The Unbelievable Truth - 02x03 Hedgehogs, Hair, Kissing, Potatoes

Episode Date: October 8, 2021

02x03 19 May 2008[18] Tim Vine, Adam Buxton, Ed Byrne, Lee Mack Hedgehogs, Hair, Kissing, Potatoes

We present The Unbelievable Truth, the panel game built on truth and lies. In the chair, please welcome David Mitchell. Hello and welcome to The Unbelievable Truth. In the chair, please welcome David Mitchell. Hello and welcome to The Unbelievable Truth. This is the panel game that combines stimulating intellectual debate with a healthy dose of madcap silliness, a sort of cross between the moral maze and the crankies, the intellectual debate of the crankies and the madcap silliness of the moral maze.

Please welcome our four guests, who are going to mix a few unlikely truths with a catalogue of fabrication. They are Adam Buxton, Lee Mack, Ed Byrne, and Tim Vine. The game is a neat blend of pure simplicity and unnecessary complication. Each of the panel will present a short talk on a given subject, which should be largely fabricated. However, they've all been provided with a number of true pieces of information which they should try to smuggle past the other players. Points are scored by truths which go

unnoticed, while the opponents can win points if they do manage to spot them. We'll begin with Tim Vine. Tim was the first male TV presenter to appear on Channel 5 on their launch night. Sadly, his audience figure halved during the commercial break when his mum went out to make his dad a cup of tea. Tim, your subject is hedgehogs, defined by my dictionary as small, spiny mammals commonly found through parts of Europe, Asia, Africa and New Zealand. Fingers on buzzers, everyone else. Off you go, Tim.

The hedgehog is a distant relative of the woodlouse, both using the same defence system. But how did it come to be called the hedgehog? Well, many people believe it is because of its shuffling, pig-like demeanour, but this is wrong. It is, in fact, because if you cook a hedgehog, it tastes like pork. Lee. I think that might be true, actually,

because it would taste meaty, at the very least, and it wouldn't be too much to stretch that to porky. Apparently it does taste exactly like pork, that is true. So well done. And apparently the traditional way to cook a hedgehog is to bake it in clay, and then so when you take it out, then you smash the clay and all the spikes come out in the clay. And the dish is called Hotchi Witchi.

And it tastes like pork. So why would you bother? Because pigs don't have spines on them or much bigger. Hedgehogs are easy to catch, though, the hedgehog. You don't really have pigs living wild in your garden unless you're a particularly careless pig farmer. You get such tiny rashes of hedgehog bacon, though. It would hardly be worth the effort.

Hedgehog is the national dish of Vanuatu. Another fallacy about hedgehogs is that they are... Go on, I'll jump in on the national dish notion. You would have just dangled a true fact on its own out there. Well, he hasn't done that. No, the hedgehog is not the national dish of Vanuatu. Is Vanuatu even a nation, technically? I wish you hadn't asked me that.

Not so smart when it's not written down in black and white in front of you. No, I'm not. And at this point, I should remind everyone that you do lose a point for an incorrect guess. Another fallacy about hedgehogs is that they are shy. This is nonsense. Fair enough, in certain company they can be a bit prickly. But a fascinating study was done in Torquay

from 1993 to 1997, the most extensive hedgehog behavioural study ever done in this country. The study noticed that when a group of 15 or more adults were together One hedgehog would appear to separate himself from the group and address the others The lone hog would make some little hedgehog noises and then pause Then the group of 15 hedgehogs would make a strange noise together A sort of... Eventually this lone hedgehog would finish And one of the other hedgehogs would come forward

and appear to wrap up proceedings. I think that could be true. What precisely? That final result of the survey, that one would go forward and do that thing he said at the end. Wrap up the proceedings. That at the end of the proceedings, a lone hedgehog would come and wrap up. Not wrapped up. I don't think he said,

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Please come again soon. And don't go any near bonfires wrapped up. I don't think he said, thank you, ladies and gentlemen, please come again soon and don't go any near bonfires or clay. I don't think, you know, he had a catchphrase, but I think there's a chance that in his own hedgehog way he could have walked to the front, just slightly, you know, cleaned his own genitals with his tongue, and that is a hedgehog way of saying,

that's it, lads, time to go home. Yeah, well, he didn't. It's not... You know they deduct a point every time you get one right. Hedgehogs have a tummy button that is identical to a human's. Ed? Yeah, they do. No, they don't.

