus with cloth seats in keeping with the humble lifestyle he encourages the clergy to live by.
[00:35:50] Speaker 11: See, that's nice but I've only got a Ford Fusion which is one down from a Focus. Australia went through a period of offering a cash prize to anyone found behind the wheel when sober. While in Iceland a driver may be stopped by the police for being under the influence of the Northern Lights. If you happen to be one of those millennial vegan snowflakes you are now able to drive in a vast array of cars powered by sustainable sources such as animal waste and terrible opinions. Terrible opinions have actually been fueling most black cabs for about half a century.
[00:36:33] Speaker 10: There must be a car where they use animal waste to turn that into energy.
[00:36:38] Speaker 1: Well there are cars that do that but I don't think there is a vast array of cars. This wasn't one of Lucy's truths because there isn't a vast array. It's just true. I was going to be lenient but then you were sarcastic. certainly I'm not going to charge you a point for that. There are vehicles powered by animal listed. But you want a point don't you Henning? You think it's worth that?
[00:37:03] Speaker 10: You have to decide that. I know I have to I'm aware of my responsibilities. We all know what the right decision would be. We've got everyone in here knows everyone at home knows. Yes you're absolutely right. It would be petty of you to get the
[00:37:17] Speaker 1: point.
[00:37:17] Speaker 11: Everyone expects driverless cars will make driving safer although it has been revealed some self-driving cars improve their driving skills by playing Grand Theft Auto.
[00:37:29] Speaker 10: Henning? Well they will with AI in the optimisation process they will have played some software into it and they probably had Grand Theft Auto in it. You're absolutely right.
[00:37:40] Speaker 8: Yeah well done.
[00:37:43] Speaker 11: In the Dutch Caribbean cabs are forbidden from carrying diving equipment and musical instruments meaning that you can't take an Uber when you scuba with your tuba in Aruba.
[00:37:54] Speaker 1: Thank you Lucy. At the end of that round Lucy you've managed to smuggle two truths which are that Australia went through a period of offering a cash prize to anyone found behind the wheel when sober. And the second truth is that in Iceland a driver may be stopped by the police for being under the influence of the Northern Lights. One driver told the police he saw the Aurora Borealis in the sky above him and couldn't stop looking. The police suggested he park his vehicle if he wished to continue against the sky. And that means Lucy you've scored two points. The first drink driving conviction was in ancient Rome when an inebriated charioteer ran over a vestal virgin. In punishment the driver was crucified with one nail driven through his left hand one through his right hand and one through his feet. That was when three points meant three points. Next up is Lou Sanders. One of Lou's first jobs was caring for animals in a pet shop. She left after fatally misunderstanding the instruction can you put down that baby rabbit. Lou, your subject is the Spice Girls a UK all-girl pop group of the 1990s comprising Jerry Halliwell, Melanie Chisholm, Emma Bunton, Melanie Brown and Victoria Adams. Off you go Lou.
[00:39:17] Speaker 13: Okay, the Spice Girls. When the band, that's the Spice Girl band, visited Nelson Mandela's house, the girls said meeting Nelson Mandela was their fourth best celebrity meet. However, Mr Mandela said that meeting the Spice Girls was one of the greatest moments of his life.
[00:39:32] Speaker 12: Frankie. Mandela did say that that was the greatest moment of his life. He knows.
[00:39:35] Speaker 13: He knows everything about the Spice Girls.
[00:39:39] Speaker 1: Yes, that's absolutely right. When the Spice Girls met South African President Nelson Mandela in 1997, Mandela called the girls my heroines and said, I don't want to be emotional, but this is one of the greatest moments of my life. Despite the fact that during the visit, Mel B stole toilet roll and some stones from one of his pot plants, Mandela later invited the girls to perform at his 89th and 90th birthday parties, but they declined both invitations. Lou.
[00:40:12] Speaker 13: Victoria Beckham hasn't been seen in public since the noughties. She hires a body double and even David hasn't noticed. The real Victoria Beckham is in Butlins as a resident entertainer extraordinaire. She calls herself Carol Carol and does close-up magic.
[00:40:27] Speaker 1: Henny. Does Victoria Beckham have a body double? Not as far as we know. I assume there are lookalikes. Hmm, just checking.
[00:40:37] Speaker 13: Jerry Hallowell's second marriage was annulled after she sung her own song Wannabe at her own wedding. This was followed by Carol Carol doing some close-up magic.
[00:40:47] Speaker 1: Henny. Was her second marriage annulled? No, she's only married once.
[00:40:51] Speaker 13: Emma Bunton tried to start a cult, but it backfired when she lost belief in herself and you really do need to be confident to get a cult licence.
[00:40:59] Speaker 10: Henny. Did she? I mean, I know very little about them, so it's all a lot of guesses here at my end. I'm like Frankie, I didn't follow their career so closely. Did she start a cult?
[00:41:13] Speaker 8: No, no, she didn't.
[00:41:15] Speaker 13: You've not met Emma Bunton, she wouldn't do that. Mel C was brought up as a Jehovah's Witness, which, no, no, no, no, let's start that again. It's giving you lots of thinking time. Mel C was brought up as a raised, I'll say, actually, I think that sounds better, doesn't it? It's a thing that you should do at home and then bring it in, but anyway. Mel C was raised as a Jehovah's Witness, a practice which she still dips in and out of today. Jerry Halliwell was in EastEnders for a while, playing the part of Dirty Jen when he was off sick. Sorry, I did laugh at my own joke, but it was quite funny. And in another episode, Baby Spice played a mugger beating up an old man.
[00:41:58] Speaker 1: Lucy.
[00:41:59] Speaker 11: I think Emma Bunton was in the, was it EastEnders? Yes, EastEnders.
[00:42:03] Speaker 9: Jehovah's Witnesses.
[00:42:05] Speaker 1: She was EastEnders telling us she is a television programme that Jehovah's Witnesses is a religion. And yes. You can be in both. You could be in both. Emma Bunton was in EastEnders, you're absolutely right, Lucy, and she played a mugger beating up an old man.
[00:42:22] Speaker 13: The band once got in a big argument with Duncan from Blue about his table manners, and Duncan reacted angrily by flipping the table upside down. Carol Carol thought it was a magic trick and started clapping. Do you remember Carol Carol from earlier?
[00:42:38] Speaker 10: Kelly? I'm completely lost at sea now. Did someone say, they didn't know how to use knife and fork and flip the table or something?
[00:42:49] Speaker 1: No, that's not true.
[00:42:51] Speaker 13: Okay. The outfits the ladies wore for Spice Up Your Life video fetched a total of 1.2 million at a charity auction, which is weird because back in my day, a lot of my school friends sold their pants for two pound a pop. Yeah, I'm on. I think I'll be better on radio too. It's a younger crowd.
[00:43:15] Speaker 14: Frankie. True.
[00:43:18] Speaker ?: True, yes.
[00:43:21] Speaker 1: No, I think you definitely get a point there, Frankie. And in all honesty, it's of great concern to the commissioners.
[00:43:31] Speaker 13: Victoria Beckham has a fear of electricity leaking out of her appliances and affecting her brain, so she often had a mic turned off where the Spice Girls performed. Before being in the Spice Girls, Mel C used to throw boiled potatoes at an old man for money, and Victoria Beckham used to dress up as a giant sperm on roller skates for a show on the BBC. It was called Come Dancing.
[00:43:57] Speaker 1: Thank you, Lou. And at the end of that round, Lou, you've managed to smuggle three truths past the rest of the panel, which are that Geri Halliwell sung her own song, Wannabe, at her own wedding. The second truth is that Victoria Beckham often had her mic turned off while the Spice Girls performed. In an interview with Claudia Winkleman in 2016, Victoria Beckham revealed that she often had her mic turned off. Beckham admitted they used to turn it off and just let the others sing. Luckily, because I used to wear heels, I just used to jig about a bit and I got away with it, but it never came easily. And the third truth is that Victoria Beckham used to dress up as a giant sperm on roller skates for a show on the BBC. In 1986, a 12-year-old Victoria Beckham was dressed by the BBC as a giant sperm on roller skates before appearing in a sex education video for the show Body Matters. And a funny old world, isn't it? And I will remind you, time doesn't exist. And that means, Lou, you've scored three points. To celebrate being signed by Virgin, Victoria pulled her knickers off and threw them out of her taxi window. And she's the posh one. It's now the turn of Frankie Boyle. Frankie had a regular column in the Scottish Sun, a newspaper named after a mythical yellow ball that's once said to have appeared in the sky over Glasgow. Your subject, Frankie, is Scotland, a country forming the northernmost part of Great Britain, famous for bagpipes, kilts and haggis. Off you go, Frankie.
[00:45:40] Speaker 12: Scotland's national animal is the centaur, and its national colour is ginger. The repeated spontaneous combustion of the Glasgow School of Art is now believed to be a manifestation of the city's habit of reflexively rejecting sources of beauty, as if they were a poorly matched transplant organ. Indeed, Scotland has its own donor card, which reads, after my death, I'd like my liver to be put in a jar and used in cautionary school assemblies about lifestyle choices, or for jump starting a barbecue. In Scotland, it is traditional for a woman to announce her pregnancy simply by switching to menthol cigarettes. In 2007, the Scottish Parliament and the Tourist Board of Scotland spent £125,000 coming up with the slogan, Welcome to Scotland. They then spent another £125,000 on a firm of consultants who prepared a report for them entitled You've Been Ripped Off.
[00:46:53] Speaker 10: Henning? I think I remember that they paid that money for that slogan. Yes, you're absolutely right.
[00:47:02] Speaker 1: Yes, after a six-month £125,000 campaign to replace the slogan, Scotland, the best small country in the world, it was finally revealed that the preferred suggestion, from one of Scotland's top advertising agencies was Welcome to Scotland.
[00:47:18] Speaker 12: Studies regularly show Scottish people to be the happiest in the world, largely because researchers don't understand sarcasm. Some Scottish trivia. Ben Nevis is the United Kingdom's least successful valley. The last country invaded by Scotland was Panama.
[00:47:44] Speaker 10: Henning? Scotland had a colony in Panama. They did indeed.
[00:47:48] Speaker 1: Well done. Yeah. In the late 17th century, when still an independent country not ruled by Westminster, Scotland made an attempt to create its own colonial empire by taking control of Panama, from which it could command the trade of the two great oceans of the world, the Pacific and the Atlantic. A total of £500,000 was raised for the expedition, around half of the entire country's available capital. 16 ships carrying 2,500 Scots set off to establish a colony. It was a disaster. Disease, lack of food, infighting and attacks by hostile Spanish ships wiped out the colony, and only one of the 16 ships returned with over 2,000 lives lost. The lost £500,000 almost bankrupted the Scottish economy, triggered the dissolution of the Scottish Parliament, and it's been argued was a factor in the eventual 1707 Act of Union with England. Cool. That's a bit of history. Frankie.
[00:48:43] Speaker 12: And the only time a Scottish person has ever used the word tender is when complaining that English shopkeepers won't take their money. Even though Scottish banknotes are not legal tender, not even in Scotland. In 1305, Robert the Bruce, taking refuge from battle in a cave, was inspired by a spider to spend four days trapped in a bath. Another famous Scot, the great poet Rabbie Burns, was bullied into performing several circumcisions due to the misspelling of his name on a census. Scotland can also take credit for the toddler's ball pit, its inventor being a humble hospital porter inspired by a 1970s haemorrhoid epidemic brought on by a national lack of dietary fibre.
[00:49:33] Speaker 10: Henny. Well, the Scottish people, they've invented all sorts. Did they also invent a ballpoint pen?
[00:49:40] Speaker 8: Well, that's interesting
[00:49:45] Speaker 1: speculation, but the ballpoint pen was not mentioned. I think you might have misheard ball pit for ballpoint pen. Oh, I see. Yes, no, they didn't invent the toddler's ball pit. I don't know about the ballpoint pen, although I have a vague sense it was...
[00:50:03] Speaker 11: Laszlo Byro, wasn't it? Yeah. Hungary? Can we just have another quiz? Yeah.
[00:50:08] Speaker 12: During the 1950s, Scotland briefly held the record for the fastest 100 metres, after a construction worker was blown off the top of the fourth road bridge. Indeed, the Scottish village of Bad Bay was so windy, children and animals had to be tied to rocks to stop them being blown away.
[00:50:25] Speaker 1: Low.
[00:50:26] Speaker 13: I think that might be true.
[00:50:27] Speaker 12: Yeah, that's true.
[00:50:28] Speaker 1: Yes! Yes, the now abandoned village of Bad Bay was settled by dispossessed Highlanders during the Highland clearances at the end of the 18th century. The cliff-top town was said to be so windy that children had to be tethered to posts and rocks as they played to prevent them being blown into the sea.
[00:50:49] Speaker 12: The Forth River is so named because water is the fourth most popular liquid in Scotland. Fewer than 500 people own half the land in Scotland. Indeed, the real reason the royals holiday in Balmoral is so they can use Scottish staff to teach their children about mortality in the same way that you and I would let them have a hamster. I'm afraid old jock's dead son, but he was 35. In Scottish years, that's two World Cup qualifications.
[00:51:21] Speaker 1: Lucy.
[00:51:22] Speaker 11: That land being owned in Scotland by very few people.
