The Unbelievable Truth - 08x05 The Romans, Chickens, Sweets & Confectionery, Competitions

Episode Date: December 22, 2021

08x05 23 January 2012 Alex Horne, Henning Wehn, Roisin Conaty, Mark Watson The Romans, Chickens, Sweets & Confectionery, Competitions

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. on truth and lies. In the chair, please welcome David Mitchell. Hello and welcome to The Unbelievable Truth. Coming to you from Edinburgh, a typical Scottish city where the men call a spade a spade and heroin a pick-me-up. This week's panel consists of four comedians capable of spinning a web of breathtaking fiction with all the sly, ingenious plotting of a Murdoch. By which the BBC lawyers have asked me to point out, I mean Booker Prize winner

Iris Murdoch. And they are Alex Horne, Henning Vane, Rasheen Conaty, and Mark Watson. 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 Alex Horne. Alex got his first big break in comedy after he won a Christmas cracker joke writing competition.

Which is actually harder than you'd think. Coming up with a joke that can make young children, teenagers, parents and grandparents all sit in solemn, mirthless silence. Alex, your subject is the Romans. Described by my encyclopedia as a civilisation founded around the 9th century BC that grew out of the city-state of Rome, and which came to dominate Western Europe for over a thousand years. Off you go, Alex. Fingers on buzzers, the rest of you. Despite their reputation, the ancient Romans only ever invented one thing. They invented dogs. That's all we have to thank them for.

Dogs and sausages. They loved a good barbecue, the ancient Romans. Thank you. Henny, they did love a good barbecue, the old Romans. No, they didn't. They did.

No, the word and tradition of barbecuing appears to have derived from the Americas. No way. I'm not going to argue with you. This is what I've got written down on a printed out piece of paper in front of me. And I think if you can think of a higher authority than that, then I know what it is. Sausages and wine.

That was their choice combination. Sausages and wine. Henny. Spot on. Sausages and wine. That's what they were having at their barbecues. Look, I'm sure they had sausages and wine at some point but that wasn't their choice combination apparently the thing they liked most was fish sauce that's not true

you've got to accept me as the authority here the show is going to fall down if you refuse to accept that fact exists yeah these things have literally been googled so So, Alex. So the thing they liked most was sausages, wine and toast. Sausages, wine and toast. The idea of toasting actually comes from the Roman practice of dipping their toast in their wine before drinking it in much the same way as we dip our digestive biscuits in our tea and our soup. They were fun.

They were fun people, but they were picky. Very picky, the Romans. No Roman ever eat... Sorry, I'll say that. Very picky, the Romans. No Roman ever eat... Sorry, I'll say that in a sort of better tense. No Roman ever ate beef. Do you think the past tense is a better tense than the present tense? Always, always. Otherwise you have to be talking about the thing you're doing right now.

I read history at university, but I still find that very sad. I think you need to live in the now and embrace the present tense. You can't always talk about the thing you're doing, though, can you? No, I mean, obviously there are some times when the past tense is more appropriate, but not better, not objectively better to be talking about what has gone before rather than what is happening now or what may happen in the future. I'll change it. I'll change it. No Roman ever eats beef.

No, I mean, obviously it's the wrong tense to use. I mean, I'm not... I think that tenses they do really help to order things I was terrified the Boer War was going on until someone explained tenses to me

you're absolutely right Henning the point about a tense is you need the appropriate tense for the meaning you're trying to convey but it's like you don't have a favourite tense it's like when people say what's your favourite word and people say oh I like cauliflower it's a wonderful word but it what's your favourite word? And people say, oh, I like cauliflower. It's a wonderful word. But it's only a wonderful word

if you need to express something about a cauliflower. Otherwise, it's no bloody good at all. No Roman will have eaten beef. I'm just, I'm just trying to look after your state of mental health.

What's happening here? Cows? Cows are seen as the most frightening of all animals. Far too scary to eat in much the Cows were seen as the most frightening of all animals, far too scary to eat, in much the same way as we are too scared of lions to eat them. Mark?

I think that could be true, because the Romans used to fight lions and stuff, so they obviously had a peculiar relationship with what animals actually were scary. So maybe they were scared of cows. They weren't scared of cows. I think they were scared of lions. Do you think that they thought lions were an easy animal to fight?

I assume that the gladiators went in thinking, this should be a breeze. They didn't say, ooh, we'll barbecue that later on. The 120-year-old Julius Caesar was terrified of cows and surrounded Rome with a five-kilometre no-cow zone. Rishi? I think that's true. Which part of it? was terrified of cows and surrounded Rome with a five-kilometre no-cow zone. Rishin? I think that's true. Which part of it?

