The Unbelievable Truth - 08x03 Hamburgers, Snoring, Crocodiles, Pens

Episode Date: December 22, 2021

08x03 9 January 2012 Tony Hawks, Tom Wrigglesworth, John Finnemore, Alan Davies Hamburgers, Snoring, Crocodiles, Pens

We present the unbelievable truth, the panel game built on truth and lies. In the chair, please welcome David Mitchell. on truth and lies. In the chair, please welcome David Mitchell. Hello and welcome to The Unbelievable Truth. On our panel, we have a sound engineer's nightmare. Four accomplished liars, each of them utterly two-faced and skilled in double talk. So that's 16 microphones in all. Please welcome Tony Hawks, Tom Rigglesworth, John Finnemore and Thank you. 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 is a highly accomplished tennis player who has won as many Grand Slams

as Andy Murray and Tim Henman put together. Tony, your subject is the hamburger, described by my encyclopaedia as a sandwich consisting of a fried cake or patty of ground beef, usually in a roll or bun, variously garnished. Off you go, Tony. Fingers on buzzers, the rest of you. Since hamburgers became popular in the late 20th century, the population of the city of Hamburg has dropped dramatically,

as these maritime Germans have been routinely exported for meat. Only five remain. exported for meat. Only five remain. In 1995, McDonald's introduced the slogan in the USA, there's nothing quite like a McDonald's, forgetting that Burger King is quite like a McDonald's. Right, fingers on buzzers. In Oklahoma, a law has been passed making it illegal to take a bite out of someone else's hamburger. In the USA, the science of making hamburgers is part of academia, and the Hamburger University opened in Illinois in 1961. Oh, shut up.

And the founder... John. Maybe it did, though. Maybe it did. I'm saying it did. The thing is, it's about America. Only a certain number of ridiculous things can be said about America in a row before one of them is true. Is this that one? Is which that one?

There's a hamburger university. You're absolutely right. Hooray. Well done. Fred Turner, Macdonald's former senior chairman, founded Hamburger University in Illinois. Today, more than 5,000 students attend it, and it is an

accredited school. And they just make hamburgers, do they? I'm assuming they go into it in some detail. How many universities just do one subject only? That's like calling a university that does history, calling it History University. Yes, I don't think you can read classics at Hamburg.

You can only read the preparation of Hamburg. Possibly, I don't know, the history of the cow. You know, the sesame seed through the ages. Sociology of the gherkin. Actually, the more you think about it, how do they cram it into three years?

In America, the founder of the McDonald's hamburger chain is actually a bachelor of hamburgerology. The American hamburger chain, Wendy's, was actually named after butterfly star Wendy Craig. Glenn Close worked at the first McDonald's in her hometown of Ennersburg Falls, Vermont, which is in America. John?

I'm throwing good money after bad, but yes. Did she? I think she did. She didn't. Now, that may have been in America, but your mistake there is that's actually a perfectly likely thing. I'm enjoying Tony's baited hooks, though. Yeah.

It dangles them in front of you, and you don't know which to go for. It's toying with it. You'll wait for this one. You'll love this. Ray Winston used to work in a wimpy bar in West Ham. Oh, that's got to be true! Yeah, that's got to be true. Is it going to be... Because he kind of made up the Glenn Close one

and then the Ray Winston one. That'll be weird. John. Alan has persuaded me. I don't think you did make them both up. He's lured you onto the rocks. Has he? Like one of those ancient sexy Greek birds.

But he so closely resembles. Yeah. No, no, that's not true. Ray Winston didn't work in a wimpy bar. If there's a third one, I will buzz for that as well. OK. I wonder if there is, Tony. And Madonna's 1998 hit...

OK, the buzz is in play. All right. Shall I finish the sentence? Finish the sentence that john has already decided it's true yes but donna's 1998 hit frozen was about a frozen burger inspired by the days when she worked in burger king good luck john i'm sorry to be the one to have to tell you that that's not true oh yeah also bon jovi's hit wanted dead or alive was rumored to be about the man who came up with the recipe for the whopper when he too worked in a hamburger outlet what do

you think tom well i don't want to be lured into this sort of bear trap that you seem so good at but there seems to have been a string of lies so so by... Well, that is the nature of the game, you know, there will be a string of lies. The man who invented the Whopper worked in a burger place. The man who invented the Whopper worked in a burger place? I mean, I think that's almost certainly true. If that's on the table, yeah. That's the confident budding. It's pretty safe for that.

