Episode 9 Have I Got a Bit More News for You

Good evening, and welcome to Have I Got News For You.

I'm Sue Perkins, and in the news this week,

after rigorous analysis of the latest figures,

the world's leading economist gives his forecast for Britain's growth over the next ten years.

At St Mary's Hospital, as he arrives for his annual check-up,

there's embarrassment for one patient as a film crew spots him with his stool sample.

And after successfully walking in a straight line to convince the police he's sober,

one drink-driver gives the game away as he gets back into his car.

Very good!

Must try that.

With Ian is a comedian and actor for whom things are going pretty well at the moment,

because it's only a few more sleeps until Christmas,

and he's been a very good boy this year.

Please welcome the unfeasibly young and beautiful Jack Whitehall.

APPLAUSE

With Paul is the new host of Countdown

who previously worked for 21 years for Amstrad,

making him the only man who thinks the Countdown clock

is advanced technology.

Please welcome Nick Hewer.

APPLAUSE

And we start with the biggest stories of the week.

Ian and Jack, take a look at this.

This is Britain alone.

Is there a snub coming? It's a big, big story.

It's finding a solution to the euro crisis.

That's Nick Clegg. He was on the Andrew Marr Show. He said "under no circumstances" he'd go on,

and then he did.

They said they were going to come to a deal, and then they didn't.

-We managed to veto it.

-Yes, we did. That's it, yes.

David Cameron used the British veto during the euro crisis summit.

Does anyone know how the Sun portrayed the PM on its front page on Saturday?

Was it Churchill,

-but without a cigar?

-Without a cigar.

-Because you're not allowed to smoke now.

-No. There he is.

There was an indication of increasingly frosty relations

between Britain and France in the body language.

I read about a missed handshake opportunity. Is that it?

That's not what you do. The missed handshake, because of John Terry,

means you've done someone's missus.

Wayne Bridge didn't shake John Terry's hand, famously...

Are you suggesting that Mr Cameron

has had an affair with Carla Bruni?

If he has had a go on Carla Bruni, for once in my life, respect.

"Had a go on?"

-"Had a go on!"

-Sorry, "Had a go with."

Thank you. Thank, Jack(!)

Let's have a look at the body language used.

Here they are. Sarkozy saying hello to

Pat Butcher there.

AUDIENCE: Oooo!

She just got told.

It wasn't just body language.

Sarkozy said that Cameron behaved like a "petulant kid,"

or an "obstinate kid."

He's a real little man, and so pleased with himself.

He can look at the French people, square in the face, and say, "That's the sort of chap I am."

Is it wrong to say Sarkozy

finds it quite hard to look anybody in the face?

Looks them square in the knee.

Absolutely! Now, all of Europe was fed up with Britain after the summit.

What did German MP, Alexander Graf Lamsdorff,

have to say about the row?

-GERMAN ACCENT:

-"This time we win."

He said:

It is a bit unfair.

After all, invading Poland wasn't such a brilliant idea,

but we don't bang on about it, do we?

Yes, we do!

So, how was Cameron referred to by one French diplomat?

You've mentioned, obviously, that Sarkozy said he was an "obstinate kid."

I don't know what that is in French.

-FRENCH ACCENT:

-Obstinate kid.

I bow to your greater linguistic skill!

I'm teaching a language course at the moment. Very easy.

-So far, we've had French and German. Impressive.

-It's very easy.

"A man who goes to a wife-swapping party..."

-FRENCH ACCENT:

-"..without taking his wife."

That's a classic French insult, isn't it?

And also, I've tried that. They don't even let you in the door.

It's a definition of optimism.

-Attending a wife-swapping party?

-Without a wife.

You been to lots of those, Nick?

-No...

-That's how we met, isn't it? Do you remember?

I'm having a little stab at it, though.

-It is an optimistic thing to do.

-I remember that as well.

-Do we know what Cameron said when this was hurled at him?

-What, "grow up?"

He said:

LAUGHTER

He's so non-European, isn't he?

I think that we're going to see our Prime Minister creeping back

to Europe for a quiet chat to see if he can't get back in, really.

-Do you think so?

-I think so.

And furthermore, I've got a little shed in France,

and I don't want them to burn it down.

When you say "shed," do you mean...

How big's your garden?

I've also got...

..I've also got dual nationality.

There'll be an Irish Tricolour flying in my garden.

Yeah, I'm half Irish as well.

Do you have an Irish passport?

