The Unbelievable Truth - 24x04 Bread, ABBA, Men, Experiments

Episode Date: February 19, 2022

24x04 6 July 2020 Holly Walsh, Miles Jupp, Sara Pascoe, Frankie Boyle Bread, ABBA, Men, Experiments

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, a panel show about incredible truths and barely credible lies. I'm David Mitchell. Hello and welcome to The Unbelievable Truth, a panel show about incredible truths and barely credible lies. I'm David Mitchell. Today I'm joined by the four horsemen of this comedy apocalypse. Please welcome Sarah Pascoe, Holly Walsh, Frankie Boyle and Miles Jupp. 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 Holly Walsh. Holly, your subject is bread, a food made from flour, water and usually yeast,

mixed together and baked. Off you go, Holly. Fingers on your various buzzers, the rest of you. Modern bread, as we know it, was first invented in the late 1970s when Delia Smith was running late for a Norwich City away game and accidentally undercooked her toast. The concept of toast had obviously been around since Victorian times. Frankie?

I'm going to call for a toast being around in Victorian times. Well, it certainly was around in Victorian times. Frankie? I'm going to call for a toast being around in Victorian times. Well, it certainly was around in Victorian times, but not since then, because it predated them. It was, in fact, Roman. I wasn't actually that keen on Roman civilisation until I heard that, but toast, that's something special. It comes from the Latin tostem. The first written account was by the great Mrs Beaton, who wrote a rather delicious recipe for none other than toast sandwich, the filling of which, and I'll have to get the ingredients exactly right here for anyone writing this down, is a piece of toast. It wasn't long before bread broke into popular culture. You may not know this, but bread actually got its name from the popular Scouse sitcom, The Liverbirds. But the naming of different types of bread is very serious.

For example, matzo is Yiddish for roof tile. Panettone means re-gifted Christmas present. Miles? Matzo tile. No, no, it comes from the Hebrew for juiceless. One of the many ways you would describe a roof tile. I suppose so, yeah. probably top five for most people to differentiate it from those cheaper juicy roof tiles that cause so much moisture indoors yeah the imported ones yeah yeah pumpernickel literally translates to

devil's fart pita bread approximates to panty liner and bagel means glory hole the first bread to really break through to superstar status was of course the baguette then in 1982 italians got jealous about the baguette and invented the ciabatta this was so successful that in 1986 they launched their follow-up masterpiece the focaccia specifically to provide middle-class British dinner parties with much-needed innuendo. In fact, bread is so popular in Europe that most countries have a bread-based holiday.

Iceland celebrates Bun Day, where children wake their parents by beating them with bun wands. Sarah? I want that to be true. The bun wands? Yeah, you have to hit your parents with buns. It is absolutely true. Woohoo! What a world!

Yeah. Bolludagur, or Bun Day, is an Icelandic holiday that takes place two days before Lent. Children wake up early and try to catch their parents still in bed. If they do, they can beat them with colourfully decorated bun wands while yelling repeatedly, bolla, bolla, bolla, which translates as bun, bun, bun. Their parents are obliged to give them one cream puff for every blow received. So it's a touching reaction to the death and resurrection of Christ, I think. Appropriately.

We all deal with it in our own way, Frankie. of Christ, I think. Appropriate. We all deal with it in our own way, Frankie. One of life's great unanswered questions is, what was the best thing before sliced bread? It was, of course, the bread knife. In fact, the guy who invented the bread slicing machine couldn't sell one for 16 years.

Miles. I think that when the bread slice was invented, it was unpopular. That he couldn't sell it for 16 years? Yeah. That is correct. Yes. Otto Frederick Rawwedder of Iowa

invented the first bread slicing machine in 1912, but a fire in his factory destroyed his designs and the original prototype. It then took him another 16 years to create another machine, file a patent and sell the first pre-sliced and wrapped loaf of bread on the 7th of July 1928. In the meantime, the same guy invented the sandwich

when he took a bread knife and carefully cut a bread roll down the middle as a warning to other bread. Thank you, Holly. And at the end of that round, Holly, you've managed to smuggle three truths past the rest of the panel, which are that Mrs Beaton wrote a recipe for none other than a toast sandwich,

