:00:20. > :00:23.Hello, and welcome to the One Show with Alex Jones. And Matt Allwright.
:00:23. > :00:26.Our guest tonight is a comedian, traveller and silent film fanatic.
:00:26. > :00:35.You know him best as the long- running team captain from Have I
:00:35. > :00:44.Got News For You. You might not know him as Janice. Believe it or
:00:44. > :00:50.not, it is Paul Merton. APPLAUSE. Paul, that horrifying
:00:50. > :00:55.image is of your new series. Yes, it is fairly horrific. We will be
:00:55. > :01:01.finding out why you are dressed like that later. I wish I knew the
:01:01. > :01:05.reason. But first, the 42nd series of Have I Got News For You is
:01:05. > :01:11.starting on Friday. Have you been swotting up on current affairs?
:01:11. > :01:17.Sort of. There of certain stories you imagine will come up but I
:01:17. > :01:21.don't know. When it first started, 20 years ago, I used to read the
:01:21. > :01:29.tabloids every day and after a while, you got an idea of something
:01:29. > :01:37.that would come up. A basically, you win. Yes. There will always be
:01:37. > :01:46.something you cannot possibly read up on. We thought we would have you
:01:46. > :01:54.revise. Why is this lady This woman has given birth to a
:01:54. > :02:04.huge baby, it is bigger than her. Not quite! That is rosy. She gave
:02:04. > :02:08.
:02:09. > :02:15.birth to baby Zachary, who was 13 weight -- who weighed �13. 9 hours
:02:15. > :02:22.in Labour. This was the man who came third in the marathon, which
:02:22. > :02:25.was fantastic. The only trouble was, he jumped on a bus halfway through.
:02:25. > :02:31.Why the other competitors did not realise they had been overtaken by
:02:31. > :02:38.a bus, I have no idea, but he claimed to have come third. I think
:02:38. > :02:44.you are ready for the next series! Round of applause! Plenty more from
:02:44. > :02:48.Paul later. First, the remarkable Alex Stobbs first inspired the
:02:48. > :02:52.nation in 2008 of the subject of a documentary called A Boy Called
:02:52. > :02:57.Alex, which showed him battling a hereditary illness to conduct a
:02:57. > :03:00.concert at Eton College Chapel. Three years later, research into a
:03:00. > :03:09.new treatment that could change his life is under threat and Alex would
:03:09. > :03:14.My name is Alex Stobbs and I am about to get stuck in on my first
:03:14. > :03:20.day back at you me. It is my last tee at Cambridge, where I am lucky
:03:20. > :03:24.enough to study what I love, music -- it is my last year at Cambridge.
:03:24. > :03:30.I was also a chorister here for three years. Music is my passion
:03:30. > :03:34.and if I am not studying and composing, I will be hanging out
:03:34. > :03:39.with my mates, just like any other student. But unlike most people my
:03:39. > :03:45.age, and was born with cystic fibrosis, which is an incurable,
:03:45. > :03:49.inherited disease, and it affects over 9,000 people in the UK. It
:03:50. > :03:53.clogs up the internal organs with thick mucus, making it hard to
:03:53. > :03:59.breathe and digest food, so I cannot just tumble into lectures.
:03:59. > :04:05.Like most people my age, I am terrible at waking up. I need to be
:04:05. > :04:15.in lectures at 9am but before that, I have to sort out my health. I
:04:15. > :04:18.
:04:18. > :04:21.have to take about 60 pills a day. Every time I eat. I have got to do
:04:21. > :04:28.physiotherapy three times a day and take nebulisers three times a day.
:04:28. > :04:37.It is a balance of doing what I want to do, like my work, and being
:04:37. > :04:45.healthy and keeping my health in Music has always been a huge part
:04:45. > :04:50.of my life. But over the last 18 months, my health has seriously
:04:50. > :04:55.affected how much I can do. This year, I have spent nine weeks in
:04:55. > :04:59.hospital and I was too ill to study. It set me back a year. So this term,
:04:59. > :05:04.I need to keep healthy. You can imagine my huge disappointment when
:05:04. > :05:09.I hear that the drugs trial, that allowed scientists to pinpoint an
:05:09. > :05:13.effective treatment for cystic fibrosis, is under threat. These
:05:13. > :05:18.charities funded trials have developed a revolutionary technique
:05:18. > :05:20.they hope will fix the faulty gene that causes the disease. So I am
:05:20. > :05:25.off to London to catch up with one of the scientists behind the
:05:25. > :05:29.research. Where are we up to with the trials?
