The Unbelievable Truth - 08x02 The Olympics, Blood, Bees, Butter

Episode Date: December 22, 2021

08x02 2 January 2012 Mark Watson, Henning Wehn, Ed Byrne, Phill Jupitus The Olympics, Blood, Bees, Butter

We present the unbelievable truth, the panel game built on truth and lies. In the chair, please welcome David Mitchell. Built on truth and lies. In the chair, please welcome David Mitchell. Hello and welcome to The Unbelievable Truth. Today we're coming to you from the BBC at Potterow at the Festival Fringe in Edinburgh, the city known as the Athens of the North due to its unpaid debts, miserable locals

and long-forgotten civilisation. Our four... Actually getting a boo. There, great. Our four panellists this week are competing to tell the biggest lie since a Navy SEAL called out, Pizza for Mr Bin Laden. They are Mark Watson, Henning Vane, Ed Byrne and Phil Jupitus.

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 Mark Watson. Mark will be known to Radio 4 listeners as the host of

two series of Mark Watson Makes the World Substantially Better. Though I fear it won't get a third series, since these days everything's fine. Mark, your subject is the Olympics, described by my encyclopedia as a major international event featuring summer and winter sports in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of contests. Off you go, Mark. Fingers on buzzers, the rest of you. In the original Olympic Games, the naked athletes were so self-conscious that anyone attempting to watch the Games

was thrown kicking and screaming into a baffling lottery where they paid for imaginary tickets and then were told they hadn't got them. Phil? It Is naked athletes a fact? They weren't always naked at the Olympics, is that? It is a fact, but it wasn't a fact that Mark asserted. In fairness, he started off by saying, the Olympics.

Yeah. Which exists. Yeah. Also, this piece of paper is real that I'm reading from as well, I admit that. Indeed. On a previous show, I was doing electron bees, and I think I said, as the bees fly, and someone buzzed in and went, bees can fly. And, David, you went, yes, that is a fact, Phil.

You've done a very bad lecture. I think you're misremembering that. No. Yeah. Oh, if only someone recorded these shows. If that had... And people do record them. It's just no one then listens.

No, if that had happened in the way you described, I would definitely have come down on your side. Also, how did you on a previous show do a lecture on bees? I'm doing bees on this show. Are we already repeating subjects? It was honey. It was honey, David, says the man in the box, who's the producer. Who is now flirting with you mid-show.

Yeah. Oh, no, that's all cleared up. Let's move producer. Who is now flirting with you mid-show. Yeah. So, no, that's all cleared up. Let's move on. Sorry. Sorry, that's good. Thank you. You're sorting out this game just like you're sorting out the euro.

No points to fill. Carry on, Mark. Well, some time ago, I began a lecture about the Olympics. That is a fact. Mark, carry on. Well, some time ago I began a lecture about the Olympics. That is a fact. Carry on, preferably without describing what you're going to do accurately for. As for the idea of competing naked, in the 17th and 18th centuries,

after the Olympics had moved from Mount Olympus to Chipping Camden, nude events such as tickling, shin-kicking and leapfrog still proved highly popular, although the onlookers had to be blindfolded. Ed? I'm going to go with onlookers had to be blindfolded while naked people did certain things. I'm sure that has happened in

the world, but not in an Olympic context. It wouldn't be really a spectator sport then, would it? No, more of an imaginer sport. It's good for radio, though. I actually just felt guilty about scoring that point, so now I'm back to zero. That was really nice of you.

Penny, are you buzzing to tell me to get on with it again? No, I just wondered if shin kicking might have been an Olympic sport at some point in time. What is true is that there were an Olympic Games that were held for several hundred years, from 1612 to 1852, with a few gaps for civil wars, in Chipping Camden, known as the Olympic Games with a K

after the C. Yeah, yeah, that were the ones I was talking about. Yeah, and they, as part of that Olympic Games, they had various events, including shin-kicking, and in fact the World Shin Kicking Championships is still held in Chipping Camden. So... But did they do it naked?

No, they stopped talking about nakedness. He was talking about it. Nakedness has been mentioned. That doesn't mean everything that's subsequently mentioned was done naked. It's just, Ed's confused for listeners at home because we're doing the show naked. I thought it was a mistake. I thought it would because we're doing the show naked.