No, I don't, no.

-Travel on an Irish passport.

-It's much easier, isn't it?

-You're welcome everywhere.

-Yeah, brilliant.

-Yeah, I might get one.

-Get one.

I'll be back in about an hour.

So, Friday morning, go through the chronology of this.

Friday morning, Nick Clegg gets a call.

And says, "Yes, there was no other option. We had to use the veto."

By Sunday, he's "bitterly disappointed."

What's happened in that three days?

We should hear from the horse's mouth.

This is Nick Clegg talking to Andrew Marr about that fated incident.

Can I ask you, during those nine hours of negotiation late into the night,

at any point, did the Prime Minister call you and speak to you about it directly?

I spoke to the Prime Minister after the summit was concluded, of course.

So not during the negotiations themselves?

Of course not. He was locked in a nocturnal negotiation.

I was locked in my flat in Sheffield.

So he's been "locked in his flat in Sheffield,"

but in case we're worried as to exactly what happened, thankfully,

Channel 4 News staged a reconstruction of what happened that evening.

Fantastic!

Early that morning, Mr Clegg was in his Sheffield constituency.

PHONE RINGS

He had approved the government's negotiating position for the European summit,

but at 4am, he was woken by a call from Brussels.

Hello?

What?!

So somebody said, "We've got an actor, but he doesn't look anything like Nick Clegg."

"Fine. Put a sheet over his head, and let the foot do the acting."

Do we know who was Cameron's role model throughout these EU negotiations?

Enoch Powell.

It was Enoch Powell who suggested or thought that

if you spoke with a full bladder, dying to go,

that you gave your words a sense of urgency,

and apparently Cameron did this, had a full bladder while he was negotiating.

He was desperate to go to the loo.

It's true that Enoch Powell actually said:

That was in his famous "Rivers of Piss" speech.

Umm... what's his name...

a chap who fibbed over the dossier?

Alastair Campbell?

He pricked himself with an open paper clip

all during his examination at the Leveson Inquiry...

-That's right.

-..to keep him on edge.

It's a different technique, but yes.

I picked it up from The Ipcress File, where Michael Caine

does a similar thing with a piece of broken glass

to stop himself being hypnotised. Mind you, that was a film.

Work of fiction, my lad.

Yeah, well, so was Alastair Campbell.

So we've done Friday, all through the weekend. Now he's changed his mind.

Nick Clegg goes missing when Cameron comes to the Commons to defend his decision.

-Why was that?

-I thought that was unfair.

People were saying, "Nick Clegg wasn't in the House of Commons."

But, it's fair enough. David Cameron's dry cleaning won't pick itself up.

He said he didn't turn up because he thought it would be a "distraction."

And that everyone might laugh at him, which again is one of the few things he got right.

But he's not a distraction. He's Nick Clegg.

If David Cameron turned up with Rihanna, I'd probably be looking at Rihanna.

But Nick Clegg could turn up to the House of Commons, completely naked,

save for a lit flare in front of his manhood, and I still wouldn't even know who he was.

-But you'd never forget him, though, would you?

-No, I wouldn't forget him!

So, Ed Miliband tries to put Cameron on the spot in Commons,

and at one point, Miliband told the Speaker, "I haven't finished with him yet."

-Yes.

-How did Cameron and Osborne react to this threat?

Did they go, "Oooooh!"?

-Make those sort of noises?

-I love how childish it is, all of it. A, that he wouldn't sit next to him,

and then an insult like that, that's like one away from saying,

"Your mum is so fat, her BMI number is pi."

You're not writing his speeches, are you?

It's the Geoffrey Howe sort of argument again,

being beaten with a dead sheep.

-An attack by Miliband is a dead mouse, probably.

-Really?

-Yeah.

Have you met Ed Miliband?

I have. Tall, arrogant, weak handshake. That's it.

APPLAUSE

-And I'm a Labour voter.

-Would you have voted for his brother, then?

I didn't meet the brother, but I met some of the others. Oh, dear.

I met Diane Abbott. Did a bit of lightweight TV researching

for a pal of mine. He said she was terrible.

-There was the bully - what's his name?

-Ed Balls?

-Balls.

-You wouldn't pay him in washers.

-No.

So you met all the Labour candidates? Did they bring you in to vet them all?

No. Over the years I've met them.

-I've never met Burnham. Is it Burnham?

-Burnham.

-Andy Burnham.

Don't know who he is.