[00:51:25] Speaker 1: You're absolutely right, yeah. Ever since the Scottish Reformation in 1560, which saw Scotland divided up into various large hunting estates, land in Scotland has been owned by what's been described as the most exclusive cadre of landowners in the developed world. It's estimated that more than half of Scotland is owned by fewer than 500 people. I hope you're not applauding that!
[00:51:52] Speaker 12: whether the deer on the Balmoral estate get culled or not in any given year very much depends on how well the Queen hides Prince Philip's car keys.
[00:52:02] Speaker 15: Thank you, Frankie. Thank you, Frankie.
[00:52:07] Speaker 1: And at the end of that round, Frankie, you've managed to smuggle one truth past the rest of the panel, which is that Scottish banknotes are not legal tender, not even in Scotland. They are apparently legal currency and are approved by the UK Parliament, but they're not strictly legal tender. Legal tender is different from legal currency in that it relates specifically to the payment of a debt. However, despite this absence of legal protection for Scottish banknotes, the Scottish economy still seems to function perfectly well. And that means, Frankie, you've scored one point! The furthest distance a haggis has been hurled is 180 feet. It remains the all-time world record for any projectile vomit. Which brings us to the final scores. In fourth place, with no points, we have Lou Sanders. In third place, with one point, it's Henning Vane. In second place, with four points, it's Lucy Porter. And in first place, with an unassailable five points, it's this week's winner, Frankie Boyle. That's about it for this week. Goodbye.
[00:53:23] Speaker 16: The Unbelievable Truth was devised by John Naismith and Graham Garden, and featured David Mitchell in the chair, with panellists Lucy Porter, Henning Vane, Lou Sanders, and Frankie Boyle. The chairman's script was written by Dan Gaster and Colin Swash, and the producer was John Naismith. It was a random production for BBC Radio 4.
[00:53:43] Speaker ?: David Mitchell.
[00:53:44] Speaker 16: David Mitchell.
[00:53:55] Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Unbelievable Truth. You join us for our special Christmas-themed programme based around believable lies and implausible facts. For example, in Western Europe, Christmas is the 25th of December, but in Armenia, it's celebrated on January the 6th. In the Russian Orthodox Church, it's January the 7th, while in Tesco's it runs from the first week of September through to mid-February. Or as they call it, Easter. Please welcome our four guests who are going to mix Winterville fiction with Yuletide fact. They are Jack Dee, Sean Locke, Armando Iannucci, and Graham Garden. Each of the panel will present a short lecture on a given subject that should be entirely made up, save for five pieces of true information, which the panelist should attempt to smuggle past his opponents. Points are scored by truths which go unnoticed, while other panelists can win points if they spot a truth, or lose points if they mistake a truth for a lie. Let's kick off with Graham Garden. Graham, your subject is the Christmas tree, an evergreen coniferous tree that is usually brought into the home at Christmas and decorated. Fingers on buzzers, everyone else. Off you go, Graham.
[00:55:01] Speaker 4: In some parts of the world, especially where people can't afford Christmas tree decorations, the trees are garlanded for good luck with whatever is available. In Papua, New Guinea, they use banana skins. In the Ukraine, they hang cobwebs on the tree. And in Wolverhampton, old bus tickets.
[00:55:20] Speaker 17: Sean, is the banana skins true? Please. Take your time, I'm enjoying this little brief window where it might be true.
[00:55:30] Speaker 6: We're at the moment living in a world where it might be true where they use banana skins and they hang on the trees, rotting, going black, over the days and weeks of Christmas.
[00:55:39] Speaker 17: And I didn't think it through because it'd be hot as well. They'd go off quite quickly, wouldn't they?
[00:55:42] Speaker 7: Stinking their place out.
[00:55:44] Speaker 17: Yeah. Like a fridge gone bad. They could dip them in something, a local guava-based sort of lacquer. They could dip them in that.
[00:55:52] Speaker 7: They could.
[00:55:53] Speaker 17: Dip them right up till
[00:55:54] Speaker 1: probably St. Lammer's Tide. Just simply get yourself a tin of banana anti-rot. It's available everywhere. The sales of banana anti-rot in this world would be very high in Papua New Guinea around Christmas. But, no, it's not true.
[00:56:10] Speaker 7: Oh, you tell me. Either of us can tell you. Oh, I see. I know and he knows.
[00:56:16] Speaker 18: I think we all knew. Yeah.
[00:56:18] Speaker 1: I believe, yeah. No, anyway, sadly, no. They didn't.
[00:56:25] Speaker 4: One Christmas, Queen Victoria unexpectedly discovered Prince Albert polishing his collection of large silver rings and chains and clamps and other dangly baubles. He explained they were simply Christmas decorations and quickly hung them on the tree. And that is how the practice of decorating Christmas trees was started. Oxford Street Christmas lights were originally candles on huge Christmas trees outside the front of every building along the street.
[00:56:58] Speaker 1: Armando.
[00:56:59] Speaker 19: Can I suggest that might be true? No, I will say that's true. That's true. And I'm not prepared to argue about it.
[00:57:06] Speaker 1: Unfortunately, no, it's not true. I mean, if you're really not prepared to argue about it, then in a sense, you're no longer taking part in the game. So much as you're just asserting untruths publicly, like some... It's actually called a fight. Essentially, you're reduced to the level of a homeopathist, essentially, asserting the demonstrably untrue in public. It doesn't matter what's true, does it? I say that that's not true because of evidence. You say it is true because of a sort of insane need to win a panel game.
[00:57:40] Speaker 17: And you believe that two men can't live together happily in a relationship. That's, uh... That's not what
[00:57:46] Speaker 7: homeopathy is. I think...
[00:57:53] Speaker 17: I think we work that beautifully together, David.
[00:57:57] Speaker 4: I knew a homeopathist once, actually, who tried to kill himself by taking an underdose. In Germany, the festive fur has a military connection. In fact, the word spruce derives from an old word for Prussia because the Prussian army helmets originally had a spike in the shape of a Christmas tree. I'm saying that's true
[00:58:19] Speaker 18: because it sounds true.
[00:58:20] Speaker 1: Well, part of it is true, so I think I'm going to give you the point. What's true is that the word spruce derives from the old word for Prussia, but not that Prussian army helmets originally were supposed to have a... No, I didn't think that bit. It would be an oddly festive design for what is... what is essentially war dress. Now, the old word for Prussia was pruse and spruce commonly meant bought or obtained from Prussia. There was spruce fur, spruce leather and spruce beer. And spruce willis.
[00:58:52] Speaker 4: Great, Karen. There are literally millions of bugs and insects that you may unknowingly bring into your home on your Christmas tree. These include the tsetse fly, the pubic louse, the turnip moth and the needle weevil. The original artificial Christmas trees which were developed in the 18th century French court were made from goose feathers dyed green and stuck on wires. Armando. Can I say
[00:59:18] Speaker 19: I think the goose feathers is true. Yes, that's absolutely true. It would inspire blue peter.
[00:59:23] Speaker 1: Nothing to do with the 18th century French court. Artificial trees were made from goose feathers dyed green. I can't imagine anything looking more like a tree than a green bird and stuck on wires and they originated in Germany in about 1845.
[00:59:36] Speaker 18: As if Christmas wasn't bad enough luck for geese already. I suppose it's using
[00:59:41] Speaker 7: all parts of the goose isn't it? I suppose it is.
[00:59:43] Speaker 1: We'll eat the middle and make a tree out of the outside.
[00:59:46] Speaker 19: Then you could hang the giblets for decorations couldn't you?
[00:59:49] Speaker 1: Like in Papi New Guinea. Thank you, Graham.
[00:59:54] Speaker 9: The end.
[00:59:54] Speaker 1: The end. So, Graham, at the end of that round you've managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel and they are that in the Ukraine they do hang cobwebs on the tree.
[01:00:10] Speaker 17: So close, wasn't I?
[01:00:11] Speaker 1: Yeah. Sort of. Close in terms of it was in the same sentence. And the other truth is that an insect you might unknowingly bring into your home on your Christmas tree is the turnip moth which is a terrible parasite on conifers. Serious point there. And, um, so that means Graham, you scored two points.
[01:00:31] Speaker ?: Thank you.
[01:00:33] Speaker 1: Christmas trees were first popularised in Britain by Prince Albert who brought Queen Victoria an eight-foot spruce from Germany for Christmas in 1841. In return, Victoria gave Albert something to help keep him warm while out hunting. East Africa. Okay, we turn now to Jack Dee. In 2001, Jack Dee was asked to take part in the first celebrity Big Brother. Initially reluctant, Jack did eventually agree to appear, albeit with a big butt, which was amply provided by Vanessa Feltz. Your subject, Jack, is Charles Dickens, one of the most popular English novelists of the 19th century whose short novel A Christmas Carol has prompted people the world over to associate Christmas with Victorian England. Fingers on buzzers everyone else. Off you go, Jack.
[01:01:17] Speaker 18: Like all writers and people like that, Dickens was an asthmatic and was in the habit of treating his symptoms with generous doses of opium.
[01:01:26] Speaker 1: Sean. Was he asthmatic? He was asthmatic and he was also in the habit of treating his symptoms with opium.
[01:01:33] Speaker 18: Jack. Charles Dickens belonged to an asthmatic sports club which he joined for a wheeze. Early in his marriage, Dickens made a bet with his wife, whom he lovingly referred to as Pig, that he would name at least... John. I think he did call his wife Pig. You think again, you think again, do you? Yeah.
[01:01:58] Speaker 7: Well, so far it's doing me pretty good. Do you think that or do you think you knew that?
[01:02:04] Speaker 17: No, I think that.
[01:02:05] Speaker 7: You think you think that?
[01:02:06] Speaker 17: I think he called his wife... Do you know you think that? Oh, no, that was John Peel called his wife the pig, wasn't it? No, it was actually Charles Dickens. It was Charles Dickens.
[01:02:18] Speaker 18: Jack. Yeah, so Dickens made a promise to his wife Pig that he would name at least one unusual animal in each of his novels, hence the passage in Bleak House that describes a zebra and the mention of a kangaroo in David Copperfield. Dickens had a pet raven called Grip.
[01:02:36] Speaker 4: Graham. I think he did have a pet raven called Grip.
[01:02:41] Speaker 1: Yes, he did have it without the question mark. I think it was an exclamation mark. He was called... Grip. Grip. It's called Grip. Not Grip. How would he actually... You could destroy a child psychologically by putting a question mark at the end of his name.
[01:02:55] Speaker 4: Yeah, but I mean, a raven, you might come across a crowd of ravens and you just go up to each one and say Grip. And when it nodded, you'd know that you'd found yours. Yeah. Take it home.
[01:03:05] Speaker 1: But in that case, the interrogative inflection is because you're asking the raven a question. Yes. Not because it's actually part of its name. And you'd have to put double interrogative inflection to do that to a raven whose actual name, when said without any inflection, is Grip. You'd have to go, GRIP? He did have a raven called Grip and he loved it so much that when it died, he had it mounted. He had it mounted. And it's currently to be seen in the third floor rare books department of Philadelphia's free library. So that's an interesting day out
[01:03:44] Speaker 18: for people. Grip had followed Dickens back from the Tower of London where he had gone to visit his friend Barnaby Rudge, a beef eater, who of course was later to be featured in his novel Martin Chuzzlewit. Rudge was to successfully sue Dickens for getting his name wrong and with the proceeds started a chain of deeply unpleasant restaurants which he named Beef Eater Inns. Now desperately poor... Armando.
[01:04:11] Speaker 19: It is true that Beef Eater Inns are deeply unpleasant.
[01:04:13] Speaker 1: I don't think I can give you a point merely for pointing out that there is a chain of restaurants called Beef Eater Inns which, in my opinion...
[01:04:26] Speaker 19: Bear in mind they are sponsoring tonight's program.
[01:04:30] Speaker 1: ...are the finest establishments that humanity has ever contrived on.
[01:04:37] Speaker 18: Yeah. Thank you, David. So, now desperately poor Charles Dickens moved to Scotland to be with other poor people. There he hit upon the idea of confusing everybody by calling his next book A Christmas Carol. This featured a lazy hypochondriac called Tiny Tim. Interestingly, if this kind of thing interests you, Dickens arrived at the name Tiny Tim after first considering Little Larry, Puny Pete and Small Sam. Sean.
[01:05:11] Speaker 17: I might as well... Er, one of those is true. Does it matter which? Puny Pete, Tiny... I forgot they're called now. Tiny Larry? Little Larry, Puny Pete and Small Sam. And Mick the Midget.
[01:05:26] Speaker 1: Actually, he considered all three. That's all true that he considered Little Larry, Puny Pete and Small Sam. I think we can see the way the great man was thinking.
[01:05:35] Speaker ?: Yeah.
[01:05:36] Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Jack. So, at the end of that, Jack, you've managed to smuggle only one truth past the rest of the panel, which is that Dickens' novel David Copperfield includes a reference to a kangaroo. It's the only one of his novels to do so. So, Jack, that means you've scored one point. Charles Dickens' works were banned during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Not only were they considered by the Chinese to be the bourgeois ramblings of a decadent lackey, but they also caused 600 million of them to suffer seizures trying to say Oliver Twist. Right. Right, it's now the turn of Sean Locke. Sean's handled by the same management agency who put Jonathan Ross where he is today, watching a lot of daytime TV. Your subject, Sean, is the turkey, a large poultry bird which is traditionally eaten as the main course at Christmas in much of the world or at Thanksgiving in the United States and Canada. Fingers on buzzers the rest of you. Off you go, Sean. Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat. Graham.
