The Unbelievable Truth - 17x06 Spies, Fire, Norfolk, The Beatles

Episode Date: February 18, 2022

17x06 7 November 2016 John Finnemore, Jeremy Hardy, Lucy Porter, Frankie Boyle Spies, Fire, Norfolk, The Beatles

We present The Unbelievable Truth, the panel game built on truth and lies. In the chair, please welcome David Mitchell. Hello and welcome to In the chair, please welcome David Mitchell. Hello and welcome to The Unbelievable Truth, the panel show about incredible truths and barely credible lies. I'm David Mitchell. Time to introduce the panellists, and you won't find four funnier comedians, so let's just make the best of it. Please welcome Jeremy Hardy, Lucy Porter, John Finnemore and Frankie Boyle. The rules are as follows. Each panellist will present a short lecture that should be entirely false, save for five

hidden truths which their opponent should try to identify. 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 John Finnemore. John, your subject is spies, persons employed by governments or other organisations

to secretly obtain information on an enemy or competitor. Off you go, John. Fingers on buzzers, the rest of you. By international agreement, if you ask a spy if they are a spy, they can lie about it twice, but if you ask them three times, they have to tell you. Because otherwise we'd never get anywhere. At Cambridge, David Mitchell once believed he was approached to spy for MI5. In fact, it turned out there was a misunderstanding,

but he nonetheless accepted the post and for many years enjoyed a lucrative sideline, noting down the sale prices at IKEA and reporting them back to his handler at MFI. Jeremy. I think the first bit's true. I think you were approached by security services to spy for this country. I was not. Yeah, but how do we know that you were?

If you were, you wouldn't tell us outright, would you? I would. Not if you were a proper spy, you would. You would kill me with your watch. No, I really wasn't. It never happened. OK. No, I wasn't. No. In ancient Assyria, identical twins were used as spies.

I was! I knew it! No, no, sadly, sadly, I wasn't. In ancient Assyria, identical twins were used as spies, the idea being that if one went into the enemy camp, the one still in ancient Assyria would be able to report on what they were seeing. Thus, the ancient Assyrians basically invented the walkie-talkie, only without the part where it actually worked. This kind of tactical thinking is just one of the reasons we are today all speaking ancient Assyrian. The very best spies, of course,

are animals. In 2007, police in Iran detained 14 squirrels suspected of spying. In 2013, Egyptian authorities detained a stork on suspicion of espionage, and in 2015, the Swiss sent a giant panda to the electric chair. Wasn't even to do with spying, they just didn't like it. For seven years, from 1946, the American embassy in Moscow was bugged with a listening device in the shape of a large carved wooden seal of the United States, given to the ambassador as a token of friendship by Soviet schoolchildren and proudly hung by him in his study. The author Ian Fleming always insisted that James Bond is not actually a spy. I admit it's a bit of a technical distinction, but what James Bond actually is, is a vet.

Jeremy, he may have said he's not a spy no he didn't he just said he was a spy how often did he say it though be fair Jeremy you'd be surprised if I knew how many times Ian Fleming had said that James Bond is a spy but he was just a spy Jeremy

James Bond is a spy that's what James Bond wants you to think. He's not a very good spy. Everybody knows who he is. Exactly. I mean, he isn't a very good spy. He causes a lot of explosions. And his catchphrase is saying his real name.

Yeah. Twice. But they sort of know his name before he even tells them. So he just walks in and they go, oh, Bond. Sometimes he does lie about his job, though. Sometimes he says, I'm James Bond, I'm here for international exports, or he pretends to be a businessman. But you'd think that the supervillains would go,

but that's a bit of a coincidence. That's the same name as that spy who was in that film recently blew up a base in a volcano. It was in all the papers. There is a theory that makes sense of it, although you could say that, so James Bond just goes and kills a bunch of people every time.

So that's just the name that British Secret Service gives to the biggest psycho that they employ. They give him the title James Bond. So the villain's sitting there and he sees all his henchmen have been killed and this guy walks in and goes, Ah, James Bond, I presume. You're this year's nutcase.

It's essentially a term of abuse for someone that really, really needs to go into the psychological unit. Similarly, we're now on our seventh Michael Gove. to the psychological unit. Similarly, we're now on our seventh Michael Gove. Well, anyway, I insist that he was in fact a vet, James Bond. I think people have probably been confusing him with James Herriot, who was, of course, a spy.

