Episode 2 Have I Got a Bit More News for You

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Good evening. Welcome to Have I Got News For You.

I'm Tracey Ullman.

In the news this week, producers on BBC Breakfast deny that

the move to Salford has affected the quality of the guests.

As fears grow about North Korea's nuclear capability,

there is evidence that they could

handle their volatile uranium isotopes more carefully.

And the Labour Party Rambling Club regret letting Jeremy Corbyn

and John McDonnell organise the team photo.

On Ian's team tonight is a BBC newsreader and journalist who says

the skill he'd most like to have is to be able to plaster a large wall.

And if he can acquire that skill,

Donald Trump's got just the job for him.

Please welcome Clive Myrie.

APPLAUSE

And with Paul tonight is a broadcaster and cleric who

recently said he'd spent more on drugs than a vicar should,

although he only realised that

when the Archdeacon queried his expenses claim.

Please welcome the Reverend Richard Coles.

APPLAUSE

And we start with the bigger stories of the week.

Ian and Clive, take a look at this.

-Mr Whittingdale.

-Be very careful.

There's someone taking something off. Modern newspapers.

And it says, shock horror, he's flabbergasted, that man.

Well, this is the story that nobody wanted to run -

about John Whittingdale,

who is the Secretary of State for Culture, Media, Sport.

-Minister of Fun.

-Minister of Fun!

I sense you're treading carefully here.

Four newspapers had the story about a Tory MP

and a prostitute who works in a dungeon.

And we've had the hysterical sight this week of lots of tabloid

editors saying, "Yeah, we're not interested in this story.

"It's not the sort of story we run, Tory MP, prostitute,

"she's a dominatrix. It is of no interest to us."

Yeah.

There was... There was a really quick spark between the two of them

when they met, apparently.

They met on Match.com.

Yeah, yeah... Wow, God...

I work for the BBC. What can I say?

Yeah, well,

-you can say very little about this story.

-This is the news...

So how did the story come into the public consciousness, then?

Well, the story was going around,

and lots of newspapers investigated it, spent a huge amount of money

and resources and then they decided it wasn't for them.

Then it started appearing online, and then some stupid magazine

decided it's time to publish it in print.

We suggested that perhaps the public might like to know why

this story wasn't appearing.

And we suggested that the reason the story wasn't appearing

is, this is the man in charge of newspapers.

He's in charge of press regulation, he was chair of the Select

Committee for Culture and Media and Sport, and Minister for Fun!

And the story started when he took this prostitute - or sex worker,

as we now say - or dominatrix.

Or Miss Spanky.

You see, I'm trying to be responsible here,

and you're going all tabloid.

I'm just quoting from the card in the telephone box.

-Don't you think that "sex worker" lacks music?

-Yes.

She can play the trombone.

It's an extra tenner.

It sounds to me like she's in the Village People or something.

It's a bit kind of gruff, isn't it?

I just thought, I don't know,

"Magdalene" - perhaps something like that would be better.

-Romantic liaison officer?

-Well, something like that.

To be fair to the press, they have made it clear that they don't

-do kiss-and-tell stories any more.

-No.

They've learned their lesson from Leveson.

Except during the period they had the Whittingdale story,

they ran stories about Brooks Newmark,

Tory MP you'd never heard of, Simon Danczuk -

every single jot and tittle of his sex life, they ran in full.

They ran the Labour peer, his sex life, prostitute, the whole thing.

Except, in the case of the man who's in charge of regulating

the press and beating up the BBC,

"Oh, we don't run that sort of story.

"We only run the stories about everyone else."

APPLAUSE

His affair with the dominatrix lasted for six months,

until he broke it off when he found out about her occupation,

and the revelation was covered in the Daily Telegraph...

It's so close, isn't it?

Has his relationship with the dominatrix put

John Whittingdale in a compromising position?

Well, we don't know, do we?

Not now, no.