[01:06:38] Speaker 4: True.
[01:06:43] Speaker 1: Yes, there's no doubt that Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat. In fact, all, yeah, yeah, that is point.
[01:06:50] Speaker 18: Sure, Sean. Sorry. Yeah. Sean, you haven't by mistake just done all true things about the turkeys, have you? I've used some words
[01:07:00] Speaker 17: that are true in sequence.
[01:07:03] Speaker 18: I knew they shouldn't have had you on the stern.
[01:07:04] Speaker 17: I was trying to put a bit of a theme. I was trying to put a festive tone to the piece. Goose is getting fat and then there's something about an old man and a hat but that's not my point. Goose is too fat so it had no chance when the lean but plump turkey appeared on the outside lane of the Christmas dinner race because it is a race. Those jokes about turkeys not looking forward to Christmas are ignorant of the fact that turkeys have no fear. They are the Steven Seagal of the poultry world. not because they are trained in kung fu, no, because a small part of their brain is missing. King Charles I's favourite dwarf was encouraged to fight several bouts with a turkey. One of those traditions I feel we let go too easily.
[01:07:55] Speaker 19: I'd like to think that's true. Well, it is. Yeah.
[01:08:08] Speaker 17: Okay. Israel eats more turkey per head than any other country on earth. Fact.
[01:08:16] Speaker 18: Jack, I was alerted to the way Sean flagged up that.
[01:08:27] Speaker 1: It's true that they eat more turkey per head in Israel than any other country on earth. So, yes, well done, that's true. Carry on.
[01:08:36] Speaker 17: But in Turkey they don't like turkey. It's called the American bird and the people of Turkey resent their association with this ridiculous bird and the turkey was never more ridiculous than walking to London from Norfolk in leather boots.
[01:08:54] Speaker 4: Walking to London in leather boots, I think they did.
[01:08:57] Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah, absolutely right. They did. Pigs wore knitted boots with leather soles.
[01:09:02] Speaker 17: The longest turkey drove ever took place in 1810 when a French turkey farmer wanted to prove to Napoleon that the birds could march proudly alongside his army. They marched 600 miles from northern France to the Alps. Imagine after a hard day's march trying to sleep over the constant clucking and squawking of your new recruits. You expected a gobbling joke there, but only the male gobbles and they weren't used for this purpose. Armando.
[01:09:29] Speaker 19: Well, it's true. I was expecting a gobbling joke and I think it's true that only the male gobbles. It is absolutely true
[01:09:35] Speaker 1: that only the male gobbles. Yeah. The female turkey make gentle clucking and clicking sounds.
[01:09:41] Speaker 7: Sounds dismissive. Sounds sweet.
[01:09:44] Speaker 1: Clucking and clicking. I don't think turkeys are sweet. I think they're ludicrous creatures. And I think one of the few things to recommend them is that they make an odd gobbling noise. And the turkeys that don't even do that, well, they're beneath contempt. And therefore must die. Well, I mean, they're only going to die. They're only brought into existence to die, weren't they? Delicious. Happy Christmas.
[01:10:09] Speaker 17: According to research scientists at the University of Minnesota, 60% of people who prefer the lean white breast meat as opposed to the darker meat are more likely to stay in a stable relationship. Although, in my humble opinion, the best part is the dripping on toast on Boxing Day morning. Jack.
[01:10:29] Speaker 18: That must be true because you've just said in your humble opinion.
[01:10:33] Speaker 7: But at this point, I can't say whether that is genuinely Sean's humble opinion. Only he can. Sean, is that genuinely your humble opinion? No, I don't like it.
[01:10:45] Speaker 18: Right. So in that case, I'm going to come round to your house on Christmas Day and make sure you don't eat any dripping.
[01:10:54] Speaker 17: No, it's actually, I'm lying. It's true. I love turkey dripping. I don't know what that means now.
[01:10:59] Speaker 7: I mean, where does that, where does that put me?
[01:11:01] Speaker 17: Well, the problem I have is I absolutely love turkey dripping. If I was on death row, my last meal would be turkey dripping. That can be arranged.
[01:11:13] Speaker 7: You are absolutely in the perfect position to deny Jack a point there. I know, but I've got turkey dripping so much I couldn't lie about it. I couldn't, I couldn't deny it. That's actually incredibly moving. Yes, it is. But when it came to it, your love of turkey dripping mattered more than this show. Yes. I'm not going to, I'm not going to go on the radio and deny my love for turkey dripping. What have I become then?
[01:11:40] Speaker 17: It's fantastic. It's like the caviar of the turkey. It's like the purest essence of flavour and taste you can ever experience in your life.
[01:11:50] Speaker 7: Well, I think it's been established beyond doubt that you do like turkey dripping. Yes. And therefore, I have to give Jack a point.
[01:12:00] Speaker 1: Yes. Thank you very much, Sean. And you only managed to smuggle one truth past the rest of the panel, Sean, which was in Turkey, the turkey is called the American bird. Which means, Sean, you've scored one point. Okay. It's now the turn of Armando Inucci. Your subject, Armando, is Father Christmas, also known as Santa Claus or St. Nicholas, the figure who in most Western cultures is described as bringing gifts on Christmas Eve. Off you go, Armando.
[01:12:32] Speaker 19: Well, I was surprised by my research into Father Christmas to discover that not every country believes Santa comes down the chimney. In parts of Eastern Europe, he arrives in the post. And in Spain, he comes out the taps. That's why many Spanish... That's why many Spanish fathers pretending to be Santa end up with severe spinal injuries. If you shave Santa's beard off and tidy his hair, he looks like Martin McGuinness.
[01:13:02] Speaker 17: That would be true, wouldn't it?
[01:13:05] Speaker 18: I don't know.
[01:13:05] Speaker 19: I don't think it's been done.
[01:13:07] Speaker 18: I'm just guessing. You know when those Spanish people hurt their backs coming out? Is that what they call tapas? I actually did think of it at the time but didn't bother coming in with it. I rather wish I hadn't. But it is Christmas. I'm like a human cracker.
[01:13:25] Speaker 7: The great thing about a cracker joke compared to this experience is when you read a cracker joke, you don't then have to deal with the remorse of the person who wrote it.
[01:13:36] Speaker 19: Because if the joke goes badly, there's always a plastic key ring. Yes.
[01:13:40] Speaker 1: And there's the hat. I might be alone in this, but I always slightly judge people by how long they keep the hat on. People who are quite keen to get rid of it early I think of as vain and not fun.
[01:13:56] Speaker 17: I was glad you said that. I thought you were going to have a go at the people who keep it on for quite some time. No.
[01:14:00] Speaker 7: No, I am one
[01:14:01] Speaker 1: of those people. I keep it on. Are you last? I'm one of the last people to take it off. Absolutely. I keep it on so long that when I take it off it feels like it's still there.
[01:14:16] Speaker 19: Oh, no, carry on. The Dutch knew St. Nicholas as Sinti Klaas which is where we get Santa Claus from. That's true.
[01:14:25] Speaker 17: The Dutch did call him Sinti Klaas.
[01:14:27] Speaker 1: That is true and that is where we get Santa Claus from. So, yep. Well done. That's a point. Thank you.
[01:14:35] Speaker 19: Sinti Klaas is believed to have been present at the Council of Nicaea in AD 325 at which the date of Christmas was fixed.
[01:14:44] Speaker 4: Graham. Everybody knows that.
[01:14:47] Speaker 1: He is believed to have been present at the Council of Nicaea and that is when they fix the date of Christmas.
[01:14:53] Speaker 19: The council settled for Christmas Day. The names of Father Christmas's six reindeer are Rudolf, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand. Among the reindeer Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross get up to all sorts of tricks most of which are amusing but some of which are unacceptable. Father Christmas lives in a place called Lapland which is why he's frequently confused with Peter Stringfellow.
[01:15:27] Speaker 18: Jack. Father Christmas is well documented he lives in Lapland.
[01:15:34] Speaker 1: No, he doesn't live
[01:15:34] Speaker 18: in the North Pole. Yeah.
[01:15:37] Speaker 1: In 2001
[01:15:39] Speaker 18: There are no reindeer in the North Pole.
[01:15:43] Speaker 1: There are his there.
[01:15:46] Speaker 18: They're not normal reindeer, Jack.
[01:15:48] Speaker 19: They can fly. Yes. In 2001 a Mother Christmas sued a US store for $100,000 because she was sacked for having breasts. If you laid out the beard... John.
[01:16:01] Speaker 17: I think that's probably true. Yes, that is true. Yes. Did she have breasts on display or something? Was that part of the... No, I don't think so. Like Santa's grotto you come in you get a present.
[01:16:13] Speaker 19: If you laid out the beards of all the world's Father Christmases end to end it would make a rope stretching all the way to the sun. The rope would instantly catch fire sending a ball of flame hurtling to the earth. The only man who could stop it would be Bruce Willis. It is no wonder then that research in New York stores found that only 1% of children were happy or exhilarated to meet Santa Claus 82% were indifferent and 16% were hesitant.
[01:16:50] Speaker 17: I think that's probably true as well. Yes, that is true. Every time I take my children they hate it they're terrified. They would rather have like root canal work done than go into Santa's grotto.
[01:17:02] Speaker 19: maybe you take them to a grotto where there's a woman exposing herself.
[01:17:07] Speaker 17: Kids don't like it they really don't like it.
[01:17:10] Speaker 7: My brother wouldn't have his stocking in his bedroom because he didn't like the idea of a strange man sneak even a gift bearing strange man. Whereas you did like the idea.
[01:17:24] Speaker 18: You're saying I was a flirt with Father Christmas. I think you put the stockings on and waited for him. I think that's
[01:17:35] Speaker 17: the truth of it. Standing on your bed with your hands on your hips with two stockings on like those Emmanuel posters with your back to the chimney.
[01:17:52] Speaker 7: Please carry on.
[01:17:55] Speaker 19: The original Santa Claus was a wild grey bear who would mark his territory by pooing on it and then squirting it with scent. The Santa droppings were distinctive brightly coloured cubes which came to be known as pre-sents or presents. And this is why we give brightly coloured presents to children. and why also after three days they're completely crap. Santa has more mail than any other fictional or divine entity.
[01:18:26] Speaker 1: That's probably true. Yes, that is true. And in fact Armando was going to go on to say
[01:18:31] Speaker 19: God and Sherlock Holmes come next in terms of getting mail. However, unlike God and Sherlock Holmes Santa Claus does exist. Santa Claus does exist.
[01:18:44] Speaker 7: True. The spirit of Christmas that's true. Yes, that is absolutely true. You get a point.
[01:18:51] Speaker 19: Is that you therefore definitively saying that God doesn't exist?
[01:18:55] Speaker 1: No, that Santa does exist. Look, I'm very happy to say anything about God but let's not get seriously blasphemous. You know what Christmas is about? What we all believe in at Christmas is the magic man with the free stuff. So, Sean gets a point. Yes. And let's move on. Thank you Armando. So, Armando at the end of that round you've managed to smuggle no truths past the rest of the panel which means you've scored no points. Which brings us to the final scores. In fourth place with no points we have Armando Iannucci. In third place with one point it's Jack Dee. In second place with three points it's Graham Garden. And in first place with an unassailable five points it's the winner of our Christmas special Sean Locke. That's just about it but before we go a quick word about dogs. According to a recent survey three out of ten British dogs are giving us Christmas gifts. But remember a dog isn't just for Christmas. A large one can provide sandwiches right through to New Year. And with that thanks to our guests they were incredible and that's The Unbelievable Truth.
[01:20:20] Speaker 16: The Unbelievable Truth was devised by John Naismith and Gray and God.
[01:20:28] Speaker 1: Welcome to The Unbelievable Truth the panel game about eerily plausible lies and wholly unlikely truths and specifically to our special New Year's edition of the show. So you join us at that difficult post-Christmas time of the year when it's not just Pete Doherty who's dealing with the trauma of cold turkey. And a little message for all of those aunts and uncles who are settling down on the sofa to listen to us. Go home! You've outstayed your welcome! You've done nothing except sit around being weighted on hand and foot now sod off! This is a show with two themes. It's both our New Year's special and a tribute to our fact-obsessed friends at the excellent television show QI. To prove it please welcome our four panellists here to cast off the tattered remains of 2009 and embrace the shiny treat of 2010. They are QI's divisor and producer John Lloyd frequent guest Rob Bryden and stars Alan Davis and Stephen Fry. These are the rules. Each panellist will present a short lecture that should be entirely false save for five pieces of true information which they should attempt to smuggle past their opponents skillfully concealed amongst the lies. Points are scored by truths that go unnoticed while other panellists can win points if they spot a truth or lose points if they mistake a lie for a truth. Challenges are made via our hilarious state-of-the-art buzzer system. For the purpose of clarification Stephen goes. Rob goes.
[01:21:58] Speaker 7: John goes. And Alan goes.