:05:29. > :05:35.We are ready to start Phase Two, which is a one-year study to try to
:05:35. > :05:39.really figured out if gene therapy corrects the gene problem and that
:05:39. > :05:44.that translates into improvement in the symptoms that people with
:05:44. > :05:49.cystic fibrosis have. I understand there is a funding problem. Who has
:05:49. > :05:52.pulled the plug? It has simply been a case of the costs have gone up
:05:52. > :05:57.over the last couple of years because the programme has gone on
:05:57. > :06:01.longer than we are anticipated, in conjunction with the economic
:06:01. > :06:06.downturn and less money coming into the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, and this
:06:06. > :06:10.has left a gap of 6 million. What will the consequences be if funding
:06:10. > :06:16.is not secured? It will be devastating at this stage not to be
:06:16. > :06:21.able to finish the trial. I was not involved in the trials but 33-year-
:06:21. > :06:27.old Alex from Hackney, London, was. As we both have cystic fibrosis, we
:06:27. > :06:32.are unable to meet in person through fear of infection.
:06:32. > :06:37.particularly interesting experiment was involved in putting saline salt
:06:37. > :06:41.water through my nose and then seeing how well the cells in my
:06:41. > :06:45.nose were responding to the salt and dealing with it. There has been
:06:45. > :06:49.a lot of co-ordination, massive amount of research between
:06:50. > :06:54.different bodies, co-ordination by the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, and it
:06:55. > :06:59.has been a huge project. It will be so disappointing if it could not
:06:59. > :07:04.run through to its conclusion. According to the latest UK Giving
:07:04. > :07:08.report, the recession have led to a major drop in donations to
:07:08. > :07:12.charities and as a result, they predict by 2015, the voluntary
:07:12. > :07:15.sector will use of the �900 million, so it looks like the Cystic
:07:15. > :07:21.Fibrosis Trust is not the only charity that we have to make tough
:07:21. > :07:27.decisions about what it can afford to fund. My plans for the future
:07:27. > :07:34.are really to do as much as I can. Composing, conducting, playing the
:07:34. > :07:42.piano, and hopefully there is the potential for gene therapy to help
:07:42. > :07:47.me do that. And we would like to wish Alex all
:07:47. > :07:53.the best with his studies this year. Dr Sarah Jarvis is here. Welcome.
:07:53. > :08:00.Could you explain what gene therapy means? With pleasure, if you have
:08:00. > :08:04.an hour. We haven't! For everything our bodies do, every cell has genes
:08:04. > :08:09.in it. In cystic fibrosis, there is one gene that has gone wrong, a
:08:09. > :08:15.mutation, and that causes all the symptoms, but the worst ones tend
:08:15. > :08:18.to be in the lungs. With gene therapy they are inhaling healthy
:08:19. > :08:24.self- with the healthy gene, to try to get your body's abnormal cells
:08:24. > :08:28.to work properly, to make the lungs work better. The problem is, cystic
:08:28. > :08:33.fibrosis is one of so many very deserving causes and conditions
:08:33. > :08:37.that need funding. How is it decided which one gets funding was
:08:37. > :08:41.made it is so difficult when everything is so deserving. Do you
:08:41. > :08:45.support something that will make a little change to millions, or
:08:45. > :08:50.something that will make a huge change to a very small number of
:08:50. > :08:55.people? It is really tough. There are lots of bodies out there,
:08:55. > :08:58.research funds, the Department of Health, and basically, these
:08:59. > :09:06.researchers are going to everybody to try to get a bit of money to
:09:06. > :09:11.make it all add up. Thank you. Paul, as a traveller, you will agree that
:09:11. > :09:16.flying nowadays is not the elegant experience maybe it used to be.
