The Unbelievable Truth - 09x03 Swimming, Bread, Hotels, Foxes

Episode Date: December 22, 2021

09x03 16 April 2012 Marcus Brigstocke, Miles Jupp, Susan Calman, Alan Davies Swimming, Bread, Hotels, Foxes

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. Tonight, a quartet I would happily pay good money to listen to are playing Schubert at the Royal Festival Hall. Instead, please welcome four people who are no strangers to the cutting edge of comedy. They've all had broken bottles thrown at them. Marcus Brigstock, Susan Kalman, Miles Jupp and Alan Davis. 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 Marcus Brigstock. Marcus once worked as a podium dancer on trance nights at the Ministry of Sound. I have no idea what any of that sentence means. Marcus, your subject is swimming, described by my encyclopedia as the process by which living creatures propel themselves through a body of liquid by movements of limbs, fins or tails. Off you go, Marcus. Fingers on buzzers, the rest of you.

The fastest recorded speed for a human swimming in an indoor pool was 26.3 miles per hour. This was after it was announced that a floater had been spotted near the filter. Miles. I suspect that's true had been spotted near the filter. Miles? I suspect that's true. Both parts of the sentence. Well, I mean, I'm sure that excrement has been spotted in pools and has caused consternation.

That's certainly true. I think it caused this particular speed. I think it's cleared consternation for some people, hasn't it? No, 26.3 miles an hour is much quicker than any human has ever swum without aid of speedboat for example mark spitz who won loads of medals for swimming he swum at an average speed of just under four and a half miles an hour so he won a world record which has since been broken but i doubt it's been smashed by more than 20 miles now. He should have just gone to a swimming pool

where people behaved in a less restrained manner. Yeah, I suppose it's probably the bitter irony, isn't it, that because he is such a high-level swimmer, he will only have swum in conditions where he's very unlikely to see a floater. So perhaps we never saw his full potential. Whereas if he was swimming in a more kind of pooey, disused, plastery, floating, condom-y kind of environment,

he might have just zoomed around the place like a distressed maniac. What a shame. He won't be competing at London 2012. Scientists estimate that by the time the average tuna fish reaches 15 years old, it will have travelled in the region of a million miles, mostly by swimming, though some prefer to go by plane to collect the air miles. Susan? Yeah, I'd say tuna, a million miles, I'd say that's how far the... Yeah, swim.

Your estimate is very accurate indeed. Well done. Swim. Your estimate is very accurate indeed. Well done. Kim Jong-il had all freediving records banned from North Korea and then claimed he could hold his breath for over an hour if he wanted. In 2011, he was proved right and is still going for the record. The record for the deepest freedive in Britain is held by Nick Clegg and is seen as a metaphor for his ruined political career. In Sarasota, Florida, it is illegal to sing in a public place whilst wearing a swimming costume.

Very bad news for Baywatch star David Hasselhoff, who likes nothing more than donning the old red apple catchers and knocking out a few verses of Hooked on a Feeling on the beach. David... Alan. apple catchers and knocking out a few verses of Hooked on a Feeling on the beach. David. Alan. Is that one of those weird American, like, it is actually illegal to sing in your bathers? Yes. That is.

Yeah. That's a fact. About 1,600 Belgians turned out to vote in their country's national elections wearing only swimming costumes or trunks. Susan. I'm going to go for the Belgians in their pants voting. The Belgians did do it, yeah.

It was as a result of a 2003 promotion by Virgin Express, slightly lamentably, who had offered free flights to Bordeaux or Mallorca for the first 1,500 people who voted in their beachwear. So 100 people voted in their beachwear to no effect. Vanessa Feltz was photographed in her swimming costume at ASDA and it went in a magazine. Writer Evelyn Waugh was saved from a suicidal drowning attempt by a passing jellyfish who convinced him not to kill himself by stinging him.

After the sting, the prospect of dying in the sea lost all of its appeal, so he swam back to shore and wrote Brideshead Revisited. Swimmers in Rochester, Michigan, must have their bathing suits inspected by a police officer before swimming in public. Gun belts are discouraged in or near the children's pool. Frogs can't actually swim. They only think they can. Put a doubt in their minds and they sink like a stone.