Wasn't there some issue about him having taken her to the MTV Awards

and not having declared it fully on the MPs' Register of Interests?

Yes, he did take this lady to the MTV Awards

and he didn't declare it on the register, and he now says it was...

It might have just because it was the MTV Awards.

You wouldn't want to own up to that, particularly, would you?

What has Downing Street had to say on the matter?

Downing Street can't say much about transparency at the moment, can it?

They probably said today it was a private matter.

In about a week's time, they'll be saying something else.

I just really want to see her tax returns.

..they're saying,

and thanks for distracting attention away from all that tax stuff.

Which story is the press more interested in publishing, but can't?

They are very interested in that celebrity couple and the threesome.

-Yes.

-Yeah!

-But that's a story of huge national interest.

But you see, that's the point.

The point is, with the Whittingdale story,

there's only two people involved.

That's why they're not running it.

Do you want to name the people under the injunction? Go on.

-You can do that.

-No, I think it would be better coming from you.

-It would have more authority.

-It would have a lot more authority.

People would like it. Go on!

We don't know who they are, though in certain parts of the

United Kingdom, the name has been revealed, which suggests...

Scotland.

We are allowed to say the word Scotland.

In Scotland.

You're right, their names have been published in America, Canada,

by a newspaper in Scotland and by a political blogger in Ireland.

So, one of the people involved in the scandal,

who is trying to sell his story,

well, he was furious that he wasn't allowed to talk about it, saying...

BLEEP

But I mean, it would be interesting to find out,

cos obviously, we're not going to say anything about it,

but it would be interesting to ask the audience if they know.

Not say out loud, but just put your hand up

-if you know who we're talking about.

-Whoa!

-That's virtually everybody.

-It's Ryan Giggs.

-LAUGHTER

What, potentially, would be the punishment

for breaking this injunction at this point?

-I think you'd be guilty of contempt of court.

-Right.

And you'd be breaking an injunction. That's a pretty serious charge.

-You'd go to jail.

-Those of us who have been guilty of it before...

-LAUGHTER

-..are pretty damn wary.

You know this subject very well.

We'll get this story eventually and everyone will go, "Oh.

"Oh, is it them? Oh, I thought they might be doing that."

I did.

Well, as you said...

Are we thinking of the same people?

How is the House of Commons Speaker John Bercow involved?

Last time, there were super-injunctions

and injunctions with famous people,

Members of the House of Parliament got round it

by just shouting out the names in the middle of debates.

So you were having a debate about, I don't know,

International Women's Day or fiscal attitudes to the United States

and you'd shout, "Ryan Giggs!"

And everyone thought was very funny. And it was privileged.

But this time he said, "Everyone is going to behave,

"I'm not going to have people being silly

"and just shouting out the names of the celebrities."

So, he's, as ever, rather ruined the fun.

The Archbishop of Canterbury - friend of yours?

-Well, yes.

-Yes.

-You could hardly say he was your arch-enemy, could you?

-Not really.

Had his own bit of a scandal this week, didn't he, Richard,

when it was revealed his father wasn't who he thought he was?

Not really a scandal, but it did raise an interesting technicality,

because up until 1950, if you were, to use a rather un-nuanced word,

a bastard, meaning someone born illegitimately,

you couldn't be ordained,

and thus you couldn't have been the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Of course he's not the first bishop to have been thought a bastard

by his clergy, but I couldn't possibly say any more about that.

But this was a story which the Daily Telegraph -

having lectured everyone else about sleaziness -

went in full steam ahead.

"Yeah, Archbishop's mum, bit of a slapper! Let's get the details.

"She was pissed all the time, apparently. Legless!"

Well, we know the stories about the Archbishop and the actress,

we've heard them over the years. They were based on fact.

But he came out of it very well, I thought.

He came out of it beautifully.

He said a very beautiful, gracious, generous statement,

and so did she, and we kind of move on.

