The Unbelievable Truth - 13x05 The Brain, The Victorians, Toads, Cooking

Episode Date: December 22, 2021

13x05 5 May 2014 Tony Hawks, Susan Calman, Phill Jupitus, Miles Jupp The Brain, The Victorians, Toads, Cooking

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. I'm joined by four comedians who are as funny as the day is long, and doesn't time fly. Please welcome Phil Jupitus, Miles Jupp, Susan Kalman and Tony Hawks. The rules are as follows. Each panelist 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 trues 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. First up is Tony Hawks. Tony is frequently mixed up with world-famous professional skateboarder Tony Hawk. Still, he's here now, so we might as well make the best of it. Tony, your subject is the brain,

described by my encyclopedia as the organ inside the head that controls thought, memory, feelings and activity. Off you go, Tony. Fingers on buzzers, the rest of you. No women have ever said that some men have their brains in their pants. But they are wrong. Some men do. Silvio Berlusconi actually claims that his brain is in his pants. He also claims that his brain can calculate the age of a girl without any need for asking her. Susan?

I think that's probably true. I think Silvio looks like a man of the world. I think he's the kind of fellow that would go, you look about... That's my accent. You look about 45. Sorry, is that 45 or four to five? Whichever is legal. Unfortunately, Silvio Berlusconi makes no such claim

of being able to tell women's age. He also claims he is bald because his brain is so big it pushes his hair out. Phil? I think that's a little gag he might have dropped. It is. Yes, well done. Some of Berlusconi's other memorable quotes include,

it's better to like beautiful girls than to be gay. Mussolini never killed anyone, he just sent people on vacation. And when asked if they would like to have sex with me, 30% of women said yes, while the other 70% replied, what, again? And when asked if they would like to have sex with me, 30% of women said yes, while the other 70% replied, what, again? During orgasm, the male human brain produces 40 different endorphins,

whereas the female brain is so bored, it just switches off. The anatomy of the brain consists of the cerebrus, the hippototamus and the parabelem. Memory is stored in the temperate lobe and short-term memory is stored in the post-iterative notarium. Miles. It would be insane if one of those things wasn't true. Miles. It would be insane if one of those things wasn't true.

I mean, you'd have just spent ages writing a really, really long sentence for almost no other purpose. There is a fee for this show. No, yes, artistic purpose, I meant. Which of them do you think is true? Do you think they're all true? I mean, some of those words rang a bell. Which is the one that is in bold type in your script? You're genuinely the first person to ask that. Fortunately, I've remembered that I'm not allowed to say.

OK, well, I'll say the parabellum and the other thing. I really have to narrow it down. I'll say the parabellum. I don't want to be as inaccurate as some of our recent bombing campaigns. I'll say the parabellum. Well, I'm afraid you've, as it were, metaphorically hit a primary school there. LAUGHTER APPLAUSE school there.

Parabellum is a Colombian heavy metal band. That's why I knew it. That's why I'd heard of it. I was sorting out my CDs only the other day. It did ring a bell. It was tinnitus. Certainly. The short term memory is stored in the post-iterative notarium, or post-it note, for short.

In fact, the brain has lots of different departments. When you need to throw up, your bilateral vomitation centre is activated, and when you tell a joke, the brain's joke centre is activated. Susan? I think there is a part of the brain's joke centre is activated. Susan? I think there is a part of the brain that says you have to vomit now. You're absolutely right. The act of vomiting is partly controlled by the vomition or vomitation centre,

which initiates and controls the act of emesis, involving a series of contractions of the muscles lining the digestive tract. In Tokyo, Professor Amaku performed brain surgery on a sardine. Similar operations have also been performed elsewhere on tapeworms, cockroaches,

and less successfully on Sarah Palin. Miles. Can I make another of my sort of vague areas? Take worms? No. Sardines. Do you want to get sardines as well?

I'm going to have to count that as a second buzz. Are you? Yeah, you can't just sort of generally, now I've buzzed, I'm going to discuss the whole area until I find the five truths. Oh, well, I withdraw my,

um, what you described as a buzz, and I merely felt as an utterance. Phil. I'll take sardines. No, that's not true. It was never going to be sardines. Cockroaches! Yes! Thank you, Tony. And, uh, at the end of that round, Tony,

you've managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel, which are that during orgasm, the female brain switches off. To a certain extent. Dutch researchers at the University of Groningen in 2005 reviewed brain scans taken at the point of orgasm and found that many areas of the female brain switch off, including those involved with emotion. It was more difficult to get results for men from the study, as the scanners need activity lasting at least two minutes. lasting at least two minutes. And the second truth is that when you tell a joke,

the brain's joke centre is activated. And that means, Tony, that you've scored two points. OK, we turn now to Susan Calman. Susan originally trained as a lawyer, although she quickly decided that she preferred the life of a comedian. Although, ironically, if she had remained a lawyer, she would have had a much greater chance of working with showbiz legends from the 1970s. Susan, your subject is the Victorians,

persons belonging to the period of Queen Victoria's reign, popularly characterised by industrial reform, colonialism and moral prudishness. Off you go, Susan. My long-held belief that Queen Victoria was my mother was shattered recently when the Jeremy Kyle Show told me that the DNA test to prove my lineage wasn't worth my while. Me and Vix have so much in common.