I think he let no cows into Rome. It's the other bit that was true. Julius Caesar, one Roman, was terrified of cattle because he wrote... Well, I mean, he was terrified of the now-extinct, massive auroch cattle, which was six foot six inches up the shoulder, apparently. I think if you said that, we might have got that. I implied it. It's a fiendish game.

But I think I'll give you the point for buzzing in vaguely the right time. Thank you. They're not happy about that. May I say to the audience, that was an extremely appropriate level of applause to the, as I'd already stated, slightly muddied achievement

that it was supposed to mark. That was the sound of grudging. Yeah. Alex. Interestingly, they didn't think any of these things were particularly interesting. They just got on with it, ate their sausages. In fact, one of the few words they didn't come up with

was interesting. There was no Roman word for interesting, despite there being over 200 words for cow attack. Mark? I think it might be true there's no Latin word for interesting. Yes, that is true. That's it. Now you can clap. That's very interesting.

The Latin word from which interesting is derived, inter esse, is only applied to things that are of concern or will affect change rather than things that are a curiosity. Alex. They knew more about medicine than doctors do today. One Roman medic, a man real name Belliacus,

announced that the best way to cure hiccups was to entirely submerge oneself in excrement. Another doctor, a man... Mark. Sorry, I think that could have been a suggested cure for hiccups, yeah. It wasn't. But the Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder

believed that you could cure hiccups by finding an old horseshoe, hiding it, and then remembering where you'd hidden it. Another doctor, a man by the name of Saw Anus, decided that the best method of contraception was for the woman to hold her breath

at the crucial moment and then sneeze violently afterwards. It works, he said, and his 15 children backed him up. Little addendum, the Romans worshipped Apollo, the god of chickens, Athena, the goddess of posters and Pluto, the god of cartoons. And that's me.

Thank you, Alex. Well, Alex, in that round, you've managed to smuggle three truths past the rest of the panel. The first one, the Romans gave us sausages. You know, by which I mean they invented sausages. I don't know... So how did they prepare them, in your opinion?

The Roman sausage, or botellus, was filled with meat, nuts, and boiled eggs. Now, that would be good in a sausage, wouldn't it? I will never eat a sausage now without thinking, where's the boiled egg? The second truth is that the idea of toasting comes from the Roman practice of dipping toast in their wine before drinking it.

They did this as the toasted bread reduced the acidity of the wine and made slightly off or vinegary wines more palatable. And the third truth is that a man called Soranus thought the best method of contraception was for the woman to hold her breath at the crucial moment and then sneeze violently afterwards. And that means, Alex, you've scored three points.

Wow, thank you. violently afterwards. And that means, Alex, you've scored three points. Wow, thank you. Until the Romans invaded, the British had no word for kissing. Or more to the point, for invaded. On finding they could teach parrots to speak, the men

in ancient Rome taught them to say, Hail Caesar. Unlike the men in ancient Greece, who taught them to say, Who's a pretty boy then? Okay, we turn now to Henning Weyn. Henning is a German comedian and is without doubt the funniest man to come from Germany since, since Hess. Your subject, Henning, is chickens, common domestic fowl raised by humans for their meat and eggs. Fingers on buzzers, everyone else. Off you go, Henning.

Why did the chicken cross the road to Occupy France? Oh, sorry, that was my grandfather. Tempted to post, but I don't think I will. Tempting to buzz, but I don't think I will. But seriously, the chickens... The longest recorded flight time for a modern domestic chicken is 13 seconds. Alex. I had two chickens. I've got one chicken now.

And I actually genuinely tried to beat that record from a roof. You or your chickens did. They're amazing. I do have two chickens. I had two chickens. And you can do all sorts of experiments with chickens. I see in this contest the past tense is the next. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, he got killed by a fox the next day, so it was frustrating for him. But, yeah. Well, you're absolutely right.

The longest recorded flight time for a modern domestic chicken is 13 seconds. So... I knew that. That's fine. As everybody knows, KFC chicken is actually made

from human ears grown on the backs of mice. Yum, yum. For about a thousand years, chickens in Britain were farmed only for their eggs.

Mark. That sounds pretty likely. Yeah, I reckon that's true. That is absolutely true. Well done, Mark. It was the Romans who taught the natives here to eat the actual chickens, because basically the Romans were able to farm chickens in larger numbers more effectively, so you could eat them.

