The Unbelievable Truth - 05x05 Ostriches, Toast, Red, Spectacles

Episode Date: October 8, 2021

05x05 26 April 2010 Tony Hawks, Arthur Smith, Catherine Tate, Phill Jupitus Ostriches, Toast, Red, Spectacles

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. My four guests tonight will be trying, like guilty diners at McDonald's, to sneak several whoppers in undetected. So please welcome Tony Hawks, Phil Jupitus, Arthur Smith and Catherine Tate. The rules are as follows. Each panellist will present a short lecture that should be entirely false, save for five pieces of true information, which they should attempt to smuggle past their opponents,

cunningly concealed amongst the lies. Points are scored by truths that go unnoticed, while other panellists can win points if they spot a truth or lose points if they mistake a lie for a truth. We'll begin with Tony Hawks. Tony has recently starred in a film version of his best-selling book, Round Island with a Fridge. He played Tony Hawks.

The fridge being a large immobile object, incapable of expression, was of course played by Steven Seagal. Tony, your subject is the ostrich, defined by my dictionary as a large flightless bird native to Africa. Off you go, Tony. Fingers on buzzers, the rest of you. The ostrich can chirp like a canary, roar like a lion and purr like a cat. It usually then finishes with a song. An ostrich with its tail on fire can overtake a cheetah running at 40 miles an hour.

I think maybe they can run at 40 miles an hour. Yes, they can run at 40 miles an hour. Yes, they can run at 40 miles an hour. Yes. Well done. Yes. It could overtake a cheetah that was running at 40 miles an hour as well, but not one that was running at 70 miles an hour, which is what cheetahs can run at.

Thousands of ostrich farms have opened in Kent, where the ostriches have made such a good job of it that they've put most of the local farmers out of business. Partly because they have a better grasp of how the EU subsidies work. Irish airline entrepreneur Michael O'Leary was originally going to call Ryanair ostrich air until he realised that ostriches were fair

and focused on their customers. realised that ostriches were fair and focused on their customers. That's it. Take that, Ryanair. Roman historian Pliny the Younger believed ostriches could fly backwards. Arthur. Do you mean Pliny the Younger?

Maybe, yeah. Maybe. I might be just trying to mislead you. To be honest, I don't really care whether it's true or not, I just wanted to point out that Tony had mispronounced Pliny. But I say that is true. Well, it's not true that Pliny the Younger believed ostriches could fly backwards, but it is true that Tony mispronounced Pliny.

I can't give you a point, but thank you for saving Radio 4 from what could have been a national incident. We don't want to put the classicists off. Yes, the first mispronunciation of Pliny since Lord Haw Haw. That's how we could tell he was a German.

Roman historian Pliny the Elder believed ostriches could hatch their eggs by looking at them aggressively. Ostriches eat twice their weight in stones every day. They are fussy eaters. In New Zealand, they eat only topaz. In Namibia, they eat diamonds. And one ostrich in a zoo in Zurich ate a small child.

But he was Swiss, so nobody minded. Arthur. I think they eat diamonds. By mistake, they do end up with diamonds in their guts because I once dissected an ostrich and found a diamond. That is among your more plausible recollections. Because that's absolutely true, that you do find diamonds inside ostriches they they

tend to yes thank you yes well done ostriches tend to eat stones and gravel to aid digestion and they're attracted to shiny objects so if they see a diamond that's what a lovely shiny thing with which to aid digestion they think. Ostriches gather in groups called shoals and when they meet in these groups they sing songs, play chess and chew tobacco. Before bed they like to listen to the money programme then they all yawn together and swap feathers. The ostrich which can't swim still tries.

Arthur. I once was swimming with an ostrich which can't swim still tries? Arthur. I once was swimming with an ostrich. And it sank. Right. So I say that ostriches can't swim. No, ostriches can swim. I don't believe you ever went swimming with an ostrich. Well, this one I was swimming with, couldn't I?

