Episode 3 Have I Got News for You

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Good evening, welcome to Have I Got News For You. I'm Rhod Gilbert.

In the news this week: At the finishing line of the Greenwich barrel rolling contest,

there is suspicions that the winner may have consumed all the contents before the race.

In Westminster, David Cameron goes through the usual

routine after shaking hands with some working class people.

And there is allegations of extraordinary rendition resurface.

There's evidence that MI6 may have hired a former producer of You've Been Framed as chief interrogator.

Ahhh!

On Ian Hislop's team is a Conservative MP and chick lit author

who has written 14 novels

or if you want to be cynical, the same novel 14 times.

Please welcome, Louise Bagshawe.

APPLAUSE

And with Paul Merton tonight is a comedian who, as a young man,

worked long lonely spells on an oil rig, when at any moment

he could have been pounded to death by a massive Derek.

Please welcome, Marcus Brigstocke.

CHEEERING AND APPLAUSE

And we start with the biggest stories of the week.

Paul and Marcus, take a look at this.

Ah, yes, this is the marvellous news that has us all leaping about.

Our hearts are fully in the air... and that's Prince Philip, er...

For security reasons, he has to live down a drain.

They are looking for people who would be so sick

as to ruin this happy occasion.

-There's one.

-There's one, for example.

Oh and there is another.

That's the Archbishop of Canterbury of there.

I think you should do the coverage at the wedding, Paul?

I would be happy to do so, but they won't let me.

-They have given it to the bloke from Formula One.

-No!

-Yeah!

-Here it comes!

-No, you're mixing it up with the guy who did it before,

that was Murray Walker.

How does Jake Humphry do it then? Does he do it differently?

It is difficult to do Formula One in a more sedate fashion, isn't it?

I don't know. I don't really watch Formula One,

it's not really much of a sport for me. The first car wins.

Do you like other forms of racing?

-Yes.

-Ones where the first thing doesn't win?

-Yes.

It is called the alternative race, and you vote for...

the third person in the race.

-That's not really the Archbishop of Canterbury, is it?

-Is it not?

I mean, he's charismatic and enthusiastic,

but I don't think he dances like that.

Very rarely hammered.

Hammertime. You can't touch this.

Don't try and be cool, you're a Tory MP.

In fairness, quoting MC Hammer isn't massively cool now, is it?

It is in Wales!

I have no idea what they are talking about!

It is one of Einstein's special theories.

E=MC Hammer.

It wasn't the Archbishop of Canterbury.

So who was it, prey tell?

Could this be an advertising commercial, pushing some product,

in a commercial business-like way?

Let's have a bit more of it. It is an advert, you're quite right.

MUSIC: House of Love by East 17

APPLAUSE

The fantastic thing is you've cut it off before we see what it's advertising.

-Yeah...

-It's for a funeral director in Wigan!

It was funny if Harry had goose-stepped down the...

It was an advert for T-Mobile, just to put this to bed.

Some Americans apparently thought that was real footage!

No, it is true!

According to the Metropolitan Police,

what will not be tolerated on the day?

Any attempt to crash the wedding by people who haven't got a ticket.

Damn.

Isn't it normally an invite to a wedding?

What did I say?

A ticket.

A ticket.

I was thinking of the one Prince Andrew sold me!

APPLAUSE

Each individual is only allowed 15 feet of personal bunting.

Have you got your 15 feet of personal bunting yet?

-No, I could only get 12.

-Oh, really?

-Yeah.

The Metropolitan Police said what would not be tolerated -

flag burning and violent protests.

Police are liaising with...

-Do we know who they are?

-No.

They identify individuals who are, and I quote:

Are these people who stalk the mentally ill Royals?

Isn't English an incredible thing?

According to the Telegraph,

Kate has invited her first boyfriend, Willem Marx.

I like Williams that are too posh to bother with the E bit.

Oh, Willem! My name's Willem!

At the bottom you have, sort of, people like Bill Maynard.

Then if you're a bit posher, sort of, Will somebody...

Above that, it is just a noise.

That's it.

What's your name?

HE MUTTERS

Is it Bill, Will, William, Willem...