Whereas to the ancient Britons, you were just eating the egg machines. Yeah, and finally they barbecued them all. But once the chickens were all barbecued, there were no more eggs. Only masturbation. But never down for long. He said masturbation. Two separate words.

That's definitely the biggest laugh, mass starvation. By a long march, yeah. But never down for long. Chickens were reintroduced to Britain by the Victorians, who were unsure how to address them. They were so prudish when it came to eating roast chicken that instead of asking dinner guests if they prefer leg or breast, they would use the words foot or fun bag.

Alex? I think that Victorians wouldn't have been able to say breast or thigh. I think they would have cast that under the same net as unmentionables. I think they probably would have avoided saying thigh or breast and they'd probably say dark or white meat. Because they were very happy with racism.

But, um, I don't think I can give you the point there. I don't want to. I'm still... You've got loads. Kenny. Now, they also never used the expression game bird. And instead of stuffing, they used the term right-hold seeing tool.

And left to their own devices, chickens are actually immortal. Despite their irresponsible approach to everyday life. Leaving the coop with wet hair and inappropriate shoes in all weather is the reason why chickens are often the first to develop new types of flu. chickens are often the first to develop new types of flu. Since 1959, chickens have created 67 lethal pandemics. Mark. I feel that might be true just because everything else you're saying is such obvious gibberish that just by the law of averages it ought to be true. What is? That their chickens have been responsible for 67 pandemics. What is true is that chickens are often the first to develop new types of flu.

Flu often spreads from birds to livestock and then humans. But I think I'm going to give you the point because you basically got the sense. Thank you. Despite their bad behaviour, chickens are too big to fail. We eat 52 billion chickens each year. I'm sorry, I should let you finish the sentence.

Oh, no, you say it. I just was that ring of truth. How many of us are there in the world? Six billion? I think I'm seven billion. And I have about nine or ten a year, so it just would add up. But some people are vegetarians. No, they're not.

Oh, no, not anymore. They eat chicken. I meant some people were vegetarians. It's a tense thing. No, you're absolutely right. We eat, not just the panel, but the world, 52 billion chickens each year. Sorry, that just amuses me.

That's because it's a lot of chickens. I'm a childish person, really. It's a lot of chickens, isn't it? It is a lot of chickens, yeah. It's loud. But the chicken is the most common bird in the world. A Colorado chicken called Mike once lived for 18 months without a head. I've heard that before.

That's definitely either an urban myth or an urban fact or a rural myth. It's actually a rural fact. Which one's that? That means you're right. Oh, good, good, good. In 1945, a plump young cockerel in Colorado had his head chopped off and lived as the axe missed the jugular vein

and left enough of the brain stem attached to the neck for him to survive. Mike became a national celebrity, touring the country and featuring in Time and Life magazines. So Mike the Headless Chicken's world tour ended when he was taken to court for claiming incapacity benefit while still working. Thank you, Henning.

So, Henning, I'm afraid to say at the end of that round, you've managed to smuggle no truths. Yeah, because I've got nothing to hide. You were scrupulously honest. So I'm afraid that means you've scored no points.

Next up is Rasheen Conaty. Rasheen is a stand-up comedian who at last year's Edinburgh Festival walked off with the Best Newcomers Award, much to the annoyance of the best newcomer. Last year, Rasheen performed with Victoria Wood in the Angina Monologues, an evening of comedy in aid of the British newcomer. Last year, Rasheen performed with Victoria Wood in the Angina Monologues, an evening of comedy

in aid of the British Heart Foundation, which had several audience members clutching their sides and rolling in the aisles. Your subject, Rasheen, is sweets or confectionery,

small pieces of sweet food commonly enjoyed by children which are rich in sugar and high in calories. Sweets were first discovered in South America in 1200 AD when two donkeys called Myrtle and Martha started fighting each other over the last piece of sugar cane in a field.

Martha and Myrtle were the inspiration behind M&M's. M&M now test all of their candy on donkeys first because they react so passionately when it's good. Mark. Obviously, most of that was lies, but I think it could be true that sweets originated in South America when you said. Yeah, I think that's possible.

Yeah, I think that might be true. So can we all have a point? Consensus on that makes me worry that I'm wrong when I say that they weren't. I mean, 1200 AD. No sweets anywhere before 1200 AD. Yeah, because there weren't any people before then, were there?

I've read the Bible. Henning reckons we've been barbecuing in Western Europe for 2,000 years by then. And yet no sweets. No pudding. Nonsense. Alex. Is it too late to say that Martha and Myrtle

were the inspiration for M&M's? Like, the names? It isn't too late to say that, and it is incorrect. Yeah, no, I was just wondering if it's too late to say it or not. I see. It isn't too late to say it. Good, I bet I might. Would you like to say it? Not really.

