The Unbelievable Truth - 15x04 Princesses, Diets, Sauces, Paper

Episode Date: February 12, 2022

15x04 14 September 2015 Victoria Coren Mitchell, Holly Walsh, Katherine Ryan, Sarah Millican Princesses, Diets, Sauces, Paper

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 truth and fairly credible lies. I'm David Mitchell. The audience are in, the panellists are seated and a real sense of excitement would be nice. Please welcome Sarah Millican, Catherine Ryan, Holly Walsh and Victoria Corrin Mitchell. 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 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. First up is Victoria Corrin-Mitchell. Victoria regularly stays out to six in the morning, smoking, drinking and gambling. Could there be something about her home life that drives her to this? No, there couldn't. Victoria, your subject is princesses.

Female members of a royal family, often the daughter of a monarch or wife of a prince. Off you go, Victoria. Fingers on buzz as the rest of you. All little girls dream of being princesses. I myself, as a child, had to be drugged before sleep in order to prevent this recurrent dream, from which I would wake screaming and have to be comforted by my ladies-in-waiting.

This was due to a constant diet of royal-themed fairy tales, particularly that great classic where the princess meets a frog and, as the romantics among us all know, throws it in disgust against a wall. The Princess and the Pea, meanwhile, is based on a mistranslation from medieval German. It's actually about a princess who spent a night with a donkey, which, unlike the weird vegetable version,

is something we can all relate to. Holly. Oh, I'm going to say The Princess and the Pea is based on a mistake. It isn't. No, no. It was written in Danish by Hans Christian Andersen, and the original title, Princesenpaarten, translates as Princess on the Pea.

Which... We've all had nights like that. What happens when little girls grow up? The dreaming continues as we model ourselves on royal icons, hence the popular fashions for wearing trilby hats like Princess Diana, limping like Princess Alexandra and barking orders in German like Princess Michael of Kent. How ironic that we ordinary women should yearn to glide about in emerald slippers,

kissing frogs and opening supermarkets, while Princess Anne sits alone and mournful, gazing out of the stable window, dreaming of being a long-distance lorry driver. Princess Diana only wore those trilby hats while in disguise, bearing a strong natural resemblance to her cousin Humphrey Bogart, she liked to don a raincoat, adopt a New York accent and check herself into hotels where she thought Prince Charles might be staying with Camilla.

But she never spotted the prince because he himself sneaked in dressed as Betty Grable. Catherine. I feel a strong connection to Princess Diana, whom we all know and love, and I feel that if I were she, as a princess, who has all these responsibilities and has to obey palace rules, I might also put on an American accent,

check into hotels and pretend to be someone else. I can only fault you on your use of the word also, in that she didn't do that. She didn't? I'm interested to know that you would do in her shoes. Well, Princess Jasmine did, and that's how she fell in love with Aladdin. That's also how I find myself linked to so many

commoners. Not true. I'm discovering the downside of doing this show is that the quiz master is finding out just how good I am at lying. I should have thought about that in advance. Luckily, as daft as little girls are for dreaming of the princess

life, little... Little girls are daft. That is true. That's true. Little girls are daft. That is true. That's true. Little girls are daft. To be fair, Victoria didn't say they were daft. She said as daft as they are. Very much.

Correct. Yeah. Now, I don't think I can give you a point for that. Well, she's really tricky, and we've got no points so far. Well, you know, for lots of reasons, it's important to me that she should win. So... No, I can't give you a point just for, you know,

mentioning on radio how stupid children are. No, specifically girls. Yeah. And also, you're not one and have never been one, and if anyone knows how stupid girls are, it's the four girls on this panel. Yeah. So, yeah.

So you're saying it's not my place to deny the stupidity of women? That is... And if anything, this is proving our point. Nevertheless, little princesses... Little princesses will always be the daftest of the lot. Princess Alexandra of Luxembourg ran away from home because her father refused to make her cat a duke. Sarah?

That's what I would do if I was in the shoes. Is that true? It is not true. Where are the truths, Victoria? Are you playing the same game as the rest of us? Are they all on the last page, just in one paragraph? Your problem is that the truths have all happened already, so good luck with the last paragraph.