And if that can rescue my ecclesiastical career,

good luck to it.

What hasn't helped Ukip's Scottish election campaign?

Oh, putting up candidates is always a mistake.

Letting people know that they were there.

I don't know, what is it?

Ukip activist Jack Neill posted a picture of himself on Facebook.

Let's have a look.

AUDIENCE EXCLAIMS Yeah.

Now... But, hang on, hang on,

there's a perfectly good explanation, as usual, with Ukip.

-LAUGHTER

-Is he the Culture Secretary?

Just to be clear, he's not a black man

that's whited up from the neck down, is he? Let's just be clear.

I don't want to jump to conclusions. It could be a trick photo.

I don't think so.

No, Mr Jack Jardine, Mr Neill's colleague,

has said - he's the Ukip candidate in Scotland - he said...

LAUGHTER

-That's the best I've ever heard.

-Yeah.

-Easily.

There's a huge spot on his nose, by the look of it.

There might be some credence to his story.

Anyone want to see how another scandal was broadcast by mistake,

thanks to Scottish Lib Dem leader, whatever his name is?

Here he is, being interviewed on BBC Scotland.

We like to organise our visits to send a message in pictorial terms,

exactly what we're asking for,

and I think this does it very well today.

Well, finally, let's return to where this all began -

the BBC's Newsnight presenter Evan Davis seems to have knowledge

of yet another MP's intimate details.

And a little earlier, I spoke to the Shadow Foreign Secretary,

Hilary Big Benn.

APPLAUSE

-Good, that.

-Yeah.

-You're laughing now.

-Have you ever made a slip like that, Clive?

-I have.

-You have?

-What have you said?

-I can't tell you.

-You can't tell...

-I knew this was going to happen.

-Hold on,

let's have a look at you in action on the BBC News Channel

last December.

It's after the watershed.

You cannot be a dickhead and win the Sports Personality of the Year.

Thank you, Clive.

APPLAUSE

-What were you talking about?

-Yeah, who was it?

-I was talking about the boxer Tyson Fury...

-That's right.

..and I was not referring to him, specifically,

out of my own mouth, as a...

-No, cos he'd come and hit you.

-CLIVE SPEAKS FRENCH

It's French for dickhead.

HE SPEAKS FRENCH

I was saying that there may be people out there who had

signed a petition on that particular day, who feel...

who felt that his comments, concerning homosexuals

and women and so on and so forth, warranted the label...

HE SPEAKS FRENCH

So I didn't actually call him...

Oh, yes, you did! Come on, Clive.

We all know he's a dickhead. He is. Don't worry about it.

-I'll call him a dickhead.

-But, the thing is, after all this blew up,

my brother-in-law, he says to me, he says,

"Clive, if you actually fought him in the ring, he'd beat you."

As if that's a revelation to me.

I mean, you know, the guy eats raw eggs, he runs 300 miles a day,

and he's the boxing champion of the world.

I read out aloud for a living.

"Hello, here's the news..."

APPLAUSE

It wouldn't work. It wouldn't work.

This is the sensational news story about the Government minister

having sex with a woman who turned out to be a prostitute.

Whilst it's true that Culture Secretary John Whittingdale

did go out with a dominatrix, we should make it clear

that he did absolutely nothing wrong

apart from when he'd been a very, very bad boy.

The story was finally revealed on Newsnight

because the BBC prides itself on exposing sleaze -

unless, of course,

that sleaze happened in Television Centre in the '70s.

-GROANING AND LAUGHTER

-Ouch. Ouch.

After the tabloids published the story, Labour complained that...

Some people would have paid 50 quid extra for that.

Hacked Off has been accused of hypocrisy for suggesting

that one rule should apply to the likes of Hugh Grant

and another to John Whittingdale.

I'm not sure whose side I'm on,

but I will say this for Hugh Grant -

at least he knows a prostitute when he sees one.

-Oh, dear.