Right. Maybe it wasn't an ostrich. Maybe it was a person, I think. Yeah. I didn't have any glasses on, you know, when you go swimming. And you just went, oh, look, there's an ostrich drowning. Swung to shore saying, there's some ostrich drowning out there. That's why I'm banned from tooting lido. The male ostrich has a ferocious sexual appetite

and can have as many as 28 different partners in a day. This is why the females have learnt to run so fast. Having discovered that burying their heads in the sand only encouraged the male. Thank you, Tony. And Tony, you managed to smuggle

three truths past everyone else and they are firstly that a male ostrich can roar like a lion the ostrich has a booming warning call that sounds very much like a lion's roar the second truth is that roman historian pliny the elder believed ostriches could hatch their eggs by looking at them aggressively and this belief still prevailed in medieval europe they thought that looking at something sort of projected seeing rays at it so the heat in the gaze of the ostrich hatched its chicks they thought and the third truth is that ostriches all yawn together in groups before going to sleep it was only women who are there. And that means you've scored three points.

Tall, surprisingly fast, and with the brain the size of a walnut, ostriches truly are the natural world's answer to Peter Crouch. An ostrich egg is so large that to soft-boil it, you'd need to cook it for 40 minutes. On the plus side, you can dunk real soldiers in it. OK, we turn now to Arthur Smith. Arthur is much sought after for lucrative voiceovers, which make full use of his distinctive gravelly voice.

See, kids, years of smoking and drinking can pay off. Your subject, Arthur, years of smoking and drinking can pay off. Your subject, Arthur, is toast, sliced bread that has been browned by exposure to dry heat. Fingers on buzzers, everyone else. Off you go, Arthur. Toast was invented by a man from the East Midlands called Jeff Toast.

Nobody? Nobody? The Museum of Burnt Food in Arlington, Massachusetts, houses some 50,000 specimens of burnt food, including over 2,000 in the Hall of Burnt Toast. According to government guidelines, if toast is any cooler than 100 degrees Celsius, it should be classified as warm bread.

A bolt of lightning contains enough energy to toast 160,000 pieces of bread in one ten-thousandth of a second. In Britain, a Berkshire man once sold a piece of toast on eBay which he said bore the face of Joe Pasquale. In 2001, British design student Robin Southgate developed a toaster that toasts your bread with an image of what weather you can expect on the way to work. Phil.

Go on, then. Yeah, no, that's true. Oh, my God! Yes, the toaster takes meteorological information from the internet, and an image is burnt onto the bread by one of three stencils representing sunny,

cloudy or rainy conditions. His name is Robin Southgate. Maybe you could make friends with him, David. I could make friends with him, David. Yes, I'm sure I could make friends with him. He seems like your kind of a guy. I think he sounds splendid. I don't know where you're going with this.

Well, I could just... Do you imagine you and Robin making toast together in the shape of sun? It'd just be really nice. Yes, I'm sure it would be really nice. Well, Robin, if you you're listening can you write in and david would like to meet you for a drink i mean i don't want to make a big deal i'm sure he's a fascinating man um but what does interest me about this is that the original plan was to get the meteorological information not from the internet, but from CFAX,

which I think would have been a bit of a backwards step in 2001. But the reason they didn't go for that is, if it did that, every toaster would need to have a television licence. At the 2002 Venice Biennale, a German artist called Gunther Schulz created a piece of toast 300 metres long and 250 metres wide. I'm sorry. It required 700 kilos of butter. Imagine that.

300 is like higher. It would be good, though, wouldn't it? If anyone wants to do that, I'm happy to join in. I like the Marmite on that, I think. Yeah, God, how much Marmite would you need? In fact, no, because Marmite's very strong. One jar, one jar. One little jar would do that.

It's horrible. Just one jar. My granddad had Marmite once, and he put it on like it was Nutella. It was like an inch thick. And he went, oh, it's very salty, isn't it? Did I imagine this? On the way here, I saw a poster. For fabric conditioner. Yeah, Marmite are doing fabric conditioner.

They're not. Oh, I didn't really read it. It's a joke. I'll be honest with you, my clothes are yeasty enough. Anyway, we're in danger of advertising Marmite. Anyway, we're in danger of advertising Marmite. Can I just say that other disgusting, oil-like, yeasty spreads are available?