HE MUTTERS Yeah.

That's the top one.

Funnily, I was at school with...

What is he doing these days?

He works in...

HE MUTTERS

It is the family firm.

Yeah, should do well.

Prince William was going out with someone called Carly Massy-Birch?

That's a firm of solicitors, isn't it?

Either that or a tractor.

Yeah.

Carly's mother, Mary Massy-Birch, said:

-You're a romantic novelist, aren't you?

-I am.

So is this a great romantic occasion?

I think it's the top romantic occasion,

isn't it? No-one can top this.

Have you used it as a plot, a Royal romance?

Um, I actually have used a royal romance.

-Did it end well?

-She got to be Queen.

When you marry the heir to the throne,

these days that's not a dead cert. It was a win for her.

They're trying to change that for her though, aren't they?

I think there's an effort to change it so that if Kate and William have a girl,

she might be allowed to be queen.

Rock on, sisters.

-They should definitely do that.

-Rock on, sisters?

Yes.

The Tory party really HAS changed.

You say it has changed, but David Cameron's not sure.

He was going to wear a lounge suit to the wedding and now he is going to wear tails.

He seems uncertain as to what his public image should be.

He didn't want to wear tails in case he looked posh.

There he is. That's white tie, not morning dress.

Oh dear, you knew that off the top of your head, that's a bit posh, isn't it?

-Oh dear!

-You picked that up!

You picked that up right away, man of the people!

-That's what he turn up...

-Rock on brothers!

APPLAUSE

Your cover as ordinary, working class geezer has been somewhat blown!

Ian Hislop or shall I call you Gary?

-On a personal level, will you be watching the Royal Wedding?

-No.

Will you behaving a street party?

Suggests that I live in a street!

I won't be at a street party,

but I shall be having a party watching the wedding on television.

-Will you?

-Yeah.

With myself.

Oh, God,

that's one of the most grotesque images that's ever passed through my head!

Let me replace that image...

I will be taking my 15 yards of bunting and hanging myself soon as they walk down the aisle.

Will you behaving a party, Louise?

I might take the kids to a street party in my patch.

Perhaps we'll just wave the bunting. Nick his bunting and wave it.

You would cut me down, then take the bunting

with which I've hung myself and give it to your children?

Does this mean that we are all in this together?

These are times of austerity, Mr Merton,

I can't let perfectly good bunting go to waste, you know.

-Well, I think it shows a caring side to the Tory Party that I didn't know existed.

-Absolutely.

If you haven't got a suit for the wedding, go down the cemetery, dig some up. Yeah, go on.

He's only been dead a week. Go on, put it on...

What's going to happen at Buckingham Palace at precisely 12.30am?

-They're turning the lights off.

-They are.

All the foreign crews are furious

because their audiences will have just woken up.

So when all the American broadcasters want to stand outside Buckingham Palace and say,

"Here I am, live." It's going to be completely dark.

How selfish of us.

Why couldn't we time the wedding

to be in the middle of the night here

so the Americans could watch?

I hope there are ad breaks

so that MBC can shove in an advert for...

What is it, nachos, they have?

LAUGHTER

Oh, blimey.

The BBC's royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell has been busy.

I get the impression that covering the minutiae of Royal life is getting to him.

We can speak to our royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell.

This story breaking in the last half hour or so.

What exactly has happened?

Well, not a lot to be candid. I mean, you pretty much said it all.

Don't panic, he will be back in time for the wedding.

They're opening a community academy

and our royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell is there in Darwen for us.

They've been greeting everybody waiting patiently in the rain to see them.

Yeah, you're not kidding about the rain, Kate, I can tell you.

Our royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell is there for us now.

It's going to be a big moment for them, Nick, isn't it?

-FLATLY:

-Yes, I'm sure it is.

-Great.

-That's fantastic.

-APPLAUSE

-Very good.

Moving on.

There's even a video wedding book for the public to sign.

Let's have a look at some of the messages of goodwill and affection

that have been left so far.

Aw, lovely.

Something for the happy couple to treasure there.

