The Unbelievable Truth - 11x06 The French, Lions, Grass, Pianos

Episode Date: December 22, 2021

11x06 13 May 2013 Ed Byrne, Mark Watson, Lucy Porter, Tony Hawks The French, Lions, Grass, Pianos

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. 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. On our panel tonight, we welcome back four regular guests, or so their gastroenterologists have told us. And they are Lucy Porter, Mark Watson,

Ed Byrne and Tony Hawks. 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 Ed Byrne. Ed, your subject is the French, described by my encyclopedia as pertaining to the inhabitants of France and their descendants, as well as this country's language and culture. Off you go, Ed. Fingers on buzzers, the rest of you. Established in the late 12th century, France, or to give it its full title, the French Republic of Francity, France, France... LAUGHTER ..has land borders with Portugal, the Netherlands, Austria and Hawaii. Tony?

I think France was lots of different countries. It was Occitan, it was all sorts of things, and I don't think it was established as a country until the 12th century. That is not true, I'm afraid, Tony. It was established as a country in the 9th century. From 843, they cite their kings. It started off as West Francia, the west bit of Charlemagne's empire.

Oh, OK. I was on the show a few weeks ago and did particularly poorly, and I was hoping I was going to make a bit of a comeback there, but it doesn't appear to be the case. I was hoping you were spending the intervening time trying to blank it out. If you've ever visited France, you would know that the French only sell frog's legs to tourists.

Any Frenchman worth his salt knows that the leg is the least tasty and most stringy part of the frog. They sell the legs to us and keep the delicious head and torso for themselves, which they cook up in a soupy stew called La Naivete de l'Angleterre. During the French Revolution, the wearing of blue was banned as it was considered a royalist colour. And the kings, queens and jacks were removed from all packs of playing cards for the same reason and replaced with the buffoon, the whore and the baby smoking a cigarette.

Tony. I'll go for the blue thing. No. Tony, no, no, no. Well, it's so plausible, isn't it? Yeah, no. Now we have the problem of the game. Now, white is the royalist colour on the tricolour.

Blue and red are the colours of Paris. In France, it is legal to marry a dead person, provided you can prove that the wedding was already planned before they died. Go on. Mark. There's definitely a country where it's legal to marry a dead person. Why wouldn't it be France? Well, it is France.

So, well done. Yeah. Yes, in World War I, a few women were married by proxy to soldiers who died fighting, and since 1959, in France, posthumous marriages have been generally available. Requests are likely to be granted as long as the unequivocal consent of the deceased party can be ascertained and their family approved. If granted, the marriage will apply retroactively to the day before the deceased party died. During the first 20 years of the 17th century,

some 8,000 French aristocrats were killed fighting duels. The duels were an angry warlike people related to the Gauls. Lucy. I can't even remember what the number was, but a certain number of people would have been killed in duels, and I'm going to guess it's the number Ed said. It is the number Ed said. Well done. Yes, it's about 8,000 in the first 20 years of the 17th century. Certainly during that period,

8,000 pardons were issued for murders associated with duels. During the reign of Louis XIII, almost every member of the nobility was involved in a duel as a primary or secondary participant and each morning it was common to hear the question, do you know who fought yesterday? Some classic quotes now by Charles de Gaulle, famed for his baffling and intriguing rhetorical questions concerning his nation. Can a man truly call himself French if he has never farted in his mother's pantry?

How has our country grown so large when we can't even be bothered to pronounce the ends of our words? Do the French wear too much cologne? Or does the rest of Europe just reek with envy? And most famously, how can you govern a country that has 246 varieties of cheese? Tony. I'm going for the cologne one.

The cologne one. I don't like the way you're... I know you don't. You're always... You're being defensive, Tony. No, no, no, no. I mean, I'm not criticising you. I think you're about

to give me no points. I'm about to give you bad news. Yeah. No, it's not true, I'm afraid. Can I go for the cheese? Yes, you may indeed. And that's absolutely true true that's what he said sorry i suddenly got a frog in my throat

the french famously love all animals especially when served with a piquant sauce a french man named michel lotito ate 18 bicycles 15 supermarket trolleys, six chandeliers, two beds and a pair of skis. When asked to comment on this incredible feat, he said, that's the last time I go on the piss with Heston Blumenthal. Lucy. There was a French man who ate loads of weird stuff. I saw him on a programme once.

