26/09/2014 The One Show

Now, Chris, you know those Indian Runner ducks we have ordered for

tonight's show? We will need more than one. Don't worry, I paid for

his mates to go on a BBC tour. What? Hello, and welcome to Friday's The

One Show with Chris Evans. And Alex Jones, and a man who has proved

there is no off button to the genius which. Please welcome the brilliant

Danny Baker. You can't get rid of me that quick. Back again! APPLAUSE

The second instalment of Danny's autobiography is here. On the

reverse of it, there are some reviews of the first instalment to

entice you to go into the second. Here is a couple, Baker writes as he

speaks, with honesty. Baker's memoir makes the alacrity and invention of

his mind obvious. Honesty and invention, which is the most

accurate? It is honesty. Invention suggests you sit there and pull this

stuff and try to use, but these are stories as you know I have been

telling for ages, and I never understand when you pick up a show

business autobiography, they are all about show business, like you have

no other life. The first one, which went better than I could possibly

imagine, I try to keep it crisped, keep it moving along, and my friend

said how come you did not put that one in when you got shot. I thought

if I left that out, what else did I leave out? I have always been a

writer, this one starts with the sentence: They say you never hear

the shot that kills you, so at least I knew I wasn't going to die. And if

you don't want to carry on reading after that, so it is honesty, but

not a misery memoir. I have no skills to do that. I have not worked

a day in my life! LAUGHTER And, just to point out, it was an

airgun, not an actual... Do you know, that is downgrading it, I do

know, it felt like a blunderbuss to me. It was in an unfortunate place.

It could not be more comical, these sound like it is a good story but it

did not happen, but all of these happen. I have always husbanded this

stuff, and I have always thought one day, and I am 60 in two years, you

have watched me grow up on TV. I always knew I was going to think,

and now this is what happened, but it is the balance between... And

then I met. They are all in there, meeting Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa,

Kenneth Williams, Frankie Howard, Millbrook 's, but the main engine of

these is to balance a really "normal life" with this extraordinary 35

years now, if you don't mind, in television, with all that comes with

it. People say you work in telly, it must be great. LAUGHTER

It is not terrible. It is not terrible, but... We started off with

a duck BT. This show is an oasis in an industry of otherwise... I always

say if you are not scared, we are not doing our job. That is how it

operates. We are scared we will run out of time in a minute, so here we

go. One of the topics Danny covers in his latest book is the time he

spent pounding the pavement doing vox pops. Sticking the microphone in

a random cousin's Bob and asking them something they don't care

about. Here is Alex Riley. I was born Mary Patterson and I married

into my husband's name, so now I am Niall Paterson. I believe everyone

should be forced to wear flared trousers. What exactly is this thing

we call a vox pop? It is short for a Latin phrase, meaning voice of the

people. What do you think of the Russian woman? We must have women in

space. I don't think it is worth travelling that far to meet any man.

What is the key to getting vox pop gold, not the taste test. I don't

want to be poisoned. I don't like it. There are bugs. They are the

future of slacking. Barbecue. You like that one too? Very nice, you

wouldn't know it was worms. It is fish eggs. Salty. Nasty. Number two,

get people to do the party piece. AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST, NEVER

UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF A VERY SERIOUS QUESTION.

Do you wear socks in bed? Condom is? Do you think miniskirts are a good

thing? Terrible. What does bonking mean? Boris Becker, they call him

the bunker. We are just filming for the The One Show, hang on a minute,

it is Esther Rantzen, the Queen of the vox pop. How are you? Very

well, how are you? What would you say is the key to a good vox pops?