I should remind panelists that that's not necessarily true princess alexandra of spain would not speak unless she was addressed as mistress egg holly well we're getting to the end and someone's got to say something so yeah no oh from number one can one of us buzz everything she says and one of us is going to get a bloody point? That's a tactic that Field Marshal Hague came up with. Oh, thanks. Princess Alexandra of Bavaria...

Is that a true thing? You're going to say whatever it is that Victoria says, you say it's true. I think that's true. Complete the sentence and then I will reveal whether or not it's true. Princess Alexandra of Bavaria walked everywhere sideways as she was convinced she'd eaten a giant glass piano and might shatter if she bumped into something.

LAUGHTER And, yes, I can reveal that that is true. Yes. She was convinced she'd swallowed a full-size grand piano made of glass as a child and would walk sideways through doors and along corridors, afraid it would shatter. But despite her mental issues, she was an intelligent woman

and could boast many literary accomplishments. Good on her. Yeah. Thank you, Victoria. Oh, my God. And at the end of that round, Victoria, you've smuggled four truths past the rest of the panel. Which are that in the original Grimm Brothers fairy tale,

The Princess and the Frog, the princess doesn't kiss the frog, but throws it against a wall in disgust, thus awakening the prince. The second truth is that it was popular fashion to limp in imitation of Princess Alexandra. So admired was Alexandra of Denmark, Princess of Wales, that when she suffered from a serious bout of rheumatic fever in 1867,

which left her with a stiff knee joint, the Alexandra limp became a fashion among society ladies in imitation of their heroine. The third truth is that Princess Anne had dreams of becoming a long-distance lorry driver. In 1979... In 1979, Princess Anne said that a job as a long-distance lorry driver would have appealed to her. Anne does actually hold an HGV driving licence, so it could still happen.

Though, as Prince Philip observed of his daughter, if it doesn't fart or eat hay, she isn't interested. Felly, fel y dywedodd Prins Philip o'i ddau, os nad yw'n ffart neu'n bwysau, nid yw hi'n bwysig. A'r diwydiant llawer, yw bod Prinses Diana a Humphrey Bogart yn gyfrifion. Humphrey Bogart oedd ychydig arall yn gyfrif, dwy gyd wedi'i adael i Prinses Diana, trwy eu hanesau cyffredinol, Joseph Morgan a Joseph Morgan and his wife, Dorothy Park, who lived in Connecticut in the 17th century. Anyway, Victoria, that means, I'm very pleased to say,

as agreed... LAUGHTER ..you've scored four points. Well done, Victoria. She's so good. Throughout her life, Princess Alexandra of Bavaria was utterly convinced that as a child she had swallowed a full-sized grand piano.

However, this was dismissed by the royal doctor after examining her stool. OK, we turn now to Holly Walsh. Holly, your subject is diets, regimens of monitored eating to regulate body weight. Off you go, Holly. Getting fat is number three on the top ten things that humans fear the most after... Sarah.

I think that's true. It's not. No, it's... Is it number two? No, it's not even in the top ten list of fears. Wow. Some Americans are so worried about extra calories and full-fat stamps that the US Postal Service issued a calorie guide

for their lickable postal products. Catherine. Yeah. Americans would worry about the caloric content of a stamp while drinking eight litres of Coke. Or Pepsi. That's... You just saved the corporation in charter renewal.

You're absolutely right. Before the advent of the self-sticking stamp and after concerns were raised, the US Postal Office issued a formal assurance to its customers that they would not put on weight licking American postage stamps, explaining that there was no more than one-tenth of a calorie's worth of glue on every stamp. British

slimmers, by contrast, had to put up with a full 5.9 calories per stamp, with commemorative stamps clocking in at 14.5 calories. It's a lovely treat, isn't it? A commemorative stamp. Now, take those commemorative stamps away from me.

