The Unbelievable Truth - 11x01 Sharks, Photography, Sugar, Jeremy Clarkson

Episode Date: December 22, 2021

11x01 8 April 2013 Lloyd Langford, Henning Wehn, Katherine Ryan, Graeme Garden Sharks, Photography, Sugar, Jeremy Clarkson

We present The Unbelievable Truth, the panel game built on truth and lies. In the chair, please welcome David Mitchell. 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. As always, the panellists will be attempting to identify the horse meat of truth in the economy burger of lies. Please welcome Henning Vane, Catherine Ryan, Lloyd Langford and Graham Garden. 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 Lloyd Langford. Lloyd was formerly Chortle Student Comedian of the Year. He won the competition by brilliantly remembering to turn up. Lloyd, your subject is sharks, described by my encyclopedia as fierce, carnivorous marine fish, characterised by their long, streamlined bodies, rows of sharp teeth and distinctive dorsal fins. Off you go, Lloyd. Fingers on buzzers, the rest of you. The word shark was coined in 1549 when English sailor William Michael Griffin saw a great white swimming towards him

and in sheer panic tried to scream three different swear words at the same time. The collective noun for a group of sharks is a closed casket funeral. Sharks are the only fish with eyebrows. Male sharks do not have penises, which is why they're so very angry. Graham. I think that probably is why they're very angry. They don't have penises. They don't have penises.

Now, I don't think they're angry about it, because it's anatomically normal for them, but... Maybe the lady sharks are angry about it. The cookie-cut cutter shark is so aggressive it even attacks nuclear submarines. Especially if it thinks Sean Connery is inside doing a woeful Russian accent. Henning. Well, maybe that shark is

so aggressive that it attacks submarines. It is. Yeah, you're absolutely right. The cookie cutter shark is basically very angry about its no penis and um and they'll attack anything they're only about the size of cats but they'll go for you whatever you are so it's essentially not worth the torpedo is it the pygmy ribbon-tailed cat shark is the smallest shark in the world with a maximum length of seven and a half inches,

but then the water is very cold. She knows what I'm talking about. Pop star Seal gained his nickname as a young boy after he fell into the shark tank of Brighton... I just can't believe this is true. It is like a quadruple bluff, that young... Popstar Seal gained his nickname as a young boy after he fell into the shark tank at Brighton Aquarium. Well, I see through what Lloyd is playing at there.

That is absolutely true. Seal fell into the shark tank at Brighton Aquarium. Do you want to finish what you were going to say happened on that fateful day, Lloyd? He fell into the shark tank at Brighton Aquarium and was then repeatedly tossed in the air by Clarence, the resident Mako shark. Now that... No, that I don't believe. Yes, it's not true.

No, that's where it became unbelievable. Up to that point, I did believe you. In August 1983, English jazz funk band Shark Attack were banned from Minehead Butlins because overexcited fans repeatedly shouting their name kept causing panicked swimmers to scramble out of the water. swimmers to scramble out of the water. Olivia Newton-John was president of the Isle of Man Basking Shark Society

but was later expelled from the group when footage surfaced of her saying she thought hammerheads were much cooler. If you think sharks are dangerous, you'll be surprised to hear that muntjac deer, pigs, and members and former members of So Solid Crew all kill more people each year than sharks do. Graham.

I think almost anything kills more people than sharks do. Well, pigs do. Yeah. So you can have a point. Muntjac deer don't, and neither do members and former members of So Solid Crew. You say that. Approximately 40 people are killed each year by pigs in North America alone, eight times as many than by sharks worldwide.

Pigs, unlike sharks, act cooperatively. Cooperatively with each other, not with the person they're trying to kill. They don't seek out the despairing and say, we'll help you out. But yes, in 2007, a sow in Norfolk knocked a farmer off his feet, enabling other pigs to bite him. Thank you, Lloyd.

Lloyd, at the end of that round, you've managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel, which are that the pygmy ribbon-tailed cat shark is the smallest shark in the world with a maximum length of 7.5 inches. They're also remarkable for the size of their offspring. A 7-inch mother can give birth to one or even two 4.3-inch pups. That would be...

Imagine if you were seven and a half inches long and you give birth to a total of 8.6 inches of children in one go. Or like Peter Crouch's mother. He didn't come out that size. And the second truth is that Olivia Newton-John was president of the Isle of Man Basking Shark Society. She's very committed to sharks that live near tax havens. And that means, Lloyd, you've scored two points. A shark can detect one part of blood in 100 million parts of water,

making it the ideal creature to verify the effectiveness of homeopathy. OK, we turn now to Henning Weyn. Henning is a German stand-up comedian who has put up with a lot of crude World War II-related heckles, particularly at a recent gig in Coventry, where he really bombed. Henning, Henning is a... Well, all I can say is the council did more damage to the place in the 1960s. Your subject, Henning, is photography, the practice of recording permanent images by the action of light projected by a lens in a camera onto a film or other light-sensitive material.