Thank you, Marcus. And at the end of that round, Marcus, you've managed to smuggle two truths past everyone else, which are that writer Evelyn Waugh fell into a depression while teaching at a prep school in North Wales and intended to commit suicide by swimming out to sea. And he was stung by a jellyfish, and that encouraged him not to bother.

Johnny Kim himself stung and went, oh, what's the point? I may as well go back and live. And the other truth is that swimmers in Rochester, Michigan, must have their bathing suits inspected by a police officer before swimming in public by a police officer before swimming in public. A police officer?

He made that law up himself. Excuse me, madam, I better check that. Not you, sir. You're fine. In fact, the US has very strict rules about displays of nudity, as this Californian statute makes clear. Within the city no person shall appear bathe sunbathe walk or be in any public park playground beach or the waters adjacent there to in such a manner that the genitals vulva pubis pubis symphysis pubic hair

buttocks natal cleft perineum anus anal region or pubic hair region of any such person or any portion of the breast at or below the upper edge of the areola thereof of any such female person is exposed to public view or is not covered by an opaque covering and that's definitely the sexiest thing anyone has ever read out very difficult for people with a large pubic area, though, I think. Well, I mean, some men, very hairy men, where does the pubic area and the stomacal area and the chestal area and the shoulder all that?

I have this exact problem. Every time I go for a haircut, I get that sort of sympathetic look when they reach the back of my head and realise, oh, that just goes right on down. It's a sort of confused look of where should we stop i don't mean to disparage that because it's obviously very traumatic but a lot of women have large nipple areas some women's nipples go almost up to the neck and

yes because everyone every woman's nipples are different. And if you have a large... They're like snowflakes. They are. They are. David, it's important to clarify, they're not exactly like snowflakes. And if you've got very large ones,

say the size of a small side plate... Yeah. ..you could have a peek and you could accidentally break the law and if they said you're breaking the law, you'd be like, I've just got big nipples. And I don't know if that's a defence. Yeah. If you've been affected by any of the issues

raised in this programme. Anyway, Mark, that means you've scored two points. Oh, good. OK, we turn now to Miles Jupp. Your subject, Miles, is bread, a common food made from a dough of flour mixed with water or milk and usually leavened with yeast before being baked into loaves. Off you go, Miles.

Everybody finds bread through the ages a fascinating subject. And... As with all carbohydrates, there is much superstition attached to it it was thought that warts could be cured by stealing bread rubbing it on the water and then burying it marcus i definitely think that's true because in days gone by anything mad you could think of was always listed as a cure for warts yeah Days gone by is like America, isn't it? That was considered to be a cure for warts. It's now thought that alkaline soda bread

could help treat a variety of skin problems, including warts, moles and precancerous lesions, by increasing the levels of oxygen in the air around them. So there may be a tiny little kernel of truth in the massive shed load of crap. It's thought bad luck to turn a loaf of bread upside down once a slice has been removed. It's considered good luck if you self-scan a loaf of bread

in a supermarket and it is immediately recognised. Bread around the world comes in various guises. In Latin America, there's a brand of bread called bimbo. Marcus. I have eaten a bimbo. In Mallorca, in fact, I have chowed down on. You started it. Yes, I've eaten bimbo bread, so I know it to be true.

Yes, it is true. Made by the Mexican company Grupo Bimbo, who produce more than 8,000 products. German pumpernickel bread derives its name from the German words nickel, meaning devil, and pumper, meaning to break wind. As the sour rye bread was said to be so difficult to digest, it even made Satan break wind.

Incidentally, rye bread is so-called because it's usually dry with a little hint of irony. The reason English wheat germ bread has never sold well in France is because French customers assume it contains eight germs. A bun bought at Paddington in 1942 was donated to Cambridge in 2002 to help researchers study the everlasting mysteries of railway catering. Susan. I think that's something that would probably happen,

is that someone donated some form of bun from the 1940s to a university to establish about catering. You're right. That precise thing happened. The bun was bought by Donald and Betty Smith who kept it as a souvenir of their honeymoon. It's quite sweet, that, I think.