Obviously, really, what you think about it. They also have fingerprints which are closer to humans than any other animal. When is the time a hedgehog has been falsely accused of a human burglary? Lee. I think that could be true, because I think that they set off alarms if they come in your house, don't they? They go through the cat flap and the alarm goes off. Why doesn't the cat set off the alarm? I realise the stupidity of my argument. Don't worry, David, I know the answer.

Yeah, it's not... Hedgehogs have a very low self-image, and so they wash by spitting on themselves. Adam. Surely they wash by spitting on themselves. There's got to be a fact in there somewhere that's true. Yes, indeed, they wash by spitting on themselves. Thank you.

It's called self-anointing. I do that a little bit. No you don't, because it's something only hedgehogs do. What they do is they lick or nibble on something, which you may do, but it goes further than this. Then they make a foamy paste in their mouths. And? And then spread it with their long tongues, still true,

in little spots on their quills. There you go. Haven't done your research. This is like Johnny Morris doing a sex chat like that. Right, well, apparently hedgehogs and Adam. Thank you. They also have the ability to tiptoe. This is one reason why they're so hard...

I was thinking that that could be true, because that would help them do the burglaries, but it wasn't true, was it? I do think that... No, but they might walk on their toes, and we refer to it as tiptoeing, when actually they're just walking on their toes. That's what they like to do. Well, tiptoe means that they walk ordinarily and then do something different

Not that they tiptoe all the time if someone tiptoes all the time. That's called. That's the way they walk Even Tim was trying to get away with the lies is it's helping me Okay, I can't believe you made you believe what I just made up Yeah, don't forget you said that they had the same belly buttons as humans. Yeah, but he's very... You've got to be very careful with your arguments. Their skin is very, very tough. If you run over a hedgehog,

his entrails will fly out of his mouth and his bum. Lee. I think that could be true. What? The bit about the entrails coming out of their mouth and their bum. Because if it's a little bit of a tough skin, it would be the natural place to go flying out of. They're not that tough, are they?

They're really not. They're just going to splatter. No, that is absolutely true. Yes! Come on! The fleas on a hedgehog are very important. This is because they produce a constant tickling sensation which keeps the hedgehog awake while he's eating.

If you remove them, the hedgehog will die. If you want to scare a hedgehog, tell him the nit nurse is coming. And that's the end of Tim's bit. So, Tim, at the end of that round, you've managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel, and they are that hedgehogs have fingerprints which are closer to humans' fingerprints than any other animal. Well, why don't they get caught with all these burglaries? Oh, there's no burglaries. There's no burglaries. Because they tiptoe. Oh, that's right. The other truth is that if you remove a hedgehog's fleas, the hedgehog will die. And I don't know why.

Just of loneliness. I'm telling you it's not true, and I should know because I'm an expert on fleas. No, you're not. I am. Don't say in an authoritative way that things that, for the purposes of the game, we need to establish as true aren't true. That's very undermining. It's just like saying, none of this matters. We're all just using up time.

That is true. Anyway, that means at the end of that round, Tim, you've scored two points. OK, we turn now to Adam Buxton. Your subject, Adam, is hair, a filamentous outgrowth from the skin found mainly in mammals. Fingers on buzzers, everyone else. Off you go, Adam. Hair is the only physical trait that is common to every single living species on the planet. And it turns up in the most unlikely places. For example, gerbils have teeth made from compacted hair.

Honeybees have hair on their eyes. And Julia Roberts is not only famous for her tufty armpit wigs, but is well known amongst Hollywood's makeup artists for having very hairy feet. Sorry for letting it run on there, but I believe that honeybees have hair on their eyes. You're absolutely right. Adam, carry on. Julia Roberts is well known amongst Hollywood's make-up artists for having very hairy feet, earning her the nickname Julia Hobbits.

OK. If you were a long-haired male in America before the 1960s, you would have been considered so grotesque and abnormal that you wouldn't have been allowed to use a public toilet, eat at McDonald's, enter Disneyland, vote, or even receive treatment for life-threatening illnesses. Tim. I think possibly you were not allowed to enter Disneyland

if you had too much hair. You're absolutely right, you weren't. In an average lifetime, a person will grow two metres of nostril hair from each follicle in the nose. Ed? I'll go with that, two metres of nostril hair, that sounds about right in a lifetime. Yep, it's about right, yep, that's true. That sounds about right in a lifetime. Yep, it's about right.