the filling of which is a piece of toast. It's a piece of toast between two slices of buttered bread with salt and pepper to taste. The trouble is when you publish a book is that they sometimes give you a word count and you do end up just shoving some stuff in there just so it looks longer and that is definitely a Mrs Beaton filler. Well I think it sounds like a lovely idea for a sandwich and I'd be interested to have it toasted. The second truth is that pumpernickel literally translates as devil's fart. Pumpernickel bread was named by Westphalian Germans from

pumpents, meaning to break wind, and nickel, or Old Nick the Devil. The third truth is that the ciabatta was invented in 1982 in a deliberate attempt to produce an Italian alternative to the baguette. And that means, Holly, you've scored three points. Suffering from typhoid makes your skin smell of freshly baked bread, so at least it's slightly easier to sell your house before you snuff it. In 14th century London, the Baker's Guild split up and formed two rival guilds, one for brown bread and one for white, which led to a rather pointless doubling up of roles.

OK, we turn now to Miles Jupp. Miles, your subject is ABBA, a Swedish pop supergroup comprising Agneta, Feltzkog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Annefrid Lindstad. Off you go, Miles. exception. To this day, I can't stop myself suddenly and often inappropriately bursting out with an early, and I always think genuine, number from the ABBA quartet, such as Beedle Weedle Eedle, or Sarajevo, or Little Sad Moose, and of course, no doctor can help with that. Frankie. One of those has to be a genuine early ABBA song. Little Sad Moose? No. Holly.

Beedle Weedle Eedle? No. I'm going to go for the other one. Sarajevo. Are you going for Sarajevo? Absolutely. That is not right. These songs were all sung in English,

despite the group's first language being Belarusian. The boys learnt English at an evening class, the girls learnt it phonetically, and it was due to their constant mispronunciation that they were forced to change the title, lyrics and indeed entire meaning of their song Pooper Scooper. Holly. I think the girls didn't know how to speak English when they started singing in English. Correct. Yes, when the group was formed, Bjorn and Benny were fluent English speakers but

neither Anna Fried nor Agnetha spoke English, and so they performed their early English songs phonetically. The night that ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest, and I need hardly remind you when that was, and the UK didn't award them a single point, my father went out into the street and tore up his passport, which he then burnt in a metal bin, alongside some financial documents that he said that no-one would miss.

Holly. Beg your pardon? You don't need to say that. It's just the nature of the buzzer you're using. I'm so sorry. Can I ask, did the UK give them nil points? They did. That is correct. In 1974, when ABBA won Eurovision with their hit Waterloo,

the UK gave them nul point. Despite this, Waterloo became a number one hit in the UK singles chart two weeks later. And to think it was named after one of our stations. Yeah, stations. Or put another way, one of Belgium's fields. Yeah, well... The distinctive costumes that ABBA always wore on stage

during performances were tax-deductible, as it was so easily proven that there was no way in hell they could wear them at any other point in their lives. And they insisted that their royalties from different territories had to be paid in different ways. In Scotland and Russia, they were paid in oil commodity rights. In France, in bottled Evian had to be glass glass. In America they received shares in Colt firearms. Sarah?

I'm going to say that they did insist on being paid in glass Evian bottles from France. That's not true. When they worked for the BBC they did it for practically nothing, but they felt that it was worth it because they said it gave them a certain kudos amongst a certain kind of person. For example, the Jutt family were most impressed. Thank you, Miles. So, Miles, at the end of that round,

you've managed to smuggle three truths past the rest of the panel. And the first one is that an early and genuine number of the ABBA quartet was called No Doctor Can Help With That, which you rather fiendishly smuggled in as if you were just saying, oh, no doctor can help with that, conversationally, which was sort of clever but nasty. Apologies for my unpleasantness. Just bad sportsmanship, that's all. I don't know. I don't know what I think about it yet.

I think you need to take a firm stand on these sort of things for the good of the game. That was my worry. It depends if you're playing it for fun or like Miles, because you desperately want to win, I guess. OK, well, it is a fact, and it's called No Doctor Can Help With That or Det kan ingen Dr Hjälper. And it was a 1970 single in Sweden on which all four members of ABBA performed. What was it about? I mean, what was the ailment?