I thought it was a mistake. I thought it would be distracting, but the BBC insisted. So, yes, I think I'm going to give you a point for that, Kenny. Yay! The Paris Games of 1900 had the only ever swimming obstacle course, which involves swimming through sewage in the River Seine the first Winter Games included a man versus reindeer race and an event which involves skiing downhill with your eyes shut there is blind skiing but it said to Paralympics right which doesn't really help but it does provide a very awkward moment

blind skiing is different from skiing with your eyes shut oh yeah i'm fully aware of the condition yes yes you have that in germany too yeah i mean if you were you to try and treat blindness with the phrase have you tried opening your eyes No, I can't see that working. We move on. We don't move on, sorry. Ooh, that was close. Sorry. It's all these naked people, it is distracting.

At the LA Olympics in 1984, the cult of the individual was celebrated when they introduced the sport of solo table tennis against the wall, and the event of solo synchronised swimming. The event was controversially won by conjoined twins from Sierra Leone. Of course, sadly, it's sometimes the Olympic losers that we remember. In 1988, Mexican skier Roberto Alvarez took so long to finish

that a search party had to be sent out to find him. The only winner from past years who is remembered to this day is, of course, Josef Bartel from Luxembourg, who caused panic in 1952 by taking 1,500 metre gold. The officials were so confident Luxembourg wouldn't win anything that they hadn't bothered to get the music for their national anthem, and the band was forced to improvise. Henny? Now, I can imagine that in 1952, when Luxembourg won the gold medal, that they didn't have the anthem ready.

Well, you're right to be able to imagine that, because that happened. Well done. In addition to the summer and winter Olympics, the Olympic Committee made a short-lived attempt in the 1950s to fill in the odd-numbered years with spring and autumn Olympics. The first and only autumn Olympics were held in Winchester in 1951 and included leaf-kicking roasting and dog walking thank you mark

and mark you managed to smuggle three truths past the rest of the panel which are that at the 1900 olympics there was a 200 meter swimming obstacle, which was held on the sewage-filled River Seine, as it's described here. The second truth is that solo synchronized swimming was an event at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. And the third truth is that in 1988, Mexican skier Roberto

Alvarez took so long to finish the course that a search party had to be sent out to find him. No way. Yep. He entered the 50-kilometer cross-country skiing despite never having travelled more than 20 kilometres on snow before. He eventually finished nearly an hour after everyone else, apparently. And that means, Mark, you've scored three points. Thank you very much.

At the ancient Olympics, all of the contestants were naked men, though the occasion was sometimes ruined when some drunken idiot in the crowd would run across the stadium fully clothed. Dueling pistols was an Olympic event in 1906 and 1912, presumably providing the least sought-after silver medal in the game's history. We turn now to Henning Weyn.

Henning is one of a number of German comedians, that number being one. Your subject, Henning, is blood, the familiar red fluid which circulates in the principal vascular system of vertebrates. Fingers on buzzers, everyone else. Off you go, Henning. Blood was invented by God.

Jesus is dead. After unsuccessful experiments with oil and hair tonic. He had originally planned to use Hewlett Packard printer ink, but ran out of money. The first blood bank in Britain was set up in Ipswich in 1937, which was the best place to put it, because the population all had the same blood group. Ed? I'm going to go with the notion

that the first blood bank was set up in Britain in Ipswich in 1937. You're absolutely right. Yes. Blood has long been the snack of choice for sophisticated vegetarians. In Helsinki there is a restaurant

called Rotbladders, in which all the meals are prepared from various types of blood. Reindeer, seal, sheep and puffin. Ed? I believe that that is also true. Unfortunately, you're mistaken in your belief. Oh. Well, I'm going to open that restaurant then.

There was a niche in the market there for that. I tell you, if you do open that restaurant in Helsinki and call it Rot Bladders and serve all those things, I'll give you the point back retrospectively. I have a new mission. Yeah. Come to the Edinburgh Fringe in five years' time to hear the story in my one-man show,

How I Lost It All. That's the story of most people's Edinburgh friends. Puffin blood soup with fennel is revered in Finland as a cure for arthritis, gout and clearing puffins out your roof. Blood drinking animals are less classy.

In fact, vampire bats urinate constantly while drawing blood so that they don't become too heavy to fly. Basic physics. I reckon that the vampire bats urinate while licking. I must say, your on-the-hoof analysis of the anatomy of a vampire bat is peerless. As always.