Yep, that's true. It's not within a... I mean, you grow more at a certain stage than other times, don't you? So the first half of your life, there isn't really much nostril here to speak of. And then it accelerates, doesn't it? Yes, it accelerates, but you still get two metres in a whole lifetime. Two metres doesn't actually sound that much. What you're saying is, don't worry if you're sort of only in your early 30s, and you say, I've only grown like a foot and a half.

It's true. It will. Give it time. It will come. And also... You'll be able to watch it grow by the time you're in your 90s. But also, David, you must point out that if you're in your early 30s and you've been keeping track and you have grown two metres,

it doesn't mean you're going to die. Both things happen. I don't want to frighten anyone, but it does. The Oxford Dictionary lists not just one, but 14 different words meaning Hursute of the Butoch, or Hairy Bottomed. Ed? I buzzed a bit too early there. I thought they might have had 14 different words that meant hairy or hursute,

but I don't think there's 14 that mean hairy arse. Okay, would you like to withdraw your buzz? Yeah, am I allowed to withdraw my buzz as a premature buzz? I'm going to let you withdraw your buzz. I appreciate that. David, can I withdraw about seven of my previous buzz? No, because you haven't been nearly as... Polite as that.

A little bit of civility doesn't hurt. And the sooner you learn that, the better. Adam. Some of these 14 words meaning hairy-bottomed include luxurious, lacy-rumptious, folly-cushioned, daisy-pie gal, johnny-hairy-bum and botty-wig. Natural hair style is determined by the shape of the hair follicle.

Natural hair. Ed. That is true. The curliness of hair is determined by the shape of the hair follicle. Yes, that is absolutely true. Yes. Straight hair comes from circular follicles. Wavy hair comes from circular follicles, wavy hair comes from oval follicles. Adam, at the end of that round, you've managed to smuggle one truth

past the rest of the panel, and that is that the word... that you pronounce it as Daisy Pie Gal. I pronounce it as... I imagine it's pronounced... Decipigal? Decipigal? I don't know. D-A-S-Y... Well, we would have had a chance if you'd not made it sound like a cartoon character from Beano. I'm Daisy Pieye-Gal.

That's allowed, though, isn't it? Mies of desperate death. I certainly don't know that it's not pronounced Daisy Pye-Gal. And he only got one pass, the rest of you, so cut him a bit of slack, rudely. And it's a real word, and it does mean hairy-buttocked. But there aren't 13 other words for hairy-buttocked in the OED. There should be, really. Let's take out some of those computer terms.

So that means at the end of that round, you've scored one point. Men wishing to know whether they're going to suffer baldness in later life should look at their grandfathers. I'm all right, because happily for me, both my grandfathers had full luxuriant heads of hair when they died aged 19 in a mining disaster. Right, it's now the turn of Ed Byrne. Ed is the stand-up comedian and actor who is also the voice of the Carphone Warehouse. Luckily, we get Ed free for 30 minutes each month. Your subject, Ed, is kissing, or the touching of one person's lips to another place,

which is used as an expression of affection, or to show respect, or as a greeting or farewell. And you've definitely worked on a sex line, yeah? Yes. Fingers on buzzers, the rest of you. Off you go, Ed. Although considered to be purely an expression of affection, anthropologists now believe that kissing started off as a means of communication. Before verbal communication was perfected, early Homo sapiens used kissing as a way

of describing their recent travels. The length of kiss described how far they had come, the amount of tongue used would give an indication of the conditions underfoot, and biting of the recipient's lips meant that the traffic was awful. In the Middle Ages, kissing was declared a mortal sin by the Catholic Church,

but then so was looking at the sky during daylight hours, walking in a straight line for more than ten feet, and using tablecloths. So nobody took much notice of the kissing rule. The Romans have different, or had different terms to classify different kisses. Usculum was a peck on the cheek. Lee. I've kissed a Roman soldier, I know that to be true. That is true.

Yeah, they had... Fancy dress party, 1986. But it was a real Roman soldier. Well, I didn't ask. I was too busy trying to get off with it. Yes, osculum was a peck on the cheek. Basium, a more amorous kiss. And the Roman for snog was saviolum.