You are bringing out talent in the people you meet, and you need a

stick mik. This gentleman is your sound man and holding a stick Mike

kindly custom what do you wear in bed? Nothing! Have you always wore

nothing or is it new? It is a new thing since I have turned 70, I have

decided I am going to go for it. She does! LAUGHTER

These ladies are your best bet for something naughty, mischievous,

wicked, but nice. What does a vox pop give you that no other kind of

medium does? Reign fun. People are huge fun. I found a little old lady

who came out of the crowd and she was so funny. So if you are the one

asking the questions, remember to smile and don't be afraid of

rejection, because you will get it, and if you are the one being asked,

remember, this is your moment! I would like to say your programme

stinks! LAUGHTER Thanks for that. Now and again it

does. We are not even halfway through. It is mostly my fault, to

be honest. Now you have to tell the truth on telly, that is the deal,

but way back when when you started doing your vox pops on telly, that

is the deal, but way back when when you started doing your vox pops,

yes, not all the time, but if you are not dealing with Iraq, not

dealing with heavy issues, just entertain the folks. We did a story

once, we heard about in our office, we did the show called the six

o'clock show, very similar to this, and there was a thing about

Brentford in London was supposed to have a mythical griffin flying

around. There is a story there, so we went out to Brentford and tried

to stand it up. Nobody was entertaining the idea, we had heard

it in the local paper who plainly had made it up themselves. We said

we can't go back and say we have not found it, so we had to get people to

say where they had seen this griffin. Nobody had seen it, so we

said put the camera on this side of the room and tell me over there. I

went up to people with my microphone offset, excuse me where is Brentford

football ground, and they all started going, over there. Over

there. On the film I said, everyone in Brentford has a story about where

they saw the griffin! LAUGHTER At the end, to say there is only one

recording of it, and one of the crew got an umbrella, opened and closed

it really quickly, and said this is the only recording of the beating of

its wings! Now and nobody died, the audience thought that was

interesting, and we made it up. And that is how you get the viewers!

Lewis Carol made up Alice in Wonderland. We used to be in the

entertainment business, now we are in the legal business. Danny, you

love Nicolo, don't you? The greatest track is I love the sound of

breaking glass. Our Marty can't get enough of.

Most people think of glass as being rather fragile. You drop or bang it

on the floor and it smashes into tiny fragments, but there is a way

of making glass that is almost indestructible. Normal glass is made

by melting a sandy mixture at ten pitchers between 13 and 1400

Celsius. -- temperatures between, and then shaping it into whatever

shape desired. If you drop the same altar mixture into cold water, the

end result is a piece of glass that is very hard to break. If I hit the

blobby bit at the end with a hammer... It doesn't break. It is

rock hard. But if I just snip the very end here with a pair of

pliers... Watch what happens. It was back in the 17th century that the

nephew of Charles the first, Prince Rupert, was shown this phenomenon,

and it is believed they were used as a party piece, the drops being

broken while someone was holding one of them. And they have been known as

Prince Rupert's drops ever since, but what's going on? When the glass

drops into the water, it forms a blob, and the outside layer of that

blob instantly cools and turns into a solid. But the inside remains hot

and liquid. As that gradually cools and turns solid, it contracts, gets

smaller, and that pulls on the outside, in. So there is a whole

load of energy stored inside the glass. It makes it incredibly tough,

so it doesn't break when you hit it, but there is a weak point. When you

snip the end of the tail, you release all the energy and it

explodes, with a bang. As the glass shatters so fast, the only wait to

see what's happening is with an try speed camera, recording at 130,000

frames per second. As soon as the glass tail is broken, the energy

that is trapped inside is released in an explosive wave, travelling

nearly 2000 metres per second. And now the Prince Rupert drop is

inspiring a very different science, Balkan knowledge of. Back in 2010, a

volcano in Iceland hit the hard lines. -- volcanology. UK airspace

has been closed for the first time. Exports warned that the tiny

particles could be sufficient to jam the aircraft engines -- experts.

The volcano in Iceland was very different, in that it erupted from

beneath the Glaesser, so when the hot droplets of Morten interacted

with the frozen water from the Glaesser, it would have called very

rapidly -- from the glacier. It could have sent the fine grain ash

into the atmosphere full stop this led Emma and her colleagues to look

at the Icelandic volcanic particles and compare them with the fragments

produced by a Prince Rupert's drop, and they got some surprising was

olds. On this screen, fragments from a broken Prince Rupert's drops. On

this one, a fragment of volcanic ash. And they are pretty much the

same, aren't they? The resemblance is striking. How does that help us

with aviation and our understanding of what is going on? If we can learn

more about what happened when a Prince Rupert's drop explodes, we

can understand more about the types of ash that might be produced from

future eruptions from Iceland that would give us a much clearer picture

of how far the ash would travel and how Hazard as it is likely to be.

This information is key for the people who decide when and for how

long to shut the airspace. Little did Prince Rupert know that one day

the glass drop named after him would help us understand how volcanic ash

is made, and subsequently keep our skies that bit safer.

Amazing. A good, amazing Friday film, how we like them. Back to your

book. Thank you. You have said you have loads of stories about people,

Spike Milligan, Mel Brooks, and we have a limited window, so pick your

favourite and go. Mel Brooks, I say Bob Dylan is in as well, Nick Lowe

and Bob Dylan is the story, but Mel Brooks, this is the kind of born on

the wing of Angels, it is some throw of the dice that the gods did with

my career, saying he cut actually do anything, but let's keep on going. I

got fed up waiting for the NME about rock stars, I want to write about

comedians. This is the dumb luck I have all the time. I met him at

Claridges, I have never been overawed with anyone, but you go and

meet Mel Brooks, it is 1981, he is huge. He was sitting at this table,

and his manager said Mel, he looked up, and I look at him, and he said

this is Danny Baker, and he said no! You are Danny Baker? Wow! I thought,

well, he does this to everyone. He said seriously, your name is... Wow!