Lucy. James Herriot was a spy. No, Lucy, James Herriot was a... Was a vet. He was a vet and author who wrote a series of books about himself being a vet. Which is just what a spy would have done. John le Carré's series of bestsellers about the British Secret Service

are collectively titled The Circus Suite, and he drew his inspiration from his time working in a circus. It was his job to wash the elephants, and one day, as he was moodily soaping a tusk, he happened to see a trapeze artist arguing with a lion tamer and at once thought to himself, I should write a series of books about the British Secret Service. Here are three of the outlandish ways

the CIA tried to kill or undermine Fidel Castro, of which the middle one is true. They put hair remover into his shoes so that his famous beard would fall out. They put pressure on the Dominican Republic to award him an exploding medal. They painted a photorealistic image of a tunnel onto a cliff face and poured a line of Acme Fidel Castro seed leading up to it, hoping he would knock himself out and they would finally be able to eat him. Lucy.

John said the middle one was true, so I'm going to believe him and I think the middle one was true and the Dominican Republic were meant to give him an exploding medal. Well, this is an interesting moment, because if that's true... It's two truths. ..then both... It's two truths, you get two points. It's not happening, is it? It's not happening. No, no. Jeremy.

I know there was something about hair remover and his moustache. They did do something with hair remover. They did. That's absolutely true. It was a failed attempt by the CIA to undermine Castro's popularity. They put hair remover in his shoes. Was it his hairy hobbit feet that kept the people behind him? It's more of a prank. I think they obviously thought that, you know,

his brand was so much associated with the beard that if he lost the beard, he'd lose the support of the populace. Rather that he was alive, but you could see his chin, than he was dead. That's how useful his chin would be to the American cause. As we know, the technology of making a false beard didn't reach Cuba until the 1980s. So that's the end of John's lecture.

And at the end of that round, John has smuggled four truths past the rest of the panel. And the truths are that in 2007, police in Iran detained 14 squirrels suspected of spying. Iranian intelligence operatives apprehended the 14 spy squirrels when they found them hanging around a nuclear enrichment plant. They claimed the rodents were serving as spies for Western powers, determined to undermine the Islamic Republic.

The officials said they succeeded in apprehending the suspects, quote, before they were able to take any action. The second truth is that in 2013, Egyptian authorities detained a stork on suspicion of espionage. Authorities mistook the stalk's migration tag for spying equipment. And the third one is that for seven years from 1946, the American embassy in Moscow was bugged with a listening device in the shape of a large carved wooden seal of the United States

given to the ambassador as a token of friendship by Soviet schoolchildren and proudly hung by him in his study. Proudly hung on the wall of the big secrets room. The device was created by Leon Theremin, inventor of the electronic musical instrument that bears his name. And the reason they didn't spot it is

because they naturally, they did check it for bugs, and it had no electronic moving parts at all, because the inventor had made it so the whole thing resonated when activated with some radio pulse, and it would start to resonate and pick up what was being said without having to have any moving parts in it at all. So it's not so much that the ambassadors were gullible as that theremin was a genius.

I think that's brilliant. And the fourth truth is that John le Carré worked in a circus and it was his job to wash the elephants. After running away at 16 and enrolling at Burn University, le Carré washed elephants for the Swiss National Circus in order to support himself. And that means, John, you've scored four points. In his seven James Bond films,

every scene that shows Roger Moore running was performed by a body double, as Moore felt he looked awkward when running. When running? Did he never see himself act? Next up is Jeremy Hardy. During an appearance on Just A Minute, Jeremy was once criticised by fellow panellist Clement Freud

for impropriety. How times change. Jeremy, your subject is fire, the exothermic oxidation of a combustible substance which typically gives out heat, smoke and flames. Off you go, Jeremy. Fire is one of the four elements of the apocalypse, along with earth, wind, war, pestilence, lust, happy, sneezy, flopsy, mopsy, dozy, beaky, mick and titch. The first barbecue was lit by the warrior chieftain Conan the Suburbian,

played in the film by Trevor Eve, best known for his role as transgender stripper Eddie G-String in the drama series The Detective with No Particular Characteristics. The TV series London's Burning told the story of the singer Julie London, who tragically set fire to herself smoking in bed.