You're right, there was, and it is him. Yeah. Michel Lotito. Yeah, Michel Letito, known as Monsieur Mange 2, ate nearly nine tonnes of metal between 1966 and 1997,

including seven TV sets and a Cessna light aircraft. He's said to be the only known example of a coffin, handles and all, ending up inside a man rather than the other way round. Thank you, Ed. And at the end of that round, Ed,

you've managed to smuggle one truth past the rest of the panel, which is that during the French Revolution, the kings, queens and jacks were removed from all packs of playing cards. And that means, Ed, you've scored one point. To stay in shape, French statesman Cardinal Richelieu jumped over furniture. Not the only Catholic priest to work up a sweat

jumping an elegantly proportioned tall boy. The 1969... The 1969 French novel La Disparition, The Disappearance, is remarkable for not containing the letter E. I started reading it, but to be honest, found it a complete wust of Tim. OK, we turn now to Mark Watson. Your subject, Mark, is lions. Yellow-coated, tough-detailed and powerfully built carnivorous felines,

typically living in social groups in the savannah and grasslands of Africa and Asia. Off you go, Mark. Lions are the most misunderstood of creatures. We think of a pride of lions, ferociously roaming the rainforest, daintily picking apart their prey, breaking off to gaze sentimentally into the middle distance as Elton John sings one of the weaker numbers from his impressive body of work. And yet some lions are actually vegetarian. A lion's life expectancy is lower than that of a zebra, a kangaroo or even a little mouse and the correct term for a group of lions

is not even a pride but a squadron of lions. Ed, I think I'm going to go with the notion that some lions are vegetarian. No. Could have been. Very few of them favour hummus. You don't know. They've never seen it, perhaps.

It's a funny old world, you never know. Well, there we go. That was my one point. It's gone now. Right. He says pitifully. Well, I'm still dreaming of being in a class. You've not been in positive equity so far. You're gazing up at the broad, sunlit uplands of nought. A gleaming zero.

Could you introduce a handicap system in this so that I could come in with a few points in the bag before I start? Would you not find that patronizing no i love it well we'll consider it okay thank you what sort of time period are you going to consider it for well very great it's got to go through all the bbc processes and you know their nerves have changed post Savile. Lucy. The last fact, it wasn't the life expectancy one, what was the last one? The correct term is not a pride of lions, but a squadron. Do you know, who defines correct anyway?

Me. The dictionary on this occasion. Go on then, I'll have that one. So it's a squadron of lions. Do you know when you sort of say it back and then you realise, yeah, yeah. Close So it's a squadron of lions. Do you know when you sort of say it back and then you realise what... Yeah, yeah. Close. It's a pride.

It is a pride. Yeah. I want everyone to laugh at you like they laughed at me for suggesting that his vegetarian one was true. One day when there's a vegetarian squadron of lions, discovered. Absolute devouring of pineapple.

of lions, discovered. Absent devouring a pineapple. Around 200 humans a year are killed by lions. Yet an ostrich can kill a lion with a kick, a giraffe can kick its head clean off, and in Zimbabwe in 2011 a zebra gave a lion a fatal heart attack by emerging from bushes

while the lion was having lion sex with its partner. Ed. I believe that an ostrich could kill a lion with a kick. You're right, it could. Lions were hunted for their testicles, which were believed to improve sexual performance, and the hair from their mane, which was thought to be lucky.

In fact... Lucy. Testicles, mane. The usual problem. Testicles. Do I go for the testicles? Do I go for the luscious mane? I'm going to go for the mane.

The mane was considered lucky. No, the mane wasn't considered lucky. They were hunted for their testicles. They were hunted for their testicles, yeah. Their testicles were believed to improve sexual performance, which in the case of the lion, I'm sure they definitely did. There are still African tribes today

that consider lion testicles to be aphrodisiacs, I would say. It's a bit Route 1, isn't it? That sort of, what's an aphrodisiac? Yeah, I mean, what's wrong with

a nice glass of Prosecco? Absolutely right. I have to say, you've got to really want help before you're literally contemplating slaughtering a lion. To be honest, if you killed a lion, I would definitely have sex with you. What's the time period on this? I need to get a few people involved.

Get people coming up to you and say, OK, I poisoned one in the zoo. I poisoned one in the zoo and I booked a room. Mark. We even pillaged the lion's name for our own egos. Rapper Snoop Dogg recently passed himself off as Snoop Lion, saying that

Snoop Dogg was, quote, too embarrassing when they read it out at the doctors, unquote. Ed. Snoop Dogg has recently changed his name to Snoop Lion. Is that enough? That's true. You just knew that. Well done. You just knew that. Yeah. Well done.

You get a point. Thank you, Mark. And at the end of that round, Mark, you've managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel, which are that a lion's life expectancy is lower than that of a zebra. In the wild, lions rarely live past 10 due to injuries sustained from continual fighting with rival males, although lionesses live longer, usually 15 to 18 years.

In comparison, zebra have an average lifespan in the wild of 25 years. And the second truth is that a giraffe can kick off a lion's head. I'd quite like to see that. Anyway, Mark, that means you've scored two points. There are only two kinds of cat that live in large packs. One is lions, and the other is cats imprisoned in the homes of mad old ladies. Next up is Lucy Porter.