It seems unlikely that they would be, isn't it? I wouldn't take that one on, definitely not. The buzzer worked. The buzzer worked. You know, live by pedantry, die by pedantry. That's my motto. No, M&M's, in fact, came about when Frank Mars bought the right to market Smarties in America, but there was already a different suite in America called Smarties, and so they called them M&M's after his business partner Bruce Murray and his surname Mars.

So they stand for Mars and Murray. What are the chances of there already being a suite called Smarties? Is Smarties not a made-up name? In this instance, the chances are 100%. In the sense that it has definitely happened. This is what happened. Rishin, carry on.

Roald Dahl wants to put a dead mouse in a jar of sweets at his local shop. I'm going to do it again. I'm going to do it again. Alex. I think it's true. It's the sort of thing where it would inspire the story. True. It is true. Yeah! Yeah! At the age of

eight, Roald Dahl and four of his friends were caned by the headmaster after putting a dead mouse into a jar of gobstoppers at Mrs Pratchett's sweet shop in Llandaff. The five boys referred to the incident as the Great Mouse Plot of 1923.

Rishi. Nesquik are trying to buy a flock of mountain sheep in Alberta, Canada, who are producing milkshakes straight from the teat, and it's bringing all the boys and girls to the yard. The sheep, who are neglecting their normal grass diet in

favour of the unhealthy sweets and candy offered to them by tourists, are in danger of being killed off. Candy was the name of Abraham Lincoln's pet rabbit. On hearing of his assassination, Candy, the rabbit, went on a hunger strike. They tried everything, carrots, popcorn, McDonald's Happy Meals, but she wouldn't budge.

Then one afternoon, she bit into someone's shoelace, which in those days were made out of licorice, immediately came out of mourning there were no shoelaces in the oval office by the end of the day people thought that rabbits love shoelaces but really rabbits love licorice okay alex not all of it but i think candy was the name of Abraham Lincoln's pet rabbit. That's what I think, too, honestly. But, honest to God, I was buzzed. Honest to God, I did buzz, and I would have said exactly that. Yes, well, I tell you what. There's an electrical system, extremely complex electrical system, which means whoever buzzes first, the light lights up. The electricity, Henning, unlike me, is not biased against Germans.

So, Alex must have buzzed first. Now, what, Alex, did you think was true? I thought Lincoln might have had a little rabbit called Candy. Right, well, he didn't. OK. He would never have called a rabbit Candy. Would never have. Did I?

If you're accusing me of saying would of, that's a dueling issue. This is likemas around my parents rats like boiled sweets better than they like cheese but mark i think could well be true because you often hear that mice don't really like cheese and that's some sort of a myth i reckon it could well be true that rats prefer sweets to cheese you're absolutely right yes apparently apparently rodents can sense that sugary sweets contain more calories than cheese and will choose to eat the food that will give them the highest energy return against feeding

time it's very good attitude to a meal that i say that in a restaurant what's i wonder the best energy return against feeding time just ask the chef for that in vernon township new jersey a van driver parked his van full of sweeties, but when he returned, he found a bear had broken into the van and driven off in it. Gunther Haribo, the confectionary king, was once attacked by a bear in the Black Forest.

He owes his life to the fact the bear had no teeth, and to celebrate his lucky escape, Haribo named a new range of sweets, gummy bears. Alex. The bear driving a car? Nah, I'm not buying that. Well, I think a bear broke into a, gummy bears. Alex. The bear driving the car? Nah, I'm not buying that. Well, I think a bear broke into a van.

You're right. You get a point. Thanks, David. Yes, the police believe the bear broke into the van through the window because he could smell sweets. As he reached for the sweets, the bear is thought to have dislodged the handbrake, causing the vehicle to roll down the hill.

It's quite a broad definition of driving. Nevertheless, people would have been met with the hilarious sight of a bear behind the wheel of a van. And that's the end of Rasheen's lecture. And Rasheen, you've managed to smuggle two truths

past the rest of the panel, which are that in Alberta, Canada, a flock of mountain sheep are in danger of being killed off as they neglect their normal grass diet in favour of the unhealthy sweets offered to them by tourists. The new diet causes the herd to lose weight, and the females are not able to produce enough high-quality milk. And the second truth is that rabbits love licorice,

although this is bad for their health, as rabbits cannot digest sugars. And that means you've scored two points. 35 million pounds of popcorn is produced every year in America, which is enough to circle the moon four times, it says here. Personally, I think you'll also need some sort of rocket. Now it's the turn of Mark Watson. Your subject, Mark, is competitions,

events or contests in which the participants compete for a prize, honour or advantage. Off you go, Mark. America hosts a surprising number of competitions for a famously uncompetitive, humble nation. For example, Ms Mary Esposito won the prestigious American title of most infested home after her apartment was judged to be infested by a prize-winning 75,000 cockroaches. And Alice... Alex. Yep.