That's absolutely true because there's not very much protein in blood, apparently, so you have to basically get a lot through you in order to get enough to eat if you're a vampire bat, which means you're taking on a lot of liquid, so you have to get rid of a lot of liquid. Henning. It is medically proven that sunshine and milk chocolate lowers blood pressure, whereas licorice and pessimism raises blood pressure. In the North West, there is an annual contest to see who has the highest blood

pressure, and the winner gets to be Mayor of Liverpool. Even a scouser's blood pressure is nothing compared to a giraffe's, which have the highest blood... I assume you're going to say giraffes have the highest blood pressure in the animal kingdom. I think that's true, but even if it's

not true, I think it is true that a scouser's blood pressure is not as high as a giraffe's so some of that has to be true yeah both of those things are true that scouser blood pressure is lower than a giraffe and giraffes have the highest blood pressure in the animal kingdom due to its long neck the giraffe has to generate double the normal blood pressure of an average large mammal in order to maintain blood flow to the brain there you go they've got no natural. And that's why they've got... Is that true? That's why they have got the high blood pressure. Because they've got loads of spare time to read the Daily Mail. The over-optimistic people of Southern Europe

have the lowest blood pressure in the world due to their climate, healthy diet and the security of guaranteed handouts from Angela Merkel. to their climate, healthy diet and the security of guaranteed handouts from Angela Merkel. Despite its massive size, a fully grown elephant only has as much blood in its veins as a Shetland pony because of its highly efficient circulatory system and masses of fat. Mark. I had some success with that giraffe fact. I reckon that might be true as well.

Yeah, it sounds plausible, doesn't it? Yeah. No. There's lots more blood in an elephant than a Shetland pony. Oh, because it's bigger? Yeah. I reckon that might be true as well. Yeah, it sounds plausible, doesn't it? Yeah. No. There's lots more blood in an elephant than a Shetland pony. Oh, because it's bigger. Yeah. I see. I suppose that could be true as well.

It's one of those things, there's a counter counterintuitive. Yeah, so it comes back to being just common sense, really. Yeah. Humans, pigs, cows and sheep are the only animals that have red blood. Flying squirrels have pink blood and ants have purple blood. Spider blood is transparent, which makes their horror films visually disappointing.

Ed? I believe that spider blood is transparent. You're right, it is. Strictly speaking, it's not blood, it's haemolymph. But what you'd colloquially call spider blood is transparent. But no-one can see it, of course, so it's hard to know. Transparent doesn't mean invisible.

Yes, it does. I did art, Sailor Voos. I asked for a glass of water, where is it? Octopuses have yellow blood. Something I discovered when chopping up an octopus to get some cheap ink for my unit pack at Bubble Jack. Thank you, Henning. And, Henning, at the end of that round,

you've managed to smuggle one truth past the rest of the panel, which is that licorice and pessimism raise blood pressure a study by the university of helsinki that's the place where there isn't that blood restaurant found that pessimism raises blood pressure and there's a case of a 56 year old yorkshire woman who's admitted to hospital having overdosed on licorice pontifract cakes and in fact manufacturers of licorice products advise eating them in moderation. In my view, they're disgusting. And so even eating them in moderation is the act of a lunatic.

Nevertheless, that means, Henning, you've scored one point. Most marine fish can survive in a tank filled with human blood. These, at least, are the preliminary results of the little research project I'm carrying out in my garage. Also, most domestic cats can't. Next up is Ed Byrne. Ed is a long-established stand-up who

says one of his pet hates is his wife's snoring. I imagine that must be enormously irritating, Ed, especially when she's sat in the front row. Your... Ed, your subject is bees, four-winged, stinging insects known for their role in pollination

and for producing honey. The bee was invented by Dr. Bumble Honey Monster in 1842 as an alternative method for pollinating plants, which up until that point was a task performed painstakingly by hand using a wasp on a stick, which nobody liked. It's illegal for bees to make a buzzing sound in Ottawa. Bees may not construct hives anywhere in the state of Pennsylvania,

and bees are forbidden by law from flying over the town of Kirkland, Illinois. Mark. As stupid as that sounds, I reckon it might be one... The Kirkland, Illinois one sounds almost... Americans have all sorts of peculiar laws. I'm going to say that might be true. How do you enforce that? You just arrest bees who contravene the law.

You're absolutely right, Mark. The weird, unenforceable laws of various states of America have been a boon for this show. For example, the Illinois Statute Book also states that it's illegal to urinate into your neighbour's mouth, to give lighted cigars to dogs, or to eat in a place that is on fire. Bees are capable of spinning webs.