Love, I'm a shaman. Exactly, yeah. That really sounded like something that was said by the man at the end of the bar that hasn't spoken all evening. Suddenly overhears the conversation. Excuse me for interrupting, ladies. It sounds like you're talking about love. The second truth is that the distinctive costumes

that ABBA always wore on stage were tax-deductible because it was so easily proven that there was no way they could have been worn in real life. I don't want to sound like I'm kind of dropping myself in it, but aren't all costumes tax-deductible? If you could wear it in your normal life you can't claim it as tax so normal clothes you can't say are stage costumes. Your accountant should have gone through this with you Holly because it's very clear

someone's been claiming trousers. I've had the tax people come around twice and actually come around. Yeah actually come around.ipts yeah actually come around yeah lots of people in my family have tax evaded in the past and then my earnings really changed and they went through every receipt and if it's a jumper even if you never wore it again if you've bought it and technically you could wear it in everyday life you can't do it tax deductible but then like with travel you can get a helicopter to your gig and charge that and that's fine yeah because that is how you got there but if you picked up some shopping on the way you're you're in for the whole helicopter ride this is actually more fun than the show i'd say this is sub podcast

my next tour show i'm just doing the usual kind of stuff but i'm phrasing it as a tribute to to Shirley Bassey. Well, yeah, it sounds like you've finally found your voice. Well, anyway, in Swedish law, if you could prove stage costumes could in no way be worn on the street, then they were tax-deductible. You could, even you, David, the sort of outlandish things you wear on television, you could probably get away with in normal life, couldn't you? Some people say so.

In my head, I think of you wearing cords a lot. Is that true? I do wear cords quite a lot and I also have quite a lot of cord jackets. Mustard cords? No, no, you've caricatured me there. No, that's too far, Holly. And the third truth that Miles smuggled was that in Russia, ABBA were paid in oil commodity rights as there was an embargo in place on the ruble and it proved to be a very lucrative decision. And lubricative. Well, I doubt...

Do you think they used Russian oil to lube themselves up? Absolutely. Well, you make Vaseline out of petroleum, don't you? Yeah, I know, but it's... Don't you, David? It's unusual. You go in your mustard trousers. How do you think you're getting it out of them?

Oh, yeah. Famously, cord drawing is a huge amount of pre-lubing in order for me to squeeze myself into them. Well, they are revved. It would go together. Anyway, that means, Miles, you've scored three points. ABBA chose their name by holding a newspaper competition inviting the public to name the band.

Among the suggestions they considered were Barber, Alibaba, Fab and, of course, Bandy McBandface. Next up is Sarah Pascoe. Sarah, your subject is men, adult male human beings. Fingers on buzzers, the rest of you. Off you go, Sarah. It's a universal truth that men have it harder than women. For instance, why do women have a special day every year where they are celebrated just for nothing? do women even do whereas every man works hard all year round and gets no thanks whatsoever it makes me so furious on march the 8th i tweeted when is international men's day hmm i need to have people replying with the complete

lie that it's on november the 19th it isn't if there was a special day for men, I think I'd know. I looked up November 19th in the diary and it is in fact World Toilet Day. Why should toilets get a parade when men get nothing? Miles. Although you couched it by saying it is a lie, that is a truth, isn't it? It's the 19th of November, International Men's Day. It is true that International Men's Day is the 19th of November, but as you say, Sarah said the opposite. So it was a lie. She said it is that, but it is a lie. Oh, I see, right. So you haven't spotted a truth. No, right. I've spotted a

truth described as a lie. Yes, she said it is not then, and it is then. So she lied. Yeah, so the game Miles is, you chime in and go, that's true, but you've chimed in and gone, that's a lie? Yeah. Do you see? Oh, right, no. Honestly, no. true but you've tried to do them on that for life yeah to see no honestly no well as you don't understand i don't think you need to lose a point but you don't get a point i think you should because

of how competitive he was earlier so it's like if you're going to play that if not understanding why you didn't get something means that you don't have to worry about it that's just stupid i think in the middle of a thing about men for a man to not have a point taken off, he's clearly in the wrong. He's sending out the wrong message. I'm sorry, Miles. You've lost the various rooms. So Miles loses a thousand points there

for being such a monster. And Sarah, carry on. World Toilet Day aims to highlight the 2.5 billion people that don't have access to toilets, while my International Men's Day would highlight those men who'll pay you to go to the toilet on them. Frankie?

World Toilet Day, is that real? It is. And it is like International Men's Day, the 19th of November. We think that's on purpose. Another inequality is that men are much, much sexier than women and have people oogling them all the time. Most men can't walk down the road without women whistling and shouting about where they'd like to put their fannies.