I'm afraid we need a new raft of them, because that...

They're dead in the water.

Is your main criteria for leadership a strong handshake?

I think... < You'd vote Abu Hamza.

That's a VERY strong handshake!

-Draws blood.

-You know somebody if they've got it, and he ain't got it.

-Right.

-Have you seen anyone who HAS got it on the contemporary scene?

No. That's the tragedy.

What about Little Mix?

So the Daily Mail have accused the BBC of not being impartial,

and the Mail's impartial lead story on the front page of their paper read as follows:

The Daily Mail are writing stuff like that, cos they must feel weird

cos there's nothing to hate about.

There's all this anti-European stuff going round, they don't know what to do.

Jan Moir's probably sat at her desk

praying that Elton John dies in suspicious circumstances.

He just needs to die - she'll manufacture the suspicious circumstances!

-One thing's for sure, come Eurovision Song Contest, we're screwed.

-Yeah.

They hated us as it was,

and now we could resurrect the Beatles and send them, we'd still get nul points!

-Is that such a bad thing?

-I do like the Eurovision Song Contest.

I get annoyed cos they always say it's political as well.

Now it'll get even more so. I reckon we just go tough on them.

Moldova say, "We're only sending you two points this year."

"Well, fine, we're sending you two of them Tomahawk missiles."

Just as soon as we find out where the hell you are.

-I went to Moldova once.

-Oh, yes?

APPLAUSE

Moldova is the place

where the Terylene eiderdown that slips off the bed still exists.

-You know those terrible things?

-I thought you were being nostalgic!

-You put the eiderdown on, and it goes straight onto the floor.

-Even that doesn't want to be there.

Politics as normal goes on. We catch up with Adam Werritty. Do you remember Adam Werritty?

-He was Dr Fox's friend.

-He gave an interview to the Spectator this week.

Amongst other things, we found out what his plans are for New Year's Eve.

-He's going to spend it with the Foxes.

-Yes, he is!

They're very forgiving.

Is he a friend of Dr Fox's, like William Hague had that friend?

You should have a chat to our lawyer about that one!

How do you spell innuendo?

You're doing Countdown, you should brush up on these things.

Don't talk to me about that. I see all these letters...

I think, "Oh, my God,"

-and I get "cat."

-Yes.

And then some kid says, "Cataclysmic."

Yeah. There's only nine letters, isn't there?

I don't know.

Yes, he is indeed. He's going to be round at the Foxes'.

It's just staggering how naive some of these senior politicians can be.

Staggering. And then Cameron brings in Coulson into Number Ten.

The sort of bloke you wouldn't have in the house.

APPLAUSE

If you saw him come up the drive, you'd hide behind the curtains.

You'd set the dog on him.

Samantha Cameron was spotted shopping this week.

Does anyone know where she went to make purchases?

She went to IKEA. This was an austerity bid, wasn't it?

She bought some flat-packs, and we're meant to believe

that her and David lay them all out and count the number of screws,

and say, "Look, there's one missing there."

-There's pictures of her, she's posed.

-It was a set-up!

-Of course!

Because they've just spent 80,000 quid on curtains or something,

and someone said, "Get down to IKEA and make it look as though you're like the rest of us."

You're so cynical, Nick!

-You're going to tell us some of those apprentices are really quite good!

-They are!

They're not, you know!

-I'll die for them!

-Would you?

Is it cos Sweden's one of the few countries that are with us

with this whole anti-Europe thing?

So, trying to keep them sweet, going to IKEA, buying up a bit of that. Thinking.

-Thinking ahead. 12 points coming our way!

-Yes, get in!

APPLAUSE

But it wasn't all doom and gloom. On a positive note,

this is what Andrew Neil was doing on his politics show this week.

We leave you with news that the music for the 2012 opening ceremony

will be overseen by a techno-rave outfit called Underworld,

who famously provided the soundtrack to Trainspotting.

Remember that? That was a gutter story of illegal drug-taking

on an Olympic scale.

Nighty-night.

Don't let the performance-enhancing substances bite.

MUSIC: "Born Slippy" by Underworld

Oh, no!

Nurse! Nurse! Make them stop!

NICK: Extraordinary.

-My wife used to go out with him.

-What?!

APPLAUSE

-She did? She really did?

-Yeah, when they were kids.

She said he was good-looking in those days.

Jack, do you find a lot of kids busting out some of those moves at the clubs?

-Yeah, that one, that's a classic.