Does anybody know how food-lovers are able to celebrate it?

Yes, they can buy doughnuts shaped like the bride. What's the next question?

And there's a Kate Middleton jelly bean.

-Like Jesus, her face was in a jelly bean.

-I thought this story was a fraud.

Let's have a look at it.

I do think if that turned up on the day...

that William would know.

I mean, even if you put a veil over that,

I think he'd know that probably wasn't really Kate Middleton.

-Well, I don't know...

-I want to know how big the Jelly bean is.

Big Day nerves. He thinks to himself,

"She's got herself ready, I better not criticise her.

-LAUGHTER

-"She looks like a jelly bean

"but it's taken her five hours to get to this point."

There's something really odd about that story.

Yes. It's almost as if elements of it were made up.

Do I need to do this number six?

-DIRECTOR: You do Helen Mirren.

-Yes...

That's nice. We'd all like to do Helen Mirren, but we've got to do a bloody quiz show, mate!

-LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

-That's what we're doing here.

-Helen Mirren played the Queen, of course.

-Oh, yes.

And here she is talking about John Gielgud on BBC Breakfast news.

That always inspired me, he always took kind of edgy choices.

And he swore a lot, as I remember.

-Well, in that wonderful voice he had.

-Exactly.

-"You little shit," he'd say. Oh!

-No, we can't say that!

-I'm so sorry.

-Take that back, that never happened.

If you heard that, we're very sorry.

Yes, this is the day everyone's been looking forward to.

The Sun reports that Prince William will share a series of heart-to-hearts with his father.

Who, it is rumoured, will say,

"My advice is don't get too close to the first one."

GASPS AND SNIGGERING

The wedding day itinerary states that at 1.30pm

there will be a fly-past by the RAF tornadoes

on their way to bomb Libya.

Ian and Louise, here is yours.

Ah, "No to AV." Nick Clegg's looking a bit sad.

He's going to drink from the cup of desolation as he looks at the "Yes to AV" poll ratings.

He doesn't say much, does he?

This is AV.

Quite literally, the most boring election the UK has ever held

-and that is saying something...

-How can you say that after that clip?

Admittedly, I was on the edge of my seat,

but when you knock on doors and say, "Yes to AV, no to AV," nobody knows what you're talking about

because literally nobody cares.

Maybe you need to rephrase the banter you've got. Is that what you're doing, "Yes to AV, no to AV"?

"Hello, I'm Louise, would you like to change the voting system?" "No, I wouldn't" Slam. There you go. Thanks.

Why do they slam the door?

They're busy people in Corby and East Northampton,

we've got a lot going on.

In Corby, they're so busy they slam the door.

And you get a free trouser press as well.

We don't have anything to do with the trouser press, but we do have a volcano on Mars,

-which I think is a fair swap.

-There's a volcano on Mars called Corby?

-Yes.

-Do you represent that?

Because I know that some of the boundary distinctions...

-are being redrawn as part of the process.

-No, I like that.

I like that I could be the only MP with an interstellar constituency...

-No, there's plenty of Tory MPs who think they've got constituents on Mars.

-No, no, no...

Can I just say, the important thing about the AV vote

is it's been conducted under a first-past-the-post system.

Yes.

You have yes and no.

I didn't care about it a great deal

until a lot of the "No to AV" stuff started coming through my letterbox

and there were people on the telly saying,

"Of course, I understand AV... but you won't.

"You definitely won't.

"It is very, very complicated

"and you're probably too thick.

"Here's my friend William to explain it."

LAUGHTER And that really got up my nose.

It's moderately complicated,

but it's not so difficult that I think most people in this country

couldn't get it if they want it.

-Under first-past-the-post you have less coalition governments.

-We've got one now!

Under AV, you'll get one every single time.

So if you love Nick Clegg, you love the Lib Dems, then...

-Is that true, you get one every single time?

-Let's look...

-A coalition government "every single time."

-Pretty much.

-Rod, AV is very complicated. I wouldn't...

LAUGHTER

I wouldn't fuss your little head about it.

AV is used by three countries around the world.

-But the rest of the world uses first-past-the-post.