The Fire Brigade are one of our less important emergency services, ranking below the Cats Protection League and the Friends of the National Portrait Gallery. The origin of the expression fight fire with fire is the fact that the fire service use petrol bombs to tackle house fires. Other things they use are foam that's put on cardboard plates

and thrown at fires, and a special substance known as water, but which is different from normal water because they add something to make it wetter, probably the scripts of Richard Curtis films. Lucy. Is there extra wet water? Oh. Yeah.

There is indeed. Yay! Yes. Firefighters add a foaming agent to normal water to make it wetter or reduce its surface tension. This wetter water can penetrate deeper into burning materials so that fires can be extinguished more rapidly and using less water. It's widely believed that the fire hydrant

was invented by Lord Fire Hydrant at the Battle of Cardigan Sandwich. But actually, we don't know who invented it because the patent records were burnt in a fire. Frankie. Is that true? Yes, it's bloody true. Yes, it is true, yes. All US patents were lost in 1836

when the patent office in Washington burnt to the ground. The post or pillar-type hydrant is generally attributed to Frederick Graff Senior, who was granted a patent around 1801, though any evidence of his patent was lost in the fire. If you put the batteries back in the ceiling thing that screeches to alert you to the fact that you've made some toast, an angel loses its wings. The first fire alarm was made using butter, which when it melted caused metal plates to touch each other, completing a circuit.

John? That sounds possible. It is possible. That's absolutely true. In 1902, George Darby, an electrical engineer from Birmingham, patented a fire alarm comprising a pat of butter sandwiched between two metal plates. If the temperature rose to a dangerous level,

the butter would melt and the plates would slide together, completing a circuit and triggering an alarm. The invention fell out of favour when cholesterol-conscious householders tried low-fat substitutes, called things like Utterly Horrible and Bugger Me, It's Marge. Most people think that when Lord Sir Amstrad Sweetener says, you're fired, to contestants on The Apprentice, the person is taken away and baked in a kiln. Although that is true, the origin of the use of the word in that way lies in the west of England, where traditionally unpopular people

were driven from the community by burning their houses down. Frankie. Did they burn people out? Yes, they did. I've got an honest face, haven't I? Yeah, they burned people out. That's absolutely right. A man would be tied up in his house, which would then be set on fire. If he

escaped, he was allowed to go free, but had to leave the area. He was allowed to go free, but had to leave the area. How likely is he to want to hang around? The Johnny Cash song, Ring of Fire Fire has given Royce a little amusement and few comments about Indian food. However, an ad agency did once seek permission

to use it in a commercial for haemorrhoid cream, but Cash told them where they could stick their suggestion. Lucy? I think they did ask and I think he did say no. They did ask. That's absolutely right. Although he didn't say no. I think he did say no. They did ask. That's absolutely right. Although he didn't say no. I think he was dead. His children said no.

And that's the end of Jeremy's lecture. And yes, Jeremy, you must have an honest face because I'm afraid you've managed to smuggle no truths past the rest of the panel, which means you've scored no points. Johnny Cash's estate once refused permission for his hit Ring of Fire

to be used in a commercial for haemorrhoid cream. Elton John, meanwhile, has not yet replied to the request from Viagra to use I'm Still Standing. Next up is Lucy Porter. Lucy, your subject is Norfolk, a county on the east coast of England. Off you go, Lucy. As everybody knows, the people of Norfolk are very small and have webbed feet.

In fact, this rumour was started in 1955 when a visiting chef ran into a rare local frog and noticed that it croaked with a Norfolk accent. The chef assumed it was a very small, web-footed local man until the frog explained he wasn't a man but a frog, pointing at his shapely frog's legs. As soon as the chef saw the frog's legs, he had a sudden, brilliant culinary idea. And that's the story of how Norfolk became the first place to produce fish fingers.

Norfolk is a land of firsts. The world's first typewriter was built in Norfolk. Norfolk was the first place in the UK to get postcodes and Norfolk was also the first place that someone received a piece of hate mail written on a typewriter. Jeremy, let's just say the postcodes is true. You're right, the postcode is true. The first postcodes were introduced after the Second World War

and were trialled first in Norwich in 1959. As opposed to putting fluoride in water, you know. Was that a bad idea? Depends whether you want to be brushing your teeth while you're just trying to drink water. It's like hiding floss in spaghetti, isn't it? Lucy. The world's oldest footprints outside Africa

were also found on a Norfolk beach. The footprints appear to show someone walking from the beach into the sea before immediately walking back going, no, too cold, too cold. John. I don't like the look of Lucy's smile, but I'm still going to say it's true. There's no need to be rude, John. I'm trying to play a part of the game.