-Is it?

-Yeah, I'm always doing that in the clubs.

-And what's this one about?

-Are you making some sort of pudding?

-You're mixing the...

-Pudding!

-No, no, mixing the discs.

-Oh, right.

-Playing the tracks, you know, hip-hop, R&B.

-What's this, then?

-That's if you're hard of hearing.

-Oh, right.

This is David Cameron's Christmas bonus for the bankers,

with his brave refusal to allow Europe to make them pay for the mess they've caused.

Not that we're taking sides. When asked about Nick Clegg's

conspicuous absence in the House of Commons, David Cameron replied:

He should never have let him off the lead.

It's only a matter of time before there's a YouTube video

of Cameron in Richmond Park, shouting,

"Cleggy! Cleggy! Jesus Christ! Cleggy!"

Party leaders sent out their Christmas cards.

Nick Clegg's card depicted himself as a snowman.

An appropriate choice, as he won't last beyond January either.

Paul and Nick, take a look at this.

Scandalous. These are glove puppets we're looking at.

Those are small children inside.

There's the lovely David Attenborough, with a bee on his finger.

-That's a bogey.

-Is it?

When you said that, the Director General of the BBC came up. Was that deliberate?

What happened was that it's impossible to get footage

of newly-born cubs in the den with the polar bear

because the polar bear would kill the cameraman or the cubs,

so they had a shot of a polar bear and some cubs in a specially built shelter

that had been built in a Dutch wildlife park, and used that material.

Some people said they felt cheated by this. There were 32 people.

In the age of Twitter, 32 people complained, out of 8 million that watched Frozen Planet.

And one who complained was the polar bear. He said, "He was nowhere near me, I didn't see any cameras."

INDISTINCT

-Last thing you want to do is sneak up on a polar beer with its cubs.

-No.

I've seen human women giving birth get pretty annoyed.

A polar beer, I imagine, would be apoplectic.

I was a bit disappointed.

He said afterwards, "We're making movies!"

I thought, "No, you're making a documentary,"

and the point of that is that they've gone to the wild and filmed that.

If I found out that crocodile had jumped up

and attacked the wildebeest crossing the river,

and they said, "Oh, that was in Scunthorpe,

-"we did that in a zoo..."

-You wouldn't be disappointed

to find that happened in Scunthorpe. You'd be intrigued.

I'd be thrilled, you're right.

-That Nick Clegg thing there, which I believe totally...

-Yeah.

I thought he was in bed.

I thought the phone was going, and I would have been disappointed,

but luckily they put "reconstruction" at the bottom.

-Makes you wonder about the moon landings.

-Exactly.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I'm with Mr Merton.

-Are you?

-I know you are, you're sitting over there.

Not least because my wife comes from Scunthorpe.

Yes, exactly.

And that's where she met Andrew Neil - in a wildlife park, wasn't it?

-This is the piece of footage that we're arguing about.

-Yes.

On these side slopes, beneath the snow, new lives are beginning.

The cubs are born blind and tiny.

An early birth is easier on the mother, who is barely awake.

-And in the Netherlands!

-Yes!

A polar bear is a polar bear. People are reacting like they've talced a cat.

LAUGHTER

It's not a big deal, but he did say,

-"on these slopes, beneath the ice..."

-That's what you would see if you were there.

He could have said, "This is what you would have seen."

I know I'm making a less interesting documentary in my head.

-Yes, at least you're watching it!

-Yeah.

So Sir David Attenborough was voted Britain's what five years ago?

-Most trusted man.

-He was. Which is odd as now we know

he's a pathological liar.

One online commentator has said this to the BBC:

Do you know what the bears involved in the scandal are up to now?

-They've got a few adverts.

-Glaciers mints, yeah.

Huggies, the mother, she's had more babies.

One of the cubs in the programme has his own show

at a wildlife park in Inverness in Scotland.

And the other cub is doing fine as well.

LAUGHTER DROWNS SPEECH

David Attenborough made it into soup.

"This delicious bear!"

People love accusing shows of being fake.

Loads of people do it with The Only Way Is Essex.

You see them going, "It's scripted." It's not scripted.

If it was scripted it would mean the people in it would have to read.

LAUGHTER

-You don't think Made In Chelsea's fake as well, do you?

-What?!

-Just checking.

-What else in the animal kingdom have the BBC faked pictures of?

-Bagpuss on safari!

-You cynic! Think of the scariest animal in the world.