-I suppose that's a kind of compliment, isn't it?

Yeah!

-Paul and Richard, please take a look at this.

-Yeah.

There's David Cameron there, filling out his tax form.

Boris Brexiting his breeks.

Yes, going for the working-class vote there.

And what the hell's going on?

LAUGHTER

-Cracks - wallpaper.

-"Where's your husband, Mrs Roberts?"

"Shoosh, he's behind the bunker."

Well, this is, of course, a continuing row about tax

and personal wealth,

and why are so many Conservative MPs just furious with David Cameron?

He published his tax return,

and now they all feel they've got to pile in with their tax returns.

So we discover that Boris earned, I think,

it was 600-and-something thousand pounds a couple of years ago,

and he paid tax on it, so no story there,

but that's kind of interesting. George Osborne has published his

and I think Jeremy Corbyn has had to publish his, too.

The Tory MPs, they're probably worried

because it will set a precedent now

and whoever is going to be the next leader sometime down the line

after Cameron will also have to do this thing.

It's like holding them hostages to fortune,

-I think, is the complaint.

-But isn't that why Boris did it,

-because he thinks is going to be the next leader?

-Oh, yeah.

I think he partly did it just to show how much he earns!

He does seem to have an awful lot of jobs.

Member of Parliament, Mayor of London, columnist in this and that.

Telegraph. Writer of books.

And he still finds time for all of his extracurricular...activities.

-Allegedly.

-No.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

But, George Osborne, he earned, what?

Close to £200,000, I think,

and yet he only got £3 in interest from his bank.

-Really?

-Apparently.

Are you suggesting he's not very good with figures?

Cos there's been very little evidence of that

-in the last eight years(!)

-If the hat fits...

But, then, of course, everyone piled in on Jeremy Corbyn.

I saw a story that he had...

Somehow it was presented as if he had somehow screwed

the National Exchequer out of three million quid,

which was simply his wages for being an MP

and his pension entitlement.

Not as if he's kind of stamped the faces of the poor

in order to get it.

No, it's a typical parochial distraction -

we spend the whole week looking at people's tax returns.

Whereas the story about Panama was, how do we stop the world's

rich, bent money launderers, crooks and despots hiding all their money?

Do you know, I love that company name in Panama, the Mossack Fonseca.

It sounds like a liqueur, doesn't it?

Oh, we'll have that at Christmas.

I like a nice glass of the Mossack Fonseca, it's marvellous.

You bite into the chocolate. It's a weird name to me.

The Daily Mail was also furious with David Cameron this week.

This was on the front page on Monday...

Yeah, this was from the Daily Mail, proprietor Lord Rothermere,

who inherited it from Lord Rothermere.

He's quite keen on inheritance.

And the present Lord Rothermere is non-dom, I believe.

-Yes, he inherited the status.

-Yeah.

A small island somewhere...

But I think it's rather unfair to the Mail,

because, you know, the Telegraph is owned by the Barclay brothers,

who live offshore in the Channel Islands.

Erm, you know, they are all fairly similar.

The Sun is owned by Rupert Murdoch -

he moved to America to change his tax status.

I mean, take your pick, really...

or don't.

Read something unbiased.

Jeremy Corbyn had an unlikely ally this week.

Do you know who that was?

Jacob Rees-Mogg.

David Cameron.

-Erm...

-You did say unlikely.

-No.

-Well, he did say... He said... He did say, "I'm pleased...

"I don't agree with Mr Corbyn on many things, but I'm glad to see

"that he has come out in support of staying in Europe."

-No.

-Not him? No?

No, Paul, it was Danny DeVito.

SHE BLOWS A RASPBERRY

That was my second guess!

He told the Press Association that he's a big-time

supporter of Jeremy Corbyn,

who was the best leader that Labour have had in years, adding...

AS DANNY DEVITO:

Danny DeVito also said...