This is Danny Baker everybody! He said, sit down, so I sat down. He

went, do you know the very first thing I ever wrote for television,

and everyone hated it, it stunk the place up, nobody liked it? It was

never made, apart from one episode, it was called the private life of

Danny Baker. I said, well, what's with the name? I tell you what it

is, I never met any Jew called Danny Baker. It was the most gentile name

I could think of. Me and Mel Brooks got on fantastic after that. Go on

the internet, put Mel Brooks and my name and up comes this episode,

that's still there. Have you seen it? No. I haven't. All the

description is there. At the bottom, he's got this. He couldn't think of

a less Jewish name and he wanted a gentile. He thought Danny Baker. He

never met anyone called that. That's the kind of dumb luck. After that,

what are you doing today? We went to the Natural History Museum, round

art galleries. I did, I met him again about five years later. I

thought, well, you know, Mel Brooks he's made about five films. "Danny

Baker!" Here's another name. Mervyn Wilcox. Yes, a bank manager who

looked after me during years when I wasn't earning a tenner, but I was

spending pounds. Letters from him are in the book. He was probably the

last twitch before banking became inhuman. He used to write me the

funniest bank letters. He wrote a letter to my wife once. He sent a

letter to Wendy saying, "I'm so sorry Danny's passed on. He was a

lovely man. The only reason I can think he has not returned my calls

or put any money in the bank... " So here's to him. How can we check that

this isn't invention over honesty? Let's get Mervyn in, shall we? No!

APPLAUSE Mervyn, bless you. Take a seat. I didn't think I was

ever going to get on. Mervyn, what skill set did Danny help you develop

as a manager? I'm not sure there was any apart from humour. You were

great. And to try and get a word in edgeways. Not at all. You held your

corner. I wish I'd kept your letters. So do I.

LAUGHTER If the banking industry had an iota

of your heart they wouldn't be the most hated people in Britain. You

are the way it should have gone. Thank you very much. No, thank you,

you were great. Well, there is no doubt that Mervyn, you are probably

the most understanding bank manager in the entire planet, why did you

keep lending him money when he just spent it? He didn't lend it to me.

You could either say it was good money after bad or... I've gone with

it this far, I might as well go a bit further. These letters became

biblical. Give us a phrase. The bank giveth and the bank taketh away. I

believed it to the soles of my boots. I used to turn up and say,

man alive, you've got my account. I'm off to Hollywood on Monday. He

would roll his eyes and three weeks later, go I ran into Mr Scorsese, he

said he's never heard of you. I can't believe it! How did you part

company? As quickly as possible really. Took a while, though didn't

it? You were terrific. We had good times. In those days you were with a

customer for three, five years and then you moved on. I think - we used

to have meetings, you know occasionally, you know, I felt bad,

I'd have to see him, he's given me so much money. I think it was a

break for you from the humdrum as well. Absolutely, very much so. It

was an adventure. I've never forgotten you. I'm so pleased not

only to put some of your phrases in there and I found one letter to say,

look, there was a time when this is how banks operated not the illusion

we are given. I'm not sure everyone did. Not today, I don't No, they

don't think. . I can't tell you how pleased I am. Well done. I have to

say in rehearsal, Mervyn did get a lot more words in Tha'it. Many more.

Have we overrun already? You ain't got a score you could give us? Not

now. Thank you very much. Pleasure. APPLAUSE Tonight Well done.