-Most of the rest of the world is starving.

LAUGHTER

Pretty solid argument for not eating.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

I don't know why I said that. I'm more or less on your side, but it's such a terrible argument.

Yes, the AV campaign is really hotting up.

This week saw politicians from different parties teaming up,

such as Ed Miliband and Vince Cable,

and David Cameron and John Reid.

In the semi-finals of Bald Old Man And Shiny Posh Friend Of The Earth.

David Cameron has been accused this week

of blocking Gordon Brown's chances of becoming head of the IMF.

For some time now, Gordon had an eye on the IMF job

and his other eye in a box on the mantelpiece.

At the end of that round...

I'd quite like to be head of the IMF.

At the end of that round, Ian would like to be head of the IMF.

-Can't you nominate yourself?

-Yeah.

-I think you'd do a very good job.

-Can't you get hold of a ticket somewhere?

And so, to round two -

The Strengthometer Of News.

This is... Well, the M1 was closed

and so a fella in a dressing gown

went and did his ironing on it.

There was a fire on the M1, I knew about it.

As I was driving along, my sat-nav melted. So I knew...

I knew something was happening.

I saw a bit of news this morning and he was on doing that.

Is that the dedication you've got to this show after all these years?

"I briefly saw a bit of news this morning?"

I seem to win no matter how much I watch.

We've had AV here for years!

They're trying to level the playing field by being pig-ignorant, but it doesn't work.

How did he explain his behaviour? What did he say?

I've been under a lot of stress.

I've got a pressing engagement!

GUFFAWING

He said...

SIGHS

What did the Highways Agency have to say about the whole thing?

If we'd had a gun, we would have shot him dead.

How's that for irony?

And your pleat's crooked. Bang!

No...

They said...

Back to the main story of the fire.

The papers were quick to criticise slow-moving transport chiefs.

What in particular did they pick up on?

There was a fire underneath the bridge and, as far as I know,

most of the M1's still closed, whereas the Japanese had a tsunami

and their motorways are now up and open.

Absolutely right! The papers pointed out the Japanese motorway,

ripped apart by the devastating earthquake, was restored just six days later.

But, to be fair, nobody's stuck up for British workers in saying

that our motorways came through the Japanese earthquake unscathed. So...

There's great comfort in those words.

Junior Transport Minister Mike Penning had some advice. What did he say?

Use the A1?

No, he said:

Bad news for recreational users.

Anyone else had transport difficulties?

-Ian usually has trouble.

-No, it was Real Madrid,

celebrating their cup victory over Barcelona on Wednesday and we can have a look.

Oh, that was brilliant!

Yes, this is the closure of the M1 after a fire,

causing motorists marginally more misery than usual.

Apparently there were plans to reinforce the north-bound M1

after rumours Eric Pickles was planning to give John Prescott a lift home for Easter.

-Sorry, Pickles!

-YOU'RE sorry?

I'm the one that's going to get it in the neck on Tuesday morning.

Has he got no sense of direction?

APPLAUSE

Time now for the odd-one-out round.

Just one between you this week and the four are:

A, B, C and D.

BELL

You've got four blank faces, you cannot see who they are,

you're not allowed to know who they are,

they may or may not have done something with ladies

who are not their wives, one of them definitely doesn't rhyme with ...

Even though he's a footballer.

-And, er, one of them might not...

-Can someone call the police?

I'm sitting here next to a Conservative MP

who's trying to break a series of super-injunctions.

I'm absolutely appalled!

These gentlemen are perfectly entitled to privacy.

They may have slept with a bunch of slappers, all of them,

without telling their wives, but that is entirely their own affair. Whether they run banks

or play football or act in popular television shows,

-it's none of your business!

-None of your business.

Or have columns in newspapers. Really!

Or indeed edit Private Eye. Could be anybody.

Four people were very disappointed at a photo-me booth.

The answer is there is an odd-one-out but, for legal reasons, we can't tell you which one or why.

Theoretically, might the odd-one-out be Sir Fred Goodwin

because he was named by my colleague John Hemming,

in the House of Commons, as being the subject of a super-injunction?