[01:22:09] Speaker 1: Let's kick off with Rob Bryden. Apart from his appearances on QI you'll of course know Rob as a regular on the BBC One panel show Would I Lie to You where he plays the highly entertaining sidekick to David Mitchell. Rob, your subject is a particularly common one at this time of year. It's snow. The solid form of water that crystallises in the atmosphere at temperatures below freezing before falling to the ground in the form of flakes. Fingers on buzzers everyone else. Off you go Rob. Well, we all love snow.
[01:22:37] Speaker 20: It's a miracle that in all the snow that falls on earth from pole to pole each and every snowflake is perfectly symmetrical. Alan.
[01:22:47] Speaker 21: I think it's true that they're symmetrical. I knew that noise would start seeping into my real life.
[01:22:59] Speaker 7: It's only a matter of time. Now, I'm afraid Alan, that's not true. No, not true. But many people think it is. Right, of course. Yes. Led by me, the leader of the many wrong people.
[01:23:12] Speaker 1: That is, of course, the famous QI a klaxon noise which we will be playing in when you think you've spotted a truth but in fact it's just a humiliating common misconception.
[01:23:21] Speaker 20: Right, carry on. Children at a Norfolk school have been banned from referring to snowmen and told to instead refer to them as snowpeople. So, uh, Stephen.
[01:23:30] Speaker 22: I mean, that's the sort of thing that horribly sounds true and I'm afraid Norfolk, my beloved county, does make mistakes like this all the time. I think they banned conkers at one point so I'm going to suggest it might be true. It is not true. No, boom, bother. And yet, in a way, I'm glad.
[01:23:44] Speaker 1: Yeah, that particular piece of ridiculous political correctness hasn't happened.
[01:23:47] Speaker 20: So, carry on, Rob. They've also been told not to throw a snowball without first asking the permission of their target. True. Alan. Yes, that is true, Alan. As Sami Khan said in the song You Can't Have Too Much Snow, it's rarely disruptive to public events with two exceptions. In June 1975, a cricket match between Stephen.
[01:24:14] Speaker 22: This is true. This is true in Derbyshire. And the umpire was Dickie Bird. That's very impressive. And that's... You just know. It snowed in June. Yeah, no, it's well done.
[01:24:27] Speaker 1: There was a cricket match in 1975 between Derbyshire and Lancashire which was sort of snowed off. It was in June. First of June.
[01:24:34] Speaker ?: Rob.
[01:24:34] Speaker 20: As recently as 1989, the town of Bath had to cancel its outdoor winter wonderland extravaganza due to too much snow. John. I thought it was about time
[01:24:44] Speaker 23: I said something. I think that's true. It's not true. No.
[01:24:51] Speaker 20: Don't be downhearted by their pity. In New York, the snowfall is much more convenient than in Bath, tending to fall only on a Friday or Sunday when the clean-up can be performed with minimum disruption. Scientists at Leicester University were surprised to find that snowmen actually have feelings just like plants. This was a theory first put forward by the wealthy Frenchwoman Madame de la Bresset who left a large sum of money in her will to provide clothes for snowmen.
[01:25:22] Speaker 22: Stephen. I should imagine that sort of thing a wealthy Frenchwoman might well do. It absolutely is. Well done.
[01:25:29] Speaker 1: It's actually Madame de la, I don't know if it's Bress or Bresset, was an otherwise unremarkable French eccentric, that's an odd phrase, but until she died in 1876 and her heirs discovered her will in which she left her entire fortune of 125,000 francs to properly clothe snowmen for the sake of la décence. So she was obviously a terrible prude.
[01:25:54] Speaker 20: The Nepalese word for the abominable snowman is METO KANGMI. John. I think that's true.
[01:26:01] Speaker 1: It is.
[01:26:01] Speaker 20: Well done.
[01:26:06] Speaker 1: METO KANGMI which means the indescribably filthy man of the snow. It sort of brings the abominable snowman down to the level of a cold tramp
[01:26:17] Speaker 7: in a skip.
[01:26:21] Speaker 20: According to official advice, if you're ever trapped in an avalanche and you don't know which way to dig yourself out, you should urinate to see which direction the yellow stain spreads. Alan.
[01:26:32] Speaker 21: Yeah, that's true. Or also you can spit. You're supposed to emit some sort of bodily fluid. Urine's an option. Because you don't know which way up you are, so you don't know
[01:26:44] Speaker 7: how to get to the surface. You're supposed to spit. I think spitting
[01:26:47] Speaker 1: might be something that people sometimes do but the urinating story came from an urban myth developed from an unsubstantiated news story in which a man trapped in his car in an avalanche is supposed to have peed his way out by drinking 60 bottles of beer he had with him. That, if you ask me, is the story of a man who's drunk 60 bottles of beer, arrived home covered in piss and thinks up a rather ingenious story
[01:27:16] Speaker 7: about wine. Thank you, Rob.
[01:27:24] Speaker 1: So, Rob, at the end of that round you managed to smuggle one truth past the rest of the panel which is that in New York...
[01:27:30] Speaker 21: In New York on Fridays and Sundays I knew it. It is that one, yes.
[01:27:36] Speaker 1: I'm afraid you're too late. A study of the biggest snowfalls in the last 68 years shows that 54% of them fall on Friday or Sunday when the clean-up can be accomplished with minimum inconvenience. According to the law of averages, only 28.6% should have fallen on those two days. So, Rob, that means you've scored one point! Yay! In 1944 it was snow that saved the life of Flight Sergeant Nicholas Alkmaid, an RAF tail gunner who jumped from his flaming British Lancaster bomber and fell 19,000 feet without a parachute. He bounced off a fir tree and landed in a snow drift without even breaking a bone and remained sitting in the snow quietly smoking a cigarette when he was discovered. Six months later he died of lung cancer. We turn now to John Lloyd. John was involved in creating the savagely satirical spitting image at the height of Thatcherism and, sure enough, just 14 short years later Labour swept to power. Your subject, John, is tax, an amount of money levied by a government on its citizens traditionally at the start of the new year. Interestingly, the fact that our tax year begins and ends in the spring is in fact a hangover from the time before Britain changed to the Gregorian calendar in 1752. Until then, we British celebrated New Year's Day on the 25th of March. OK, fingers on buzzers everyone else. Off you go, John.
[01:28:50] Speaker 23: Tax is a truly fascinating subject. As everyone knows, the tax New Year's Eve in the UK is January the 5th. In Scotland, Income Tax Day is commonly known as Hog Money Day. The words tax, taxidermy and taxi all come from the same Greek verb tapine, Stephen.
[01:29:20] Speaker 22: Yes, I think that's more or less true, isn't it?
[01:29:22] Speaker 23: Yes, it is. Totally true. The poet W.B. Yeats who incidentally was born on New Year's Day, 1873, Alan.
[01:29:34] Speaker 21: Do you think that might be true, Stephen? I don't know, to be honest.
[01:29:37] Speaker 7: What really is birthed he was? Well, firstly, no. And secondly, I'm disturbed that Alan has now taken to buzzing and then conferring.
[01:29:48] Speaker 21: Well, it just occurred to me that I've got Stephen next to me. It seems silly to waste. It's more about W.B. Yeats than I do.
[01:29:56] Speaker 22: He died in the midwinter, though, didn't he? See, it's a sort of thing. Auden wrote that poem. The day of his death was a cold one. There's a line from the lines in memory of W.B. Yeats. Unless, of course, he died in June 1975. 1975.
[01:30:13] Speaker 23: The poet W.B. Yeats used to supplement his meagre income by driving a taxi in Dublin. He had a little yellow sign on the top of the cab reading Innis Free. In the 1930s, the Inland Revenue investigated his tax returns because they couldn't believe a poet of his stature had sales that were so small. Rob, I think that could be true.
[01:30:34] Speaker 20: Yes, that is true.
[01:30:35] Speaker 8: Yes.
[01:30:37] Speaker 20: Can I make an admission that I was greatly helped in getting that one right by seeing Stephen's hand begin to move towards his buzzer? My speed and agility was my friend.
[01:30:49] Speaker 7: It's like when people talk about publishing all the pay at the BBC, like,
[01:30:56] Speaker 6: I can't believe W.B. Yeats only earned that much. It's obviously going to be embarrassing for all the people that earn a fortune of what a waste of money on these celebrities, but there are also going to be people who the public rather imagine are very well paid and basically doing it for free to get out of the house. I don't think Brucey gets paid anymore. I think they give him a bit of lacquer, a couple of electric shocks. Wheel him out there.
[01:31:23] Speaker 23: John. The word vulture gets its name from Quintus Vulturus Trabo, the Roman consul in charge of Emperor Nero's notorious bagpipe tax. The right to bear arms, the right to remain silent and the right to make hideous screeching noises in New York at any time of day or night are enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, which is why bagpipes can enter America tax-free. German tax collector Karl Dobermann was not welcome when he came to collect money, so to protect himself he bred large, fierce dogs that became known as Dobermann Pinchers.
[01:31:53] Speaker 20: I think that's true.
[01:31:54] Speaker 23: Rob, yes, that is true. Well done. On the very day it was announced that PAYE was to be introduced into Britain, Sir Kingsley Wood, pioneer of PAYE and one-time Chancellor of the Exchequer, collapsed and died. As a sign of respect, pound notes were printed with a black margin. At the Council of Yalta on the 31st of December 1944, Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill introduced international taxes on cigars, moustaches and wheelchairs and then had a jolly good laugh and then had a jolly good laugh about it. Thank you, John.
[01:32:34] Speaker 1: At the end of that round, John, you've managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel, which are that bagpipes can enter America tax-free. And the second truth is that on the very day that it was announced that PAYE was to be introduced into Britain, Sir Kingsley Wood, you don't get extra points, by the way, for the, oh, I knew that. So that means, John, you've scored two points. In the first century, the tax-hungry Emperor Nero went as far as imposing a tax on the collection of urine. This was widely considered to be taking the piss. Right, it's now the turn of Stephen Fry. What can I possibly say about this man that hasn't already been said? Well, how about he's stupid, heterosexual and good at sport. Your subject, Stephen, is champagne, a white sparkling wine produced in the Champagne region of north-eastern France, often consumed at New Year and other times of celebration. Fingers on buzzers the rest of you. Off you go, Stephen.
[01:33:31] Speaker 22: It was champagne aficionado William Hewitt Gladstone who came up with the rollicking witticism, real pain for sham friends, champagne for real friends. Ha, ha, ha, ha. The Drusoxylla bacterium present in all champagne causes burping in women and flatulence in men.
[01:33:53] Speaker 10: Well, that's ringing bells
[01:33:54] Speaker 22: with me, yes.
[01:33:57] Speaker 7: That's a bit about the burping in the fart. Women do burp sometimes and men do farts. Oh, but it's not caused by this... No, no bacterium
[01:34:07] Speaker 22: called Drusoxylla, no. Sorry. The Queen of Drinks and Drink of Queens, Oscar Wilde called champagne and certainly it has royal associations that include Frederick the Great of Prussia using champagne instead of water in his coffee.
[01:34:19] Speaker 23: Yes? That's true, I think. It is true, Frederick the Great. Yes, it is.
[01:34:23] Speaker 22: He also liked a bit of mustard in his coffee. Any bubbles that are considered too big by the great champagne houses of Epernay are sold onto Nestle for use in the production of Aero bars. Putting a teaspoon into the neck of an opened bottle of champagne actually prevents the champagne from going flat. That's true.
[01:34:47] Speaker 1: Yes, no, that's not true at all. I don't think it hurts but I think the reason people think it does is because when they do that they often also return the champagne to the fridge and keeping it in the fridge keeps it fizzier for longer.
[01:35:05] Speaker 21: Why don't you drink the bottle of champagne?
[01:35:07] Speaker 1: Yeah. Why don't you drink
[01:35:09] Speaker 21: the bottle of champagne and then put the champagne
[01:35:11] Speaker 1: in the fridge? That's actually a slightly serious mattering of applause there. Yeah. It's advocating finish it. Have the full whatever it is 14 units on your own glumly then get in the car and just
[01:35:26] Speaker 7: go round there and say what you think.
[01:35:35] Speaker 20: When my wife and I have champagne we have a little pump.
[01:35:38] Speaker 22: I'm sorry?
[01:35:41] Speaker 20: We do. If we've had a few oh I see what you're doing. If we have a few glasses of champagne but we haven't finished the whole Jeroboam we pop a little rubber and we let the pumping begin. You put a condom on the top of the bottle is that what I'm saying? We pop a little rubber bung in the top with a special and then we pump it with wine or champagne and for the champagne it retains its fizziness. So I don't know I said fizziness then. That's true. There we are. Carry on.
[01:36:16] Speaker 22: The wire guard that holds on the cork is known as a capote anglaise. John. I'll go for the capote anglaise.
[01:36:24] Speaker 1: No, that's French slang for a condom.
[01:36:30] Speaker 23: Time for another of your routines.
[01:36:33] Speaker 20: There's nothing my wife and I enjoy more.
[01:36:38] Speaker 22: Carry on. Right, yes. A young Giacometti would beg for discarded ones from the back kitchens of Maxime's restaurant in Paris which he would use for his early maquettes and sculptures while Modigliani used scorched champagne corks instead of charcoal on some of his drawings.
[01:36:53] Speaker 21: They do do that. People do use cork for drawings. Is that true?
[01:36:57] Speaker 22: It's not true.