OK, Danny, a lot of your films were a bit shit.

APPLAUSE

There was a furious clash at Prime Minister's Question Time,

-did you see that?

-Yeah.

-Where Corbyn made a joke.

It was quite good. Don't laugh!

No, nobody did, but...

-But they did laugh at Dennis Skinner.

-Yes.

He made a characteristically salty intervention, didn't he? Dodgy Dave.

-Yeah.

-And then he got told off by John Bercow, who made him go

and sit on the naughty step, didn't he, and calm down?

"You're not allowed to call the Prime Minister dodgy."

-No.

-Good grief.

-Parliamentary convention is

that you can't call into question

the honour of a Member of Parliament, apparently.

Imagine that!

We're not allowed to show the workings

of British Parliamentary democracy on this show,

so here's an artist's impression of that moment.

Gosh, I feel I'm there.

I know!

Who are the couple at the door waiting to get married?

It's Mr Whittingdale and his friend from the Village People.

It'd be good if the phone went, "It's the Whips' Office. You or me?"

APPLAUSE

Jacob Rees-Mogg -

-you requested him, didn't you?

-Yes, I did.

He was asked on the Today programme

why he thought all MPs will have to release their tax returns.

What did he say?

PAUL BABBLES INCOHERENTLY

-To translate that...

-Yeah.

-..he said yes.

-Yeah.

-He said he thought all MPs should publish their tax returns.

-Yeah.

-Because the public would demand it, after the expenses scandal.

-Yeah.

He said...

-I like the reference.

-Yeah.

-Good old Mogg.

What's Sir Alan Duncan been saying about it all?

Oh, yes, he was talking about the suggestion that

if you have to publish your tax return if you are an ordinary MP,

then that will mean the lower orders entering Parliament.

Yeah, he said there will be no more high achievers.

-No more high achievers.

-Brackets - like himself.

-Yeah.

No, the thought that Alan Duncan thinks he's a high achiever...

He did indeed say this place would become...

Well, in the real world, where Alan apparently lives,

he gets paid £615 per hour to advise an Emirates oil company.

We've all done that.

His first achievement in politics was to buy a council house

under someone else's name under the scheme

where you could get them cheap,

and he had to resign when that was revealed.

I mean, his whole career has been one of high achievement

if you consider achievement shaming the House of Commons.

APPLAUSE

What's the French for dickhead, again, Clive?

Yeah, we loved that.

Who wants to see the BBC's Norman Smith

trying to make the EU referendum accessible?

-Yes, definitely.

-Yes, you would like that?

-Yeah.

Brexit campaigners say he's just trying to scare the pants off us,

so, what is the ghostly vision that Mr Cameron is trying to conjure up?

Well, first off, jobs...

It looks like he's suggesting he's in the Ku Klux Klan.

What the hell is that?

Well, this is the news that David Cameron has voluntarily been

forced into publishing a summary of his tax return.

Amongst other things,

the documents reveal that David Cameron received...

To be fair, that was for his birthday AND Christmas.

So, at the end of that round, 2 points each.

APPLAUSE

And so to Round Two,

a brand-new feature which I'm calling

the Hall of Mirrors of News.

-Oh.

-I'm going to show you some images distorted in a fairground

hall of mirrors, and I want you to tell me what the story is.

Fingers on buzzers, teams.

Well, you needn't have bothered distorting that - we've got no idea.

I mean, it's puzzling as it is.

Is it the Scandi version of the Adele single?

This is the news that there is finally a number you could

-dial to talk to a random person in Sweden...

-A Swede?

-Yeah.

Yes, that's right, yeah.

..to celebrate the 250-year anniversary of Sweden

-abolishing censorship.

-Oh.

We should ring up and say, "Who's the celebrity couple?"

Let's do that right now.

You shouldn't ask them, according to the Guardian,

things about Ikea and Abba.

They really are sick of that. You know what they're really sick of?