Off you go, Henning. Photography was invented by Jesus. And this can be proven by simple deduction. There were next to no photographs before Jesus, but lots of them after. Jesus, but lots of them after. In fact, we only know what Jesus looks like from pictures of his face appearing in cheese on toast. Today, there is a camera that can take up to one trillion photos per second. Harry Morgan of Portsmouth bought one for his wedding and asked Snappy Snaps to print them, causing a worldwide toner shortage. In 1839, Frank Honeymoon of Dagenham became the world's first wedding photographer.

Weddings got off to a non-shaky start when the brides had to sit with their heads in clamps for 15 minutes so that the film could expose. Lloyd. I think they had to sit there with clamped heads. They did. The daguerreotype photograph of 1839 required 15 to 30 minutes exposure and so the subject would be placed on a posing chair on a raised platform with their head in a clamp to prevent swaying or movement. Anyway, these 15 minutes of silence were known as the honeymoon period. And the Victorians tried to use cameras to fight crime. Forensic students in the 1860s would

photograph the eyes of murder victims and look for an image of the perpetrator to appear in a close-up of the jelly. And if you stared at it long enough, it usually turned out that the murderer was Jesus. Graham. I think they did have that strange belief that if you took the pictures of someone who'd been murdered, it retained the last image before they died, unless the murderer was behind them.

Yes, absolutely people thought that in the latter half of the 19th century. And detectives on the Jack the Ripper case were presented with a proposal for using the technique. 150 years later, what George Orwell described as a nightmare scenario has become a reality. Within 200 yards of the East Lincoln flat, where he wrote 1984,

there are 32 CCTV cameras. Lloyd. That sounds plausible. 32 CCTV cameras near where he used to live. Yes, it's true. Yes. Britain has 4.2 million CCTV cameras, one for every 14 people. Although I don't think they're sort of divided up evenly.

That's one for roughly every single person in Wales. Yes. In fact, that't think they're sort of divided up evenly. That's one for roughly every single person in Wales. Yes, in fact that is how they're divided up. What's remarkable is that we have 20% of the CCTV cameras in the world are in Britain. That's how organised we are.

Everyone knows that cats take photographs, but did you know that pigeons do too? The CIA invented the pigeon spy camera in the 1970s in the hope that they would fly over Moscow. Lloyd. I think the CIA fucked. They've done loads of crazy stuff.

They came up with an exploding cigar once to try and kill Castro. They did. They invented the pigeon spy camera in the 1970s the tiny battery-powered cameras weighed as little as 20 to 40 grams lighter than the camera used in an earlier trial in Washington DC where the overburdened pigeon was forced to abandon his I think that's that's a pretty committed pigeon I would say Thank you Henning

And at the end of that round Henning you've managed to smuggle one truth past the rest of the panel which is that there is a camera that can take up to a trillion photos a second. That's a lot, isn't it? But at the same time, so many as to make you not give a damn.

This is possible because of streak camera technology, where light particles are converted into electrons, which is enough information, I'm sure, for us all to build one ourselves. And that means, Henning, you've scored one point Next up is Katherine Ryan Katherine is from Sarnia in southern Ontario in Canada. Don't worry. She's American basically

when when Katherine When Katherine won a comedy competition sponsored by Nivea, her prize included an entire year's supply of Nivea creams and moisturisers. My God, that could be up to a third of a small tub of Nivea. Catherine, your subject is sugar, a soluble, crystalline carbohydrate used principally as a sweetener in food and drink. Off you go, Catherine. Sugar and spice and everything nice

are ingredients to be avoided when trying to have a baby in China. In China, fish and chips are served with sugar, pizza is dipped in a sweetened cherry sauce and the most popular fizzy drink is called hot sweet sugar wasabi pop.

Lloyd. I think one of those is probably true. They all sounded believable, didn't they? I'll go for the pizza being dipped in cherry sauce. No, that's not true, Lloyd. Graham. I'll go for the fizzy drink. Hot sweet sugar wasabi pop.

Yeah. No, that's not true. Henning. The pizza one. My God, this is going better for Catherine than she could have hoped. Who would have guessed that two of you would have gone for the pizza one? No, the pizza one. Just moments later, Henning, the pizza one remains untrue.

Anyone want to go for the hot sweet sugar wasabi pop again? The sugary nectar is named after the five members of China's chart-topping girl band Fizzle Pixies. In 2009, diabetics lobbied against the group, staging a protest by throwing 10,000 cupcakes on stage during an outdoor concert. Henning. That I can imagine that there was a protest at their performance. There wasn't. Oh, of course not. It's in China and there's no protests.

