The Unbelievable Truth - 06x01 Henry Ford, Biscuits, Rain, Squirrels

Episode Date: December 22, 2021

06x01 27 September 2010 Chris Addison, Susan Calman, Rufus Hound, Armando Iannucci Henry Ford, Biscuits, Rain, Squirrels

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, the panel show about incredible truths and barely credible lies. I'm David Mitchell. Welcome to this radio comedy spectacular, and I use that word wrongly. Please welcome Rufus Hound, Chris Addison, Susan Calman and Armando Iannucci. The rules are as follows. 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,

cunningly 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. We'll begin with Chris Addison. Chris, your subject is Henry Ford, described by my encyclopaedia as the American industrialist who was creator of the first inexpensive mass-produced automobile. Off you go, Chris. Fingers on buzzers, the rest of you.

Henry Ford is perhaps best remembered for his eponymous invention, the Henry Hoover. Although no-one really knows where he got the idea. A small, round, red-faced man with a highly elongated black nose onto which a number of attachments could be fitted, Ford was a big hit at social gatherings. Where he delighted the glitterati

with his party trick of sucking down a martini at 15 paces and clearing up whilst the party was still in full swing. Occasionally, he and Thomas Edison would also entertain the guests with their semi-professional double act, which consisted of them improvising electrical inventions in a show they called Whose Light Is It Anyway? The two men eventually fell out, with Edison accusing Ford of stealing

rubberisation processes from him, declaring that he would fight Ford till his last breath. Susan? I think the thing about not the fight to the death, not the cage fighting incident between the two, but... I never said anything about cage fighting. That is your fantasy. Your fantasy is

Edison and Ford in a cage leathering it out like men. If that did happen, of course, it would be a Faraday cage. You're listening to Radio 4. I think it's about the two inventors falling out about stealing rubberisation. It is not true that they fell out over that. On surviving Edison, Ford kept his last breath in a test tube out of spite. However, Ford himself had a reputation

as a terrible host. His experimental dinner parties became something of a standard in the gossip columns. These included a meal of 16 courses, all of them entirely made from soybeans, and one at which all the dishes were designed to have anti-Semitic overtones. Rufus. I'm going to chance

my arm on the whole soy thing. Well, you do so rightly. That's absolutely true. At the 1934 World's Fair in New York City, Ford served a 16-course meal made from soya beans. He also ordered many Ford Auto parts to be made from soya-derived plastic and once appeared at a convention with his entire attire,

except for his shoes, having been produced from soya beans. To drink, he rarely offered his guests anything but a simple coffee. This is where his famous quote, you can have any colour so long as it's black, truly originates. He simply would not have milk in the house because he was virulently anti-cow. The cow must go... Armando.

I'm going to go for the coffee. We're not taking orders. I assume I've got the rules wrong, then. What, do you think it's buzzing when you hear something you'd like? I think, yes, he sounds very odd and capitalist and soy-obsessed, and I suspect he didn't offer milk for coffee. It's certainly true that he was virulently anti-cow. So, I mean, where did you get to?

I got to virulently anti-cow. That was the bit that Armando didn't challenge, that you'd just given away there, James. That's what's happened there. You see, I think I've ruined the format here by taking a generous inference from what you said. Were you saying that he hated milk or that he only served coffee, Armando?

I'm saying that... Oh, yeah, that's another factor on the table. Well done, Columbo. No, I'm saying, and I think the records will show this, if you dig out the archive or play this programme back, I'm saying that he was anti-co. You're saying that now, Armando? I think you were buzzing to say that Henry Ford only served black coffee.

But that's not true. That bit isn't true. Which I don't think is true. I'm just about to say that. Well, I don't know, David. I don't know because you saying the right thing at this point is in question. For better or worse, I am sort of in charge of this. The Nick Clegg defence. Feeble leadership is better than no leadership at all.

Stop buzzing at non-buzzing times. I'm going to have to find a way of disabling this machine when I don't want people using it. I'm'm going to have to find a way of disabling this machine when I don't want people using it. I'm not going to give... I'm not going to give you the points on this occasion, Armando. Shall we all start humming as well? Yeah. We seem to have a supply chairman today.