They've had it with that!

Hoo-da-hoo-da-hoo-da! Had it with that.

I tell you what, the founder of Ikea,

-it was his 90th birthday a couple of weeks ago.

-How would you know that?

Well, I know this cos he's rather a fascinating person.

He is terribly thrifty and he is seen... He goes to the Harvesters...

I can't say that, can I? No.

He goes to, kind of, cheap restaurants and then he pinches...

This is...

APPLAUSE

Carry on.

He goes to economical, midpriced, thrifty and very pleasing

restaurants, and he's seen - this is true - he pinches sachets...

He doesn't pinch. He helps himself to sachets of salt and pepper,

and also he reuses teabags.

As what?

I had a very embarrassing moment in Sweden as a clergyman.

-Did you?

-Yeah.

I was over for work stuff, seeing some people,

and they said, "Do you want to come round later?"

I said, "Yeah, sure."

And so I went round and then we all had to have a sauna together.

And I found myself with these strangers, completely naked

in a sauna, and we had to thrash ourselves with birch twigs.

And I said to John Whittingdale, "I don't know about you..."

APPLAUSE

I have a vision of you entirely naked, but with a dog collar on.

Standards must be maintained, yeah.

This is the phone line that gives you the opportunity to phone

any Swedish person at random and have a chat.

Swedish student Wilmer told the Guardian...

One caller was quick to react.

APPLAUSE

Brilliant.

Fingers on buzzers, teams.

Let's see what else is in the Hall of Mirrors of News.

-BUZZER

-Oh, this is Manchester Airport,

isn't it? Where they had some sniffer dogs.

They'd trained the sniffer dogs to sniff out Class-A drugs

and, in the year they had these dogs, they didn't find any drugs

but they found a lot of cheese, sausages and biscuits.

Erm, it's...

Actually, it's the news that illegal foreign cheese is sweeping Russia.

Oh, it's not that story at all.

-Following President Putin's ban on Western imports...

-Yes.

Where can you get this illegal cheese?

From an illegal cheese shop.

-People are smuggling it into Russia?

-Yeah.

Well, according to the Telegraph,

one high-end Moscow restaurant has an item on its menu called...

Tovarisch, you have Wensleydale on your shoes.

Many wealthy Russians are involved in...

And two anonymous Russian celebrities are involved

in an illegal cheese triangle.

Which means, at the end of this round,

it's Paul and Reverend Richard, 3,

Ian and Clive, 2.

APPLAUSE

Time now for the Odd One Out Round.

Ian and Clive, your four are...

Sir Nigel Gresley,

Shirley Bassey,

Margaret Thatcher

and John Walker, the inventor of the friction match.

The friction match? Hmm.

Is that a dating site?

There's a statue of Mrs Thatcher going up

and Carol complained that there wasn't a handbag on it.

-That's right.

-That looks like a train.

Yes. If you get the story about him, you'll get the rest of it.

-OK, tell us what the story is.

-Yeah, we've no idea who he is.

That's Nigel Gresley - he designed the Mallard -

and they were going to put a statue up to him

and somebody thought, the designer of the statue,

that it'd be nice to have a duck - a mallard - next to him.

People said, "This is insulting.

"We can't have a duck." "We're going to have a duck."

"No, we're not going to have a duck."

So it's about what has been placed or taken away.

So it must be like Margaret Thatcher's handbag, you mentioned.

-So duck for him...

-Duck for him.

-Mm-hmm.

Is there a frictionless match next to the statue of John Walker?

Well, you're right. All of the statues have something missing,

except for John Walker, whose statue is of someone else altogether.

-Oh.

-Yeah.

Here's the statue.

It's John Walker,

an actor who looked pretty much like John Walker, the match inventor.

So they just commissioned the wrong one?

The council have tried to make amends.

In 2001, they put this up at a roundabout.

That's better, isn't it(?)