That was a beginner's mistake. Yeah. That was a beginner's mistake. Another target of the diabetic lobby was UK band The Sugar Babes, who as a result were forced to deny any actual affiliation with sugary products or music. Lloyd. I think maybe the UK Diabetic Association had a problem with The Sugar Babes.

Well, no. Diabetic Association had a problem with the sugar babes? Well, no. No, the diabetic lobby remained silent. Even when the line-up kept changing. Today, diabetics are diagnosed for their sugar intolerance by scanning

a strand of hair for glucose reaction. Before chemical tests were invented, doctors had to test for diabetes by tasting a patient's urine to see if it was sugary. Lloyd. I think they do scan the hair to test whether they're diabetic or not. No, they don't.

Henny. Well, I go with whatever is Graham going to say, because he's from the medical profession, so my trust is with you. So what do you reckon then, Graham? I think it was the wasabi pop was... LAUGHTER

In the old days, doctors used to taste urine to see if it was sweet. They absolutely did, Graham. Well done. And we won't ask how you know that. Yes, before chemical testing was developed in the early 1800s, diagnosis was often made by water testers who would taste the urine to detect sweetness.

So maybe in Kim Kardashian's sex tape, that rapper was just trying to help her. I... I haven't seen that particular sex tape, but I'm intrigued now. She appears to be diabetic in it. A rapper appears to be diagnosing her the old-fashioned way. Is that what you're saying?

Well, he's not quite sure at first, and then they try again, and then he's not sure still. So he's not a very trained medical doctor it takes he's right to repeat the test under the same conditions it's not exactly a second opinion it's what they call peer review There are two recognized types of diabetes, type 1 and the type that's your own fault. Motor manufacturer Henry Ford maintained that eating sugar was tantamount to committing suicide,

since its sharp crystals would cut a person's stomach to shreds. Mr. Ford was the first vegan motor manufacturer and practiced such a devout, holistic approach to health that he opened a rudimentary Pilates studio in his factory basement. After a particularly strenuous training session, he was mistakenly offered a Haribo sweet by an intern. Mr. Ford was so tired and thirsty that he ate it without knowing he was consuming sugar

because on a dry tongue, sugar has no taste. Lloyd. Did he have a rudimentary Pilates? Do you share in his basement? Yeah. No. Alright, fair enough. Graham.

I don't think sugar does have a taste on a dry tongue. No, me neither. You're both absolutely right. Well done. Well done, Henning. Receptors on taste buds can only detect the chemicals from food once they've been dissolved in saliva, so you can't really taste anything on a dry tongue. In Boston, Massachusetts, eight buildings were destroyed

and 21 people were killed by a giant wave of sugar. Lloyd. Yes, a 1924 Boston molasses accident. Bloody hell. I can't believe how out you are with the date. It's 1919 the Boston molasses disaster occurred in 1919 when a storage tank on Boston's waterfront burst releasing two million gallons of molasses in a 15 foot high 160 foot wide wave that raced through the north of the city at 35 miles an hour killing

21 people and causing a100 million worth of damage. Yeah, well done, Lloyd. You definitely get a point. Thank you, Catherine. Thanks. At the end of that round, Catherine, you've smuggled two truths past the rest of the panel, which are that in China, fish and chips are served with sugar.

Oh, they've got no culture, that lot, do they? And the second truth is that motor manufacturer Henry Ford feared that eating sugar would tear his stomach lining and cause internal bleeding because of the crystalline nature of the sugar. And that means, Catherine, you've scored two points. Now it's the turn of Graham Garden. Graham, your subject is Jeremy Clarkson, the outspoken journalist and writer who's best known for his appearances on the BBC motoring show Top Gear. Off you go, Graham. Proud Welshman Jeremy Clarkson... LAUGHTER

..was born into an impoverished family of humble sheep farmers. When children's novelist Anthony Buckridge adapted his famous Jennings school stories for radio, young schoolboy Jeremy Clarkson was the obvious choice to play Atkinson, the boy who keeps crashing fast cars. Lloyd. I think that's true. What?

Clarkson was in a radio adaptation of Jennings. You're right, he was. Well done. Clarkson played Atkinson, a boy who irritated everyone around him with his incessant piano practice, in the 1973 broadcast Jennings at School. Happy Christmas, Jennings. Well, Atkinson, aren't you making any decorations? No, sir. I'm reserving my strength for my piano solo, sir.

Oh, yes, of course. We're expecting great things from you at the party. Yes, I know, sir. It's my chance to make my name in show business. I'd better go and do some practice. What are we going to do now if we're not allowed to make any noise? I know what I'm going to do. Practice my piece for the party.

Shut up! For goodness sake, Atkinson. It'll be bad enough having to sit through it tomorrow. We don't want to listen to it now as well. Well, screw your earplugs in because I'm going ahead. I have to say, he's still incredibly punchable.