[01:36:59] Speaker 21: They used to use it for what's called
[01:37:01] Speaker 22: blacking up for minstrel shows for the skin burnt cork.
[01:37:04] Speaker 21: What about the other one about the guy with the Giacometti and the thing with the making the thing down there? You're making up things using actual artists and people from there. It all sounds true to me. Can I just ask
[01:37:15] Speaker 7: in advance of your lecture? Yes. We're hoping. Have you not made anything up? Are you just planning to read out five truths? In such a way that they appear untrue.
[01:37:34] Speaker 22: Except they're numbered one to five.
[01:37:37] Speaker 21: I'll change the numbers around.
[01:37:39] Speaker ?: Don't worry about that.
[01:37:42] Speaker 22: Anyway, the sporting associations are many and various. originally table tennis of course used champagne corks for balls and in an attempt to save money next year's F1 Grand Prix season will give podium winners a choice of Waitrose Carver or Sainsbury's Prosecco instead of the traditional vintage champagne. Sorry, I'm a bit slow
[01:38:00] Speaker 23: but the champagne corks used as table tennis balls. Would that be true?
[01:38:05] Speaker 1: Yes, that is true. I thought I got away with that one. Very good. No, that's absolutely true. The story goes that in 1881 some British officers carved a ball from a champagne cork and used cigar box covers to bat it back and forth over a pile of books across a table.
[01:38:19] Speaker 22: In America there's a movement dedicated to getting the International Olympic Committee to recognise champagne cork flying as an official sport. The longest flight of a champagne cork was 177 feet and 9 inches which is 4 feet above ground level recorded in upstate New York. Alan.
[01:38:37] Speaker 21: Yes, yes, yes. Yes, that's true.
[01:38:43] Speaker 22: If considered a luxury item today at times of water shortage in the 1890s in London champagne was used for washing coaches and of course today it is nothing like as expensive as computer inkjet printer ink. Churchill himself was allergic to champagne while Gordon Brown gets through two cases a week of cristal.
[01:39:05] Speaker 21: I'm going to go with Churchill being allergic to champagne. No, he loved it.
[01:39:09] Speaker 22: Paul Roget was his favourite one. They actually named one after him.
[01:39:13] Speaker 7: He was perpetually pissed. That's why he was brave enough to fight Hitler. Literally all the sober people were saying give up we haven't got a chance. In comes a drunk. Yeah!
[01:39:30] Speaker 22: I'll take him.
[01:39:32] Speaker 7: I'll have him.
[01:39:34] Speaker 22: The seven stages of champagne intoxication are known as happy, bashful, sleepy, dopey, clumsy, noisy and pukey. Happy New Year. Thank you, Stephen.
[01:39:48] Speaker 1: And at the end of that round, Stephen, you've managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel which are that at times of water shortage in London in the 1890s, champagne was used for washing coaches. There were terrible shortages because of drought then. It was particularly bad in London where all the plumbing was rubbish in those days. And the other truth is that today champagne is nothing like as expensive as computer inkjet printer ink. And that means you scored two points. Okay, it's now the turn of comedian and actor Alan Davis. Alan once refused to appear on an episode of QI as the recording clashed with Arsenal's appearance in the Champions League final. Coincidentally, Arsenal striker Robin Van Persie had withdrawn from their team as he had tickets to see a recording of QI. In anticipation of the Chinese New Year, which in 2010 will be the year of the tiger, your subject, Alan, is tigers, those large carnivorous cats which are commonly identified by their distinctive yellow-orange coats and black stripes. Off you go, Alan.
[01:40:48] Speaker 21: As the poet William Blake pointed out...
[01:40:51] Speaker 23: You're laughing, I said William Blake it's loud. Well, he definitely pointed something out. It's not going to be true.
[01:41:02] Speaker 8: I've got the sheet,
[01:41:07] Speaker 1: remember.
[01:41:09] Speaker 21: As the poet William Blake pointed out, tigers are an excellent source of fuel.
[01:41:13] Speaker 1: See?
[01:41:16] Speaker 21: However, it was only in the 1970s that zoologists realised that tigers' stripes change from one day to the next. It's thought to be a form of communication indicating the animal's mood to other tigers. Closely packed, narrow stripes indicate agitation, while broader, less densely coloured stripes indicate nonchalance.
[01:41:39] Speaker ?: In fact,
[01:41:39] Speaker 21: it's not the fur that changes colour, but the tiger's striped skin beneath. The markings on the tiger's forehead often resemble the Chinese symbol Wang, meaning king. And if you ever see the big cat at its jungle home, you'll soon realise that the tiger really is Wang.
[01:41:53] Speaker ?: King.
[01:41:58] Speaker 21: Although the tiger's natural home is New Zealand, specimens were imported into India and China, where they were greatly valued for their dung, which was the original source of monosodium glutamate. Modern Western medicine makes great use of the tiger. Its liver is a rich source of vitamin D and its spleen is antibiotic. Unfortunately, its whiskers can be extremely poisonous. Gopher Tiger Woods was actually christened Bunny. When he was born, he had remarkably large ears. Just on the bunny thing, how very apt. In the Great Ice Age, the modern tiger's ancestors, the sabre-toothed tigers, were driven from their homes at the South Pole to take up residence in warmer, friendlier, more happy-go-lucky places, such as Torquay. There, the diet of candyfloss and sweets sadly took its toll and many of them lost their sabre teeth, which can be found lying around the area to this day. Tigers, like most cats, dislike water, though not as much...
[01:43:09] Speaker 22: Stephen. Yeah,
[01:43:10] Speaker 21: I just imagine that's true. Oh! Oh!
[01:43:15] Speaker 8: I can't believe it!
[01:43:20] Speaker 21: This has never happened in seven years! Tigers swim! They swim in the water! They love water! Oh! Don't go on! Oh! Oh! I'm happy now, I can go home. And tigers, like most cats, dislike water, though not as much as they dislike the smell of vinegar. On the other hand, tigers love the smell of alcohol which seems to calm them, which is why animal trainers will often down a large scotch before entering a cage for the tiger. The roar of an attacking tiger is one of the most chilling sounds in the world. However, if you do fancy yourself as an animal trainer, it's as well to remember that as tigers usually attack people from behind, a clever ruse is to wear a face mask on the back of your head to confuse the hungry beasts. But just don't try climbing a tree to escape them as tigers are excellent tree climbers.
[01:44:11] Speaker 22: Um, yes, isn't that right? Yes, they do climb trees, don't they? Oh!
[01:44:19] Speaker 7: I'm really going for it now. I think it's, it's more than we could possibly have hoped for.
[01:44:27] Speaker 1: No, some African lions can climb trees, but tigers are not normally tree climbers because they're too heavy. Thank you, Alan. Wow!
[01:44:39] Speaker 7: And, yeah,
[01:44:40] Speaker 1: at the end of that round, Alan, you have a full house.
[01:44:44] Speaker 7: Wow!
[01:44:44] Speaker 1: You've snuggled five truths. And the five truths are that the tiger has striped skin as well as striped fur. If you shaved one, you'd find that its distinctive camouflage pattern would be preserved. And you'd be a hell of a guy if you'd shaved the tiger. The second truth is the markings on a tiger forehead often resemble the Chinese symbol Wang, meaning king. People in China thus regard the animal as the king of the beasts. The third truth is that tigers' whiskers are poisonous. Essentially, the numerous infinitesimal whisker barbs get caught in your digestive tract and cause hundreds of painful sores and infections and you can get very ill or die. Fourth truth is that Torquay was once frequented by saber-toothed tigers. Excavation in nearby Kent's Cavern has revealed numerous vertebrate remains including the teeth of saber-toothed tigers. And the fifth truth is that in India and Bangladesh people discovered that tigers almost always attack people from behind and hence took to wearing face masks on the back of their head to confuse them. It proved quite effective. which means, Alan, that you scored five points! It is estimated that up to 12,000 tigers are being kept privately in America alone, although they make very bad pets. Really, the only command that they can be made to understand is savage my face. Wild tigers can eat over 60 pounds of meat at one sitting. Sorry, not wild tigers, Americans. Which brings us to the final scores. In third equal place with minus two points each, we have Rob Brydon and John Lloyd. In second place with no points, it's Alan Davis. And in first place with an unassailable two points, it's the winner of our New Year special, Stephen Fry. And that's about it for this year. All that remains is for me to thank our guests and wish them and you a very happy New Year. Goodbye.
[01:46:54] Speaker 16: The Unbelievable Truth was devised by John Naismith and Graham Gardner and featured David Mitchell in the chair with panellists John Lloyd, Rob Brydon, Alan Davis and Stephen Fry. The chair...
[01:47:07] Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to The Unbelievable Truth, the panel show about incredible truths and barely credible lies. I'm David Mitchell. Alan Sugar once said, nobody can honestly say that they never lie. Adding, the Amstrad e-mailer is a truly revolutionary piece of equipment. Well, I'm looking forward to a great evening of top-class entertainment but I've got to get this out of the way first so please welcome Rich Hall, Lloyd Langford, Holly Walsh and Henning Vane. The rules are as follows. Each panellist will present a short lecture that should be entirely false save for five hidden truths which their opponent should try to identify. Points are scored by truths that go unnoticed while other panellists can win points if they spot a truth or lose points if they mistake a lie for a truth. First up is Holly Walsh. Holly, your subject is mosquitoes. Small flying insects that suck the blood of humans and animals, sometimes transmitting diseases. Off you go, Holly. Fingers on buzzers, the rest of you.
[01:48:13] Speaker 24: Mosquitoes are nature's most prolific players. If a mosquito were a bloke, you'd be the kind that'd use a brilliant chat-up lying like, damn girl, is your father and daddy long legs because I can't help but notice your terrific set of pins. And even though you think, well, that's a bit sexist, it did make you laugh so you let him buy you a white wine or three and you listen to him talk about how close he is to his 40,000 older sisters. You realise he's actually quite respectful of women and his eyes with their 16,000 night vision units are actually pretty dreamy and you end up getting off with him by the pub bins waiting for your taxi and in the morning you're left with nothing but a memory, a hangover and a horrible itch.
[01:48:53] Speaker 14: Lloyd. I think the mosquito is sexually adventurous. I'm not speaking from experience.
[01:49:04] Speaker 1: No, I don't think the mosquito is particularly sexually adventurous. No.
[01:49:08] Speaker 10: And then something about them specifications about them.
[01:49:12] Speaker 1: Can you think
[01:49:13] Speaker 10: of anything specific about them? 40,000 siblings then it's like special eyes like 16,000. I don't think you can
[01:49:21] Speaker 24: just list everything I've said and hope that one of them is correct.
[01:49:24] Speaker 10: No, but I narrow it down to them two is one of them. Lloyd, which one would you go for?
[01:49:29] Speaker 14: I think the eyes probably makes more sense.
[01:49:31] Speaker 10: Okay, then yeah, the eyes, that's true.
[01:49:33] Speaker 1: You're guessing the eye, what she said about the eyes. They've got eyes. They've got...
[01:49:37] Speaker ?: LAUGHTER
[01:49:40] Speaker 1: Henning, are you guessing that mosquitoes, as Holly said, have 16,000 night vision units? That's preposterous.
[01:49:49] Speaker ?: Yeah.
[01:49:50] Speaker 1: No, okay, let's go for that. Yeah. Going for that. That's not true. You lose a point. LAUGHTER Mosquitoes have two eyes but they have thousands of lenses but not as many as 16,000 and they use smell more than vision to find something to bite.
[01:50:04] Speaker 10: That's true. They use their smell. LAUGHTER
[01:50:06] Speaker 1: Don't buzz on what I say.
[01:50:12] Speaker 10: Oh, yeah, it's Holly's turn, isn't it? I forgot. Exactly, yeah.
[01:50:14] Speaker 1: I am the arbiter of truth in my whole life, not just in this game. Holly.
[01:50:20] Speaker 24: Contrary to popular belief, mosquitoes do not bite their prey but give their victims a tiny, sexy love bite. But it's not all innocent Frenching. Mosquitoes are filthy bastards. They love nothing more than urinating on you as they munch.
[01:50:33] Speaker 15: Rich. I think a mosquito probably would pee on you while they fight not. You're absolutely right, they do. Boom!
[01:50:39] Speaker 1: Yeah. Yes, in fact, most blood-sucking insects urinate while they feed to avoid filling up on fluid and to allow them to get more nutrients out of their meal.
[01:50:49] Speaker 24: It's like when I've drunk too much and I have a tactical vom.
[01:50:54] Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. Because I'm classy like that. Yeah, it allows you to get more nutrients from the vodka.
[01:51:02] Speaker 24: Interesting, when female mosquitoes flap their wings, they create a high C note, a sound that is extremely attractive to male mosquitoes.
[01:51:10] Speaker 14: Lloyd. I think they are musical. You think they are musical? They create a high C. I mean, not that they play instruments but they have. They create a...
[01:51:20] Speaker 1: Yes, the high C fact, that is true. The broader sense of musicality, I think that's pure speculation. Yes, a female mosquitoes buzz is a high C note which is highly attractive to male mosquitoes who will swarm around in the hope of mating with her.
[01:51:35] Speaker 24: When a power station in Canada that emitted the same note began malfunctioning, it was discovered to have been gummed up by tens of thousands of mosquitoes, all males apparently sexually attracted to the hum of the generator.