Lucy's height is often remarked upon. At about 4 foot 11, she's frequently described as petite by journalists and that monster by Warwick Davis. Lucy, your subject is... Your subject is grass, any of various plants that have jointed stems and blade-like leaves and are cultivated for lawns, used as pasture or cut for hay.

Off you go, Lucy. All animals love grass. The tailor ant can carry up to four blades of grass on its back and uses them to make a nest in the treetops. The tailor bird makes tiny pairs of trousers and hats and even its nest by stitching leaves together with blades of grass. Tony. I think the tailor bird stitches its nest together using blades of grass. Tony. I think the Taylor bird stitches its nest together

using blades of grass. You're right, it does. Well done. Well done, Tony. Tony's back into minor single figures. Yes, a Taylor bird lines its nest with little leaf pillows stitched together with grass. About 70% of all water

used in American households goes to watering lawns. In France, they use only 10% of their water to keep up their gardens, but that's still 10 times as much as they use to wash themselves. Tony. Well, I'm on a bit of a roll. So, 10% of water used in France

is too much, probably, isn't it, actually? I know the body language isn't good from David, and I worked hard to get that point, and it's gone. It's gone? It's gone. And it's gone. It's gone.

It's gone. 6% of French water is used for... Oh. Oh. Well, you know, it's not a point, but it's a mini moral victory. Because I thought I'd be way out, and I wasn't. No, no. And, you know, I'll take that home with me

and sit quietly. Easy. The word aftermath was originally after moth, and it referred to the green shoots of grass that appear after mowing. Similarly, mathematics was originally called moth-o-matics from the fact that the ancient Greeks spent most of their time worrying about

the dimensions of their lawns. Mark, I'll have a go at the aftermath fact. You're right with the aftermath fact. According to the OED, aftermath was reportedly being used until the late 19th century. The fifth Duke of Portland ate like a horse. He would get down on all fours and chew grass off the lawn. On his 40th birthday, he announced that henceforth he would reject all other food,

and he lived on nothing but grass until the day he died, about a week later. Tony. I think he might have been a bit of a nutcase, the Duke of Portland, so although he didn't do the last bit, I think he did get down on all fours and eat grass like a horse. He didn't, Tony. And and i feel terribly guilty because you're right the fifth duke of portland was an absolute nutter but that in particular insanity was not one he was guilty of but he was again i mean a bit of a moral victory yes well absolutely

they're adding up up there the moral victories He was sort of insanely obsessed with seclusion. Visitors were banned from his estate. Even the Duke's physician was barred entry and diagnosed any ailment from outside the door. He had his food delivered to him by a miniature railway that ran from the kitchen to his corner of the house. Under his supervision, the Abbey was systematically stripped of its furniture and treasures,

and each empty room painted bright pink. And instead, 15 miles of tunnels were dug beneath it housing libraries a billiard room large enough for 12 full-sized tables and an enormous subterranean ballroom large enough to accommodate 2 000 guests none of whom were ever invited but he did not get down on all fours and chew grass. The Japanese are fanatical about their lawns. Japanese gardeners can tend to their turf using the attractively named fertilisers Honourable Farmers, Happy Chow Fonts and Green Piles. And the number one BBC programme downloaded in Japan

is Gardener's Question Time, or as it was translated by the newspaper Nikkei Shimbun, Plant Husband Inter interrogation moment. Mark. Something there has to be true. I'm going to guess they have a fertilizer called Honorable Farmers. They don't. Oh, no.

Ed. I'm going to take on the gardener's question time being translated as plant husband interrogation... Moment. Moment. No, that's not true either. This is carnage. She's very good at this game, isn't she? She's very good. She researches things which are like the real thing

but aren't quite. It's frustrating. In the olden days in Britain, a green wedding dress was thought to be unlucky as the green staining of a woman's clothing was thought likely to be the result of rolling about in grassy fields with a lover. I myself was of, married in white.

Everyone said my white hot pants and nipple tassels looked fantastic. Tony. I'll go for the green stains, thinking you were rolling around with a lover. You're right. That's absolutely right. Yes, the expression green gown implied promiscuity, and there are suggestions that the lady of the famous song Greensleeves Yes, the expression green gown implied promiscuity, and there are suggestions that the lady of the famous song Greensleeves could have been a promiscuous young woman or even a prostitute.