Holly. Other well-known historical dieters included the venerable Bede, who would fill up on cotton wool if he had to fit into a particularly figure-hugging habit. Henry VIII, who carried around a fat portrait of himself as inspiration. And Lord Byron, who famously coined the phrase, nothing tastes

as good as skinny feels. Sarah? Is the cotton wool one true? No. No. Do you think it would work? That's what models do. No. They put it in their bras. They eat it, don't they? They eat some paper. Not stamps.

They're pretty high cow. You get some paper. You might see a shredding machine. You're like, tuck in. You eat some paper, not stamps. They're pretty high-cal. You get some paper. You might see a shredding machine. You're like, mm, tuck in. You eat the paper. It fills your stomach up. It's got absolutely no nutritional bonus or anything. And then it all comes out the other end, paper mache.

Like a fax? Yep. You fax it out. And then you do your catwalk show. Oh. Yeah. Well, that's a great tip for anyone listening. But no, veneral bead didn't do that.

OK. But it was during the Victorian period that the dye industry began to pile on the pounds with the invention of bathroom scales, the gastric band and the first ever diet pill, which was basically a small, swallowable tampon laced with speed. Victoria. OK, I mean, I really feel mad saying this,

but is that Victorian diet pill a thing? It is a thing. Wow. Yes, well done. The first weight loss pill was marketed in 1893. It was introduced by Frank Kellogg of Corn Flakes fame, but it wasn't a swallowable tampon. It was thyroid extract. People did lose weight,

but only if they had a thyroid problem that explained their weight. If they were overweight for other reasons, it didn't do any good at all. What would happen if tampons were all laced with speed? Then those adverts about how you can go skateboarding in white trousers and make your period would be true. Honestly, you have four women on a bill, and it's tampon joke central, isn't it?

Well-known dieticians included Robert Babyfist Warren, who stated you should never eat anything bigger than a baby's fist. He was later arrested for eating babies. There's Horace Fletcher, a.k.a. The Great Masticator, who insisted each mouthful should be chewed 32 times once for each of your... Sarah. That feels true. It is true, yes. The Great Masticator.

Sarah. That feels true. It is true, yes. The great masticator. Yes, everything had to be chewed 32 times, once for each of our 32 teeth. His mantra was, chew, masticate, munch, bite,

taste everything you take into your mouth. Nature will castigate those who don't masticate. However, it was in the 20th century when the weight loss revolution really tipped the scales. And, of course, the daddy of all food fads is the Atkins diet. Famous people who've been on the Atkins diet include cuckolding footballer John Terry, iceberg botherer Al Gore, that guy who won X Factor, and renowned psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter.

Thank you, Holly. And at the end of that round holly you've managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel which are that from your list of devoted dieters the true one was lord byron in fact there was concern amongst the medical profession about the effect his dieting was having on the youth of the day one doctor wrote our young ladies live all their growing girlhood in semi-starvation for fear of incurring the horror of disciples of Lord Byron. So thankfully now Byron's dead, all that slimming madness is behind us. And the second truth is that Al Gore went on the Atkins diet. And that means, Holly, you've scored two points. Next up is Catherine Ryan. Catherine, your subject is sauce,

a condiment commonly added to food to provide moisture, flavour or piquancy. Off you go, Catherine. If there's one thing Mexicans love, it's chocolate sauce on turkey. Am I right? Holly. You are right. Am I right? Holly. You are right.

Yes, she is right. Yes, the sauce also contains chillies and is known as mole negro de guajajlote. I've nailed the pronunciation of that. A typical recipe can contain around three ounces of chocolate The name for the watery discharge that accumulates in the mustard bottle that comes out first and makes your bun all wet is called hydro sauce Victoria

If that's not true, that's a really disgusting thing to make up It isn't true I am disgusting. Apparently the term hydrocondiment has been widely suggested on the internet as a sniglet for that watery thing that comes out before the proper source. It needs a name. A sniglet? A sniglet is a word for a sort of fakely coined new word for a thing.

It's very nice. It's like a term of endearment. Yes. I'm going to start calling you Sniglet. It sounds like a... Come on then, Sniglet, crack on with the show. Catherine. OK. When Heinz tomato ketchup leaves the bottle,

it travels at a rate of 25 miles per hour and can provide protection against dementia. Holly. It's one of those two. I'm going to go with a 25 MPH. That is not true. Victoria. It's the other one.