[01:51:46] Speaker 15: Rich. I actually heard that programme, so yes, I'm going to say
[01:51:49] Speaker 1: that's absolutely true. It is absolutely true. It's cited by Professor Andrew Spielman, one of the world's foremost experts on the mosquito in his book entitled Mosquito.
[01:52:00] Speaker 24: When it comes to picking whom to suck on, mosquitoes basically have the taste of a carry-on casting director. They predominantly go for blondes, 18 to 25 year olds and ladies with double D tits or bigger.
[01:52:12] Speaker 14: Lloyd. Do they favour the blonde?
[01:52:15] Speaker 1: They do favour the blonde. Yeah, that's absolutely right. According again to Professor Andrew Spielman, author of Mosquito, blondes and redheads may be more attractive to mozzies because they stand out in a crowd.
[01:52:31] Speaker 10: Yeah, but that's all pure speculation, isn't it? Because, I mean, it's just that Professor is saying that's what happened, but we've only got him as a source, don't we? It's not that we can ask the mosquitoes.
[01:52:42] Speaker 1: I'm wondering what the future for science is. No, we can't ask the mosquitoes. I mean, that would be interesting, wouldn't it? I mean, this man, he's given his life to studying the mosquito. Maybe he's making it all up. Maybe it's...
[01:52:55] Speaker 24: David, this is exactly how Brexit happened. Mosquitoes prefer people with high levels of sex hormones, which is why they usually strike at the most romantic times, such as sunset or when you're skinny dipping in a waterfall.
[01:53:12] Speaker 14: Lloyd, do they usually strike at sunset? Yeah, I believe that.
[01:53:19] Speaker 1: that's not one of the truths that Holly was given. Just ask the professor. The professor isn't here.
[01:53:27] Speaker 10: We've got all we have. There's a bit of an oversight, isn't it? But all we do is debating mosquitoes and there is one person in the whole universe that knows and you didn't think of inviting the man. He's published
[01:53:41] Speaker 1: a book, a well-known book called Mosquito, so we know everything. We don't need him anymore. What Holly was saying about the high level of sex hormones attracting mosquitoes is not true, but it is true that they tend to feed most at dawn or dusk, so striking at the most romantic times, such as sunset, is an inadvertent truth and you can get an extra point, Lloyd.
[01:54:03] Speaker 14: Well, we get half a point each. Don't, don't, don't, why? That's very kind of you. I'm trying to foster relations with Europe.
[01:54:17] Speaker 1: I'm telling you, you'll give him half a point, you won't get it back, but, um, all right, half a point each it is.
[01:54:23] Speaker 24: Tom Jones is so high in sex hormones that what most people think is his hairy chest is actually a constant swarm of mozzies.
[01:54:31] Speaker 1: Thank you, Holly. At the end of that round, Holly, you've managed to smuggle one truth past the rest of the panel. Which is that contrary to popular belief, mosquitoes do not actually bite their prey. Not technically at least. They pierce the skin with their proboscis to get at the blood just beneath it. And that means, Holly, you've scored one point. Okay, we turn now to Lloyd Langford. According to the Daily Mirror, Lloyd's comedy contains just the right level of Welshness.
[01:55:06] Speaker 8: I'm guessing that's, I'm guessing
[01:55:10] Speaker 1: that's a tang of authenticity but without being drenched in saliva when you're talking to him. Lloyd, your subject is flags. Decorated pieces of cloth often used as national or institutional emblems for signalling or for decoration during public festivities. Off you go, Lloyd.
[01:55:26] Speaker 14: A flag is a flag is a thing someone puts in their garden as a handy indicator that you should never talk to them about immigration. The first ever flag, the Japanese flag was accidentally created when the designer suffered a nosebleed as he was about to begin work. During the years 1814 to 1830 and 1939 to 1945, the French national flag was plain white and often rapidly waved by hands rather than affixed to the traditional flagpole. So central are towels to the culture of Belarus that they even appear on the country's flag, unless the flag is flown at a beach resort, in which case the towels are replaced by German ones very early in the morning. It is not a dragon on the Welsh flag but rather a sunburnt lizard with glandular problems. For nearly a hundred years the flag of the tropical Turks and Caicos islands in the West Indies mistakenly featured a killer whale, a Turkish man, a penguin and an igloo. Holly.
[01:56:39] Speaker 24: Oh, is there something in that? Is there something? One of those things was a mistake.
[01:56:46] Speaker 14: The things on the Turks and Caicos islands flag? Yeah. A killer whale, a Turkish man, a penguin and an igloo.
[01:56:53] Speaker 24: Yeah, one of them is wrong.
[01:56:55] Speaker 14: Which one?
[01:56:57] Speaker 24: Igloo.
[01:56:58] Speaker 1: Correct.
[01:56:58] Speaker 24: Yes!
[01:57:00] Speaker 1: Yes. Between 1889 and 1968, the flag of the Turks and Caicos mistakenly featured an igloo. The artist who designed it had mistaken an igloo-shaped pile of salt on an earlier version of the flag for a dwelling and drew a door on it. Salt is an important export of the islands.
[01:57:22] Speaker 10: And that's the trouble when you outsource design work, isn't it? Tenny. The fact about the Japanese flag, then that's the first flag ever, that's true.
[01:57:32] Speaker 1: That's a long time ago in Lloyd's lecture. I mean, not as long ago as you think the Japanese flag was invented, but that's buzzing with a lot of context, which is, I think, a technical term in porn. I don't know what it would mean.
[01:57:49] Speaker 24: Buzzing with a lot of context.
[01:57:51] Speaker 1: I've said that before I thought about it.
[01:57:53] Speaker ?: I think you
[01:57:53] Speaker 24: must have the most fascinating search history of all.
[01:57:57] Speaker 1: Anything physical that that means I want to look at. But, Henning, I'm not going to charge you a point for this because it was so long ago because I wouldn't have given you one, so I won't charge you one. giving you one is another technical term. But it is not true that the Japanese flag was the first flag.
[01:58:18] Speaker 14: The flag of Koala Lumpur features a fat koala. The flag of the Quebec municipality of Bay James appears to show a swimming owl firing three bolts of lightning from its crotch. Holly.
[01:58:34] Speaker 24: I just want that to be true so much. It is true.
[01:58:38] Speaker 14: It's worth googling. It does look weird. Canadian gymnast and acrobat the unflappable chapable Dominic Lacasse can hold himself horizontally on a bar as a human flag for 39 seconds. Though Oliver Reed was often found horizontally on a bar for much longer than this, he failed to pass any subsequent drug tests. Holly.
[01:59:04] Speaker 24: I believe maybe he wasn't called the unflappable clappable or whatever, but I think that sounds about right.
[01:59:10] Speaker 1: Yes, he wasn't called the unflappable chappable. You're right, but he was called Dominic Lacasse and it's absolutely right, he could hold himself on a bar as a human flag for 39 seconds. And and and and
[01:59:25] Speaker ?: and
[01:59:25] Speaker 1: and that's the end of Lloyd's lecture and at the end of that round Lloyd you've managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel which are that during the years 1814 to 1830 though not the years 1939 to 1945 the French national flag was plain white. However that white flag wouldn't have been confused with the white flag of temporary truce or surrender as this was not officially adopted until the Hague convention of 1899. So anyone finding it amusing that they had a white flag were quite historically wrong. And the second truth is that so central are towels to the culture of Belarus that they even appear on the country's flag. The pattern on the Belarus flag is from a towel called a rushnik which is used for all sorts of next up is Rich Hall. Rich your subject is roads. Roads. Roads. Not the island but long narrow stretches of smoothed or paved surface for the passage of vehicles people and animals. Off you go Rich.
[02:00:34] Speaker 15: Highways in the western USA are based on the migratory routes of Bison. The city of Billings Montana was founded at the bottom of a cliff where thousands of buffalo accidentally fell to roads in North Dakota and Montana a stop sign will suddenly appear in the middle of nowhere and the driver will have to make a sharp turn right travel about 20 yards and then make a sharp turn left this is to make up for the curvature of the earth
[02:01:02] Speaker 10: seems to me it's quite an American centric lecture so far I've only once went to Miami airport and that's my only first experience of the United States I'm completely on my depths
[02:01:16] Speaker 1: Henning not everyone is as rigorous as you are not to bring any of their cultural background with them onto the show
[02:01:22] Speaker 8: Rich
[02:01:28] Speaker 10: I'll have you execute it for that night in
[02:01:35] Speaker 15: America we only drive on the right hand side of the road because before cars the driver of a carriage or a wagon would sit on the left side of the wagon so his stronger right arm was free to lash the horses and in this position he could only see oncoming traffic to his left
[02:01:52] Speaker 1: Holly
[02:01:54] Speaker 24: that probably is why people drive on the right
[02:01:56] Speaker 1: because before cars driving a carriage or wagon would sit on the left hand side and yes because
[02:02:01] Speaker 24: they obstructed view
[02:02:02] Speaker 1: that's absolutely right well done
[02:02:04] Speaker 24: yes
[02:02:07] Speaker 1: horse traffic travelled on the left in the US until at some point in the 18th century when right handed teamsters driving large wagons started travelling on the right in order to better see traffic coming in the opposite direction in
[02:02:20] Speaker 15: the USA the acme manufacturing company once tried to sue the makers of the road runner cartoon series for defamation incidentally a coyote can run faster than a road runner a road runner will chase after your car instinctively but you have to drive at exactly 27 miles per hour if you want him to keep running alongside if you drive any faster he will give up and wait for the next car holly
[02:02:42] Speaker 24: well first of all i thought road runners aren't real birds and then i thought maybe they are and that's how i got to the next part of my thinking which was maybe they could run at 27 miles per hour
[02:02:56] Speaker 1: and that's where you fell down
[02:02:58] Speaker 8: no
[02:03:01] Speaker 1: they can only run at about 20 miles an hour so that thing about driving exactly 27 miles an hour
[02:03:10] Speaker 14: years faster than a road runner then
[02:03:11] Speaker 1: you've had a bit of time to think about that haven't you a very marginal bit of late buzzing okay it's effective it spoils it for everyone yes you can have a point but just I just hope it makes you happy
[02:03:25] Speaker 15: highway 412 also known as the sunshine highway from Destin to Ocala Florida is paved entirely with an aggregate of bottle caps seashells fish bones and shredded flip flops Holly
[02:03:39] Speaker 24: I bet it's made of bottle caps
[02:03:40] Speaker 10: it isn't Hennig but I bet the A412 is the sunshine highway no
[02:03:48] Speaker 14: Lloyd I bet it is made out of flip flops
[02:03:52] Speaker 7: no
[02:03:53] Speaker 1: no it isn't this is this is an extremely profitable passage of clay for you Rich Holly
[02:04:00] Speaker 24: Shells
[02:04:01] Speaker 1: no it's like the Somme no offence Henning Henning
[02:04:09] Speaker 10: I reckon the highway 412 is made off tarmac
[02:04:15] Speaker 1: I
[02:04:17] Speaker 8: expect
[02:04:20] Speaker 1: so but that wasn't something that isn't it
[02:04:23] Speaker 10: typical that's the bit he left out didn't it
[02:04:25] Speaker 15: hey am I getting points every time every time oh my god in Britain when the M6 toll road was constructed in 2003 it was lined with 2.5 million paperback novels to make it more absorbent
[02:04:40] Speaker 10: Henning now that was one of them private public enterprises and that's obviously all about cost cutting so I think they chucked some novels in there
[02:04:51] Speaker 1: you're right they did yeah yes two and a half million Mills and Boone novels were pulped by a Welsh recycling firm and used in the preparation of the top layer of the M6 toll road the pulp novels not only help hold the tarmac and asphalt in place but also act as a sound absorber and well that's the end of Rich's lecture and at the end of that round Rich you've managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel which are
[02:05:20] Speaker ?: which are which are
[02:05:20] Speaker 1: that highways in the western USA are based on the migratory routes of bison herds of bison would locate the easier migratory routes native americans would follow these routes and when europeans settled in america they followed suit constructing roads as they went and the second truth is that on many perfectly straight north south roads in north Dakota and Montana a stop sign will suddenly appear in the middle of nowhere and the driver will have to make a sharp right turn travel about 20 yards and then turn left again and this is to make up for the curvature of the earth and that is because america is very big and that means that means rich you've scored two points next up is henning vane henning has appeared on the show many times over the last few years while anti-european sentiment has grown in britain coincidence i'm sure your subject henning is north korea a secretive a secretive communist country in the northern half of the korean peninsula established in 1948 which functions as a one-party state under a totalitarian family dictatorship off you go henning
[02:06:31] Speaker 10: north korea is the best topic to discuss in a show about unbelievable truth as anything you make up sounds plausible chairman kim jong un eats three children for breakfast every morning now washes them down with half a gallon of diesel here's a pet snail called simon who we met on grinder to reference its culture of mechanized agriculture the anthem changed in 1976 to combine harvester by the versals that year wasn't called 1976 in north korea as their calendar starts the day the titanic sang in their year one holly
[02:07:22] Speaker 24: i don't know what year is it 1911
[02:07:24] Speaker 1: 1912
[02:07:25] Speaker 24: 1912 could have started in 1912
[02:07:27] Speaker 1: it did the thing that started that's absolutely true because the thing that started in 1912 is kim il sung the former dictator of north korea and a calendar was adopted in 1997 on the third anniversary of the death of kim il sung it declared that kim il sung birth date the 15th april 1912 would be the calendar 's first day and that's the same day as the titanic sank