:09:16. > :09:24.Would you agree? Absolutely. I would say it is not the elegant
:09:24. > :09:28.experience maybe it used to be. If that helps. That his research! --
:09:28. > :09:32.that his research! Particularly as Ryanair has suggested they might
:09:32. > :09:39.take two out of the three toilets off their planes to make way for
:09:39. > :09:45.more seats. If I have an accident, Ryanair, I am coming for you.
:09:45. > :09:50.new drama series, Pan Am, will show, it is a long way from the 60s, when
:09:50. > :09:58.the cabin crew exuded glamour. Siegle has gone to meet some
:09:58. > :10:02.stylish stewardesses of skies gone For women in the 1960s who wanted a
:10:02. > :10:07.glamourous and exciting career, the new world of air travel seemed to
:10:07. > :10:11.offer them the possibility. New airlines and new routes opened up
:10:11. > :10:16.the possibility of travel to previously unreachable destinations
:10:16. > :10:21.and in the US, the airline that symbolised this aviation revolution
:10:21. > :10:27.was Pan Am. The stewardesses had to go through a rigorous recruitment
:10:27. > :10:32.process. You had to have a language, you had to be 21 and you could not
:10:32. > :10:37.be over 35. You had to be single, gorgeous and a certain weight. If
:10:37. > :10:42.once selected, the status and perks of the job were more than any young
:10:42. > :10:49.flight attendant could dream of. You could ask out to dinner, four
:10:49. > :10:53.times every flight! It was like a magic wand! We met a matador who
:10:53. > :10:58.invited us to his bullfight in Seville, so my sister and I decided
:10:58. > :11:03.we would go to see it, and then he gave us a letter of introduction to
:11:03. > :11:07.Salvador Dali. There were endless invitations. The glamour was just
:11:07. > :11:14.that the door was open if you wanted to walk through it. But it
:11:14. > :11:24.wasn't just the Americans who had enviable air stewardess. The UK's
:11:24. > :11:28.main airline in the 50s, it later became British Airways. Walking
:11:28. > :11:32.through the airport, particularly at Heathrow, you would turn heads.
:11:32. > :11:37.Lots of pretty stewardesses and handsome men and we would always
:11:37. > :11:41.get invitations to parties because we bought a little bit of glamour
:11:41. > :11:47.into their lives. I did meet celebrities. I met Shirley Maclean,
:11:47. > :11:49.who gave me travel sickness pills. I met David Frost many times
:11:49. > :11:55.because he flew backwards and forwards across the Atlantic a lot
:11:55. > :12:04.in those days. So much so, he was almost part of cabin crew. I was
:12:04. > :12:10.going all over the world and people thought of it as rather magical.
:12:10. > :12:17.You are the first officer. Yes. have never seen men like the Pan Am
:12:17. > :12:21.pilots since! Not this one. I am just being hospitable. I am just
:12:21. > :12:27.helping you out, poor run some coffee. You spend a lot of time out
:12:27. > :12:32.of the cockpit. They were nice and protective and, you know, I had a
:12:32. > :12:37.crush on a few of them. I was very sad when I had to leave because
:12:37. > :12:47.they really and truly loved it. was a big part of my life and I
:12:47. > :12:53.
:12:53. > :13:01.I don't even care what it is about. That looks brilliant! Just up my
:13:01. > :13:05.street! Pan Am starts on the BBC next month. Paul, we know you are a
:13:05. > :13:11.traveller and fascinated with the glamour of Hollywood. Do you travel
:13:11. > :13:17.in style? I don't know. Compared to how it was in the 1960s, I suppose
:13:17. > :13:22.it is more comfortable than... It is more comfortable now I would
:13:22. > :13:28.have thought. It is nice to be able to fly it in a class that is not
:13:28. > :13:33.economy because I am quite tall so that can be a bit hairy. Do you
:13:33. > :13:40.insist on that? If somebody else is paying! I do tend to if I can,
:13:40. > :13:43.first class. I do not like flying. Many years ago, and was put up when
:13:44. > :13:49.I had this incident with clear air turbulence, and you hit this thing
:13:49. > :13:56.and there is no warning. I went on a simulated flights in and it cured
:13:56. > :14:02.me and I have been fine since. No big crashes with turbulence, and it
:14:02. > :14:07.doesn't move that much, but it feels like it does. You have a new
:14:07. > :14:11.travel series on Channel 5, next Wednesday. 9pm. The last time we
:14:11. > :14:16.saw you doing long trips but this is different. It is not quite so
:14:16. > :14:21.far flung. We go to Scotland, we go down to Cornwall for a programme
:14:21. > :14:26.about caravans, so do holidays people are perhaps more able to
:14:26. > :14:30.afford than that India and China. It is closer to home. In the first
:14:30. > :14:40.episode you spend the week on the largest cruise ship on the world,
:14:40. > :14:41.