Fantastic. Wasn't it. That's television! Part two of Danny's

autobiography is out in shops now. Now, the 1930's story of a romantic

adventurer, a bi-plane and a love Just the sort of tale Ruth Goodman

loves to get her teeth into. On the morning of April 11, 193 #3,

a pilot was attempting to break the world record for flying from Britain

to Cape Town, South Africa. This was the age of heroic aviation, when the

public imagination was fired up by intrepid aiators, seeking out new

routes around the globe in record time. Jocks away. Even by these

standards, the life story of Bill Lancaster is extraordinary. In 1927,

the dashing young airman had flown from Britain to Australia in a plane

much like this one. But eyebrows were raised by his companion, on the

14,000-mile journey, while his wife stayed at home in Blighty, Bill

shared his cockpit with Jesy Chubbie Miller, a vivacious young Australian

looking for adventure, she certainly found it. Just imagine trying to fly

something like this. No GPS, no radar, no radio, no parachute. (

Lancaster and Miller reached Australia five months later and

people's suspicions were confirmed. Bill and Chubbie were lovers. What

did your grandmother think of Chubbie? Not a lot. I think she

found Bill's relationship with her really difficult. He refused to go

back to his wife in England and the two aiators relocated to Florida to

enjoy their new-found celebrity together. But the golden couple were

about to encounter some turbulent times. It wasn't long before Chubbie

took another lover, young author Hayden Clark. In 1932 Clark was

found dead from a gunshot wound to the head. Suspicion immediately fell

on Bill Lancaster. Under cross-examination Lancaster was calm

and convincing, every inch the English gentleman. The jury

obviously found his evidence plausible. He was found not guilty.

But would he ever be free of The Stig moo of a murder charge?

Lancaster hatched a plan he hoped would restore his reputation. To

break the record for flying solo from Britain to Cape Town, a George

Bush yay of -- journey of 6,000 miles. He flew south across the

Mediterranean and onto Algeria, where he faced his most difficult

challenge, the sa aa desert. -- Sahara desert. It was an enormous

risk. The poor fellow was dog tired. The situation got worse as he got

further away from England. The aircraft had a huge 100-gallon fuel

tank in it. But still it only flew at 80mph. To go halfway around the

world at 80mph is a bit of a mug's game, even today. In the teeth of a

sand storm, Lancaster stopped to refuel in southern Algeria. He

waited for the sky to clear, knowing that his chances of beating the

record were slipping away. As night fell, he took off again to face

another 750 miles of desert. 30 minutes later, his engine failed and

he crash landed. Lancaster survived the crash, but was badly injured and

now he was stuck in one of the most inhas pitable places on earth. With

only two gallons of water, he sheltered from the sun under the

wing and wrote a diary. The beginning of the eighth day has

dawned. It is still cool. I have no water, no wind. I am waiting

patiently. Come soon please. Fever wracked me last night, hope you get

my log, Bill. The diary shows Lancaster survived for eight days.

But the plane went undiscovered for 29 years until a French Army patrol

stumbled across the wreckage in 1962. His body and diary had been

miraculously preserved by the dry desert air. How would you sum up

your grandfather? He was a romantic adventurer, someone who led the life

he wanted to lead, although that caused a lot of pain. I think I'm

really proud that he did what he did. That spirit, I admire. What a

story, thank you Ruth. Would it be fair to say that the

nadir of your TV career was being replaced by Dale Winton on Pets win

Prizes. Yes, I'm told so. The show Strictly could have been... Nobody

liked it. I loved it. Yes, and the BBC didn't tell us, hi to find out

from the Sunday mayoror -- I had to find out that Dale Winton had

replaced me. I loved that show. Here's your chance to redeem

yourself. Our pets tonight are Indian runner ducks. They're

gorgeous. Sometimes referred to as penguin ducks. The owner is here.

How are you doing? Good. Glenn is here as well. This has become really

popular herding these ducks. Yes I think we're 25 years being a

sheepdog competitor, but invited to events and we take along the

duckeds. We keep around 909 -- ducks. We keep around 90 at home.

Danny is going to have a go. Tips. Four commands, to go anti-clock-wise

for the dogs ah, way. Clock-wise - bye, to stop - stand and walk. You

have to have a Welsh accent! Are you Welsh? (! ) Get out of here. I'm at

a disadvantage here. With the help of Glenn the border collie your

challenge to heard all the ducks into the enclosure over there. Are

you ready? Yeah. Three, two, one... Off you go.

Round, round, round. In, boy. Away. Bye. You dozy dog. Just too soon.

Away. In, in, in. APPLAUSE Well done.

I knew I could have made it on the form. That series was cancelled. It

was. That's That's a new television. Skill, then. Look what you've won.

Isn't that gorgeous. One man and his dog. Beautiful. Was that reminiscent

of the original programme? Do we have a clip? Let's look at the lamb

national. Sheep racing on Saturday night, three, two, one, off you go.

LAUGHTER Come on Bridget. Very good.

I'm going to feed the ducks. Quickly, your two books so far are

going to be made into a film. You're writing themming at the minute. --

writing them at the minute. It's an eight-part series for the BBC. Me

and my friend Jeff are adapting the books for television. Looking

forward to that. Thanks for being with us tonight. You've been

marvellous. That's all for this week. Danny, thank you. Thanks

Danny, volume two of Danny's autobiography is available now,

kids. You'll enjoy it. Join us Monday, David Morrissey is our

guest. Don't forget Strictly is on tonight at 9pm. Have a great

weekend. Bye-bye (