What did you think was true? Because, Tom, it can't have been the Whopper. Tony didn't say that. It's my fault. I made him do it. Can you repeat the bit about where you were? The bit that you're absolutely certain is true. Also, Bon Jovi's hit Wanted Dead or Alive

was rumoured to be about the man who came up with the recipe for the Whopper, comma. That's where I was buzzed. I can assure you this is absolutely true. In the mid-90s there was a rumour, certainly in our school, that Bon Jovi's song was about the man who invented the Whopper. How far they spread, I don't know. But in my eyes, it's absolutely dead set.

That is not true. John. Right. I have been feeding coins into the slot machine of people working in burger bars. I've had three that weren't. I think Bon Jovi did. And yes, he did.

He actually worked as a ketchup dispenser and it used to come out of his nose. Waterproof coats are known as Macs because raindrops are shaped like burger buns. The traditional burger bap is made from one part self-raising flour, one part icing sugar and three parts cotton wool. The sesame seed topping was discovered in the 1930s when bread maker Alvin Rossetti of Hazard, Kentucky

accidentally dropped a tray of uncooked bats on the floor where they picked up some of the sawdust. He cooked the batch anyway, and when people asked about the topping, he claimed it was set... I can't read tonight. He claimed it was sesame seed. You can't have made that name up.

Surely. I think that might be true. It's not true. Did you make that name up, then? Clearly not. I've got a team of writers to do that for. Thank you, Tony. So, Tony, you've managed to smuggle three truths past the rest of the panel, which are that in Oklahoma, I don't't know how everyone missed that it is illegal

to take a bite out of someone else's hamburger he cheated he said he made a whole thing about fingers on buzzers and he said it was a trick a double bluff it was a double it was a pointing at tony hawksley with a biro and i'm quailing that's that a word? That's not a word, is it? Quailing. Come with a tiny feather. Quailing is presumably catching quails. As we speak. He's got a little hammer,

and it's a quail-infested room. You don't know what I'm doing under this desk. No, you can't see under the desk. There's a cloth over it. Concealing quails, who are currently fleeing for their lives. Anyway, in Oklahoma, it's illegal to take a bite out of someone else's hamburger and it's also illegal to make an ugly face at a dog which is presumably if you're already ugly what can you do uh or to wear your

boots to bed the second truth is that ray crock the man who made mcdonald's a global franchising chain has completed the training at Hamburg University and awarded himself a Bachelor of Hamburgerology. And the third is that raindrops over two millimetres in diameter flatten out into the shape of a burger bun when they fall. They're not in fact droplet shaped. And that means, Tony, you've scored three points. and that means, Tony, you've scored three points. A 2009... I'm sorry, I can't read either. A 2009... We keep getting distracted by these bloody quails.

A 2009 survey by the Keep Britain Tidy group found that 29% of the fast food rubbish found on Britain's streets was McDonald's wrappers. The other 71% was gherkins. Okay, we turn now to Tom Rigglesworth. Tom's Sony Award winning Consumer Complaint series was called Open Letters. And for any younger listeners, a letter is just like an email, only spelt properly and without smiley faces. Your subject, Tom, is snoring, the sound generated by vibration of the mouth's soft palate while breathing during sleep.

Snoring was invented in the early part of the 4th century. The idea spread through the civilised world and was later taken on by the British ruling elite, where animal snoring competitions became all the rage. Wealthy explorers would return from hunting trips, offered... LAUGHTER became all the rage. Wealthy explorers would return from hunting trips offering new species to try and win Snorer of the Year. This crude research...

Oh, you're doing my head in now. That's the sort of thing they did, isn't it? With stuff they found, you know, in Africa. Press the button, Alan, go for it. I'm trying to make John press the button. John's nodding and going, yeah, I think so too. He's even got his finger on the button. I'm going to let it go, carry on, Tom.