:14:41. > :14:46.the Allure of the Seas. It is It is an enormous ship. Presumably
:14:46. > :14:55.you had a chance to pick your own destinations this time, being the
:14:55. > :15:02.co-producer. I did not co-produce it, I wish I had! I think we sort
:15:02. > :15:06.of felt that we have done the far- flung areas, and these kind of
:15:06. > :15:11.programmes are difficult to make. We record about 25 hours of tape
:15:11. > :15:14.just to make a half-an-hour show. It was still gruelling, but at
:15:14. > :15:20.least we had a chance to make a programme in these islands, which
:15:20. > :15:25.made a big change for us. In the first episode, you form a bond with
:15:25. > :15:32.Sam, but your first meeting was not plain sailing. No. People have been
:15:32. > :15:41.mentioning, who is the guy in the hat? Is he important? Is he?
:15:41. > :15:49.not so much. Well, that's good. are in America, does anybody know
:15:49. > :15:53.who you are here? No. I don't think important is the right word. No. I
:15:53. > :16:03.hesitate to ask what you think the right word might be. Well, you're
:16:03. > :16:08.funny. So, that's it? Yes. She's very good. Normally she works in
:16:08. > :16:11.customer services. You can imagine, 6,000 passengers coming on the ship
:16:11. > :16:21.every week, so for the first few days, she's very politely helping
:16:21. > :16:26.everybody out. She's great. Going back to that photo... What's going
:16:26. > :16:35.on? I think he looks like someone on Strictly, but I cannot work out
:16:35. > :16:40.who. We were in Ibiza and it was all about losing inhibitions. I met
:16:40. > :16:44.up with a drag Queen from Colombia. It was all about going out to join
:16:44. > :16:48.this carnival parade, and so I did. It was all about the power of
:16:48. > :16:53.costume and make-up, you start to become another character. Very
:16:53. > :16:58.liberating. It is, extremely liberating, I recommend every man
:16:58. > :17:04.in Britain does it tomorrow. Most of them do, I'm sure. Next
:17:04. > :17:08.Wednesday, 9pm, that's Paul Merton's Adventures. We know that
:17:08. > :17:18.you have hosted The One Show in the past. So you're a big fan of nature.
:17:18. > :17:21.
:17:21. > :17:31.Yes. How would you feel about a programme about beetles and judo?
:17:31. > :17:33.
:17:33. > :17:38.Hidden in the quiet areas of south- west London, there are martial-arts
:17:38. > :17:43.experts using their skills on a daily basis. The warrior I'm
:17:43. > :17:50.looking for can drag 120 times its own body weight. It is a master of
:17:50. > :17:54.judo and wrestling. It is the stag beetle, and I'm keen to learn some
:17:54. > :18:02.of its tricks. They are renowned for their fighting abilities, they
:18:02. > :18:07.are the heavyweight contenders of the insect world. They reach a
:18:07. > :18:12.whopping 7cm, it is the largest terrestrial insect in Britain.
:18:12. > :18:18.They're incredibly well named, because these are just like the
:18:18. > :18:25.antlers of a deer. But they are not antlers, they are actually
:18:25. > :18:31.overgrown mouth parts, and they are fearsome weapons, used to get other
:18:31. > :18:34.males out of the way. They fight for the right to mate with a female,
:18:35. > :18:39.and when another male comes on the scene, they size each other up and
:18:39. > :18:44.prepare for battle. The outcome will depend on Wall strength and
:18:44. > :18:50.technique. At first, a tussle for the ultimate grip, so they can take
:18:50. > :18:54.full control of their rival's body. Injuries are rare, thanks to a
:18:54. > :18:58.thick external skeleton, which acts like body armour. To succeed, they
:18:58. > :19:08.must pick their opponent up and flip them on to their back. To
:19:08. > :19:12.