Yeah. Well, look, if you don't start behaving, we won't... It's a lie, David. David, it's a lie. We're not going to play the unbelievable truth at all. Just for that, it's double quote-unquote. Right, so now I'm not going to give you the point, Armando, and at this rate of my making decisions,

it'll only be another nine-hour show. Chris. The cow must go, declared Ford, describing them the tossbags of the prairies and great big mooing benders. Armando. I think it's true that he hated cows. Yeah.

Well done, Armando. Well spotted there. That's my excellent knowledge of the historical character Henry Ford displayed there. Yeah, wherever did you learn that, Armando? Off the radio. And we're not even listening to it. Carry on, Chris.

Ford had a lifelong obsession with dental hygiene. He brushed his teeth at least seven times every day and kept a toothbrush in his desk, onto which he placed a picture of Adolf Hitler, because, claimed Ford, his moustache served as a reminder to clean his teeth. Rufus. I actually think I know that Henry Ford

did have a picture of Hitler on his desk. You do know that, and it's true. Well done. Yeah. Henry Ford was, in fact, a generous contributor to the Nazi movement. Just to put that into historical context, the now discredited Nazi movement. Coincidentally, Hitler kept a picture of Ford on his desk because it reminded him to get the car MOT'd.

Thank you, Chris. So, Chris, at the end of that round, you've managed, despite my efforts, to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel, which are that Henry Ford kept Thomas Edison's last breath in a test tube. No way. The test tube was sent to Henry Ford by Thomas Edison's last breath in a test tube. No way. The test tube was sent to Henry Ford by Thomas Edison's son, Charles, and can be seen today in the Henry Ford Museum. Well, that sounds like it's worth a trip.

And the other truth is that Hitler was also a great admirer of Henry Ford and kept a framed photo of him in his office. That's all nice, isn't it? And Ford is the only American referred to in Mein Kampf. Chris, that means you've scored two points. In 1888, Ford married Clara Bryant. She demanded he make her an honest woman as she was sick of being referred to as the Ford escort. Hitler was a great admirer of Ford and even adopted his famous motto, mirror, signal, brutally annex and repress. OK, we now turn to Susan Calman. Susan's new Edinburgh show is about reaching

35 and being halfway through your life, which, as she's Scottish, may be a little optimistic. your life, which, as she's Scottish, may be a little optimistic. Your subject, Susan, is biscuits, small, flat-baked items of confectionery, usually containing fat, flour and sugar. Fingers on buzzers, everyone else. Off you go, Susan. When biscuits were first invented, many people refused to eat them because they believed that they were, in fact, devil's testicles. This belief was caused by the strange effect they seemed to have on many women. After eating the new treats, women were known to spontaneously faint or weep when the biscuits were removed from them. The cause of this is now known to be the hormone paracrine, which acts as

an attractor to the sugar and can produce a severe emotional response. Chris, I'm going to go with the hormone thing. That's can produce a severe emotional response. Chris? I'm going to go with the hormone thing. That's not true, I'm afraid. Chris, although paracrine is genuinely a thing, but it's not a... It's genuinely a thing. It's genuinely a thing. It's actually... We might need to get a new fact check on this.

I'd like to see the Mitchell Encyclopedia. London, a big thing. A big thing that does really exist hogwarts a smaller thing that doesn't really exist anyway paracrine is a thing comma existent and apparently it's to do with the regulation of growth hormones but it's nothing to do with biscuits biscuits are known as the silent killer and scholars have revealed that the original Bayou tapestry shows not Hayley's comet falling to Earth, but a giant biscuit. Elvis did not choke on a hamburger.

It was, in fact, a well-known brand of peanut crackers that actually led to his death. I'm going with the peanut cracker. This is a slightly kamikaze approach to this game. I understand. It's not really kamikaze, unless you've sort of hooked yourself up to the buzzer in some way. I certainly have, David.

There we go. No, that's not true. It wasn't. He didn't. No, it's not a thing. That's not a thing. It is not a thing that Elvis choked on peanut crackers. Armando.

I'm going to go with the biscuits are known as the silent killer. Really? No. I take it that's... I tell you what you're doing there is you're confusing biscuits with high blood pressure. So you don't get a point, Armando. And Susan, carry on. Prime Minister William Gladstone was nearly blinded by a ginger biscuit thrown at him when he was riding in his open carriage.