But you know that, obviously. Oh, no, I didn't go to base, too. All right. Hey, I'm not a slag. Well, as I was going to say, osculum was a peck on the cheek, basium a more amorous kiss, and linoleum for rolling about on the floor kissing. During the Second World War, it was reported that to kiss a girl in Hyde Park

is an offence against the law for which a soldier is often fined the whole of the money he has in his pocket. This didn't particularly discourage the average soldier, as he generally didn't have any money in his pocket, having just given it to the girl in exchange for the kiss in the first place. Adam. Yeah, I think they would have been discouraging the soldiers from kissing in Hyde Park. Well, you're unlucky here.

It's not true that that happened during the Second World War, but it did happen during the First World War. Was that mean of me, was it? You've laid a fiendish trap. I thought that was sort of the nature of the game. Yes Carry on in Logan County, Colorado It is illegal for a man to kiss a woman if she is asleep Strangely in the same County it is illegal for man to have sex

I think it might be true that it's illegal to kiss a woman when she's asleep because it would be counted as Well, let's call it untoward. No, that's absolutely true. In Logan County, Colorado, that is illegal. So, well done, yes. The first ever interracial screen kiss was between William Shatner and Nichelle Nichols. I think that is true.

That is true, yes. I have no idea in where. It was in a 1968 episode of Star Trek. Wow. Did she play Uhuru? Yes. One of them was sort of possessed by a hypnotism that kind of took the sin off it.

The world's longest kiss lasted 31 hours, 18 minutes and 33 seconds in a competition in New York starting on Valentine's Day 2004. Tim. I think that's true as well. I think that's true. Yep, that's true. That's annoying because I thought that was true but with the World War I thing, he shaved

three seconds off and he's going to get us again. It's interesting, Lee, that you've now become so distrustful of things that seem like they might be true, thinking they might have been changed, when earlier on you were happy to buzz in on things that you couldn't possibly have thought might be true thinking they might have been changed when earlier on you were happy to buzz in on things that you Couldn't possibly have thought Thank You Ed

And The end of that round you've smuggled one truth past the rest of the panel and that is that in the Middle Ages Kissing was declared a mortal sin by the Catholic Church Which he seems very likely actually so you did well smuggling that in but that means at the end of that round you scored one point the Karma Sutra lists 30 different ways to kiss or 31 if you include on the mouth the expression kiss goodbye is most often used in a non-literal sense.

In the 1960s, the manufacturer of a well-known treatment for piles ran a less-than-successful ad campaign with the slogan, Kiss goodbye to sore bottoms. OK, it's now the turn of Lee Mack. Your subject, Lee, is the potato, a starchy, tuberous root vegetable crop commonly used in the manufacture of chips, French fries and potato crisps. Off you go, Lee. The eyes on potatoes are quite literally eyes. They recognise...

They recognise sunlight so know when it's time to wake up. In the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, dried potatoes were used to look like snowflakes. Even more interestingly... Adam. Oh, what am I doing? Dried potatoes were made to look like snowflakes. That's the kind of thing that Spielberg might do.

It's the kind of thing he did. Yeah. Even more interestingly, the Clive Owen film Croupier was actually written by a potato. If you put all the potatoes that are eaten on a Saturday night in Newcastle into one big bucket, they would reach out and try and take those potatoes back. Until the late 18th century, the French believed that potatoes caused leprosy. Ed?

Maybe did think that potatoes caused leprosy. Yes, they did. They were also, people also thought that potatoes caused syphilis. And as late as 1720 in America, eating potatoes was believed to shorten a person's life. Up until 1634, in Papua New Guinea, potatoes were hollowed out and used as condoms. Ed.

Ed, I think the shake of my head gives so much away. How could that possibly be true? People used all manner of things. People used orange peels as membranes. There's a bit of give with orange peel, isn't there? I was just wondering, Ed, what you thought happened in 1634, which suddenly made them realise, this isn't a good system. They call it...

In Papua New Guinea, it is known as the time of the great realisation. The apple, the onion and the potato all have the same taste. To prove this, if you bite one and hold your nose, they will all taste sweet. Adam. What did he say? The same taste if you... Should I read the fact out again? Yeah. The apple, the onion and the potatoes are all made of cheese. It's that the apple, the onion and the potato

have the same taste and if you bite one and hold your nose they all taste sweet. I'm going for that. You're right to go for that. That's true. Yeah. And in fact...

Hey! Would you like to try? I don't mind biting into an onion occasionally. We've got an apple, an onion and a potato here. So now cheat. They're all start with the apple Hold your nose. Yeah Now keep your nose held even when you go to the next one So it doesn't taste so much as it sort of has a little doesn't taste it much does it? No, not really, but there's most of what we think of as taste is of course smell. Biting the potato now.