And so, Nigel Gresley, you were, indeed, right, Paul.

He was very fond of waterfowl and named the trains

he designed after them.

The original statue was like this,

but, after complaints from Gresley's fans, the duck was eliminated.

This has caused seismic tremors in the Gresley Society Trust.

According to BBC News...

Leaving no-one.

Does give the possibility that there could be a sleeper train

called The Shag, doesn't it, if he'd followed through?

Are you sure you're cut out to be a vicar?

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

You seem to be fighting something.

That's just what the bishop said to me in the last e-mail. There you go.

It's you, because you trigger in me a Jimmy Somerville reaction,

and it...

Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho!

And it brings out the sweary, preordained Richard Coles.

I can't help it.

Oh, I feel I'm there to be put behind you.

Not in that way, I was...

Jimmy was never behind anyone.

And the ten-foot Margaret Thatcher statue was commissioned

with £300,000, raised by an appeal,

and it was to stand in Parliament Square.

Well, there's a challenge for the anarchists.

And Carol Thatcher doesn't like it. She's apparently upset that...

They should put a handbag with a duck in it. Keep everybody happy.

And Shirley Bassey has been immortalised as Boadicea

in a 20-foot-high gold-coloured statue in front of Caernarfon Castle

in Wales,

but there's a hole where the heart should be. Why?

Is it to do with her offshore status, living in Monaco?

Is it a hole where her tax should be?

According to the sculptor...

Do you want to know what Mark Rees, the local sculptor, said?

-ALL:

-Aw...

That doesn't make any sense at all.

In other statue news, what's this dead Greek woman holding?

That's... It looks like a laptop.

Yeah, she's just updating her status.

"Dead. Greek."

According to the Mail,

it's a first-century BC grave marker from Delos in Greece,

showing a typical funeral scene from antiquity,

with a deceased woman and her attendant,

but some people think that the dead woman is holding a laptop.

There's the laptop.

All their statues have been criticised for missing something,

except John Walker, the inventor of the friction match,

whose statue is of someone else altogether.

The 20-foot-high statue of Shirley Bassey has been erected

outside Caernarfon Castle.

Packed with body-filler and sanded to a smooth finish,

Shirley Bassey was guest of honour at the unveiling.

Paul and Richard, here are yours.

The village of Soulbury...

-Yes.

-..some needles,

Tracey Emin and Paul Merton.

Tracey Emin recently

married a rock, didn't she?

Is that the, sort of, part...

-A sort of clue into it?

-Yes.

Have I married a rock? Erm...

Yes, something to do with Tracey Emin.

Needles, those needles -

is it referring to a needle in a haystack or anything like that?

-Erm...

-Or nothing to do with that?

-Soulbury...

-I think I have to give it to you.

They all share a name with a stone, except Tracey Emin, who married one.

They all share a name with a stone?

-Yes.

-Oh, right.

Tracey Emin found a ring, which she put on her wedding-ring finger,

and because of an old superstition

-about not wearing a wedding ring unless you are married...

-Yeah.

-..she married a stone in her garden.

-Yeah.

Oh, like Jerry Hall.

The Soulbury Stone, in the village of Soulbury, Bucks,

was in the news recently.

It's right in the middle of the high street

and, according to the local council, it's a traffic hazard,

despite the fact that, until a few weeks ago,

no-one had driven into it for 11,000 years.

According to the Mail, a motorist has just demanded...

What speed was the rock doing at the time when he hit it?

One local, Victor Wright, who wants the stone to stay,

has taken the matter into his own hands, and any idea what he's done?

-Has he chained himself to the rock?

-Mm-hmm.

-Ah.

-Yeah.

Yes, he's draped a chain over himself

in a very feeble photo opportunity, here.

Suffragette-like, there he is, Victor Wright.

You wouldn't really need to be Houdini to get out of that one,

would you?

-And the Merton Stone, in the Norfolk village of Merton.