Thank you, Lucy. And at the end of that round, Lucy, you've managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel, and they are that about 70 percent of all water used in american households goes to watering lawns which is remarkable six percent in france 70 percent in america and the second truth is that there is a japanese grass fertilizer called green piles although the brand name failed in foreign markets other brands, whose names did not translate well, include a soft drink called Mucos,

a baby cleanser called Skinner Baby, some paper tissues called Last Climax, and a beef jerky called Homo Sausage. And that means, Lucy, you've scored two points. Now it's the turn of Tony Hawks, a well-known wit, a successful musician, and a best-selling author, which are some of the people we tried to get

before we ended up having Tony back on the show. Tony, your subject is the piano, a popular musical instrument played by depressing keys that cause hammers to strike wire strings and produce audible vibrations. Off you go, Tony. In Iowa, one-armed piano players are not allowed to perform in front of women. In Idaho, one-legged piano players receive $100 a year from the government if they perform more than three gigs in a year. And in Illinois, piano players with one arm and one leg can only perform in the Chicago District Hall if their remaining limbs are on opposite sides of their body. I'm going to go for the middle one.

One-legged piano players in Idaho get a stipend if they play more than three gigs a year. That is not true. Oh! Sorry. Moral victory, though, I think. Mozart believed that two arms, two thumbs and eight fingers weren't enough for playing the piano

and wrote a piece that required the piano player to use his nose as well. Lucy. Lucy. Yeah. He was a crazy guy. I've seen the film. He was a crazy guy, and that is true. I know. Greig wrote a piece that required the piano player to use his elbows.

And Tchaikovsky wrote the 1812 Overture at just after ten past six. Bach's grandson wrote a concerto for six hands on one piano to be played by a large man with his arms around two small female pianists. Ed, he wrote a piece for Six Hands. He did indeed. The piece for Six Hands is called Drei Blatt and it requires the man to reach around the women and play the opposite extremes of the keyboard while they played the middle

registers. Throughout her life, Princess Alexandra of Bavaria was convinced that she had swallowed a full-size grand piano as a child. Of course, few people believed her, or at least not until they saw the size of her. Mark? I think the idea of a sort of long-gone European royal being bonkers enough for that is possible,

yeah. You're right. You're absolutely right. I thought you'd get that through. I thought I'd get that through. And you know what? And if it had turned out to be wrong, they would have. Oh, yeah.

That's the game. They would have, oh, how could you possibly think that through? You fool, you buffoon. At the age of 23, Princess Alexandra developed a delusion that as a child she'd swallowed a grand piano made of glass, which remained inside her.

It caused her to walk sideways down corridors and through doorways for fear of getting stuck. She would have gone on well with the 5th Duke of Portland. Someone should have fixed them up. Yeah, there should have been plenty of room in his underground ballroom for her to swish about, despite the huge glass grand piano that was sticking out of her. If they'd have had internet

profiles in those days. The original pianos were upright, known only as fortes. But when the shipping line P&O commissioned an instrument for use on their liners, which was so big it could double as a life raft, the P&O forte was born.

Nice one. Tony. I have now moved over to an instrument which is most certainly not a piano. It is actually comprised of pigs lined up in a partitioned box with their tails sticking out through a row of holes. I call it the swine way. I got the idea from Louis XI of France. This is the middle C.

No, this is the middle C. This is the middle C. No, this is the middle C. This is the middle C. Are you kidding me? Are we going to do it again with F sharp? Do it with every note, silly guess it. All right, yes, that's the middle C, that last one you just did. C sharp.

I'm really relying on you for this, Ted. Well, I hardly think that's fair. I'm assuming you haven't at any point played middle C, so no point.

God. Can I just say, you've got the point there, but this has been the opposite of a moral victory. When you're on a run like mine, you'll try anything. Carrying on. Lately I've been staring in the mirror.

I believe you have. And what you see before you is a charlatan. That's my Stevie Wonder. Lucy. Well, it is, isn't it? It is. You get a point. What?

I also think Ed should get a point for the fact that I'd be very surprised if a man as conscious of his own appearance as Tony Hawks hasn't been looking into a mirror quite recently. So, thank you. OK, I'm now going to play the dog piano, as described by Athanasius Kircher in 1650. As you'll hear, each key sticks a pin into a different dog. HE MAKES DOG NOISES dog and at the end of that round Tony you've managed to smuggle one truth past the rest of the panel, which is that Louis XI of France had the idea of a pig piano

to provide him with a concert of swine's voices. Built by the Abbot of Bagne, the instrument consisted of pigs of various sizes lined up in a box which were pricked with little spikes when corresponding keys were played. The king and his company were reportedly delighted with the result. And that means, Tony, you've scored one point. Which brings us to the final scores. In fourth place, with minus four points, we have Ed Byrne. In third place, with minus four points, we have Ed Byrne.

A moral victory. In third place, with minus three points, a big step forward from his performance of some weeks ago, it's Tony Hawks. In second place, with two points, it's Mark Watson. And in first place, with an unassailable four points, is this week's winner, Lucy Porter. 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 Tony Hawkes, Lucy Porter, Mark Watson and Ed Byrne. Thank you.