They just don't bother as they consider them to be too macabre. Henning. I can't imagine a bee being capable of spinning a web. What, as well as making honey? How many bloody skills are they getting? They can fly and make honey. That's enough. And sting. Fly, sting and make honey. That's enough. And sting.

Fly, sting and make honey. You want webs as well? Yeah, go on then. Webs as well. No. Ridiculous. And what can ants do? Lift heavy thing.

Big deal. Some of them can fly. There's no balance in your view of the insect kingdom. Yeah, I'm guilty as charged. Actually, I should say that bees that have been bitten by a radioactive spider can spin webs. But other than that... Are you envisaging a character called Spider Bee? Spider Bee.

Spider Bee. The honeybee is more famous than its cousin the treacle bee, which makes treacle, or syrup. The marmalade bee is now known to be a myth, and I'm afraid the spelling bee was just a hoax. If a hive gets too hot, bees can cool it down by dividing into two teams. One wafting cool air in, another wafting hot air out. Phil.

I think the internal air conditioning bees are true. You're right. You're right. They keep the temperature of their hives between 34 and 35 degrees Celsius, even when the temperature outside is well below zero. And if the hive gets too hot, bees will leave it to collect water, then return to the hive and fan their wings, thus bringing the temperature down as the water evaporates.

Yeah, but no webs, eh? No, no webs. So great is the heat generated by bees, the Romans used to encourage bees to build hives in the walls of their homes, forming a rudimentary form of central heating. The practice is remembered today when someone walks into a room with the heating turned up too high and remarks,

Swarm in here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And moving on. Bees can use their own heat to kill intruders by surrounding, say,

an invading hornet and waggling themselves at him until he's been cooked to death. Phil. They swarm around and vibrate against attackers. They do, Phil. say, an invading hornet, and waggling themselves at him until he's been cooked to death. Phil? They swarm around and vibrate against attackers. They do, Phil. It seems to me they're doing everything except making webs.

That's just the one thing they don't do. Until recently, it was thought that queen bees couldn't sting at all, but in fact, they only sting other queen bees. Bees have a universal language that allows a British bee to be understood by a Mexican bee better than a British tourist can be understood by a Mexican waiter. Mark.

I reckon bees probably all have the same language. Yeah. No. In fact, that's not true. So you lied to me? Yeah. I'm just pausing there to let Ed take over the show.

Yes, he's right. He's obviously very proud of that particular lie. It was one of my favourite facts was the fact that bees internationally don't quite understand each other. I could see that

from the evil gleam in your eyes when I paused. Yeah. You fell into my honey trap. Yeah. I wish I hadn't your eyes when I paused, yeah. You fell into my honey trap. Yeah. I wish I hadn't buzzed. I don't know. You've been stung by me.

We should let David do some of the show, definitely. No, no, I've heard... It's absolutely true. In different climates, bees have different languages, so Italian and Austrian honeybees, for example, can't understand each other. Thank you, Ed. And at the end of that round, Ed,

you've managed to smuggle two truths past everyone else, which are that it's illegal for bees to make a buzzing sound in Ottawa, presuming the bee owners are prosecuted rather than attempts made to take the bees to court. And the other truth is that queen bees only sting other queen bees. But no, she can't spin a web. Sorry. And that means, Ed, you've scored two points.

Queen bees make a special noise called quarking, as do posh ducks. In the 11th century, St Bernard excommunicated a swarm of bees for buzzing too loudly while he was preaching. Some bees later returned to the Catholic Church, while others converted and became wasps. Ah. Ah.

Very clever. That's the noise you like to hear from an... Ah. I see what you've done. Now it's the turn of Phil Jupitus. Phil first found fame as a political performance poet in the 1980s, but then shifted to stand-up comedy when, to everyone's surprise, the 80s performance poetry bubble burst.

Your subject, Phil, is butter, an edible yellow emulsion of fat globules made... This sounds delicious. Made by churning milk or cream that's commonly used as a spread or in cooking. Off you go, Phil. Polish explosive, wartime farmyard equipment lubricant, Edwardian lamp fuel, Roman moisturizer, and Viking brill cream. Butter is a substance the bitterness of which is directly affected by the stress levels of the cows it is taken from. I know I'm going to

regret this, but I'm going to say that the stress levels of the cows it is taken from. I know I'm going to regret this, but I'm going to say that the stress levels of the cow affects the flavour of the butter. No, it doesn't. I'm sorry. I can smell the regret. I bet one of those things you listed at the start is real as well, but I think it's really mean of you to say that in that way.