And Abraham Lincoln would have survived the attack by John Wilkes Booth had he not been eating a biscuit at the time of his shooting. Rufus. I think the Gladstone thing might be true. The Gladstone thing is true. Well done. The question we all want to know is, of course, which is more dangerous, a biscuit or a cake?

Rufus. I think that's true. I think that's... And there's only one way I can prove that. Who here wants to know which is more dangerous, a biscuit or a cake? Make a noise. Yay!

Who doesn't care? Woo! Yes, well, I'm a steward. It was Susan who cheered. She has a vested interest. It wasn't just Susan. There were some other people who were equally indifferent to the programme. Astonishingly, according to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents,

435 people a year end up in casualty with cake-related injuries compared to about 400 people with biscuit-related injuries. Chris. Go on, then. Well, I'm going to give you the point there it's not true about the cake related injuries that was a humorous invention of susan's but the 400 biscuit related injuries per year is absolutely true according according to the royal society for the prevention of accidents 400 people a year in britain are taken to a and e for the Prevention of Accidents. 400 people a year in Britain are taken to A&E for biscuit-related accidents. Examples include

somebody falling over while reaching for a biscuit, someone slipping on a chocolate biscuit on the stairs, and one woman had to be treated after she used a knife to try to remove a Smartie from a gingerbread biscuit and stabbed herself in the hand.

McVitie's recently unveiled the world's first crumb test dummy, a biscuit munching robot after an American man sued the makers of kettle chips for permanently damaging his smile with their razor sharp snack. The names of biscuits tend to come from pixies who write suggestions

in the condensation on the windows of biscuit factories. Sometimes bad pixies try and catch out lazy biscuit makers with silly names. Anschluss bourbons are a common German snack. Bum is a brand of Turkish biscuits. Fanny is a brand of Scottish biscuits. Chris, I'm going with bum.

Is bum a thing? Bum is a thing. It's both a term for the human bottom and it is a brand of Turkish biscuits. Very well done. Fanny is a brand of Scottish biscuits and Nora Knackers are a brand of Norwegian biscuits. Thank you, Susan.

And, Susan, at the end of that round, you've also managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel, which are that staff at the McVitie's laboratory in High Wycombe have invented a mannequin with a motorised mouth to test the amount of crumbs biscuits produce. Wow. And the other truth is that Nora Knackers are a brand... Oh!

Are a brand... I was going to go for that! Other funny product names include Danish mints called Saw Bits, an Italian yoghurt called Mucky, and a Swedish toffee bar called Plop, and a French soft drink called Pshit. So, Susan, that means that you've scored two points. The most dangerous biscuit to dunk in your tea

is the custard cream, according to recent scientific research. Well done for clearing that up, scientists, and now back to that boring old cure for cancer. Next up is Rufus Hound, a fine figure of a man, suit by Armani, shirt by Paul Smith, and facial hair by Phileas Fogg.

Your subject, Rufus, is rain, a form of precipitation consisting of water droplets which fall from clouds. Fingers on buzzers, the rest of you. Off you go, Rufus. Rain is everyone's favourite sort of weather because it hides all the crying. The Eskimos have three million words for snow, but we only have one word for rain. Rain.

Car owners might think they don't want their paint chipped, but if it's raining and their wipers are broken, chips are exactly what they want. Why? I'll tell you why. Potato juice not only makes water run off your windscreen, but creates Jeremy Clarkson's favourite soup. It's... Amanda, I'm suggesting that experts have said

that potato juice is good for windscreens. Yes, its waxiness was believed to repel water. It's dreadful. Dreadful, but inescapably true that it rains a lot in Dundee, often fitfully or in sparse drops, which is Driffle. Susan. It does rain a lot in Dundee. It literally does.