Of course often potatoes are even more delicious cooked. Yeah, it's a similar texture as well. You could easily hold your nose and eat a whole potato and think, this is like an apple. Can I just point out how unfair this is, that he has been given a chance to demonstrate the fact to prove it. I was at no point given a hedgehog and allowed to ask it to go Okay, here we go That was that was a bigger-than-necessary bite yeah That was showing off. I mean, there's no actual there's some flavor

Sorry, it's actually false Have another go with the Apple and maybe that was it was this I bet you can't get someone to eat No, it is anyway apparently true. The apple taste is amazing now. It's one of those things that are officially true, but now we discover aren't really quite true in real life. But you still get a point, and well done for having gone through that. Thank you very much.

Lee. If you cut a potato into the exact shape of a AAA battery and insert it into a clock, it will keep running for over five minutes. Tim. I think that's true. Well, if you'd like to pass me that Maris Piper and that carving knife. But I'm sure there was a thing at school where you put wires in potatoes and make things run. Yeah, potato clocks and potato bombs even.

No, I'm just kidding. I think there is a thing you can do at school with wires and a potato, but I don't think cutting it into the exact shape of a AAA battery and shoving it in the clock will work. I realise I've lost a point there, but for me that was a grey area.

Can I carry on, David? Do carry on, please. Despite popular belief, the potato was not introduced to Britain by Sir Walter Raleigh, but was in fact first smuggled... That is true. potato was not introduced to Britain by Sir Walter Raleigh, but was in fact first smuggled... Ed. That is true, it wasn't introduced to Britain by Sir Walter Raleigh. Yes, that is true. Is it true?

That is true, yeah. I genuinely thought that I'd made that up. I'm going mental. Right, well that... yes, that was... I honestly thought I'd made that up. That was not one of the truths you were given, but it is true, and it would... Well, hang on, just to absolutely clarify, that I made that up and it just happens to be true, does it? Yes, but if I'd have finished it off and said, this is what I was going to say, despite popular belief that potato was not introduced to Britain by Sir Walter Raleigh,

but was in fact first smuggled into the country in the early 18th century by Vivienne Westwood. Now that's, is that true? That's not true, no. Well make your mind up. No, it's not one or the other. It's not binary. It must have been Walter Raleigh in the 16th century or Vivienne Westwood in the 18th. Sir Francis Drake has a better claim to have introduced a potato.

I don't think they're 100% sure. But Raleigh only ever set foot in Virginia where the potato was not indigenous, so he couldn't have introduced it. Right, well, God knows if this is truth or a lie, but I'll have another go. Not only do potatoes contain more chromosomes than human beings, they also contain more chromosomes than French people. Ed? Go on, potatoes have more chromosomes than human beings.

Absolutely right. The cultivated potato usually has 48 chromosomes in its genetic makeup. A human has only 46. And of course Lee was only joking. The French are humans. It's a grey area. In slang terminology, a couch

potato's wife is called a couch tomato. In 2003, TV celebrity chef Delia Smith was accused of dumbing down British culinary cuisine when she published a recipe called the potato lollipop. The ingredients were a raw potato and a stick. That apparently tastes quite appley. Thank you, Lee. Thank you, Lee.

And at the end of that round, you've smuggled one truth past the panel, and that is that in slang terminology, a couch potato's wife is called a couch tomato. Several dictionaries of slang declare this to be the case, so they also define couch tomato as a couch potato with red hair. So that means, Lee, you've scored one point. In 1952, Mr Potato Head was introduced and became the first toy to be advertised on television. The toy consisted of several facial parts to be stuck into a potato. When big rubber lips and straw-like hair became available

to be stuck into a lumpy old potato, the Conservative Party made one their candidate to be London Mayor. Which brings us to the final scores. In joint third place, with one point, are Ed Byrne and Lee Mack. Which means that in first equal place, with two points each,

are Tim Vine and Adam Buxton. That's about it for this week. All that remains is for me to thank our guests. They were all terrific. I was David Mitchell, and that was The Unbelievable Truth. Goodbye. The Unbelievable Truth was devised by John Naismith and Graham Garden and featured David Mitchell in the chair with panellists Adam Buxton,

Ed Byrne, Lee Mack and Tim Vine. The chairman's script was written by Ian Pattinson and the producer was John Naismith. It was a random production for BBC Radio 4.