:19:12. > :19:20.understand how they can do such things, I have come to meet Olympic
:19:20. > :19:24.medallist and professional judo coach Neil. They're using the lower
:19:24. > :19:28.body, trying to get a good hold, where they can push from and Paul
:19:28. > :19:33.from and dominate their opponent. It is very similar to judo, isn't
:19:33. > :19:39.it? I can see a lot of similarities. Do you think I could do that to
:19:39. > :19:45.you? I cannot see any reason why we cannot show you a few moves.
:19:45. > :19:50.first lesson is to mimic the stability and strong stance of the
:19:50. > :19:57.beetle. It is all about core stability, which comes from this
:19:57. > :20:01.area here, and the legs. The wide stance and low profile makes the
:20:01. > :20:07.beetles almost impossible to knock over. I'm going to push in and
:20:07. > :20:12.settled and a resist me. But the beetles have one extra advantage
:20:12. > :20:16.which I could never match. Each foot is tipped with a pair of rooks,
:20:16. > :20:25.making it even harder for a rival to throw them on to their back. And
:20:25. > :20:35.throwing his lesson number to. Round the waist, stepping in, and
:20:35. > :20:40.
:20:40. > :20:46.rotate. But this is a painful learning process. That one hurt!
:20:46. > :20:50.you want to try? This is exactly how they do it, by grabbing at the
:20:50. > :20:56.the Government point around their opponent's body, to manipulate
:20:56. > :21:02.their centre of gravity and throw them on to their back. And I'm just
:21:02. > :21:08.starting to learn the technique myself. I just threw a double
:21:08. > :21:18.Olympian! But that was practice. He now wants me to take him on head-
:21:18. > :21:32.
:21:32. > :21:41.This just isn't working. I have got to act like a beetle. Low, wide,
:21:41. > :21:48.strong grip. I am a human stag beetle, but not quite as good as
:21:48. > :21:58.the real thing! Mike is with us now. You should pick up a few fighting
:21:58. > :22:07.
:22:07. > :22:10.tips from no-one else but Paul That feels very strange! That was a
:22:10. > :22:15.world record attempt, he's a sports journalist. He does this thing
:22:15. > :22:19.where he has a relationship with pain, he doesn't mind it. He said,
:22:19. > :22:23.kick me, so I did. The neighbours were wondering what was going on.
:22:23. > :22:32.He was practising with his son earlier, and his son hit him on the
:22:32. > :22:36.top of the though I here, and he said, not there, here! OK, so, the
:22:36. > :22:46.stag beetles are clearly vicious, but there is a problem with real
:22:46. > :22:52.stags as well? The red deer are causing an issue at the moment. You
:22:52. > :22:58.can see what they're doing here, rutting. Us humans, most of the
:22:58. > :23:02.time we choose one female. But the male red deer, they take over maybe
:23:02. > :23:11.20 females. With their antlers, they are trying to keep other males
:23:11. > :23:15.at bay. Are we at risk from them? There have been a few issues where
:23:15. > :23:19.people have been a bit silly in some of the London parks. You have
:23:19. > :23:22.to bear in mind, this is Britain's biggest land mammal. They're
:23:22. > :23:26.absolutely full of testosterone at the moment, and they will let
:23:27. > :23:33.nothing get in the way of them getting to their females. This poor
:23:33. > :23:37.lady got in the way. If you're in trouble... There are some basic
:23:37. > :23:41.tips - stay your distance, stay downwind, because they have got
:23:41. > :23:47.sensitive smell, stay close to a tree, and if they start coming
:23:47. > :23:54.towards you, walk away. Just walk away from that stag, it meant
:23:54. > :24:03.nothing to you! Another man who knew his animals was Alf Wight,
:24:03. > :24:07.otherwise known as James Herriot, the most famous vet in Britain. We
:24:07. > :24:17.went to meet an extraordinary man who had a hand in both of their
:24:17. > :24:18.