This crude research has armed mankind with facts such as the gorilla never snores. A discovery that... I bet that was John, wasn't it? No, it was Tony. Tony Hawkes. Please let that be a lie. I sat silently in, I pounced, because we all know, all of us,

in this theatre this evening, we all know the gorilla never snores. Well, yes, we all do now, because it's true. Okay, strap in guys because the truths are going to come thick and fast. Camels also never snore. Their hump

preventing them from sleeping on their back. Whilst wombats were often crowned winner of such events as they are well known for sleeping face up, legs in the air and snoring contently. Among the regency dandies, there were also human snoring competitions with the notable snores including

Bo Brummel, Bo Nash and Bo Diddley. John, human snoring competitions? No, thanks. No, that's not true. That's okay. Tony? But one of the boby nash or the beau brummel uh snored oh do you think so yes which i'm gonna go bo nash i feel it oh well you see that's how i feel like a cad because it's beau brummel an accomplished snorer with a wide and loud range of snorts, toots and gurgles

is always welcome in the bedroom. However, there was a case of a man from China who, at his wits' end, deafened himself by driving chopsticks into his ears. When asked why he'd done it, he replied, Huh? When asked why he'd done it, he replied, Huh? It transpired that he could no longer put up with his wife's noisy nocturnal output.

And, in a similar vein, an Iranian filed for divorce on the grounds of his wife's snoring, even though, in a bid to prevent him discovering her bad habit, she'd been giving him sleeping pills every night with dinner. I think the Iranian filed for divorce on the grounds of his wife snoring. That's plausible, I think. You're right. It's plausible because it's true, yes. In February 2007,

an Iranian newspaper reported that only 40 days into their marriage, a man was filing for divorce after finding that his wife had been drugging his dinner to stop him hearing her snoring. In the 60s, Rolf Harris had a hit with the song Hark at My Hooter, in which he whimsically claimed that learning to play the didgeridoo can get rid of snoring. The alternative therapy crowd have also had a stab at the cure.

They suggest a muslin bag filled with lentils and sage, which is worn around the neck of the sufferer. The sage is said to help with the breathing, whilst the lentils are used because they always are with these people thank you tom well tom you've also managed to smuggle three truths past everyone else which are that wombats sleep face up with their legs in the air and often snore this pose shows the wombat is relaxed or dead the second truth is that beau brummel reportedly snored a lot like a gentleman and the third truth is that in 2005 the british medical journal

published a paper stating that regularly playing the didgeridoo reduces snoring and daytime sleepiness as it strengthens the upper airways of the mouth. And that means, Tom, you've scored three points. One great snorer from history was Benito Mussolini, who tried lying in all kinds of positions to put an end to the habit. What finally did the trick was hanging upside down from a lamppost. Next up is John Finnemore.

John both writes and stars in Cabin Pressure, a sitcom based around an airline which makes Ryanair look like a bunch of thieving cheapskate cowboys whose sole purpose in life is to rip off the travelling public. But then, what doesn't? John, your subject is the crocodile, a large predatory amphibious reptile with thick armour-like skin, a long tail and massive jaws. Off you go, John. Crocodiles. We all deal with them every day.

Whether romping with our pet ones at bath time, taking our children to feed ducks to the wild ones in the park, or simply admiring the majestic sight of a flock of them as they flap lazily overhead. But how much do we really know about these bright red Spanish-speaking mollusks? Well, the study of crocodiles, properly called crockery, tells us the following. The word crocodile comes from the Greek croc,

meaning knot, and odilos, meaning an alligator. A saltwater crocodile can run faster than a greyhound, swing through the trees faster than a baboon, and write a novel faster than Ian McEwan. Tom. The first one of those three is true. No chance.

No chance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tenor on it. OK. This is an interesting one. Are you taking the bet, Tom? Yes, I'm taking in both the game and the bet. Can you imagine it? Walthamstow dogs with two crocodiles and two greyhounds.

Who do you seriously think is going to get around fast? I'm afraid, Tom, they're not faster than a greyhound. He's taken the disappointment and a financial hit. That's ten times your fee. Up in smoke. They can, as I say, write a novel faster than Ian McEwan. This was proved in a close-fought contest at Edinburgh Zoo in 2001, which resulted in McEwan's Atonement and Jacko the Crocodile's

The Fish Who Was a Fishy Fish and I Ate It. Atonement went on to win the Booker Prize that year, whilst The Fish Who Was a Fishy Fish was Richard and Judy's summer choice. Crocodiles are the pampered aristocrats of the animal kingdom. They once lived in the magnificent city of Crocodilopolis and are always accompanied by a retinue of animal servants. Tony, I think that they did live in a place called Crocodilopolis. You're right, they did.