Do you not like Marmite, David? Not really, no. I'm disappointed. Although, you know how twiglets taste, basically, of Marmite? What I find with twiglets, if there are twiglets around, I sort of have to eat them, but in an utterly joyless way. You just have to... It's like, I've got to get it done. It's sort of like a combination of a pistachio nut and a tax return. You know?

It's just fun, fun, fun, will you? Wait till I'm making my weather toast with whatever his name is. With Robin. Carry on. In the early 90s, a neocon think tank in the US proposed that the thin slices of toast that you dip in your boiled egg should not be known as soldiers, but as military advisers. egg should not be known as soldiers but as military advisors can i i'm just going to i don't know whether this has happened before but i don't think we've really got him on anything yet and i'm just

going to say that the next thing he says is going to be true well it has happened before actually it's not often a policy blessed with success but um i'll take the bid as it were okay so then arthur can just make one up and he go hitler stabbed goring to death with toast yeah don't be silly napoleon in the book mrs beaton's Book of Household Management, Mrs Beaton gives a recipe for a toast sandwich, which is just a piece of toast between two slices of bread. And you're right, Tony, that is true.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Mrs Beaton describes the ingredients as two thick slices of soft white bread, one thin slice of slightly stale bread, and salt and pepper. She writes, toast the thin slice to an even golden brown on both sides, place it between the two thick slices, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Serves one. Honestly, I mean, why do the French take the mickey out of our cooking?

Thank you, Arthur. You have also managed to smuggle three truths past everyone else, and they are that the Museum of Burnt Food in Arlington, Massachusetts... I can't believe that. Is it really there? 50,000 specimens of burnt food, 2,000 in the Hall of Burnt Food in Arlington, Massachusetts... I can't believe that. Yeah. 50,000 specimens of burnt food, 2,000 in the Hall of Burnt... The museum also boasts one wing devoted especially to burnt legumes, and a newly renovated Hall of Charred Condiments is scheduled to open next May.

Where is this again? Arlington. Arlington, Massachusetts. The second truth is that a bolt of lightning contains enough energy to toast 160,000 pieces of bread in one ten thousandth of a second. And the third truth is that

a Berkshire man once sold a piece of toast on eBay, which he said bore the face of Joe Pasquale. It sold for £500 and the auction attracted 37,000 hits. Anyway, that means, Arthur, you've scored three points. Right, it's now the turn of Catherine Tate.

Your subject, Catherine, is the colour red or any of various colours resembling the colour of blood and one of the primary colours of light. Off you go, Catherine. As every schoolchild knows, red is the third colour of the speculum, being a subtractive binary hue with a wavelength between 6 and 6.2 thousand micronewtons and a frequency of two. In scientific laboratories,

signs warning of hazards are usually bright red to denote danger. Arthur. That would sort of make sense, wouldn't it? To usually bright red to denote danger. Arthur. That would sort of make sense, wouldn't it, to have them red to be danger? You know, red blood and the red of the traffic light stop. I mean, it's definitely liable to be true. Yeah, but it's not. No, in scientific laboratories, they use bright yellow. Oh, yeah, like the man who has the accidents, you know,

who's always been struck by lightning. I feel so sorry for him, don't you? Terrible life he leads. Emmanuel, are you talking about Frank Spencer? You know, the man on the yellow signs that shows you, you know, like he's been struck by lightning, he's falling down holes, he's banging into doors. He's also often standing still outside a lavatory.

No, that's a different bloke. All right. They're usually going out with a girl with an exactly triangular dress on. Yeah. Do you think they're going out? Yeah, definitely. Oh, right.

No, she's going out with a bloke who digs the road. Anyway. Yeah. Back to the programme. Catherine. Everyone knows the difference between red and green, except for guide dogs for the blind, who cannot tell a red light from a green one. Phil.

Dogs are colourblind, aren't they? Yes. Yeah, you're right. A guide dog doesn't know the difference between red and green. And when a guide dog leads its master across the street, it's actually watching for a gap in the traffic, which is, you're right. A guide dog doesn't know the difference between red and green. And when a guide dog leads its master across the street, it's actually watching for a gap in the traffic, which is, you know... So... Is that why they never have greyhounds for the blind?