That is not true either. Neither travels at 25 miles an hour nor does it provide protection against dementia. Not true either. Neither travels at 25 miles an hour, nor does it provide protection against dementia. So what good is it? It travels at 25 miles per year and can provide protection against prostate cancer. Well, that sounds better. If that's in the lecture, then absolutely yes.

I'm always telling you tomatoes are good for the prostate. I'm always telling you tomatoes are good for the prostate. Is it orally? Of course she tells me orally. How else do you think we communicate? communicate. Catherine. Oh, Sniglet. Okay.

In Britain, 65% of people put vinegar on chips, 30% tomato ketchup, 15% mayonnaise and 11% gravy. Sarah. Is the gravy one true? The gravy one is true. Yay! Yay! The United States Department of Agriculture

proposed to reclassify ketchup from a condiment to a vegetable, allowing schools to cut vegetables from their lunch menus. Holly. Yeah, there's something in it being whether you're five a day and that it would constitute a vegetable. That is true. Well done. Yeah. Yes, the original proposal named pickle relish

as the condiment to be reclassified as a vegetable, but basically it would have reclassified a range of condiments, including ketchup, as vegetables, as a vegetable, but basically it would have reclassified a range of condiments, including ketchup, as vegetables. And so sceptics labelled the proposal as Ketchup Gate. Reggae Reggae Sauce gets its characteristic tangy taste from the addition of finely ground Levi roots. When John Lee and William Perrins attempted to brew a spicy sauce, the results were so disgusting that they stashed the unwanted brew in the cellar and forgot about it.

Several years later, they discovered that the mixture had matured into the condiment we know today. A popular American book on child rearing called Creative Correction advocates the practice of hot saucing, whereby parents discipline their children by dropping hot chili sauce on their tongues. Holly. Yes. Yes, that their tongues. Holly. Yes. Yes, that's true. Yeah. I've heard someone else...

I know somebody does that to their kid. Really? Yeah. What's their address? No, they do that. They give them a tiny bit of really, really hot sauce because it doesn't do anything bad to the child. No, it does.

No, that's evil and insane. Is it? I mean, obviously, under the age of, like,. No, that's evil and insane. Is it? I mean, obviously, under the age of like four months, that's not cool. Because they should just be eating bread and milk at that age. What if he was ten? I've never been near a baby.

Yeah, four-month-olds should eat neither bread nor milk. Like hedgehogs, like baby hedgehogs. You always get hedgehogs and babies mixed up, honey. I don't think we're supposed to eat hedgehogs at any age. Okay, so they've dropped hot chili sauce

on their tongues. Mumsnet buzzed with worry that this would destroy families by turning children Spanish. Everyone knows. Everyone knows, wrote Claire from Swansea, that introducing foreign spice to babies is the leading way of sneaking immigration into their delicate systems. And that's the end of Catherine's lecture. And at the end of that round, Catherine, you've managed to smuggle one truth past the rest of the panel, which is that when John Lee and William Perrins

attempted to brew a spicy sauce, the results were so disgusting that they stashed the unwanted brew in the cellar and forgot about it. Several years later, they discovered that the mixture had matured into the condiment we know today. And that means, Catherine, you've scored one point. Next up is Sarah Millican. Sarah was recently listed as one of the UK's most powerful women.

If she can finish in the top four, she goes on to play in Europe next year. Your subject, Sarah, is paper, a thin material produced by pressing together moist fibres, which is commonly used for writing and printing upon. Paper can be made out of onion, asparagus and some types of mushroom. That's why when you eat paper it makes you cry high and your way

can smell weird. Victoria. I think you can make paper out of onion. No, you can't. What's onion skin? There is a thing called onion skin paper, which I think is thin and translucent but not actually made from onions or onion skins.