Yeah, I think footprints, oldest footprints in the world outside Africa. You're right, yes. I think footprints, oldest footprints in the world outside Africa. You're right, yes. The footprints found on a Norfolk beach are between 850 and 950,000 years old and were discovered on the rapidly eroding beach at Happisburg. You'd think footprints would just wash away when the tide came in, wouldn't you, really?

Well, I suppose that's why there's not very many of them. I would certainly not expect there to be very many footprints that are a million years old, but the number I would have expected would be none. Not three. It would have to be a very, very unpopular beach, wouldn't it? Yes. It's a sign that, you know, really the tourism

in the area isn't working, isn't it? The footprints are prehistoric. A sandcastle built by the Romans. Norfolk will also not be outdone at anything by anyone else in the world. While China has the Great Wall of China, Norfolk has the even greater Wall of Great Yarmouth, which runs the entire length of Great Yarmouth and is the only man-made structure which is actually visible from Great Yarmouth.

Jeremy. Does the wall run the whole length of Great Yarmouth? I don't think so. I don't think anyone checked because that was so clearly a joke. It could be a clever joke that conceals a profound truth, like satire. There's a lot of stuff in the news about building walls around places at the moment but I'd like to put a vote in for Great Yarmouth.

And make the Mexicans pay, yeah. While the Swiss have the Swiss Army knife, Norfolk has the Norfolk knife. It took two years to make and includes three different types of corkscrew, a Delia Smith muffin tray and a blade for removing stones from Stephen Fry. Norfolk even has its own version of Las Vegas, a pub with no less than three one-armed bandits in a village called Dis, referred to by the locals as Dis Vegas. And what happens in Dis Vegas stays in Dis Vegas,

probably because nobody has ever left Dis Vegas. Norwich City is the only football club in the country to have retained a chant in Chaucerian Old English. Thought to date back to the 14th century, it goes... Now yonge men with yow fleet foot is kika, greet many goalers shooter exceeding kika. When yow score, the other team will feel more sika. He'd not the referee, he is a prika. Thank you, Lucy.

And at the end of that round, Lucy, you've managed to smuggle three truths past the rest of the panel, which are that a rare local frog in Norfolk croaks with a Norfolk accent. The northern pool frog is England's rarest amphibian and with a Norfolk accent. The northern pool frog is England's rarest amphibian

and has a Norfolk accent. The frog became extinct in England in the 1990s, but was reintroduced to Norfolk from Sweden in 2005 after recordings of mating frogs were analysed and the distinctive Norfolk inflection in their calls was identified. The frogs were originally thought to have been an import from continental Europe, but researchers found they were actually native to East Anglia and hence reintroduced them.

So it was their Norfolk accents that confirmed post-extinction that they were indigenous and therefore justified their reintroduction. The second truth is that Norfolk was the first place to produce fish fingers. The first fish fingers were produced by Birdseye in 1955 at its factory in Great Yarmouth. And the third truth is that Norfolk has the Norfolk knife. The Norfolk knife went on display at the Great Exhibition of 1851,

contained 75 blades, and it took craftsman William Barnforth two years to make. And that means, Lucy, you've scored three points. The fish finger was invented in Norfolk in 1955, and to give shoppers a proper Norfolk handful was sold in packs of six. Norwich was the first place in the UK to have postcodes, apparently inspired by a regular call of the Norfolk Postman. E-U-R, one for you.

Next up is Frankie Boyle. As a young man, Frankie trained as a teacher. I know, it doesn't bear thinking about, does it? Frankie, your subject is The Beatles, a pop and rock group from Liverpool consisting of George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. Off you go, Frankie. The Beatles are literally worshipped as gods in some parts of the developing world, especially Liverpool. John Lennon claimed he had named the Beatles after a vision in a dream,

saying a man appeared on a flaming pie, saying, you will be the Beatles with an A. The entire band nearly lost their lives when, after opening with the song Help throughout their 1964 tour of Bavaria, they were later attacked by wolves and completely ignored. The Beatles... The Beatles were first drawn to the sitar as its larger size made it ideal

for smuggling drugs. They imported over 2,000 sitars into the UK, but were too high to collect any of them from the airport. John? Did they, over thears into the UK, but were too high to collect any of them from the airport. John? Did they, over the course of their career, import however many thousand sitars it was? 2,000? No.