The tribute band Buns and Roses was formed after the breakup of a previous tribute band, the Grateful Bread. Thank you, Miles. And at the end of that round, Miles, breakup of a previous tribute band the grateful bread thank you miles and at the end of that round miles you've also managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel which are that it's thought bad luck to turn a loaf of bread upside down once a slice has been removed this tradition is thought to stem from the importance of bread as a food stuff for

peasants who had to avoid dropping it at all costs. And the second truth is that German pumpernickel bread derived its name from the German words nickel, meaning devil, and pumper, meaning to break wind. As the sour rye bread was said to be so difficult to digest it even made Satan break wind. An earlier German name for it was crankbrot or sick bread. This idea that Satan previously would never break wind under any circumstances.

Satan, perhaps the most ladylike of all. At the end of that round, Miles, you've scored two points. A machine that could automatically slice bread was patented as early as 1912, but it took 16 years to find a commercial taker, as no-one had a decent yardstick to recognise what it was the best thing since. Next up is Susan Cowman. Susan, your subject is hotels,

commercial establishments that provide paid accommodation to travellers and tourists on a short-term basis. Off you go, Susan. It was a dark morning on Tuesday 30th February 1935 when I realised that the TV show St Elsewhere was all filmed in a hotel located in the stomach of a small boy called Tommy. It was the 31st February when I realised I lived there too. Look, what are you talking about?

I mean, I'm still... I've nearly buzzed in to correct you on the days in February until I realised it was clearly some sort of a joke. You're not meant to tell the truth in any form. That's why I've deliberately not told the truth. I'm on the back foot now. Sorry for interrupting. No, listen.

I just thought I was in the wrong game. We travelled around the country in search of the perfect location and theme for our new home and we encountered some strange sights. The Canskrat Hotel in Slovakia, in which the patrons sleep in a replica life-size doll's house and pay in toy bank notes. Marcus. Yes, I think that that is true the can scrapped hotel in slovakia although i've realized of course that a life-size

replica of a doll's house is a normal house mean, the premise upon which a doll's house exists is it is a scaled-down normal house. So I now feel, having looked at the maths of it, the physics of it, I now feel slightly foolish. But what the hell, I buzzed in, so I'm saying that's true. No. No. Obviously, there are many that are life-size replicas of, well, I'd say dolls

hotels. All buildings, in many ways, are life-size replicas of their scaled-down doll equivalents. I often walk around the streets pointing at cars going, it's like a life-size model. and walk around the streets pointing at cars going,

it's like a life-size model. The disco hotel in Amsterdam where guests have to dance before they're allowed to check in and pay with different coloured glitter balls. Right, Marcus. Now, I've been to Amsterdam. I haven't stayed there, but I've been to Amsterdam enough times to make me think at least part of that is true.

None of that is true. Oh, what? There's no need to specify. Do I lose points for... Oh, God. And the Daspark Hotel in Austria, which consists of three big concrete drain pipes with double beds squashed into them,

where guests pay what they like. In TripAdvisor, most guests say it's not worth the money. Miles. I really hope that's true. Yes, that's true. Oh! Sure. May I say, Mr Jupp, that's a very cowardly way to play the game.

To let me throw myself on the two first bombs and then scoop in and pick up the other one. Literally herding Marcus ahead of you like a flock of sheep across a minefield. I think it was a close-run thing, but Marcus would probably just about have served under me if we'd been at war. It's very close-run, but I like to think.

It would have been awkward after the war when our families knew each other me and tommy weren't the only ones who loved hotels no after the age of 25 marilyn monroe would only sleep in a four-poster bed in the beverly hills hotel she was also deeply moral and would only make love in a bed or elsewhere. And David and Jean Davidson moved out of their Sheffield flat and into a travel lodge on the A1 for the next 22 years. Their old flat is now a Premier Inn. Miles, I think that couple did live in a hotel for that length of time. You're right, they did.

Well done. The elderly couple stayed at travel lodges in Newark and Grantham between 1985 and 2007, finding it a comfortable and cheaper alternative to an old people's home. In 22 years, they've spent £97,600 on their hotel costs. Help the aged said the cost of a residential care home for one person is between £21,000 and £25,000 a year, so you can't argue with the maths.