And, because he said it, I can report that he said it. Whether or not he was right,

-who's to say?

-I do.

-I have no idea.

-Yeah, it was him.

-He could've made it up out of thin air.

-No, no, he tried to get a super-injunction.

-I didn't say that.

Mm. I did, though.

-To put some flesh on these rather vague bones...

-Yeah, just tell us who they are.

-Yep.

Mr Justice Eady, at the centre of the most recent privacy cases,

issued an unprecedented injunction to a TV star on Wednesday.

What was it?

It was that no-one could ever publish a photograph

involving this person ever again, in any domain in the whole world ever.

-Absolutely.

-And nobody could mention it to their work colleagues,

that their had to be total and utter privacy,

throughout the galaxy until time literally ends and Dr Brian Cox goes...

No, it's not the galaxy. He issued an injunction...

Judges are making up privacy law as they see fit.

We don't have a proper privacy law, which you lot in Parliament

should've got round to but you haven't. And it's time you did,

to stop judges making it up as they go along.

Cos they inevitably balance freedom of the individual privacy

against the press's freedom of expression and, obviously,

in the case of slappers and footballers, it's arguable.

But a proper case will come along

where we need to know what's happening and we won't be able to cos of these stupid injunctions.

What are the consequences of us breaking these rules?

If I know who one of these people is and I broke it, what would happen to me?

-You'd go to jail.

-You'd get the question right, first.

-So there's a point in it.

-So, already, you're a winner.

-Yes.

And then it's not great after that.

But, short term, let's just focus on the game in question.

Let's get this done and then worry about your future after.

It's getting out of hand. I was playing Cluedo the other day

and I got a letter from Professor Plum's lawyers

telling me I couldn't name him, the name of the room or the murder weapon.

Time now for the missing words round, which this week features as its guest publication

the self-help magazine that sensitively tries to guide its readers

through the stresses and strains of modern living.

It's Going Bonkers magazine.

We start with:

"Dear me, I regard you as a huge drain on my resources."

"Dear Eric, I regard you as a huge Pickles."

"Dear elephant, I regard you as a huge,

"unmentioned thing in the room."

"Dear News of the World, I regard you as a huge,

"illegal answer-phone service."

It's "Dear Fear, I regard you as a huge piranha."

This is a letter in Going Bonkers, which says:

-Piranhas don't have tentacles.

-No.

They do with this one, it was written by a fisherman in Fukushima.

Next:

"Wait till you get married on Friday."

"Then you shouldn't have gone into a coalition."

It's not from one of your books, is it?

No, it's about love and joy in my books.

If this was chick lit, how would you finish it?

"Gregory walked into the room. The moonlight played upon his greying temples.

"He moved over to the harmonium and dashed off a Beethoven etude.

"She looks him in the eye, he looks her in the eye.

"They had something in common - they were both drunk."

-Is that the right answer?

-I dunno, but Louise was scribbling furiously.

And, finally:

"They work well in hot water, but they then have to be poured

"through the spout of opportunity into the cup of hopefulness."

MARCUS: "Says inventor of human-flavoured tea."

"They come in many shapes and sizes

"and we shouldn't try to find the perfect tea bag,

"cos some are triangular, some are round and some are square.

"And some aren't even tea bags, they're loose tea.

"And they need to be looked after more than the other tea.

"Cos they haven't been put in a bag. They haven't been given boundaries."

And the answer is:

In boiling water?!

What? Cold water's not much of a test!

"He's been in there for five weeks."

Get 'em in the boiling water, see how tough they are!

So the final scores are Ian and Louise have five,

Paul and Marcus have seven.

APPLAUSE

On which note we say thank you to our panellists

Ian Hislop and Louise Bagshawe, Paul Merton and Marcus Brigstocke.

And I leave you with news that, at the signing of the new US-Italian alliance,

President Obama has to make one more concession than he would have liked.

After driving the streets of Berkshire,

a pensioner finally tracks down the gang who stole her curtains.

And, after one Cabinet split too many, David Cameron waits patiently for Vince Cable to leave his house.

Goodnight.

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