:24:18. > :24:23.lives. The James Herriot you will read about in the books his our dad.
:24:23. > :24:30.And his books were not fictional, they were the stories that Jim and
:24:31. > :24:34.myself were told by our father about himself. He was just a
:24:34. > :24:39.practising country vet, and he was not allow us to call himself his
:24:39. > :24:43.real name, because it was construed as advertising, it was non-
:24:43. > :24:46.professional etiquette. So we had to find a name, and one night we
:24:46. > :24:51.were watching a football match, and there was a goalkeeper playing for
:24:51. > :25:01.Birmingham City that night against Manchester United, and he was
:25:01. > :25:01.
:25:01. > :25:06.called Jim Herriot. - and the original house where we worked --
:25:06. > :25:13.where father worked, and where we lived, where all of the stories
:25:13. > :25:21.were based. This is our family room, and we did a lot of reading,
:25:21. > :25:25.playing the piano, general family time. This is the Children's
:25:25. > :25:29.Encyclopaedia. Dad used to sit with us and show us these wonderful
:25:30. > :25:33.colour plates, and all of the poems we used to giggle at. He was a
:25:33. > :25:39.great reader, but we hardly ever saw him read, because he was so
:25:40. > :25:48.busy. Here, we have the fireplace, one of the few forms of heat in
:25:48. > :25:53.this whole house. We used to sit here, scorched at the front and
:25:53. > :25:59.cold at the back. I remember the curtains, they used to move in the
:25:59. > :26:04.draft. I remember one day my father saying, are you cold, Jimmy? We had
:26:04. > :26:08.short trousers, because he believed in toughening us up. I said I was
:26:08. > :26:14.cold and he said, well, run. We used to run up and down the
:26:14. > :26:24.corridors, that is how we kept warm. He often bathed us, and as soon as
:26:24. > :26:25.
:26:25. > :26:35.we got out, we were told we had to jump. We'd be jumping as hard as we
:26:35. > :26:36.
:26:36. > :26:43.could. By then we were nice and warm. We had terrific winters, but
:26:43. > :26:47.the memories were warm, they were happy days. I'm now sitting in the
:26:47. > :26:53.car which was actually used in the programme. My dad did not drive
:26:53. > :26:59.this actual car, but he drove a car very like it. His original car had
:26:59. > :27:03.no brakes, and I mean, no brakes, which has been documented well in
:27:03. > :27:07.the stories. I would have been three when I started regularly
:27:07. > :27:12.going around on his farm visits, and feeling like a very important
:27:12. > :27:17.assistant. We both went around, helping, fetching and carrying,
:27:17. > :27:21.opening gates. I was heartbroken at the thought of how he would manage
:27:21. > :27:28.without me when I went to school. With tears in my eyes, apparently,
:27:28. > :27:32.I said, can you manage in the week, Dad, I will be there at weekends?
:27:32. > :27:38.As a small boy, I was fascinated with some of the old bottles which
:27:38. > :27:41.used to be here in this funny Old Dispensary. In those days, the vets
:27:41. > :27:51.made Derham medicines. It was watching him that made me become a
:27:51. > :27:55.
:27:55. > :27:58.vet. By the time I was aged five, I thought I was a fully qualified vet.
:27:58. > :28:03.Despite all the work, despite the fact that he was on call, including
:28:03. > :28:09.weekends, he always found time for his kids. Coming to places like
:28:09. > :28:14.this, every Sunday afternoon we were up here. Dad set a wonderful
:28:14. > :28:20.example of just living life well. He worked hard, he played hard, and
:28:20. > :28:25.his humour, I mean, he made us laugh. I remember a friend of mine
:28:25. > :28:31.at school saying to me one day, it was a friend that we used take
:28:31. > :28:38.around, and he said, I wish I had a dad like you have got. I never
:28:38. > :28:44.forgot that. What a nice thing to say. You have got to have a sense
:28:44. > :28:50.of humour as a dad. You have, not that I have been a dad, obviously.