So you're better off going into a travel lodge, by far. Yeah, the travel lodge should use this more in their advertising. Come here to gradually die. God's waiting room. Mr Davidson said, we don't have this kind of room in our flat in Sheffield. We get great rates because we book well in advance. And all our bed linen is laundered too.

It doesn't get much better than that, does it? And there's porn. He goes on to say, and there's porn. Is there porn in the travel world? No. They operate a BYO system with porn. Where you put a glass up to the wall. Yeah, sure.

It's up to you, mate. I've got an iPad, but yeah, whatever. Whatever works. Not everybody likes the new technologies, do they? Can you hear the neighbours with an iPad against the wall? Does that work? That'd be a good app, you know? Like the iPad against the wall? Is that true? That'd be a good app, you know? Like the glass

against the wall app. No, I'm not fussed. Someone's inventing that, even as we... We decided to check in using a pseudonym. We knew that when Marlon Brando signed into hotels, he used the name Lord Greystoke, and Charlie Chaplin would sign into hotels

under the name Madame Le Guillotine. charlie chaplin would sign into hotels under the name madame le guillotine so we registered as anton deck miles i think the uh movie stars checking in under those assumed names is a fact well then you put me in a difficult position one is and one isn't that's exactly the difficult position you put me in i'll do marlon brando you do the other one okay or do you want to do marlon Brando. You do the other one, okay? Or do you want to do Marlon Brando? Do we have to do impressions? I'd rather do neither. I'll do Chaplin if you want.

Would you like to go with Chaplin or Brando? I must say it's quite rude for you to carry on while I'm doing my Chaplin. I'm going to have to hurry you. Brando. You're right. Brando signed in using the name Lord Greystoke, a.k.a. Tarzan. We checked in.

We were living the dream. I'd read a long list of celeb demands and copied them. Mariah Carey demands that pink toilet rolls are placed in all her hotel rooms. Madonna insists that everyone who serves her brush their teeth before they speak to her. Celine Dion insists that everyone who serves her brush their teeth before they speak to her. Celine Dion insists that everyone who serves her brushes her teeth before they speak to her.

And John Travolta insists that anyone he encounters looks a little bit like John Travolta. I'm going to go with Mariah Carey and the pink toilet rolls. You're absolutely right. Well done. Sadly, the novelty of living the dream soon wore off.

I offered Tommy a choice of a move to one of three hotels. Either a hotel in the heart of the Australian outback near Ayers Rock that's built in the shape of a crocodile or a hotel in Bavaria that's shaped like a sausage or a hotel in Vegas in the shape of a one-armed bandit. I like the sound of that one.

Marcus. I think the sound of that one. Marcus. I think that the Bavarian Sausage Hotel exists. No. But Tommy didn't answer, because it turned out he lived in a hotel in my head. Ooh. That's like the Twilight Zone. Thank you, Susan.

And, Susan, at the end of that round, you've managed to smuggle one truth past the rest of the panel, which is that in the Australian outback near Ayers Rock, there's a hotel built in the shape of a crocodile. It's called the Gaguju Crocodile Holiday Inn. Guests enter through the jaws, and a swimming pool is positioned to represent the animal's heart. Anyway, that means, Susan, that you've scored one point.

It was at the Savoy Hotel that Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas conducted their affair, having failed to get a room at their first choice, a B&B run by a Christian couple in Penzance. Now it's the turn of Alan Davis. Your subject, Alan, is foxes, carnivorous mammals characterised by their upright ears, reddish-brown fur and long, bushy tails. Off you go, Alan.

Fox milk is a valuable source of aluminium. Children raised by wild foxes grow up to be completely rust-proof. The ancient Romans believed that you could cure a headache by tying the genitals of a fox to your forehead. Marcus. Yes, I think that comes under the category of mad stuff people will do to cure things. You're absolutely right. Yes.