JACK: Rastamouse.

It's the goliath tarantula.

-It's the size of a dinner plate.

-That's handy!

LAUGHTER

What do they taste like?

In Human Planet the BBC showed footage of Venezuelan boys

hunting one, although according to the Mirror:

Deadliest animal on the planet is the human being.

A teacher said that to me, and the deadliest weapon is the human mind.

That's not right - Stephen Hawking is clever,

but put him with a shark, my money's on the shark.

You've just given Channel 5 their next game show.

What did Mark Thompson attribute the newspaper fury about the Pandas to?

He said it was revenge for Leveson,

cos the BBC's been saying the papers have behaved badly

and they've been keen to find something

where the BBC's behaved badly.

And kill two birds with one stone,

because Hugh Grant is the father of the cub, so...

-I missed that bit of the evidence.

-It was on the website.

-Oh!

APPLAUSE

Mark Thompson did wonder:

Back at the press inquiries, what was handed to the Select Committee inquiry into phone hacking?

Was this the e-mail to James Murdoch which he didn't read?

-Yes.

-He said he received it and it said, "There's loads of reporters

"hacking people,"

but he didn't get that far.

When you're chief executive

of a company and the lawyer writes to you and says there's trouble, you don't read it(!)

-No. It was the weekend, as he said.

-Saturday.

-He can't work seven days a week.

-Give the guy a break.

I don't think if he'd been in front of you on The Apprentice he'd have got anywhere.

He's in trouble now.

Squirmy, squirmy. LAUGHTER

Even if he said he's tried really hard to run the company

properly you wouldn't have it, would you?

-No.

-He's done for.

Did you notice the way that the Times reported that?

-The Times was quite keen.

-And the Independent did it so different.

-How interesting.

-Hmm.

Actually, I'm slightly adrift, because it was the Mulcaire story that was reported so differently.

That story the Times did actually run.

The Times trumpeted the fact that it couldn't have been Mulcaire

deleting Milly Dowler's voice messages

because he wasn't brought onto the scene until afterwards.

They hacked the phone.

They're arguing about who's responsible for the messages

falling off and whether they fell off automatically.

No-one seems to know. They got the phone company involved saying,

"Did they?" and no-one can remember.

-The company's gone bust. Technology's older than Amstrad.

-Here!

-I know, but it is.

You are going to get a strongly-worded fax about that.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

I think the Leveson Inquiry would be so much better if it was

conducted by Nick and Alan Sugar. Them sat there,

Nick giving the death stare eyes, that cold gaze.

Alan Sugar wagging the finger shouting at them

and Karren Brady could patronise them.

That's a bit unfair.

"She's very sharp," he said, covering his arse.

LAUGHTER

This is the news that the BBC didn't send a cameraman into

minus 60 degrees to poke a long pole with a camera attached

into a polar bear den, endangering their life

and the lives of the polar bears.

Not that we're taking sides. The row has damaged the reputation

of the BBC, but that will be nothing compared

to the scandal when ITV viewers find out those aren't real meerkats.

Also this week, the infamous News Of The World reporter

Mazher Mahmood has been giving evidence to the Leveson Inquiry.

During his tabloid career he entrapped dozens of celebrities by dressing up as a:

He is still in work,

dressing up as a polar bear for BBC documentaries.

Now, Round Two, the Large Hadron Collider of news.

We fire high-speed news particles at each other and analyse the results.

Buzz in when you know what it is.

BUZZER

-OK, Paul and Nick?

-That's the Hadron Collider.

-Yes.

It's this Higgs boson particle,

which... I don't understand it, not many people do.

They have an idea it's in the vicinity.

They're not sure exactly where it is.

They know roughly where it is.

They're hoping it will emerge next year.

-In a flat in Sheffield?

-Yeah.

I read that it was millions of pounds worth of technology and cameras,

loads of flashing lights, but all focused on microscopic potential.

A bit like X Factor.

The Times says the scientists have had:

What is the indication? What is it?

Is it a disembodied voice? "I am the Higgs boson, you cannot find me."

Why was that Swedish?

They use a particular analogy.

It's an analogy between Margaret Thatcher and the Higgs boson.

I know, I see your horror there. This is used by scientists. It says:

This is obviously pre-Eric Pickles.

LAUGHTER

What happens next is a rumour is started and passes

through the room:

I don't understand it!

I went to a party where she was once.

-Yes!

-Was she carrying a lot of mass at the time?