Oh! What? But hang on, it was only called that... Hang on a minute, what are you talking about? Like, of course it was called that afterwards, but it wasn't like they moved there. Hey, this place would be ideal. Look at the name of it.

I don't think John asserted that the crocodiles decided to call their city Crocodilopolis. Yes, that is my assertion. It wasn't a city, though, was it? Listen. Crocodilopolis was a city in ancient Egypt, so named by the Greeks due to the particular reverence paid by its human

inhabitants to its crocodile inhabitants who were also there in great number in particular to sobek the crocodile god so i mean obviously it's basically a human city with a lot of crocodiles living there as well well it's as stupid as it is dangerous in my opinion crocodiles are always accompanied by a retinue of animal servants. Ring-tailed lemurs manicure their claws, ibises clean their teeth, and mountain... Alan. That's true, ibises clean their teeth.

No. Oh, God. That's a hotel. It's a hotel. It doesn't clean a crocodile's teeth. Not even in crocodopolis. I think it's a bird. An ibis is sort of a...

It's a bird, Tom. It's not just a hotel. I think a hotel is named after a bird. They borrowed the name for the hotel from the... Originally, it's a bird. It's the quails that do it. Your best chance of escape if chased by a crocodile is to run in a zigzag path,

or else to lie on the ground as flat as possible, then cover yourself with mozzarella and tomatoes. Tom. Of course the mozzarella bit is a complete fallacy, but you should run in a zigzag because that is a path that they cannot take. No. And I'll tell you why. Basically, we can run faster than crocodiles.

So the best thing to do if you want to run away from a crocodile is to run directly away from the crocodile. And I think a zigzag path would look, depending on your point of view, either flirtatious or, I suppose, just delicious. Tom's obsessed with the speed of crocodiles. Yes. And it's letting him down badly.

Maybe he's thinking of a different animal to get. Yeah, I think so. They are these big cats with stripes. John? Crocodiles are these big cats with stripes. No? Okay. If caught by a crocodile,

just distract it with a funny story and then simply seal up its jaws with a rubber band. That'll teach it. It is a myth that it is a myth that it is a myth that crocodiles cry crocodile tears so it would be wrong to deny that they do alan isn't it true that if you seal their jaw up they don't have the strength to open they've actually surprisingly weak when they're trying to open their jaw up they don't have the strength to open they they've actually surprisingly weak when they're trying to open their jaw is there something about that yes there is something about that you're

absolutely right and yeah their jaws are very weak for opening their mouths are very strong for closing them so you can seal a crocodile's mouth shut with a rubber band and that's why those people wrestling crocodiles holding their mouths shut that doesn't take great strength but they have huge strength when they're open to snap shut so yes and so you get a point for that finally a crocodile can bite a hippopotamus in half interestingly a hippo can also bite a crocodile in half on pass so in a hippo croco fight it's very much about who gets their mouth open first and whether the hippos have remembered

to bring along their rubber bands. Tom. Hippos have very, very strong jaws. I reckon a hippo could go through a crocodile. This could be a good one for you. I'm confident about this one, Alan. I truly am. The law of averages suggests I've got to be close.

They do have strong jaws, even though they only have four teeth. But they're vegetarians, aren't they, hippopotamuses? Oh, now you're in trouble. Yeah, but if the crocodile had covered itself with mozzarella into butter... Or indeed eaten a lot of mozzarella recently. It's quite often the case, I think,

a hippo will get halfway through eating a crocodile and then go, oh, there isn't meat in this, is there? No, yes, you're absolutely right. They are vegetarian, but they're also very aggressive. Probably because they fancy a bacon sandwich. And a big hippo could crunch any animal up to ten feet, they reckon, and there is a film of one decapitating a lioness. The guardsmen at Buckingham Palace are given special training in how to stun a crocodile.