[02:07:50] Speaker 10: nobody in north korea has a mobile phone the country has the largest concentration of pokemon as none of the locals can catch any it's probably just as well that nobody has a mobile phone as you can be executed for making an international phone call other things you can be executed for include having screws left over when you've built a billy book case leaving the toilet seat up not leaving the toilet seat up owning a toilet seat not owning a toilet seat and for telling lies about the country on the BBC so that's that leg of the tour cancelled Lloyd
[02:08:37] Speaker 14: I'm going to guess that you can be executed for making an international phone call or a mobile you can yes well done
[02:08:44] Speaker 1: yes in 2014 a 49 year old lighting engineer was executed for making a call outside the country and his family were incarcerated in a state security department facility I
[02:08:56] Speaker 14: thought Roman charges were bad
[02:08:58] Speaker 1: that would have been a very wry quip he could have made just before being executed if they make a film of his life and cast Roger Moore anyway
[02:09:14] Speaker 10: yeah Henning North Korea is keen to embrace foreign cultures but the only foreign comedian to have played North Korea sofa is Mark Steele who performed Mark Steele's in town and work as agrarian collective 56228 however the run was cut short as the authorities found him a little too left wing and dogmatic and there should be a good audience to play to and will no doubt giggle all the way through because cannabis is legal in North Korea sadly this quickly turns into getting the munchies when there is no munchies to behead Holly There
[02:09:51] Speaker 24: are no munchies in North Korea
[02:09:52] Speaker 1: Well for a start so that so there would be in that case you're defining munchies
[02:10:03] Speaker 24: sorry I reckon cannabis is legal in some form
[02:10:06] Speaker 1: Yes well that is true so you can get a point but you lose the point for the munchies so you've only broken even marijuana can be bought freely by the bagful in shops and markets across North Korea and its use is widespread even as a substitute for tobacco which is expensive and hard to obtain
[02:10:24] Speaker 10: Former leader Kim Jong Il became a fan of oompa music he built himself a Munich beer hall at the end of his Pyongyang estate Holly
[02:10:34] Speaker 24: I can believe that because they do have Oktoberfest in North Korea He
[02:10:39] Speaker 1: didn't build a Munich beer hall at the end of his estate and he's not a fan of oompa music Henning
[02:10:45] Speaker 10: and has made it a legal requirement that all teachers learn the accordion However his son Kim Jong Un was the only person in the country who resembled a large breasted serving Frau and so he always hated Oktober Kim Jong Un wasn't a star his father was at university while studying Kim Jong Il officially wrote no fewer than 1500 books This sounds less impressive when you consider he had plenty of spare time as he was studying film and media studies which is a Mickey Mouse subject or as the anthropomorphic vermin
[02:11:26] Speaker 14: Lloyd I hope they call Mickey Mouse the anthropomorphic vermin No they don't And
[02:11:35] Speaker 1: that's the end of Henning's lecture And at the end of that round Henning you've managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel which are that North Korea has made it a legal requirement that all teachers learn the accordion It's often referred to as the people's instrument as it's portable enough to carry with you on a day of voluntary hard labour in the fields And the second truth is that according to official sources Kim Jong-il wrote no fewer than 1500 books in the three years that he was at university along with six full operas According to his official biography all of his operas are quote better than claim he wrote in three years more than he wrote more than a book a day but then he only wrote six operas why are we six operas why not 90 operas
[02:12:35] Speaker 24: somebody
[02:12:36] Speaker 1: said don't say eight operas that sounds ridiculous do you
[02:12:39] Speaker 24: think Donald Trump was sharing his PR agency
[02:12:42] Speaker 1: and that means Henning you've scored two points North Korea has 28 state approved haircuts their current leader Kim Jong-un prefers number 17 militant lesbian which which brings us to the final scores in fourth place with minus three and a half points we have Lloyd Langford in third place with minus one and a half points it's Henning Vane in second place with minus one point it's Holly Walsh and in first place with an unassailable three points it's this week's winner Rich Hall that's about it for this week goodbye
[02:13:34] Speaker 16: the unbelievable truth was devised by John Naismith and Graham Garden and featured David Mitchell in the chair with panellists Boyd Lankford Holly Walsh Rich Hall and Amy Bay the chairman's script was written by Dan Jaster and Colin Swash and the producer was John Naismith it was a random production for BBC Radio 4
[02:13:54] Speaker 1: hello hello and welcome to the unbelievable truth the panel show about incredible truths and barely credible lies I'm David Mitchell as for our panel well there's a special point in an entertainer's career where you become a truly established name and it's safe to say all four of our guests today are past it please welcome Marcus Brigstock Callie Beaton Lou Sanders and Neil Delamere the rules are as follows each panelist will present a short lecture that should be entirely false save for five hidden truths which their opponent should try to identify points are scored by truths that go unnoticed while other panellists can win points if they spot a truth or lose points if they mistake a lie for a truth first up is Neil Delamere Neil is descended from Vikings hence his evocative name Neil meaning he who is named by someone who isn't a Viking appropriately Neil your subject is Vikings pirate Norsemen who plundered the coasts of Europe from the 8th to the 11th centuries known especially for their use of longships and fearsome reputation in battle off you go Neil fingers on buzzers the rest of you
[02:15:08] Speaker 25: the first recorded Viking raid was on Holy Stone monastery north of Newcastle in 754 AD the Anglo-Saxon chronicle tells us and lo the fearsome Northmen came from the sea and the monks did say oh no the Vikings run away run away run away run away the UK's modern education system is inherited from the Vikings the Viking 11 plus exam rated physical fitness rather than intellectual ability children who passed the rigorous tests went on to Viking grammar school while the kids who weren't tough enough were thrown into the sea this terrible fate would have happened for example to all of singer Bjork's ancestors if I had had my way Vikings ran an annual competition for the Viking with the silliest name some of the silliest included colbean butter penis Olaf lard testicles and Astrid Milkytits Astrid Milkytits was the mother of Eric the Red scholars later attributed his famously grouchy and violent temperament to hitherto undiagnosed lactose intolerance during King Harold Bluetooth's reign Ragnar Creamyhorn was the speaker of the Viking parliament King Bluetooth was so named because he could connect with that speaker as long as he was within 10 or 15 feet
[02:16:21] Speaker 8: legend
[02:16:28] Speaker 25: has it Harold was converted to Christianity at a Viking party when the children's entertainer Poppo the priest performed a miracle by putting his hand into a red hot iron out getting burnt Lou
[02:16:38] Speaker 13: the bit about conversion at a party
[02:16:41] Speaker 25: what
[02:16:43] Speaker 1: do you think is true
[02:16:43] Speaker 13: so I think that he was converted to Christianity he
[02:16:47] Speaker 1: was
[02:16:48] Speaker 13: at that party well I'm
[02:16:51] Speaker 1: going to give you the point and what I'm going to tell you though is that the party didn't happen but it is true that Harold was converted to Christianity when Poppo the priest performed that miracle with his hand in the red hot iron it was necessary for a monk called Poppo to endure an ordeal by fire in this case putting his hand into a red hot iron glove without getting burnt
[02:17:14] Speaker 25: Vikings sold sperm well vomit to their gullible southern European neighbours as dragons tears Marcus
[02:17:21] Speaker 26: they did sell sperm whale vomit not as dragons tears they didn't no well they should have because it's worth a lot yeah maybe it may be
[02:17:30] Speaker 1: not as easy to collect as you assume
[02:17:33] Speaker 13: amber grease
[02:17:35] Speaker 1: it's
[02:17:36] Speaker 25: used for it's used
[02:17:37] Speaker 1: to
[02:17:38] Speaker 25: kill it to get it out you've been killing all those whales for nothing you just hold their hair and you know point them at a bucket yeah he's not worth it Tracy he's not worth it
[02:17:49] Speaker 1: you've actually just said something very offensive in whale so but
[02:18:01] Speaker 25: they didn't sell it as dragons tears yeah yeah the well-known Yorkshire phrase ebay gum was originally used by the Vikings as in ebay gum are you got long ship a is also of Norse origin and to this day the Norwegian word for myth with larger than life characters and fantastical storylines is I can't really pronounce this emmerdale
[02:18:21] Speaker 8: Marcus
[02:18:26] Speaker 26: I'm that far into getting them wrong I think eop might have come from Viking origins it did well done
[02:18:34] Speaker 1: it's thought that the Yorkshire greeting eop derives from the Old Norse expression say up which meant look out or be careful so the greeting is be careful
[02:18:45] Speaker 25: threatening really in Mastermind hosts Magnus Magnusson's first book on the Vikings you can lead a Norse to water but you cannot make him drink sorry sorry don't buzz in there I've started so I'll finish I should let the audience know I actually buzzed myself for that joke Magnus Magnusson tells us King Harold Hadrada invented an early form of firework display when he attached kindling to the legs of birds and sent them flying unfortunately the birds flew home to roost in a nearby town and burned it down the townsfolk did their best to deal with the lethal tinder desperately swiping left to reject it
[02:19:29] Speaker 8: but
[02:19:32] Speaker 25: they failed and the birds pained call was the last thing the inhabitants heard thank you Neil and
[02:19:42] Speaker 1: at the end of that round Neil you've managed to smuggle three truths past the rest of the panel which are that in Viking times kids who weren't tough enough were chucked in the sea they considered physical strength a vital part of the family and society and were known to abandon physically incapable or sickly children often leaving them alone in the wilderness or throwing them into the sea the second truth is that Viking names included Colbyne Butter Penis this is the true one other Viking -names included Hell Yield For All Shrivelled Testicle Esney the Busty Ass Lacker Cock and Skaggy the Shit Advisor He's Minister
[02:20:24] Speaker 25: for Brexit I think Is he the guy who named all the other people in the sentence yeah no one will laugh about Harold or Shrivelled Testicle the
[02:20:37] Speaker 1: third truth you smuggled was that King Harold Hardrada attached kindling to the legs of birds and sent them flying
[02:20:44] Speaker 27: I was going to say that can we all have a point because we all thought it
[02:20:47] Speaker 1: I can't see a floor in that system and that means Neil you've scored three points okay we turn now to Callie Beaton Callie is a former television executive who worked on MTV's Ex on the beach one of my favourite shows is Panorama
[02:21:08] Speaker 8: Callie
[02:21:11] Speaker 1: your subject is language a system of human communication either spoken or written used by the people of a particular country or region off you go Callie
[02:21:19] Speaker 27: I learned Latin at school meaning I know how to run our country into the ground whilst banging on about being able to speak Latin hedgehogs have a surprisingly sophisticated language of grunts clicks and squeaks they have over 15 different sounds for the word ouch
[02:21:35] Speaker 1: Lou well
[02:21:40] Speaker 13: one I think you learned Latin at school and two I think hedgehogs have got a sophisticated communication system
[02:21:45] Speaker 1: did you learn Latin at school no what
[02:21:47] Speaker 13: about the hedgehogs they didn't learn it either
[02:21:50] Speaker 8: apparently
[02:21:56] Speaker 1: there is a potential inadvertent truth here which I'm going to allow the audience to judge on but you won't lose a point Callie but you might gain one
[02:22:04] Speaker 27: I'm
[02:22:07] Speaker 1: experimenting with the format in the minute I'm going to do an ABBA medley
[02:22:11] Speaker 8: but
[02:22:14] Speaker 1: first of all this is the truth about hedgehogs communication system is that they have 16 different grunts clicks and squeaks now is that surprisingly sophisticated and who convert I mean you laugh at this but this is sort of literally how parliament works and who conversely thinks that it is not surprisingly sophisticated I think it's surprisingly sophisticated habit so you get a bonus point Luke
[02:22:45] Speaker 27: and cats have over 15 different meows meowing only ever at humans not each other and knowing it's best not to meow at all if their kittens have their kitten friends over
[02:22:57] Speaker 25: Neil I think cats don't meow at each other I think they only meow to humans correct as far
[02:23:08] Speaker 1: as we know unless they're conspiring against us to make us think this cats meow at humans but not at each other kittens meow at their mothers to let them know they're cold or hungry but once they're weaned they no longer alert other cats to their needs but will continue to meow at humans to get us to do what they want
[02:23:27] Speaker 27: the bushy the Chinese for spoiler alert was displayed outside all Beijing cinemas showing the sixth sense as the distributors had titled it in Chinese he's a ghost
[02:23:37] Speaker 8: Lou
[02:23:40] Speaker 13: I want it to be true
[02:23:43] Speaker 1: I'm afraid it's not
[02:23:45] Speaker 13: none of it
[02:23:45] Speaker 1: but it was widely reported on the internet to be true
[02:23:48] Speaker 13: other
[02:23:49] Speaker 1: reported Chinese plot spoiling mistranslations include the film title Twister being translated in China as run run cloud zilla
[02:23:57] Speaker 8: the
[02:24:00] Speaker 1: film boogie nights being his great device makes him famous the film pretty woman as I will marry a prostitute to save money and the crying game as oh no he has a penis