-A big handbag.

-That will be it.

If you don't understand this, we've got Professor Steve Jones,

one of the Telegraph's science correspondents.

What he had to say on the subject on Wednesday:

-That's good.

-Yeah.

-That's refreshing.

-Reassuring(!)

Don't worry. If you don't understand it, they've released some footage that'll clear it all up.

It's like trying to get out of Birmingham.

I hope this isn't a simulation we're watching here.

It hasn't indicated that it's not.

-Oh, look, that's real.

-It's lovely(!) Look at that!

This is what would happen if Andrew Neil actually took ecstasy.

It's like the beginning of Tron, but I'm none the wiser.

I was chucked out of chemistry - or was it physics? I've no idea.

I couldn't do chemistry. I was no good at that.

For some bizarre reason I was doing chemistry A Level.

God knows why. I managed to write,

"Lime water turns milky" three times and fell asleep.

I don't know why lime water turns milky,

but under certain circumstances you can't stop it.

It was great coming out of the exam because people were going, "I'm not sure how I did."

I was completely calm - I knew how I had done.

I had no worries at all.

Elsewhere in science, what challenge will Professor Stephen Hawking

be facing in the new year?

Is he playing in the Olympic basketball team?

Fastest lap on Top Gear?

Radio 4 has asked listeners to submit fiendish questions

to put to Stephen Hawking in its most cerebral quiz ever.

A lot of the questions can be seen online.

-Shall we have a go at a couple?

-Why not?

-Yes.

-Yes.

-But they'd be behind you.

It's one of those things you used to get at school.

"If it takes a man five days to run a bath, how many apples, and a bunch of grapes?" I don't know.

Ask him. I don't know. Why bother me? I wouldn't know.

Eamonn Holmes.

At a rate of knots. Constellations are disappearing daily.

Yeah. Is the correct answer.

What exam board do you represent again?

..says the professor very succinctly.

Fingers on buzzers. Here's another one. Buzz when you know what it is.

BELL

-Mr Goodwin.

-Yes.

-Has he had a leg removed

for crimes against the state?

You couldn't get a picture that made you look like more of a wanker.

Banker.

The Financial Services Authority have produced a report

on how Royal Bank of Scotland collapsed.

They've come to the conclusion that it was his fault.

He tried to buy a Dutch bank.

Everyone said "Don't buy the bank because they have real problems."

He said, "No, I think it will work out well."

The rest of the board said "Good idea.

"We'll do whatever you say and take the cheque." It went belly up.

The bank was bailed out by us to the tune of 46 billion quid,

26,000 people were robbed of their jobs, and it helped to bring the economy to its knees.

The answer to this would be to ask your old mucker Mr Sugar, would it not, Nick?

-Lord Sugar.

-Lord Sugar. Do you think so?

What was the question?

It's like Countdown. Wake up!

Just because the audience is asleep doesn't mean you can be.

What a terrible thing to say about the Countdown audience.

Some of them are still alive. Honestly(!)

I think the answer to all the recession stuff would be to ask

Nick's old boss Lord Sugar.

How does this region get out of recession?

Oh, shit.

LAUGHTER

That's when he was a government spokesman. He was meant to help small businesses.

They caught him off-guard. He wasn't feeling very well.

He came back and gave a great, full explanation

of what he should have done. How's that?

-Yeah(!)

-Pretty nauseating.

Amongst the many people criticised in this report,

Sir Fred Goodwin copped some flak.

According to the Mirror, Sir Fred's style could only be described as

"brutal," with the RBS executive wing known as "the torture chamber,"

where Goodwin would hold "morning beatings"

every day at 9.30am to intimidate and humiliate executives.

-Morning beatings?!

-They used to say meetings,

but terrified employees called them "morning beatings."

-So he didn't actually physically attack people every morning?

-No.

He's not Max Mosley, for goodness sake.

You're flirting with danger, aren't you?

What do we know about his engagement with his employees?

-He had an affair with one of them.

-Yes.

He took out an injunction to try and stop anyone knowing.

How did that go?

I may have just broken it.

What have pink wafers got to do with all this?

For people who were employee of the month,

he would make them eat their own body weight in pink wafers in a dungeon.

He would fire pink wafers at them through a pneumatic air pistol,

into their gaping mouth, which was being held open

by a specially trained monkey.

-It's close.

-LAUGHTER

Sir Fred once raged at catering staff, in an e-mail entitled:

-..after senior executives were served pink wafers.