I could get a webcam and it would be raining now. Well, Dundee has below average rainfall for the United Kingdom, so it doesn't rain a lot in Dundee. Hang on, but... Dundee has below average rainfall for the United Kingdom, so it doesn't rain a lot in Dundee. Hang on, but... LAUGHTER Could that be perhaps the London meteorological people

who don't care about anywhere that's not London, who've just made it up? You think the London meteorological people, who I believe aren't based in London, but nevertheless will include the London slur, are in some way trying to make Dundee seem drier than it really is. Yes. I think it's part of the whole coalition government attempt

to move people north, that they're trying to see that Scotland's not rainy. Surely that would be the Scottish Tourist Board who'd be behind that. That's right. Big sign as you drive into Dundee, less moist than you think. That's certainly true of their cake.

The human heart beats twice and thus contains beat two. A horse's run contains beat four. The wheels on Stevenson's rocket contains beat six. Rain contains beat four. The wheels on Stevenson's rocket contains beat six. Rain contains B12. I'd just like to say that I, along with everybody else, didn't understand what was happening. But I also think the rain contains B12. Rain does contain B12. Well done.

It contains... It contains vitamin B12. Oh, right. I was going for the bus service. Right. Albeit in minute quantities. Carry on. A California weather reporter was sacked for refusing to reword a chance of rain to a probability of sunshine

and partly cloudy to largely sunny. This followed a written warning for refusing to replace meat-headed, roid-ranging Hansi Austrian with governor. Chris? I think they were sacked for that exact lack of sunny disposition. They were indeed, yes. Isn't it sunny a lot in California? Well, it's practically like Dundee.

Carry on, Rupert. Sorry, can I ask, is it possible not to carry on and instead just have someone kill me? No, not in this country, no. Join the campaign. Join the campaign or go to Switzerland. In the meantime... The word rain has no anagrams.

Yeah, Chris. It has no anagrams. Iran, move on. That's a proper noun. It's a proper noun. That doesn't count. I thought this was Scrabble rules. I'm just going to say something wrong

after you say whatever it is next. I just wanted to buzz and get that out of the way. Right, OK. The world's largest building is so big that clouds form in the top of it and it rains which would be bad were it not the penthouse apartment of aquaman king of the seven seas well chris that's true so uh okay yeah the world's the world's largest building is so big that it actually has real rainfall in it. It's the Boeing Everett factory in Washington State.

472 million cubic feet. And clouds actually form in the top of the structure, which are things, form in the top of the structure during sudden temperature changes. And it rains inside. It rains inside? It rains inside. And that's the end of Rufus's lecture.

And, Rufus, at the end of that round, you've managed to smuggle one truth past everyone else, which is that to driffle means to rain fitfully or in sparse drops, as in at the tail end of a shower. So that's a new word that everyone can not bother using. That means you've scored one point. Now it's the turn of Armando Inucci. Your subject, Armando, is squirrels.

Small or medium-sized arboreal rodents, usually red or grey in colour, with long bushy tails. Off you go, Armando. Like the BBC reporter Laura Koonsberg, squirrels are everywhere. One of the dullest facts is that grey squirrels arrived in Britain from outer space, where, from the safety of the Alpha Centauri

solar system, they trained their mighty squiroscopes on planet Earth and waited, patiently waited, till our guard was lowered, as it was when we went away to fight the First World War. Then the grey squirrels invaded, and as

they landed, they were met by our native red squirrels, who each approached them with a peace offering of a single nut, born on a mighty cushion. But since grey squirrels can't see red, it looked to the invaders like they were being attacked by a fleet of floating nuts. Chris? grey squirrels can't see red, it looked to the invaders like they were being attacked by a fleet of floating nuts. Chris?

Grey squirrels can't see red. You're absolutely right. Ah! At this point, it's worth mentioning that one of the funniest things about a squirrel is the sound it makes when it's shot. Instead of letting out a curtailed shriek, it actually pops like a punctured balloon and then rasps around in the air until deflated. It was to cheer up her children that the writer Beatrix Potter frequently took them squirrel shooting in the Lake District. So funny was one squirrel when

it died, she memorialised him as Squirrel Nutkin, which unfortunately is her least funny book. Susan. I don't think she took them squirrel shooting, but I think she perhaps memorialised a favourite squirrel as Squirrel Nutkin. Yes, that's pretty much true. Beatrix Potter actually shot a squirrel out of a tree so that she could study it as a model for her Squirrel Nutkin character.