Sorry, that's so immature. Historically, men have been made to cover up so that women can control their lusty urges. The balaclava was initially invented to help men keep their virginity until after their GCSEs. Pencil skirts, open crotch tights and high heels were originally worn by men. Holly. High heels were originally worn by men.

Correct. Men were the first to wear high heels in Western Europe around the early 1600s. Do you want to know where I learnt that fact? Go on. It was written in a loo in Lanzarote Airport. Oh, God. that fact. Go on. It was written in a loo in Lanzarote Airport. I swear to God it's actually printed on the wall at Lanzarote Airport. You can't believe everything

you read on the loo wall at Lanzarote Airport. Some of those phone numbers must have expired by now. No, I've kept the same one. By the 1630s a craze for masculinised women's fashion caused women to adopt the high heel, cut their hair short, add epaulettes to their outfits and start smoking pipes. And that was how the high heel moved from a men's fashion item

to a women's fashion item. How come the pipe didn't? Because they're disgusting. But the other things didn't, yeah, the epaulettes have come and gone pipe smoking didn't really stick hair length varies i've got very short hair at the moment are you wearing high heels david david please stop this it's only been a couple of months you're like michaelaine in Get Carter.

I had a penny. It's a really weird world where you're sitting in your spare room and David Mitchell's asking you what you're wearing. It's like a radio for sex life. It's like a radio full of sex life. Well, you know, I'm not in corduroy today. Although I do have a corduroy jacket over the back of my chair. If I can say that without getting too sexy.

I think we might need a toilet break soon. Sarah. Until the 1930s, it was illegal for men to go topless on beaches, and even in the modern day, it remains forbidden for them to get their knobs out in Debenhams. All this withstanding... Sorry, I'm such a baby. All this withstanding, the main victim of male sex... The main victim of male sexiness is fidelity.

While all married men do their best to remain true to their boring old wives, pretty new women often arrive and force them to touch their boobs. Marital infidelity is, of course, not actually men's fault, by the way. It's just the lower the IQ, the easier they are to seduce. Frankie. That's got to be true. It is true. And in fact, it carries on. Extramarital sex is like Mario Kart. You're more likely to catch someone if they're a bit slow. And yes, that's absolutely right. There was a 2010 study which found that men with higher IQs were less likely to be unfaithful to their partners and that men with lower IQs were more likely to have extramarital affairs.

The study concluded that more intelligent men are more likely to value monogamy and sexual exclusivity than less intelligent men. Miles. Now, I know this is really late and I've now become incredibly confused about the format. But I think... So do you want to phone a friend?

I may be making the same mistake again, but I'm pretty sure it must be illegal to get your knob out in Debenhams. It must be. Well, obviously, there was a lot of discussion about this, Miles, and actually it's not in the rules of Debenhams. Oh, really? We had to look it up.

Did you ring them up, David, and said, is it alright to get your knob out in Debenhams? And they said, we can't tell you. The chief executive said, look, David, it's a grey area. Yes, but can I get it out in Debenhams? Yeah. Sarah. You can tell that these poor cheating guys don't have their heart in it. In fact, they are more likely to have a cardiac arrest

when having sex with someone who isn't their partner. Frankie. I think that's got to be true. They're more likely to have a cardiac arrest when someone who's not their partner. That is absolutely true. Men who cheat on their wives are more likely to die of cardiac arrest during sex.

According to an autopsy report released by the American Heart Association in 2012, of all the sudden deaths which occurred during sexual intercourse, 88% were men, and 75% of these cases happened during extramarital sexual activity. Heartbreaking. And it's all women's fault. That's why heart attack studies are only on men. Women don't deserve saving.

And if you've got a problem with that, bitches, take it up with Sandy Toksvig on the 8th of March. And that's the end of Sarah's lecture. And at the end of that round, Sarah, you've managed to smuggle one truth past the rest of the panel, which is... It better not be about Debenhams.

Which is that until the 1930s, it was illegal for men to go topless on beaches. This is in America. It was illegal for men to be shirtless on US beaches. It was only in 1936 when New York changed the law to allow men to show their nipples in public. That means, Sarah, you've scored one point. In Saudi Arabia, it's illegal for men to work in lingerie shops.