That's the game. That's the game. In the Middle Ages, churned milk fat was traditionally sold in pairs of rounded pats known as buttocks. The dairyman Hugh of Gloucester is said to have modelled the pats on his wife's bottom, which is how it got its name, Marge. In its natural state, butter is completely transparent. To make it more appealing to consumers,

various colouring agents have been added, including charcoal, raspberries, pig's blood, copper and marigold. Henning? In its natural state, butter is transparent, is it? No, it isn't. No, otherwise it would be invisible. No, I couldn't really. Yeah.

And that would be impractical. Constantly mistaken for spider blood. And that would be impractical. Constantly mistaken for spider blood. Galileo performed many experiments with buttered toast to discover why it always landed butter side down. Surprisingly, he found it was all a matter of mental attitude. If you butter the toast timidly and with a light touch, it will land on the butter.

But if you butter it masterfully with a firm hand, talking to it and warning it to behave or else, it will tend to land butter. But if you butter it masterfully with a firm hand, talking to it and warning it to behave or else, it will tend to land butter uppermost. To allay fears of being buried prematurely, the Victorians often insisted that the undertaker put a pat of butter in the corpse's mouth the night before burial. So the phrase, butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, literally means he's dead.

Mark? I think it's, uh, not the last, but I think it's possibly true that Victorians might have put butter pats in corpses' mouths because Victorians got up to some very peculiar stuff. They did, but not that. Sorry. Also, something has to be a lie at some point. I mean, true at some point here.

That's true, but yeah. Butter has been used as an essential component in mobile phones, the space shuttle, fire alarms and body armour. Famous butter makers in fiction include the archers Eddie Grundy, whose wife churns out a spread known as clarified butter. Oh, yeah, but swarm in here. Thank you, Phil. You're a dirty player, aren't you?

And I have to say, at the end of that remarkable round, Phil, you've managed to smuggle all five truths past the rest of the panel. And that were the first five words of the first sentence. They were. The truths were as follows. Well, the two of those were true. It's that butter was used as a Roman moisturizer.

It was also used as Viking brill cream. The Vikings and some other Germanic tribes used butter as a hair conditioner. The third truth is that during the Middle Ages, butter was often given extra color by being mixed with marigold flowers. And before the Food Adulteration Act of 1860, 10% of butter was found to have copper added to heighten its color. That's the third truth. The fourth truth is that if you butter toast firmly, it will tend to land butter side up. This is because the pressure of the knife creates a concave indentation

causing the toast to land butter side up as this is more aerodynamic. So remember that tentative butterers. The fifth truth is that butter was used in the world's first automatic fire alarm patented in 1902. It incorporated a pat of butter

sandwiched between two metal plates. The butter would melt if the temperature reached a danger level, causing the plates to touch, completing an electrical circuit which triggered a siren. Which I think sounds very clever. He only snuck it past us. He didn't invent it. Don't look at him like he came up with the idea of putting

butter in a fire alarm. Listeners, he looked at Phil Jubels like he invented that and went, which I think was very clever. He did. Listeners, he looked at Phil Jubels like he invented that and went, which I think was very clever. He didn't do it. No, I wasn't meaning to, I wasn't meaning to credit Phil with that. I just like the idea of butter in a fire alarm.

I like the smell of hot butter would relax you as you fled the building. I think it's against the rules of the game to use such implausible facts. It's pretty sneaky. It is true that Henning went for the first plug bank with Fannin and Ipswich in 1937, which is pretty middle of the road.

Anyway, Phil, that means you've scored five points. In the Highlands, it was traditional for a newborn Scottish baby to swallow fresh butter to protect against fairies, a precaution that proved remarkably effective. If only they had something that worked equally well against heart disease. A raki-butty-ro-phobia is a fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth. Though if you need to give the information to a doctor,

you may find the following expression easier. I have a fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of my mouth. The cure, incidentally, is a peanut allergy, which transforms the phobia into a rational fear. Which brings us to the final scores. In fourth place, with minus one point, we have Ed Byrne. In third place with no points, it's Henning Wehm. In second place with one point, it's Mark Watson.

And in first place with an unassailable six points, it's this week's winner, Phil Jupiter. 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. Goodbye. The unbelievable truth was devised by John Naismith and Graham Garden

and featured David Mitchell in the chair with panellists Phil Jupiters, Mark Watson, Ed Byrne and Henning Vane. The chairman's script was written by Colin Swash and John Finnamore and the producer was John Naismith. It was a random production of BBC Radio 4.