Little James May and Richard Hammond were good in that too, weren't they? Clarkson's fondness for wearing jeans caused a boom in the sales of denim in the mid-1990s, most of the sales being to paunchy middle-aged men, the so-called Jeremy Clarkson effect. Lloyd. Wasn't there a Clarkson effect

from people buying large quantities of stonewashed denim? They do that. There's a thing with older gentlemen wearing a sportsman's jacket and jeans. So it's like business on the top, party on the bottom. Business on the top, party on the bottom. I would not advocate Googling that. Well, there was a Jeremy Clarkson effect, but unfortunately it wasn't what Graham said it was. It wasn't a boost

in sales of denim. The Clarkson effect was Levi's term for a four-year slump in the sale of denim in the mid-90s due to its association with middle-aged men. Clarkson's first job was road-testing caravans, and he's had a soft spot for them ever since. It was... Henning.

Was it his first job driving them caravans? No, his first job was as a travelling salesman selling Paddington Bears. Oh. And the reason for that was that his parents made a fortune from the franchise to sell Paddington Bears. And the reason for that was that his parents made a fortune from the franchise to sell Paddington Bear. His mother initially made bears for Jeremy

and his sister. Then she had the idea of marketing Paddington Bear as a cuddly toy based on the Michael Bond stories. And it was her idea to give Paddington Wellington boots so that the bears would stand up. Before that,

they sold tea cozies. It was at a caravan site in Minehead that he was spotted by a BBC producer who made him put back his hubcaps. As he happily admits he doesn't know the difference between petrol and diesel, has no idea how a car engine works, and before appearing on telly, he thought Vorsprung der Technik was the German for foreplay. In a Top Gear episode broadcast in 2005, Clarkson described a car design as being quintessentially German, then gave a mock Nazi salute, mentioned Hitler, and set the sat-nav destination for Poland.

Nazi salute mentioned Hitler and set the sat-nav destination for Poland that was just an involuntary response from Henning I can confirm that happened you're right that did happen yes did you see the broadcast in question I didn't

but it made quite a lot of head waves in Germany even though there wasn't a single person in Germany that saw it. Norfolk is the only county to have a We Love Jeremy Clarkson club. They get together once a month for counselling. There were complaints from Jeremy Clarkson's neighbours when he got hold of a 60-foot supersonic jet fighter and put it on his front lawn. When the council ordered him to remove the plane, he told them that it was a leaf blower. Lloyd.

I'm sure he has got into trouble with his neighbours at some point for some monstrosity in his garden, so I'll guess that it was a jet. Though now I'm saying it out loud. It is absolutely true, Lloyd. Well done. Should have gone for a helicopter, really. Yeah, or just a, you know, a pond. He claimed the Ferrari 355 was as disappointing

as God turning out to be Belgian. was as disappointing as God turning out to be Belgian. It's just all so plausible, isn't it? Shall I give you a clue as to when I'm going to tell the truth? OK. Raise your left hand. Nowadays, Jeremy is very active in the Chipping Norton branch... He's very active in Chipping Norton. ..of the Labour Party.

Oh! And when an internet petition was posted to make Jeremy Clarkson Prime Minister, it attracted nearly 50,000 signatures. Lloyd. There are at least 50,000 signatures. Lloyd. There are at least 50,000 idiots in the United Kingdom. This is absolutely true. Downing Street was accused of wasting taxpayers' money

after it responded to the 2008 petition with a 55-second YouTube video showing Clarkson added to the portraits of prime ministers on the stairs in Number 10, set to classical music. They're not taking the threat seriously. Thank you, Graham. And at the end of that round, Graham, you've managed to smuggle one truth past the rest of the panel,

which is that Jeremy Clarkson has no idea how a car engine works. He has made several technical errors when describing engines on Top Gear, such as claiming that a supercharger forces fuel rather than air into an engine. Honestly, schoolboy error. And in an interview with Exchange and Mart, he claimed, I actually don't know anything about cars except where to put the petrol in and where to keep the change for parking meters. And that means, Graham, you scored one point. Jeremy Clarkson was a passenger on the last ever flight taken by Concorde. Initially seen as super fast and cutting edge, but now just a noisy relic of the 70s, Jeremy Clarkson sat in row K. Which brings us to the final scores.

In fourth place, with minus three points, we have Henning Vein. In third place, with minus one point, it's Catherine Ryan. In joint first place, with an unassailable five points each, it's this week's winners, Lloyd Langford and Graham Garden. That's about it for this week. Goodbye. The Unbelievable Truth was devised by John Naismith and Graham Garden and featured David Mitchell in the chair, with panellists Lloyd Langford, Catherine Ryan, Henning Vane and Graham Garden. and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and

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