You're right. Yes, she won most infested home, and the prize was $1,000 and a supply of cockroach control products. Alice Johnson from Santa Fe once won a car by kissing it for 32 hours, losing four teeth in the process. But the Canadians don't allow competitions of any sort. It all started when they banned Miss Canada beauty pageant in 1992. Then, when its replacement, the politically correct Miss Ugly Canada,

proved a failure, a its replacement, the politically correct Miss Ugly Canada, proved a failure, a competitive spirit deserted the Canadians. These days, towns such as Oak Bluff near Winnipeg hold an annual non-competitiveness contest. Anyone who turns up is immediately disqualified, and the prize is then awarded to the resident the judging panel feel is least likely

to want to win it. That resident is then awarded the prize, congratulated, apologised to, and immediately disqualified. Alex. I think Canada may have banned Miss Canada in 1992. They did indeed. Very good. Ah, well.

Europe's most celebrated competition must be the Basque country's annual Nutcracking with the Bottom Championship. Cracking 30 walnuts between your buttocks in a minute would make you Spain's best backside for performing minor culinary tasks. But to win the Iberian title, you would have to go up against Portugal's Diego Quezantia, whose unusually heat-radiant posterior takes just six minutes to coddle an egg. Rishi.

I think the nutcracking bum bit is true. That. I think the nut-cracking bum bit is true. That phrase, which I never thought I'd hear, is absolutely worth a point. Well done. Thank you. Yes, it was Jose Luis Astorica, 34, won the world's first competition for cracking walnuts in the anus after he succeeded in cracking an impressive 30 walnuts in 57 seconds

in front of a crowd of hundreds. Of walnuts, presumably. His brother, Juan Ramon, was second with a time of 1 minute 20 seconds. The brother's winning times have been attributed to a peculiar physical characteristic which runs in the Astorica family. I'll say. Some of the world's best-known competition losers include writer Graham Greene, who once came second in a Write Like Graham Greene contest,

and during his time in exile, Peter Andre didn't even get into the top three of a Peter Andre cover versions contest. Of course, now his career's back on track, and he's got high hopes of a runner-up spot this year. Or did it twice? I pressed it twice, because I was excited. I think the Peter Andre one might be true, that he didn't... That he came third in a Peter Andre?

Yeah, or didn't come third, yeah. No. I mean, I, yeah. I can't even remember what the fact was, but it's not true. No, the thing, I mean, I think that whole thing was pretty awful, with the two buzzers and then... I didn't have any faith in what I was going to say. It's been an awful couple of moments.

Yeah, I think... And that... Well, I hesitate to say that's the end, because that would be a true fact. Yes. Well, it's all right, I can say it. That's the end. Thank you, Mark.

Thank you. At the end of that round, Mark, you've managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of that round, Mark, you've managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel, which are that 23-year-old waitress Alice Johnson from Santa Fe won a car by kissing it for 32 hours and 20 minutes in 1994. And she certainly damaged four teeth in the process. And the other truth is that Graham Greene once came second

in a right-like Graham Greene contest. Similarly, during the 1920s, Charlie Chaplin once went to a Charlie Chaplin look-alike competition in San Francisco, didn't even make it to the finals. And that means that you've scored two points, Mark. The Air Guitar World Championships take place in Finland, a long, riotous evening of long-haired head-banging, which invariably ends with the world's newest air guitar champion

heading back to his hotel room to celebrate with his air girlfriend. Which brings us to the final scores. In fourth place, with minus four points, we have Henning Vein. In third place, with two points, it's Mark Watson.

In second place with two points, it's Mark Watson. In second place with three points, it's Rasheen Conaty. And in first place, despite that embarrassing buzz of trouble, with an unassailable four points, yes, he's conquered the adversity that is his very existence and his love of the past tense, it's this week's winner, Alex Horne. 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 Garden and featured David Mitchell in the chair with panellists Alex Horne, Mark Watson, Roisin Conaty 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 for BBC Radio 4.