-I think he does have...

I don't want to agree with Fred "The Shred" Goodwin,

but the pink wafer is a terribly tricky biscuit to handle. You can't eat it

and not look really camp, and I struggle, at the best of times, to try and look butch.

-Don't go near them!

-I can't go near a pink wafer. Even if I'm dunking it in a big milky tea

with 15 sugars, as soon as it comes out, the whole hand transforms.

I have to stick with something manly, like a bourbon.

You might as well wear a tiara than eat a wafer.

What were the tabloids particularly disappointed to learn wasn't relevant to the inquiry?

His affair.

-Exactly.

-But the inquiry cleared just about everyone of everything.

-I'll tell you what, Sugar would have got to the bottom of all this.

-That's Lord Sugar.

Lord Sugar. APPLAUSE

In other banking news, why has an investment banker named Mike had a bad week?

Something to do with the internet in some way?

-Yes, that's right.

-He e-mailed somebody

and somebody who shouldn't have got the e-mail read it

and there was a huge kerfuffle and it ended up on YouTube.

I've got no idea what I'm talking about. Something like that?

-Well, Mike's basically gone viral, so you were right about the internet...

-Yes.

..after he wrote a 1,615-word e-mail

to his date, Lauren, who refused to go on a second date with him.

According to the Mail:

So, what examples did Mike give in his e-mail to suggest that he felt led on?

I don't know, but I'm almost certainly going to be on his side.

Men generally think that if a woman just looks at them, that's it.

We're quite simple creatures, really, in that regard.

-NICK: If their pupils dilate.

-That's right.

-How close are you?!

-Yeah.

And what have you given them?

-Rohypnol?!

-APPLAUSE

Mike wrote:

Unless it's armpit hair. That's a way of getting rid of a man.

He also said:

How do we suggest that Mike carries things on in this situation?

-I think probably get out now.

-Well, unfortunately,

he's not taken that hint. He's written:

He's not very good at hard-to-get, is he?

-No.

-Well, this is the FSA's report into the collapse of RBS.

-That was the report?!

-No!

-LAUGHTER

-They really took their eye off the ball.

-Yeah.

-They didn't really pay attention to what was coming through on the photocopier...

-No, it's very bad.

-Very bad.

-All this Mike disguise, that's Sir Fred, isn't it?

-Sir Fred has recently separated

from his wife, and according to the Daily Mail:

Presumably having sold his granny first.

Time for the Missing Words round, which this week features as its guest publication

In A Nutshell, the official magazine of the Squirrel Lovers' Club.

-Like squirrels themselves, it's not often READ.

-GROANING

-Oh, come on. It's the festive season.

-That's a good squirrel joke.

-Yeah.

-There aren't many in the world.

-We start with:

To be or not to be a squirrel, that is the question?

JACK: To have my grandparents for Christmas

or not to put up with racism for the next ten days.

-It's the classic yuletide dilemma.

-Yeah.

-Is that true of your grandparents?

-Yeah.

Yeah.

The answer is:

This is the fierce debate raging amongst squirrel lovers

currently coursing through the pages of In A Nutshell

over the best way to feed the cute-looking, bushy-tailed roadkill.

The same issue also features the following front-page apology.

And that, News Of The World, is how you do an apology. Next:

Give a damn.

Pay tribute to the early jazz pioneer Bix Beiderbecke.

The answer is:

This is the star columnist of In A Nutshell, Janet George,

writing about Twiggy the performing squirrel. Janet also reveals:

She needs to stay in more. Next:

There's a train coming.

It's actually:

And of course, chuck-chuck-chuff-chuff-chuck

is also Cilla Black after the Blind Date reunion party.

And finally:

I shoved an acorn up me arse.

The weather's been pretty stormy this week. Here's a response from Scotland.

-Lord.

-Oh, my God! Trampoline!

Trampoline!

So, the final scores are

Paul and Nick have four points,

-but Ian and Jack have five.

-Unbelievable!

-Unbelievable.

SPEECH DROWNED BY APPLAUSE

I'm very grateful.

I leave you with news that as the funfair comes to Mogadishu,

it's a productive day on the rifle range for two Somali pirates.

Unions brace themselves as Number Ten unveils a new advisor

with responsibility for Work And Pensions reform.

And as an inquiry is set up to investigate alleged faking of BBC wildlife documentaries,

one key witness agrees to testify as long as she's granted anonymity.

Good night.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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