Oh. No, they didn't. Frankie? Lennon and McCartney's drug experiments continued until they found the exact dose of LSD that made them think that their wives were talented. LAUGHTER of LSD that made them think that their wives were talented. LAUGHTER APPLAUSE APPLAUSE

Indeed, the band only grew long hair and beards as a way of trying to shake off Yoko Ono. Almost one in five Beatles songs mentions the weather, but only one in 30 is about love. John? Do one in five Beatles songs mention the weather? They do. Almost one in five Beatles songs mention the weather?

They do. Almost one in five. Out of the 309 songs by the Beatles, 48 or 16% reference the weather. Frankie. Lennon's murder was wrongly mourned as a tragedy because he actually exceeded the average life expectancy of a liver puddling in the 1980s. The BBC banned I Am The Walrus,

not for its anti-establishment tone, but because it contains the word knickers. A 1967 She's Leaving Home angered the American far-right, who decided it was a cryptic advertisement for abortion. Another American far-right group took out a contract on the life of Paul McCartney when they misunderstood a lyric and thought he was backing the ussr jeremy i'll go with the abortion one that's absolutely right paul mccartney wrote the song about a girl who leaves a note for her parents as she steals away

in the early hours and meets quote a man from the motor trade some took the man from the motor trade to be a euphemism for an abortionist, but McCartney said he just meant a typical sleazy character. The contract on McCartney's life was only cancelled when the American far-right later welcomed the title of the White Album. When the fans became too much, the band would go out wearing a false nose and glasses, or in Ringo's case, false glasses.

When asked why the band hired Ringo, John said it was because they felt their good looks would be accentuated by standing beside someone who looked like a novelty jug that had been made in a secure unit pottery class. In 1996, Ringo appeared in a Japanese advertisement for grated apple juice, which coincidentally is what his name means in Japanese.

John? I'm always falling for these. Does his name mean grated apple juice in Japanese? It does. Yes. Yes. Ringo means apple in Japanese and Ringo Star sounds like the Japanese phrase

Ringo Sutar, meaning grated apple. Paul McCartney has claimed that the intention behind much of his solo work was to power his home with environmentally friendly green electricity generated by John spinning in his grave. Paul's age-related hearing loss has affected his work,

as he can no longer hear friends whispering, Time to stop now, Paul. Come on, it's getting embarrassing now. Come on, Paul. getting embarrassing now. Come on, Paul. Thank you, Frankie. And at the end of that round, Frankie, you've managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel, which are that John Lennon claimed he'd named the Beatles after a vision in a dream,

saying a man appeared, quote, on a flaming pie, saying, you will be Beatles with an A. John Lennon claimed in a promotional interview for Capitol Records that he'd had the vision at the age of 12. However, the explanation he offered Hunter Davis for his authorised biography of the band seems more plausible. I was sitting at home one day just thinking about what a good name the Crickets would be for an English group.

The idea of Beatles came into my head. I decided to spell it B-A-T-L-E-S to make it look like beat music, just as a joke. So of those two explanations, certainly one of them seems more likely. The second one is essentially, I thought of the name The Beatles. And the second truth is that the BBC banned I Am The Walrus not for its anti-establishment tone,

but because it contains the word knickers. And that means, Frankie, you've scored two points. The early Beatles concerts were said to smell heavily of urine due to overexcited girls. And for different reasons, you'll find a similar smell today at Cliff Richard concerts. Which brings us to the final scores. In fourth place, with minus four points, we have Jeremy Hardy. In third place, with two points, it's Lucy Porter.

In second place, with four points, it's Frankie Porter. In second place with four points, it's Frankie Boyle. And in first place with an unassailable six points, it's this week's winner, John Finnemore. 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 John Finnamore, Lucy Porter, Jeremy Hardy and Frankie Boyle. The chairman's script was written by Dan Gaster and Colin Swash and the producer was John Naismith. It was a random production of BBC Radio 4.