Although overall, you'd still have to say that women have the short straw. It's now the turn of Frankie Boyle. Frankie has recently discovered a cure for his long-standing fear of flying, the collapse of the entire aviation industry. Your subject, Frankie, is experiments, a scientific procedure undertaken to make a discovery, test a hypothesis or demonstrate a known fact. Off you go, Frankie. We're currently living through an important experiment to see if nine months spent baking

cupcakes and being screamed at to be quiet through mummy's Zoom call will create a generation of thoughtful leaders in 2030. A recent lockdown experiment showed that you can completely remove the urge to visit your family simply by putting up Christmas decorations. Some recent things that have been discovered through experimentation are that over 70% of Britons will hand over their computer passwords in exchange for chocolate, that male monkeys will pay to look at pictures of female monkeys' bottoms. Sarah? That's true. That's experiments that they've done with apes. You're

quite right, yes. Experiments conducted by researchers found that male rhesus macaque monkeys would take a cut in their fruit juice allowances to look at photographs of the bottoms of high status or socially dominant female monkeys. One of the researchers was keen to point out that this is not simply monkey pornography and that the photographs allowed the monkeys to assess the reproductive prospects of fellow members of their species. Now, that is an excuse I have never heard tried. William Morton, the father of anaesthesia, first experimented on himself but kept falling asleep before he could describe the results. I think the duck was first. Miles? I think he did experiment on himself.

He did, and indeed he also kept falling asleep before he could describe the results. Frankie? But it's animal experimentation that makes up 1% of British GDP. Personally, I always confuse Schrodinger's cat and Pavlov's dog and always begin to salivate on opening a box containing a dead pet. in Pavlov's dog and always began to salivate on opening a box containing a dead pet. It was in 1939 that Carl von Carl decoded the honeybee's waggle dance before ending his career in disgrace by inventing tiny dollar bills he could slip into the bee's pants to inflate them.

Holly! Sorry, I laughed and buzzed at the same time. Carl von Carl did the waggly dance for the bees. No, none of that is true. Meanwhile, famous 19th century banker John Lubbock discovered that after a lively night out, ants who'd had too much to drink were picked up by their mates and carried home, while drunken stranger ants were tossed in a ditch.

Sarah. I'm going to go for the one that ants, if they have been inebriated, the other ants come back and look after them. That is absolutely true. And this was discovered by 19th century banker and naturalist John Lubbock. Lubbock also noted that whilst

a small number of stranger ants were also carried into the nest, they would shortly be carried back out and tossed into the ditch with the others. Because they kind of thought they them yeah and then took a minute oh no you're not roger yeah yeah i've never seen you in my life yeah you look just like him in the ditch for him meanwhile scientists in america who built a model female turkey in an attempt to measure sexual desire in male turkeys were surprised to discover they only had to attach a head and neck to a stick and the males were happy to mate with it.

Holly. Yes. Yes. True. The turkeys... All they need is a head and a stick. Correct. That is true. In the 1960s, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania

ran an experiment to observe what stimuli prompted sexual arousal in male turkeys. I mean, why wouldn't you? They created a model of a female turkey and gradually removed body parts, waiting to see when the male turkeys would lose interest. They found that the male turkeys kept mating with the model even when all that was left was a head on a stick.

You know why? It's because they could go back and tell their mates they mated with a stick. You know why? It's because they could go back and tell their mates they mated with a model. So they concluded that as long as she had a head, male turkeys would try and mate with a female. So when they took

the head off, then the turkey was like, no, I've got standards, mate. I think so. It's just a stick. Yes, I think when it was just a stick, they go, no.

And they hadn't turned out actually it turns out what I fancy is sticks as a scientist it's got to be hard to come back from that to like your marriage every evening now if you spent all day

watching male turkeys Roger a stick I think the important thing here is not to be too judgy. Thank you, Frankie. And at the end of that round, Frankie, you've managed to smuggle one truth past the panel, which is that over 70% of Britons will hand over their computer passwords in exchange for chocolate.

Another survey revealed that 29% of Britons will hand over their computer passwords in exchange for chocolate. Another survey revealed that 29% of office workers knew their colleagues' login details and that someone in the office always has the boss's password. Which brings us to the final scores. In fourth place, with minus one point, we have Sarah Pascoe. In joint second place with one point each, it's Holly Walsh and Frankie Boyle, and in first place with an unassailable two points, it's this week's winner, Miles Jupp. 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 Holly Walsh, Miles Jupp, Sarah Pascoe 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 for BBC Radio 4. you