Well, that's a nasty trick. Rice paper is never made from rice, but sugar paper contains a small amount of sugar to give it the rough feel. Sandpaper is made with sand for the same reason. Victoria? I'm going to have minus 100 before we get to the end of the first paragraph,

but I think rice paper isn't made from rice, but sugar paper has sugar in it. Neither of those things are true. Neither of those things is true. Rice paper is not always, but sometimes, made from rice starch, and sugar paper does not contain sugar. But sandpaper has sand on it. No, sandpaper is not anymore made with sand. Garnet, emery, aluminium and chromium oxide

are the most common gritting materials. That sounds delicious. The Queen uses black blotting paper. It's part of a giant order placed by the palace in 1870 at the start of Queen Victoria's mourning for her husband. Victoria. She does use black blotting paper so that people can't see what she's written and crossed out.

You're right, she does, yes. APPLAUSE You can relax now, you've got one. Yes, the principle is to ensure that no-one can decipher what the Queen has written by reading its image in the blotting paper. A man is tasked with replacing the sheet of black blotting paper on the Queen's desk every day. That's his only job.

If she just used a biro, none of this would be an issue. If she used a biro, the blotting paper guy is suddenly on the street. Where else is he going to find work as a blotting paper replacer? It is a dying trade.

Yeah, exactly. I bet Kanye West got his own blotter guy. I bet Kanye West writes a lyric and then a guy who's just employed from England to press that and that's done. Do you think Kanye West writes his songs with a fountain pen? Yeah, for sure. What about his music does not suggest that?

Is he a musician? Yeah, he's a very talented musician. I've literally never heard the name before, but I... What? You've never heard of Kanye West? Is he... Sounds like a service station, doesn't it? Out of every five paperclips,

one will be used as a toothpick, one will be twisted nervously out of shape as a stress buster, two will be opened out and used to restart sat-navs, and only one will be used to clip paper. Richard Burton never used toilet paper. This kind of behaviour would not have pleased Nathan Hicks of St Louis, Missouri, who shot his brother Herbert dead because he was using three rolls of toilet paper a day. Victoria. I reckon a guy shot his brother for using too much loo paper. He did indeed.

Hey! Yes, Nathan Hicks, 35, was charged with the second-degree murder of his 33-year-old brother Herbert after confessing to police that the shooting stemmed from an argument over toilet paper. He told officers he'd bought an eight-roll pack of toilet paper on Saturday and became enraged on Monday because Herbert had used up six of the rolls. He took a.22-caliber rifle and shot his brother once in the chest. I feel like that's fair.

If I were using three rolls of loo roll a day, I'd want someone to put me out of my misery. In Malaysia, restaurant owners can go to jail for laying out toilet paper instead of table napkins. Adolf Hitler refused to use regulation toilet paper and used to bulk buy soft white handkerchiefs instead. During quieter moments, he hand-embroidered an A in the corner of each handkerchief.

On the hankies he used to blow his nose, he embroidered an N. LAUGHTER Thank you, Sarah. Thank you, Sarah. Wow. And at the end of that round, Sarah, you've managed to smuggle three truths past the rest of the panel, which are that paper can be made out of asparagus. That asparagus is practically a type of onion.

It can also be made out of rhubarb and elephant or kangaroo droppings. The second truth is that out of every five paper clips, only one will be used to clip paper. And the third truth is that it is illegal and you can go to prison in Malaysia for running a restaurant where you put out toilet paper instead of table napkins. And that means, Sarah, you've scored three points.

The Queen uses black blotting paper when writing her letters to ensure that nobody reads what she has written. Prince Charles achieves the same thing with his letters by sending them to national newspapers. Which brings us to the final scores. In fourth place, with minus four points, we have Holly Walsh. In third place, with minus two points,

it's Catherine Ryan. In second place, with minus one point, it's Sarah Millican. And in first place, with an unassailable no points at all, it's this week's winner, Victoria Corrin-Mitchell. 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 Sarah Millican, Catherine Ryan,

Holly Walsh and Victoria Corrin-Mitchell. The chairman's script was written by Dan Gaster and Colin Squash and the producer was John Naismith. It was a random production for BBC Radio 4.