Doesn't make it her... out of a tree so that she could study it as a model for her Squirrel Nut King character. Doesn't make it her... It's not really favouritism there, though, is it? I suppose it's favouritism to all the others. But, yes. But she, anyway, she based that lovable character on a corpse. Yeah. She also butchered a pet bunny she'd named peter rabbit boiled its carcass and studied its organs to help her create her world famous character of the same name i'll teach him

to steal lettuce i don't know that what bit in peter rabbit does her precise knowledge of the internal organs of the rabbit come through you know there's not an evisceration scene that's why he has to wear that blue jacket to cover the scars. However, back to the squirrel space wars. I love that that sentence has been said on the radio now. After the bloodbath known as Squirregeddon, the few surviving... The few surviving red squirrels went underground

and set up guerrilla chewing camps, from where they planned attacks on the surface by training to chew through things designed to destabilise our infrastructure and so somehow defeat the grey squirrels. It's thought the Cuban Missile Crisis was caused by a red squirrel chewing through the Pentagon's early missile warning cable, which is why to this day the threat from Russia is called the Red Menace.

More recently, a squirrel brought the Nasdaq stock exchange to a standstill by burrowing through a cable and then diverting $50 billion worth of high-tech investments into a special fund, which it then buried in a park. Chris? I'd like to take the Nasdaq one.

You're right on that. Yay! It was totally disabled on one day in December 1987 when a squirrel burrowed through a telephone line. That was presumably in the days the NASDAQ would just have basically one phone. We'd like to buy some shares. Hang on. Let me get a pen.

The Red Squirrels are even now planning a devastating land war against their grey squirrel oppressors under the red squirrel leader John Connor. It is thought the grey squirrels are planning to travel back in time to kill him with androids. If they do kill him, it will sound funny. But only in retrospect. Two other...

Two other dull facts about the squirrel is that their tails are actually manipulated by pieces of string tied to pulleys hidden in the sky and that their sweat glands are in their feet, which means the faster they run, the more they slip in the grass. This is nearly as funny to watch as seeing one being shot. Rufus. I'm going to take feet.

You're quite right that squirrel sweat glands are in their feet. Humans have come up with all sorts of proposals to stop squirrels from digging things up and running off with them. Panelists on Gardner's Question Time recommended pouring broken glass all over cabbages. West Midlands Police have proposed a tulip bulb amnesty.

Somerset Council suggests pouring curry powder over recently dug graves. Chris? I'm going for the second one of those, but I can't remember what it was. West Midlands Police have proposed a tulip bulb amnesty. I will defend that notion to the death. Rufus, if you care to join me, I think that could solve a couple of your problems.

Unfortunately, I can't give you that point at the moment, but I do promise that if that amnesty should be proposed between now and transmission, then I will retrospectively award you that point. Since this recording, the Westminster Police have announced a tulip-pulled amnesty. Chris Addison is now the winner. If Chris loses this by one point, then between now and transmission,

you have to do everything in your power to make that happen. Oh, yeah. These people aren't leaving until they sign up to my email campaign. I think this is an example of the big society in action. It's worth it. Susan?

I think it's probably something to do with the curry powder. That might put the little squirrels and their twitchy tails off. You're absolutely right. Meantime, the squirrel war goes on to this day. Although little do the grey squirrels know that the red squirrel's John Connor is actually dead. Shot by Beatrix Potter in

1902. Thank you, Armando. So, Armando, at the end of that round, you've smuggled no points past the rest of the panel, which means you've scored no points. Which brings us to the final scores. In fourth place, with minus three points,

we have Armando Iannucci. In third place, with one point, it's Susan Kalman. In second place, with four points, it's Susan Kalman. In second place, with four points, it's Chris Addison. Pending tulip bulb amnesty, that is. Because in first place, with a very much assailable, in the event of that amnesty, five points, it's, for now, this week's winner, Rufus Hound. That's about it for this week. All that remains is for me to thank our guests.

They were all truly unbelievable, and that's the unbelievable truth. Goodbye. The unbelievable truth was devised by John Naismith and Graham Garden and featured David Mitchell in the chair, with panellists Chris Addison, Susan Carman, Armando Iannucci and Lucas Howe. The chairman's script was written by Dan Gaster.

The producer was John Naismith. It was a random production from BBC Radio 4.