She was a woman who demonstrated wild emotion and wanton passion, as do I. Miles. At the end of that last sentence, you said the words, as do I, in regard to demonstrating emotion and wanton passion. And I think we'd all agree, those of us who were in the green room prior to this recording, that, you know,

that is in Jupiter to be the case. Wow, that was unbelievable, wasn't it? Yes. Seriously. You can't do this. Sandy will take away my membership. But Sandy's still back out there cleaning the pole down. Come on, guys.

What happens in the green room stays in there. Only because I can't wash it off. at all. I can't give any points about the wantonness of either Susan or Queen Victoria. That would be quite wrong in a pre-Watershed slot. I use the word slot advisedly.

Susan. Yeah. LAUGHTER LAUGHTER LAUGHTER LAUGHTER LAUGHTER LAUGHTER LAUGHTER After the death of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria had her servants continue to lay out his bedclothes every night. Phil? She had the servants lay his bed out, still. His bedclothes

out, yes, that's absolutely right. Victoria would often sleep clutching Albert's bedclothes and one of his coats above her bedcovers. Servants are brilliant. They had excellent nicknames in Victoria's time. A piddle was the person who emptied your chamber pot. Maids were known as Cinderella's, while the actual character of Cinderella was known as Cinder Slut.

And cooks were called scissor beaks, as when they would slaughter the chickens for dinner, they would cut off the beaks of the birds with scissors and use them for decoration on the top of pies. Tony. Now, there is a truth in there, somewhere. I'm using the Miles Jupp approach. But I'm going to go quite a way back.

I think piddle. Don't be so hard on yourself. No, a piddle was not the person who emptied your chamber pot. Sorry. Miles. Scissorbeaks. No. Scissorbeaks, not true.

Oh, but foraks. No. Scissorbeaks. Not true. Oh, but for heavens. Phil? Cinderslut is the real name for Cinderella. You're right. Can I have one for servants are brilliant? Well, you think it's true that servants are brilliant I don't think that, no

Well, you want a cup of tea and then one brings you one That's bloody brilliant You can't see a sort of corollary downside to that system No He's not saying slaves They'd be on wages and everything

Yeah, but quite small wages. No, we won't. How much would you pay? Turn? Minimum wage? Yeah, you were right. The minimum wage in Victorian England was... A damn good thrashing! Also, they're not all brilliant. Some of them are just fine.

I think it would be a step in the wrong direction for Radio 4 if we gave you a point that servants are brilliant as a self-evident truth. I can hear the letter being written out. Dear BBC, the leftist agenda once again is perpetuated this time.

That's true. But if we say servants are brilliant, some colonel will write in and say, well, my butler is a drunk. But it is true that Cinderella was known as Cinder Slut. The name derives from the grime she acquired during her housework and refers to the traditional Slash Ukip, meaning of the word slut

as someone with a low standard of cleanliness. In Sir Arthur Quiller Cooch's 1910 book The Sleeping Beauty and Other Fairy Tales, Cinderella is told to run downstairs, slut, and put yourself under the kitchen pump. And that... It's an absolutely filthy book. And also that folks would laugh indeed to see cinder slut at a ball.

She was known as cinder slut when slut just meant that you were dirty. I mean, you know, not dirty. Dirty doesn't just mean dirty. We're sex obsessed in this culture. Susan. Yes. doesn't just mean dirt yet we're sex obsessed in this culture Susan yes in Victorian times cats were considered vermin like mice instead they used more unusual animals to cull unwanted intruders they used hedgehogs in the kitchens to control cockroaches they would frighten the

hedgehog which would roll into a ball and they would then throw it under cabinets. Like a rubbish picker. Miles. I think the hedgehog thing is true. Not the rolling it bit, just I think that they were brought into the kitchen as a way of dealing with certain creatures. That is absolutely true. Well done. Victorian guidebooks advised women to put nails in their bustles and pins in their mouths for protection against unwanted physical attention. To the romantic Victorians, a spray of colourful sweet peas meant

you give me lasting pleasure. A sprig of pink cherry blossom meant always be mine. And a bunch of wilted carnations meant only the petrol station was open. Tony, one of the first two. And I'm going for the cherry blossom one. A sprig of pink cherry blossom meant always be mine.