-Oh, yes.

It has a claim to fame. What is that? What is it?

The claim to fame. Yes, you can...

If you sit on the stone on a Saturday night,

you'll be pregnant by Monday.

-That's your weekend sorted.

-Yeah.

It's the UK's largest glacial erratic.

They all share a name with a stone, apart from Tracey Emin,

who married one.

The Soulbury Stone is much valued by the community

as, if you stand on it,

it's the one place in the village you can get a phone signal.

Which means, at the end of this round, it is

Paul and Reverend Richard with 3,

and Ian and Clive with 3.

APPLAUSE

Time now for the Missing Words Round,

which this week features, as its guest publication,

Plumbing, Heating & Air Movement News.

It comes out on Friday, but they can't say exactly when.

And we start with...

-CLIVE:

-Stopcock.

Is it Jeremy Clarkson?

-It's the Werewolf of Worcester.

-Yes, the Werewolf.

The Werewolf of Worcester.

Robert Ingram, who was driving through the area with his wife,

drew the creature they saw. Here it is.

LAUGHTER

He said...

At least they'd be able to draw it better.

Next...

Pours chocolate sauce over Labrador.

-RICHARD:

-Ices own paunch.

LAUGHTER

That's excellent.

I think that's the best answer we've ever had.

Ices his own paunch? That's a fantastic sentence. It's poetry.

That should be the answer to every single question from now on.

Do you know what he did?

And here they are.

LAUGHTER

Next...

-CLIVE:

-The return of the colour avocado.

Yes.

-RICHARD:

-Norovirus.

APPLAUSE

Of course, yeah.

Because it is a report in Plumbing, Heating & Air Movement News

that says...

Well, it's not integrated speakers they need, it's more fibre.

Next...

Bad boilers. Bleeding radiators.

Bleeding radiators angers druids.

"I hate bleedin' bleeding radiators," they say.

No, it's not that.

It's Stonehenge's £15 car levy.

The person who's upset the Druids with the parking plan is

Kate Davies, the local branch manager of English Heritage.

If she's not careful, she could end up with a stone through her window,

which, in that area, is no small matter.

Next...

-Oh, I know that.

-Yeah?

-Were barred.

It's on the list. There's a list in a pub, the Half Moon somewhere,

and it's the list that the landlord had typed of all the people

who were barred from the pub, and he didn't know their real names,

so he just gave them these kind of names like Mickey Two Shoes

and Keith the Psycho and things like that. It was in the paper.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

-Absolutely right.

And this is a list, actually,

of the banned customers at the Half Moon pub in Herne Hill.

Other banned customers included...

And finally...

Whenever I see terrible injustice in the world.

Whenever I see a fully-working immersion heater up on a wall,

my throat starts to seize up and I smile.

-Whenever I accidentally ice my own paunch...

-Yeah.

..my throat starts to seize up and I just smile.

-Yeah, trying to make the best of it.

-Yeah.

This is from the letters page

of Plumbing, Heating & Air Movement News,

alongside Rod Chambers' letter on frictional resistance

in old sewerage pipes, for which the editor paid him £100...

not to contact him again.

So, the final scores are

Paul and Rev Richard, 5,

Ian and Clive, 3.

APPLAUSE

But, before we go, there's just time for the Caption Competition.

-CLIVE:

-Giant head lice outbreak in schools!

Nit nurse fired.

Photographer asks, "Can you move sideways a bit?"

APPLAUSE

Next...

Is this the celebrity threesome?

APPLAUSE

And I leave you with news that, on her arrival in Brussels,

Angela Merkel is assured by the Belgian Prime Minister

that there's nothing to worry about.

As the latest series of The Voice draws to a close,

the judges regret crowning their winners

without turning their chairs around.

And, after eight hours killing time on the Tube, an unemployed man,

still pretending to have a job, can finally go home to his wife.

You've been watching Ice My Paunch.

Good night.