I think that's one of the reasons, yes. Because they have guide greyhounds for the busy blood. It's recognised that red is the most attractive hair colour by far. And yet 62 of the world's 100 richest men are married to brunettes, 22 to blondes, 16 to raven-haired women, and none at all to a redhead. Although they never go bald or grey, redheads start out with less hair than anyone else.

They have an average of 90,000 hairs. Tony. I think they start out with more hair than everyone else. Do you? Because what Catherine says is they start out with less hair than everyone else. And in many ways, that's what I thought you'd think, considering that's when you buzzed. Is that what you meant to say? I don't know whether there's any advantage in me not agreeing with you here. So I will say that that's what I meant to say.

Yeah. Well, you were absolutely right in what you meant to say. Yeah. Redheads have an average of 90,000 hairs compared to 140,000 if you're blonde. However, redheads may have the last laugh as scientists believe that the last natural blondes will die out within 200 years because blonde hair is caused by a recessive gene.

And they're hunted to death in Essex. But does that mean that, you know, many, many years ago, everyone was blonde, perhaps, or nearly everyone? No. I think just more people. Not everyone. You don't see that many blonde Indians, do you, really?

No, not really. You don't see many ginger Japanese people? No. Except the fact they all dye their hair ginger. Do they? All of them? Yeah. Well, not all of them, OK? You can buzz me there. Didn't they in Egypt, they used to kill people with red hair many centuries ago?

I think they might have done that in Sicily. Really? Because they thought that Judas had red hair and they distrust people with red hair. Is that true? No, that's true, yeah. Tony, that wasn't part of the official message. It's a new segment of the game we're calling

Things We Vaguely Half-Remember and A Bit Reckon. I think it's in Egypt. And then there's Norway. If you're red-haired in Norway, they kind of... Isn't it that tapeworms can't go backwards? And sharks are sarcastic. I think that's it. I think I read that sharks are more sarcastic than squid.

You're listening to I'm Not Really Sure on Radio 4. Catherine, carry on. Compared to other coloured hair, red hair is notably sensitive. Many red-haired people dislike going to the hairdresser as much as going to the dentist, as they can actually feel their hair's being cut. This sensitivity isn't only restricted to hair. In fact, research has shown that people with ginger hair

require 20% more anaesthetic before surgery than people with other coloured hair. Scientists in South Korea have manipulated the genes in a cat to make it glow red. The so-called fire cat gives out enough light to read a book by. The scientists explain that they have done this to benefit the animal because the red cat will now be invisible to dogs. Thank you, Catherine. And, Catherine, at the end of that round, you've smuggled three truths past the rest of the panel, and they are that 62 of the world's 100 richest men are married to brunettes,

22 to blondes, 16 to raven-haired women, and none at all to a redhead. The second is that research has shown that people with ginger hair require 20% more anaesthetic before surgery than people with other coloured hair. People with red hair are more susceptible to pain, according to doctors. And the third truth is that scientists in South Korea have manipulated the genes in a cat to make it glow red. No. Researchers in South Korea have cloned a cat

and modified its genes so that it will glow red under ultraviolet light. And that means, Catherine, you've scored three points. Red or ginger is the rarest shade of hair colour in existence, and redheads are more plentiful in Britain than in any other country in the world. Quite an achievement when you consider the difficulty they must have mating. Now it's the turn of Phil Jupitus.

Your subject, Phil, is spectacles or eyeglasses, frames bearing lenses worn in front of the eyes. Off you go, Phil, is spectacles or eyeglasses, frames bearing lenses worn in front of the eyes. Off you go, Phil. The phrase justice is blind comes from the custom in ancient China when judges used to wear dark glasses to hide their reactions from the people in the courtroom. Leonardo da Vinci, as well as inventing the air raid shelter, leg warmers and muesli, also invented the contact lens.

When Michelangelo died, his sight was so bad he was unable to finish his most ambitious fresco, the Deluge, and the inscription on his tomb reads... Tony. I think when he died, he was unable to finish it. Finish it. That's the bit I'm going for. No, that's not fair.

Obviously, he will have inevitably left something unfinished, be it a cup of tea or maybe just a cry of pain. But not his most ambitious fresco, The Deluge. The inscription of which reads, Phil... Dovatus Agi ad Leonardo. Should have gone to Leonardo's. Queen Anne, who was famous for smoking a pipe and having a penchant for ridiculous wigs...