This stems from the time the evil Prince Valdemir of Prussia snuck up on Queen Victoria one day in Buckingham Palace and released a crocodile into her room. Fortunately, the dear old Queen had her trusty nunchucks at the ready, and within 20 minutes she had killed the beast, skinned it, and turned it into a lovely handbag for disraeli there is a crocodile behind you right now look out thank you john and john at the end of that round you've managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel

which are that it's a myth that it's a myth that crocodiles cry crocodile tears they do cry if you do the negative maths on that and not because they're sad they cry when they've been on land for a while and their eyes are beginning to dry out in order to help re-moisten them they also cry when eating their prey because their tear glands stimulate their salivary glands and the second truth is that prince valdemar of prussia who was queen victoria's grandson released his pet crocodile into her study at buckingham palace as a joke that means john you've scored two points crocodile dung was one of the first known contraceptives used by Egyptians in 2000 BC, and it worked.

Although I find coating myself in any kind of excrement is equally effective. Now it's the turn of Alan Davis. Alan, your subject is the pen, an implement used for writing or drawing which dispenses ink from a nib or tip. Off you go, Alan. In days gone by, quills for right-handed writers

came from the left wing of a goose, while pens for left-handers came from the right. This resulted in flocks of lopsided geese which could only fly in circles. Tony. I go for this. Birds are very much my thing. And I think it's very...

Tony's pulling a quail apart. I just know that this is right. The left-handed and the right-handed thing is definitely right. You're absolutely right in knowing that. It's due to the natural curve of their feathers. The quills for right-handed writers were better from the left side of a goose and vice versa. Alan. The name rubber was given to the bouncy stuff first harvested from the trees of Indonesia

because it could be used to rub out pencil marks. It was named by J.B. Priestley, who also discovered oxygen just in time to stop everyone from suffocating. Before rubber erasers came along, people used to rub out the mistakes with a lump of potato. John? Oh, no, it's bread. They used bread, didn't they, not potato?

But nonetheless, I buzzed. You've made me completely unnecessary you've done the whole journey um yes they didn't use potato they used bread thomas edison invented an electric pen which never really caught on except into two parlors i'm going for the thomas edison he invented a huge number of things and one of them was the electric pen. You're absolutely right. It was developed in 1875 and was designed to enable multiple copies

to be made from the same manuscript, but was superseded by improved methods such as the typewriter in just a few years. However, in 1891, Samuel O'Reilly uses a model for the first electric tattoo machine. The original Parker pen was so popular that for a time, writing became known as parking. Sheets of paper were known as parking spaces. The ballpoint pen was first developed by the Romanian Laszlo Ballpoint.

Ballpoint is sometimes confused with the great hungarian hypnotist byro who actually invented the automatic gearbox which he named after his wife gearbox byro john did i'm sort of picking away through the thicket of this but did byro who invented the byro also invent the automatic gearbox he did yes inventor wayne lee devised the pen especially for travelling salespersons. To keep their clothes from getting creased overnight, the ballpoint pen converts into a coat hanger. He went on to invent the wristwatch that converts into a three-piece suit.

John. Yes, please. I'll buy the pen that converts into a coat hanger. Do you know, I would as well. I think that sounds rather nifty. Does it exist? It does exist yeah thank you alan and at the end of that round alan you've smuggled one truth and that is that rubber was named rubber because it could be used to rub out pencil marks and the name was given to it by English chemist Joseph Priestley,

who also discovered oxygen and was also different from J.B. Priestley. And before it was known as rubber, it was known as gum elastic. Anyway, that means, Alan, you've scored one point. Hurrah! A bronze pen was found in the ruins of Pompeii, and next to it a piece of paper saying, I think Vesuvius is a rup.

Which brings us... Which brings us to the final scores. In fourth place, with minus three points, we have Tom Rigglesworth. In third place, with minus two points, it's Alan Davis. Thank you.

In second place with no points, it's John Finnemore. And in first place with a frankly dodgy-looking seven points, it's this week's winner, quail killer, Tony Hawk. That's about it for this week's winner, quail killer, Tony Hawk. 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 divided by John Naismith and Graham Garden

and featured David Mitchell in the chair, with panellists Tony Hawks, Alan Davies, John Finnemore, and Tom Rigglesworth. The chairman's script was written by Colin Swash and Ian Pattinson, and the producer was John Naismith. It was a random production for BBC Radio 4.