No. Miles. The one before. Sweet peas meant you give me lasting pleasure. Yes, that's true, yes. Floriography, or the language of flowers, could communicate a wide variety of feelings to the Victorians. Peonies meant I'm shy but I like you.

Lilies meant you're a good friend. Oh, that's a bit of a brush-off, getting lilies. And orange blossom meant your purity equals your loveliness. meant you're a good friend. Oh, that's a bit of a brush off getting lilies. And orange blossom meant your purity equals your loveliness. Which, you know, could be read in more than one way, couldn't it?

Susan. The end. Thank you, Susan. So, Susan, at the end of that round, you've managed to smuggle one truth past the rest of the panel, which is that Victorian guidebooks advised women to put pins in their mouths for protection against unwanted physical attention.

The advice was intended for women travelling by train. Early third-class train travel was a crowded and dirty experience, and men were advised to hold on to their wallets, and women were advised to put hat pins into their mouths so that they wouldn't get unsolicited kisses and that means Susan that you've scored one point next up is Phil Jupitus Phil your subject is toads ta tailless, land-dwelling amphibians known for their warty, sometimes poisonous skin. Off you go, Phil. Toads are talkative, avuncular,

and completely non-hazardous animals, except in Hamburg, where they let out mysterious screams before exploding. Susan. Sounds like something happened in Germany. Susan. Sounds like something happened in Germany. You're absolutely right.

More than 1,000 toads exploded during the mating season in a Hamburg pond in 2005. The toads swelled to three times their usual size and made screeching noises before blowing up, propelling their entrails up to a radius of one meter. It turned out that the toads had been killed by crows who had pecked into their backs to eat their livers, about the only part of a poisonous toad that's worth eating. The toad's natural defense mechanism of puffing out its stomach kicked in, but without the liver there was nothing to hold the other organs in, causing the lungs and blood vessels to stretch and burst

and the other organs to explode out through the wound. I think that's pretty much what you'd have expected. The toad is an icon in rock. Arctic monkey Nick Hodgson is a patron of the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Toad Association. And of course, there's keen toad collector Rick McMurray of Ash. During the reign of Elizabeth I, it was quite common to see toads dressed up as characters from the plays of Shakespeare and exhibited in tiny replicas of the Globe Theatre in many a market square. Miles.

That's true. I've got a loft full of them. It isn't true, I'm afraid, Miles. Well, you'll have to come round and verify that. Yet another attempt to lure me into your loft. I went, er... I've been in Miles' loft and I saw an absolutely extraordinary

all-newt Twelfth Night. After presumably licking one, Leonardo da Vinci was working on an idea for a toad venom bomb to be delivered by his famous nuclear-powered stealth helicopter. But Emilio Medici put a stop to it and got Leonardo to design the Nespresso machine instead. The horny toad is so-called because of its resemblance to Russell Brand. It's keen on sex, rough-looking, unable to swim, although, unlike Russell, the horny toad can shoot blood out of its eyes.

Susan. Right, it's between it can't swim or the blood out of its eyes, and whichever one I go for, someone else is going to go for it. So I'm going to say it shoots blood out of its eyes. It does shoot blood out of its eyes. Although it resembles a toad, the horny toad is in fact a member of the lizard family. You know, it looks like a toad and it's called a toad, but it's not a toad. As Miles could have told you after his excellent production of Time and Avatars.

One pair of South American toads is on record for spending four entire months in the mating position on the long migration to the breeding ground. Miles. True. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. That's, yeah. This is hard work for the female

who has to walk with the male on her back, but it says here it's actually tougher for the male who can end up emaciated after weeks of hanging onto the female with both arms wrapped tightly around her still sounds worse for the female toads do they have arms i think they've sort of got arms i thought they were legs are you saying that these toads could find a better way of carrying on no i'm saying they don't have arms. I'm saying toads only have legs. I know I'm going out on a limb here.

Who said that toads had arms other than me? It's like you buzzed in on something I said and said that's anarchy, Tony. It is. And you don't like it, do you? I don't like anarchy at all, no. If I was forced to choose between

a totally anarchic system and really quite an unpleasant repressive system, I'd probably go with the unpleasant repressive system. I don't want to choose. I want a liberal democracy like all of us here on Radio 4. Thank you, Phil. And at the end of that round, Phil, you've managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel, which are that Rick McMurray from Ash is a keen toad collector.