I think she had a penchant for ridiculous wigs. No. She did when I went out with her. ..insisted that everyone attending her at St James's Palace had to wear what were known at the time as sight glasses. They became known as spectacles, and the term is still with us today. Yes.

Oh, spectacles. You know, what he said. I mean, certainly the term spectacles is still with us today. No doubt about that. Thank you. One point. And you said it with your words yeah from your mouth which is oh so clever so give me a point and let him carry on well i i come on please you know what it's getting late why not the fashion of film stars wearing dark glasses in public was started by the screen vamp Theda Barra.

Arthur. Theda Barra. You went out with her, didn't you? Yeah. Before or after Queen Anne? Don't tell them, but I cheated on Queen Anne with Theda Barra. I think that's impossible without a time machine. I had one of them.

I had Doctor Who's assistant as well. Was that sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart just based on your life? The Time Lord Bigamist. No, that's not true. Film stars wore sunglasses. They started the fashion for wearing sunglasses to look cool, but they wore them to protect their eyes from the very fierce Klieg lights that were used on film sets. In 1902, Jackson Andrews Jr. of Arkansas

patented the first miniature spectacles for chickens. He'd noticed that some of them weren't eating the smaller grains of corn he fed them and assumed this was because they couldn't see them. It's so ridiculous, but somebody did actually give small chicks glasses because he thought he couldn't see their food properly. Well, you're half right. It is true that Jackson Andrews patented the first miniature spectacles for chicken. Well done. It wasn't, however, because he thought they couldn't see their food.

It was a spectacle-like eye protector for chickens to stop them being hen-pecked. When Sanchez Fabrez went to rob a Madrid bank in 1999, he took off his glasses as a disguise. When he blundered out of the bank, he tripped over the furniture and was caught by the police. I think it's probably true.

You are absolutely right. This guy, he took his glasses off as a disguise and then fell over because he couldn't see where he was going. The spectacled flowerpecker is a bird species completely new to science that was discovered only last year in the heart of the Borneo rainforest. The so-called spectacles are merely

colouring in the plumage, although interestingly, scientists have discovered that the spectacled flowerpecker is completely deaf. TV's one-show hunk, Adrian Childs, refused to wear the glasses prescribed for him as a child. As a result, he ran full tilt into a closed door.

This accident not only restored his sight to normal, it also endowed him with the craggy good looks that are his trademark. Thank you, Phil. And the predictable outcome of that is that you have also smuggled three truths past everyone else. And they are that in ancient China, judges used to wear dark glasses to hide their reactions from people in the courtroom. Marco Polo reported this in the 13th century. Second truth is that Leonardo da Vinci invented the contact lens. Leonardo da Vinci drew sketches showing several forms of contact

lens in 1508. And the third truth is that the spectacled flowerpecker is a bird species completely new to science that was discovered only last year in the heart of the Borneo rainforest. And I thought you'd get that, because it's a bit boring, isn't it? Spectacled flowerpecker.

Who cares? It was the Borneo that popped me off, because they don't say Borneo anymore, do they? What's it called now, then? Anyone know? Borneo is the geographic term of the island, and it's got countries inside it, like Brunei. That sounds very plausible.

Thank you very much. Yes, Borneo, I seem to recall. Let's see. It's a geographical term, Arthur. There are several countries within Borneo, but it's still a perfectly reasonable geographical term to use for that region geographically. Anyway, that means, Phil, at the end of that round,

you've scored three points. Which brings us to the final scores. In joint third place, with no points, it's Tony Hawks and Arthur Smith. In second place, with three points, it's Phil Jupitus. And in first place, with an unassailable four points, it's this week's winner, Catherine Tate.

And that's about it for this week. All that remains is for me to thank our guests. They were all truly unbelievable, and that's the unbelievable truth. Goodbye. The unbelievable truth was devised by John Naismith and Graham Gardner and featured David Mitchell in the chair with panellists Tony Hawkes, Arthur Smith, Phil Jupitus and Catherine Tate.

The chairman's script was written by Dan Gaster and the producer was John Naismith. It was a random production for BBC Radio 4.