[02:24:18] Speaker 8: the
[02:24:21] Speaker 27: only time I've had a cinema trip spoiled before the film even started was when my date used the word pacifically when he meant specifically and I took a pretend phone call saying my child was in hospital so that I could go home I
[02:24:36] Speaker 26: mean that sounds like it's true
[02:24:38] Speaker 27: I
[02:24:39] Speaker 26: can I can't I
[02:24:43] Speaker 27: totally would but it's one of the only bad dates I haven't had so it's not true in the Albanian language there are 27 words for moustache including meaning handlebar meaning ladytash and meaning 70s pornstar Neil
[02:25:01] Speaker 25: that could be true but 17 is probably too many but
[02:25:04] Speaker 1: I'm going to
[02:25:05] Speaker ?: go
[02:25:05] Speaker 1: through what's true the 27 words for moustache he said
[02:25:09] Speaker 27: 17 what she said
[02:25:10] Speaker 1: about moustaches
[02:25:11] Speaker 25: in Albanian is true it is
[02:25:13] Speaker 1: indeed true
[02:25:13] Speaker 27: the Papua New Guinea dictionary runs to more volumes than Encyclopedia Britannica this is because in New Guinea they speak 840 different languages
[02:25:24] Speaker 25: Neil that's true but do you think
[02:25:27] Speaker 27: it's 840 or 17
[02:25:28] Speaker 25: because of the inhospitable nature of the topography of Papua New Guinea particularly beyond Port Moresby I would suggest 840
[02:25:37] Speaker 13: sorry just me on that I really hope this
[02:25:41] Speaker 25: I really hope this is true because I've made myself really sound arrogant it is true
[02:25:47] Speaker 1: and I think that must be the first woo that Port Moresby's had in many a year yes they have 840 languages is almost a 7th of all the languages on earth are spoken in Papua New Guinea
[02:26:01] Speaker 27: the Andaman Islands have produced two Nobel Prize winners for physics even though the Andamanese language has only two words for numbers they mean one and more than one
[02:26:11] Speaker 26: Marcus that is true one and more than one that is true
[02:26:15] Speaker 27: specific expressions for the act of attempting to revive an unsuccessful sorry should that be
[02:26:24] Speaker 1: pacific expressions
[02:26:25] Speaker 27: specific expressions for the act of attempting to revive an unsuccessful relationship exist in 27 languages and include in Spanish ilama humedda or moist flame in Dutch the gouda is niet goed meer or even the gouda is stale in Icelandic or the sun's gone down why can't you
[02:26:54] Speaker 8: they're going to say
[02:27:01] Speaker 26: the Spanish moist flame is a real thing it is not no
[02:27:06] Speaker 27: in Italian cavoli riscaldati or reheated cabbage and in my house in Camden why don't you trust me meaning yes once with my tennis coach but we were both very drunk and he started it
[02:27:18] Speaker 26: Marcus yeah not the Spanish moist flame but the reheated cabbage in Italy then correct
[02:27:27] Speaker 1: yes the Italian phrase cavoli riscaldati meaning reheated cabbage is an expression for the attempt to revive a long finished love affair it comes from the proverb neither reheated cabbage nor revived love is ever any good
[02:27:44] Speaker 26: they haven't discovered bubble and squeak have they
[02:27:47] Speaker 27: in the words of my tennis coach it's time to put my balls away now peace out
[02:27:56] Speaker 1: thank you Callie and at the end of that round Callie you've managed to smuggle no truths past the rest of the panel which means you've scored no points next up is Lou Sanders hello Lou is teetotal and she hasn't drunk alcohol for three years and if this was America you'd have given her a round of applause rather than that sullen suspicious silence
[02:28:21] Speaker 13: save it for my jokes babe
[02:28:25] Speaker 1: Lou your subject is kissing the act of pressing one's lips against a person or object usually as an expression of affection greeting sexual attraction friendship or respect off you go Lou
[02:28:38] Speaker 13: okay when film star Tom Cruise was younger his sisters and their friends would put him on the sink in the bathroom and practice kissing him and now the tables have turned and he practices kissing women and making it look believable in Spain James Bond is known as Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
[02:28:58] Speaker 1: Carrie
[02:28:59] Speaker 27: I want that to be true
[02:29:01] Speaker 1: it's not true
[02:29:02] Speaker 27: but it'd be nice if it was
[02:29:03] Speaker 1: you might be pleased to know then that it is true in Italy and Japan
[02:29:07] Speaker 27: I thought I knew it
[02:29:08] Speaker 13: from somewhere I tricked you and I tricked you really good and that is the game you've done good the same year Disney released The Princess and the Frog it was revealed that 50 people were hospitalised after trying to kiss frogs Neil
[02:29:22] Speaker 25: yeah I'm going to go for that's true
[02:29:24] Speaker 1: it is true yeah in 2009 the year that The Princess and the Frog was released at least 50 people in the US were admitted to hospital after becoming infected with salmonella from either handling or kissing frogs not surprisingly most of those who fell ill were younger than 10 and more than half were little girls
[02:29:44] Speaker 13: idiots true
[02:29:52] Speaker 8: okay
[02:29:55] Speaker 13: the Queen loves kissing so much that she's got a mug saying kiss one quick
[02:30:00] Speaker 8: she also
[02:30:02] Speaker 13: she also has a t-shirt which says it's time to 69 she wore it at her 50th birthday picnic in 1969 the number 88 is Morse code shorthand for love and kisses or two fat ladies whatever suits the occasion more although now we say 88 is two plus size ladies the record for the longest kiss is 58 hours 35 minutes and 58 seconds and it was your dad who did it oh dear okay a broken kissing gate in China is said to be lucky if you want to get kissed by your dream partner one man who visited it every day and didn't find true love tried to sue the gate
[02:30:48] Speaker 25: Neil yeah I'm gonna go that through as well he tried to sue the kissing gate no there's a broken gate in China and there is a broken kissing gate in China and if you kiss it you the partner thing no
[02:31:10] Speaker 13: one man who visited it every day and didn't find true love tried to sue the gate the judge at the hearing said if anyone's off their hinges it's you but in Chinese this is going alright actually points wise come on I've smuggled loads past you idiots
[02:31:32] Speaker 1: there is something about your delivery style that does seem to confuse people I don't know
[02:31:41] Speaker 13: I'm a very good dancer
[02:31:48] Speaker 25: I think the weirdest thing that's been said today is that you haven't drunk alcohol for three and a half years
[02:31:56] Speaker 13: some cultures kiss by blowing snot onto the other person some by rubbing feet and in some cultures by biting each other's eyelashes and weirdly all of these cultures live in Oxfordshire rubbing feet
[02:32:17] Speaker 1: no
[02:32:17] Speaker 13: well done me kiss me hardy with the famous last words of Stan Laurel
[02:32:25] Speaker 1: thank you Lou and at the end of that round Lou you have managed somehow to smuggle four truths which are that when film star Tom Cruise was younger his sisters and their friends would put him on the sink in the bathroom and practice kissing him in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine he revealed they taught me how to French kiss when I was eight years old the first time I almost suffocated I was holding my breath that was weird the second truth is that the number 88 is Morse code shorthand for love and kisses to save time when transmitting messages and the third truth is that the record for the longest kiss is 58 hours 35 minutes and 58 seconds and the fourth truth is that some cultures kiss each other by biting each other's eyelashes and that means Lou you've scored four points before the kissing scenes with George Lazenby in the Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service Diana Rigg ate raw garlic George managed not to react in any way much in keeping with the rest of his performance in Russia the highest sign of recognition was a kiss from the Tsar the only greater sign of favour was for him to tap you on the shoulder and whisper chase me it's now the turn of Marcus Brickstock Marcus is a keen campaigner for the Green Party and has helped make them the parliamentary force they are today but never mind your subject Marcus is religion a set of beliefs concerning the cause nature and purpose of the universe usually involving the worship of a god or gods off you go Marcus religion
[02:34:15] Speaker 26: Leviticus is the best book in the Bible and we know this because of the number of times people have written Leviticus rules
[02:34:22] Speaker 8: and of course
[02:34:24] Speaker 26: because of Leviticus it's still prohibited for many religious women to wear leggings because of its strict rules about the display of cloven hooves Pliny the Elder claimed that the fire worshipping prophet Zarathustra ate nothing but cheese for 30 years he'd often wrap it in pastry and put it in the oven thus baked Zarathustra the high dairy content gave him terrible skin thus flaked Zarathustra and we assume his cheese dreams made it hard for him to sleep and if you haven't filled in the rest of that joke yourself you shouldn't be listening to Radio 4 Donald Trump
[02:35:01] Speaker ?: Donald Trump
[02:35:01] Speaker 26: has read and understands the Bible
[02:35:03] Speaker 25: Neil he has said that I have read and understand the Bible and then he was asked what his favourite bit in and he went pictures he he certainly said I felt it was a falsehood well I can only take the man at his words yeah actually
[02:35:23] Speaker 1: that's a good point and he is president so he said he's read the Bible that doesn't necessarily mean he's read it but he could have read it clearly he could not have understood it
[02:35:33] Speaker 8: it is just too many
[02:35:36] Speaker 1: words for him to have understood so I'm afraid that's not true and you don't get a point sorry
[02:35:42] Speaker 26: in the 70s an American citizen tried to sue the devil claiming that Lucifer
[02:35:47] Speaker 25: Neil I believe that's true and then the devil lost and had to generate more income and then went down to become the president of the United States
[02:35:55] Speaker 1: and that is true the can you read the full yes absolutely
[02:36:07] Speaker 26: an American citizen tried to sue the devil claiming that Lucifer had deprived him of his constitutional rights
[02:36:13] Speaker 1: yes this was the case of Gerald Mayo versus Satan and his stuff
[02:36:17] Speaker 26: that was my favorite detail that he sued it wasn't just Satan I'm taking the whole company down
[02:36:25] Speaker 25: because he's got a whole team there oh yeah like you have to get them all though otherwise it's you know like Pokemon yeah
[02:36:34] Speaker 1: the case was dismissed on procedural grounds
[02:36:41] Speaker 26: in fact on Americans 12% of Americans believe that Joan of Arc was actually Noah's wife I mean that is come on it's ridiculous the last thing you want on a wooden boat full of straw and livestock is a woman who's on fire Lou
[02:37:01] Speaker 13: I believe that 12% did believe that
[02:37:03] Speaker 26: you're right to believe that
[02:37:05] Speaker ?: do you know how I knew
[02:37:06] Speaker 13: do you know how I knew because I believed it
[02:37:09] Speaker 26: in Iceland they've built tiny little churches in the hope of converting elves to Christianity although due to declining elven congregations many of these have now been turned into tiny branches of weatherspoons where was the Garden of Eden well at last we have an answer a religious group from Bedford have made it very clear it's just up the top end of Albany Road in central Bedford and why not they have a wine bar called Original Sin and if you go there at closing time you can literally witness the fall of man over and over again
[02:37:42] Speaker 27: Callie something in Bedford's true
[02:37:45] Speaker 7: that's certainly the tourist board's slogan
[02:37:51] Speaker 27: I think that they've they've claimed a Garden of Eden no
[02:37:56] Speaker 8: you're right am I right I should have said it
[02:37:59] Speaker 27: with more conviction I knew that yeah totally I know that my son went to college in Bedford
[02:38:06] Speaker 26: well he would have noticed the Garden of Eden yeah if that is the Garden of Eden
[02:38:12] Speaker 27: is there nudity
[02:38:13] Speaker 26: no it's just quite a scraggy looking end of a road but to be fair on it they have built Bedford round it yeah yeah I tell you
[02:38:23] Speaker 1: as punishment for eating an apple that's pretty severe the Panacea Society the Panacea Society and it's well worth looking up yes this Panacea Society was a Bedford based religious sect comprised almost exclusively of well off middle aged ladies who believed Albany Road Bedford to be the site of the Garden of Eden and that's the end of Marcus's lecture so Marcus at the end of that round you've managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel which are that Pliny the Elder claimed that the fire worshipping prophet Zarathustra ate nothing but cheese for 30 years and the second truth is that in Iceland they've built tiny little churches in the hope of converting elves to Christianity they have a long-standing belief there in dwarves, elves and hudelfolk or hidden folk and the Icelanders often place tiny houses in their gardens for small people to live in and some have gone further and built little churches to convert them to Christianity and that means Marcus you've scored two points a Bible published in England in 1632 missed out the word not in the seventh commandment making it read thou shalt commit adultery a copy was recently bought at auction by a Mr. B. Johnson
[02:39:38] Speaker 8: Mormons wear special underwear
[02:39:42] Speaker 1: which gives them protection against temptation and evil it's basically the exact opposite of my lucky pulling pants although the overall effect is identical which brings us to the final scores in joint third place with minus one point each it's Lou Sanders and Marcus Brickstock in second place with one point it's Callie Beaton and in first place with an unassailable six points it's this week's winner Neil Delamere that's about it for this week
[02:40:22] Speaker 16: goodbye the unbelievable truth was devised by John Nisman and William Garden and featured David Mitchell in the chair with panellists Neil Delamere Hallie Beaton Lou Sanders and Marcus Brickstock the chairman's script was written by Dan Gaster and Colin Swash and the producer was John Nisman it was a random production from BBC Radio 4
[02:40:43] Speaker 3: and don't be moved