The other truth is that Leonardo da Vinci worked on an idea for a toad venom bomb, containing toad venom, arsenic, sulphur, tarantula venom, and the saliva of mad dogs. So hard to get hold of that in wait shows. And that means, Phil, that you've scored two points. Next up is Miles Jupp. Miles once famously managed to bluff his way onto an overseas tour by the England cricket team. Sadly, so did many of the England players.

Miles, your subject is cooking. The art or practice of preparing food for consumption by combining, mixing and heating ingredients. Off you go, Miles. There are really only two types of cooking. French and nice. The actor Michael Caine has written seven cookbooks and is said to be such a fan of barbecuing that he has his own set of bespoke meat tongs emblazoned with the words,

Property of Michael Caine, the actor. Professional cookery used to be more associated with women than men, but that's all changed since the hairy bikers were discovered to be male. The word bride comes from the ancient German Teutonic word for cook. The word bridegroom comes from the ancient German Teutonic word for ready meal. Susan. The German thing. I think bride, the bride thing, the thing about the bride, cook, bride thing, thingy-ba-bob German thing.

That's true. You could have put it more economically you're absolutely right that is true according to the oed the word bride derives from the germanic word brew meaning to cook brew or make broth which would have been the duty of the daughter-in-law in primitive families peppercorns were considered such a valuable cooking ingredient during Elizabethan times that they were sold per peppercorn. As a result, supermarket trolleys had to have a much tighter mesh.

Phil? Peppercorns were sold individually. They were. Phil? Peppercorns were sold individually. They were. In Elizabethan England, pepper was so valuable it was sold by the individual peppercorn and guards on the London docks

were not allowed to have cuffs on their clothing and had their pockets sewn up to prevent them from stealing the spice. In 10th century England, landlords charged a rent tax of as much as £ pound of pepper a year, from which we get the expression peppercorn rent. A token rent of peppercorns in lieu of rent. I love that ripple through the crowd of Radio 4.

Oh, that's a nice warm fact. Oh, I'm taking that one to the rotary, yes. I'm taking that one to the Rotary, yes. I'm taking that one to the Rotary, that's good. Graham, little fact you might not know. Miles. There were no fast food outlets in the town of La Cruze, Louisiana, and the official state cooking pot of Utah is the Dutch oven. If...

LAUGHTER If you are slicing an onion and it makes you cry, then there is something seriously wrong with you. And you should phone NHS Direct repeatedly... LAUGHTER ..until you are better. Just as carrots help you to see in the dark and aubergines help you to hear in the dark,

eggs help with your sense of balance. Charles Blondin, the tightrope walker, was so egg-crazy that he once cooked an omelette while standing on a tightrope over the Niagara Falls. Tony. Eggs help your sense of balance. No.

When Radio 4's Woman's Hour began back in 1947, its reassuringly male host presented items including making the most of an egg, cooking with whale meat, and how to slice turnips without hurting your precious little hands. Tony, I think when it started it did have a male host,

Woman Tower. It did have a male host, yes. It was presented by a man, Alan Ivison. Among the items discussed was, as Miles said, cooking with whale meat. Other stories included, I married

a lion tamer, and how to hang your husband's suit. It was scheduled at 2pm after a woman's housework was finished, but before the children came home from school. It's quite right, they should do that, because women deal a lot better with being told what to do when it's a lovely man

telling us how to vote. Because, to be honest, a lot of the time I'm too busy having children, and making my husband's dinner to concern myself with anything for me. So I think they should bring that back, I think there should be a man on women's air telling us women what's what, just so we know.

I think that should happen. Well, I don't think the patriarchy is going to listen to what you think. When the first television cooks started appearing on our screens, they were very constrained by the limitations imposed on them by the technology of the age, only being able to cook using ingredients that were black or white. able to cook using ingredients that were black or white. Demonstrating how to cook such dishes

as hot milk with charcoal sprinkles or black pudding with icing sugar. Thank you, Miles. And at the end of that round, Miles, you've managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel, which are that the official state cooking pot of Utah is the Dutch oven. And the second truth is that Charles Blondin, the tightrope walker,

once cooked an omelette while standing on a tightrope over the Niagara Falls. And that means, Miles, that you've scored two points. Which brings us to the final scores. In fourth place, with minus three points, we have Tony Hawks. In joint second place, with one point each, it's Phil Jupitus and Miles Jupp.

And in first place with an unassailable three points, it's this week's winner, Susan Calman. That's about it for this week. Goodbye. The Unbelievable Truth was devised by John Natesmith and Graham Garden and featured David Mitchell in the chair with panellists Tony Hawkes, Bill Jupitus, Susan Kalman and Miles Jupp. The chairman's script was written by Dan Gaster and Colin Swash and the producer was John Naismith. It was a random production from BBC Radio 4.