Yes, Pliny the Elder recommended it in his book of Natural History, where he also recommended that a cure for choking on bread was to take another piece from the same loaf and put some in each ear. Oh. What a brilliant man. Can't hear yourself gagging to death on the first piece. Yeah. Foxes are actually vegetarian vegetarian when a fox goes into

a hen house the chickens go crazy and start tearing each other to shreds despite the best efforts of the fox to calm them down on rainy days king henry the fourth of france would move trees rocks and grass into the grand gallery in the louvre and stage indoor fox hunts. Dan, Susan. Yeah, that sounds about right. If it's a bit rainy, just move it all inside. Small space, not a fair fight, but I think that's something that they might have done.

You're right. You're absolutely right. That's what they did. The corridor was 400 metres long and 35 metres wide and could house the entire court on fox and quail hunts the fox trot was invented in 1914 by harry fox from charleston the dance was banned in japan where foxes are regarded as darkness devils who whisper lethal spells into the ears of people as they sleep marcus yes i think that that suspicion about foxes is true in japan it's not oh no sorry uh foxes are seen as supernatural in japan but they're not seen as darkness devils who whisper lethal spells trouble with that not being

true is it it makes me look a little bit racist i'm really sorry i am i too late to go to the foxtrot but what were you going to say was true um i was going to say that the invention of the foxtrot in the year that was specified by the gentleman from charleston was correct okay you can have a point for that because it was invented in 1914 by harry fox although he wasn't from charleston that's what i said was it it's probably the accent it's probably the accent you can't quite understand what i'm saying. It's a regional twang I've got. I said he wasn't from Charleston. So if I don't give you the point, am I racist? Fair enough, you get the point. Thanks.

Alan. The spell's going to only be broken by stealing the devil's voice, which is why the Japanese eat fox's tongues. Marcus. The thing is, I've started on the whole... Why can't you leave them alone? On the whole anti-Japanese ticket now. They're a proud and ancient culture.

You've been watching too many repeats of Tenko. Yeah. But, you know, after what they'd done to our boys in the war, I'm going to say that they'd eat a fox's tongue. No. Right. Wow. God, this is just getting worse and worse.

I don't see... I mean, I wouldn't be against eating a fox's tongue. Yeah. I've had a lamb's tongue. Quite nice. Yeah. I've had a cod's tongue. Have you?

Yeah. Quite nice. Yeah. Particularly friendly snorkelling trip. That was... snorkelling trip that was um incidentally the japanese for foxtrot is focus on toronto roadkill recipes is britain's first flattened fauna cookbook absolutely that's the kind of thing we british do best if you can scrape it up off the road and cook it i need to go for it yes that is true true true you're right

in fact alan was going to go on to say as well as badger weasel and bat there is a recipe for fox although the author does say that fox tends to repeat on him the author in this case being retired biologist arthur boyt who despises waste has been eating roadkill in his native cornwall for over 50 years he uh arthur boyt cooked roadkill for hugh dennis and i and uh he made us a blackbird pie. And I said to him, how many are in there? And he said, well, I wanted it to be four and 20, but it's bits of two. He also made... Bits of two and a fifth eye.

He also made, I've eaten badger, cooked by Arthur Boyd, and risotto, which is... an otter-based rice dish. Did Mr Boyd and Hugh Dennis have to listen to all your appalling remarks about the Japanese? While I was joking, I'm too hot, they'll eat anything over there. Sure, you want to see them. Her Majesty the Queen has a special hat made of fox fur.

When she tells her husband that she is due to visit a place she has never heard of, Prince Philip will reply, wear the fox hat. This is believed to be a private joke. Thank you, Alan. And at the end of that round, Alan, you've managed to smuggle one truth past the rest of the panel, which is that the Japanese for Foxtrot is

Fokusu Torota. And that means you scored one point. Which brings us to the final scores. In fourth place, with minus one point, we have Marcus Brickstock. First,

those Japanese. They're devilry nose nobiles. In third place, with no points, it's Miles Jupp. In second place, with three points, it's Alan Davisis and in first place with an unassailable five points is this week's winner susan calman that's about it for this week goodbye

the unbelievable truth was devised by john nasmyck and graham garden and featured david mitchell in the chair with panelists alan davies susan calman miles jump and marcus brigstaff the Thank you.