Episode 9 Have I Got News for You

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

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

I'm Jo Brand.

In the news this week, in the gardens at Balmoral

there are suspicions the sculptor may have run off with the cash

as the Queen unveils a statue of her favourite corgi.

Olympic news, and in East London, cycling officials test out

the new system to discourage false starts.

And on Falklands TV the breakfast show with Mike and Denise

gets off to an uncertain start

when Denise turns up late.

On Ian's team tonight is one of my fellow writer-performers

on the BBC sitcom Getting On,

in which she plays a senior figure to me. Not tonight, love.

Please welcome Joanna Scanlon.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And with Paul tonight is a comedian who says some evenings

he'll eat pasta, ribs, beef, donuts and chocolate cake.

Yes, I agree, it's nice to snack while you're waiting for the pizza.

Please welcome Reginald D. Hunter.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And we start with the biggest stories of the week.

Ian and Jo, take a look at this.

Oh, yes. Cameron. "Trust me, I'm a spin doctor."

Yes. Ministering angel, Mr Cameron.

"I'm about to be fired. Ha!"

Pretty, though.

That's someone trying to see their GP.

"Oh, dear. Which lock is it? The top, bottom, the, uh...?"

Yeah, this is special reduction on sentences.

-You get half...

-In pantomime.

-In panto, yes!

Well, it's been a bad week, all round, for the Government.

-Yeah.

-And they're now ahead of Labour in the polls.

Can you imagine if they were doing badly?!

They're dithering. There's a lot of dithering been happening all week,

whether it's health, crime, the judges and the judicial system,

they don't know whether to, you know, buy the Louboutins

or the Jimmy Choos, they're becoming very, uh, I don't know,

female, in the sense that they're changing their minds quite a bit.

That's quite sexist.

She might say something different in a minute.

I did read something this week saying that it was all to be blamed

on Tony Blair's autobiography.

Which they had read, and realised that they should have got in early,

that Tony felt, retrospectively,

-he hadn't gone in early enough...

-Absolutely.

-..and changed policies.

That's right. They felt they should emulate Blair,

except do it quicker.

So don't wait a couple of years for a useless war, go straight in early!

Uh, reform the system? Try it, give up, do a u-turn, and say, "sorry."

And the process upset the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Yes, he's come out on the side of the poor.

That'll get him in trouble!

"What does he think he's there for?

"Stick to talking about gays and women!"

DELAYED LAUGHTER

"Stop interfering in politics! Oooh!"

I don't know who this is an impression of at the moment.

It's not Alan Bennett - that we know!

Regarding the NHS health reforms, David Cameron said he was going to pause, engage,

reflect and listen.

I do the same thing when I'm on the toilet.

You might be able to help me out with this question, then.

-Anything for YOU, Jo.

-Ooh!

I'm so glad we're back on that footing already, Reg.

-Having paused...

-Would you like the rest of us to leave?

-Me and Reg...

-If you think that gon' help.

Me and Reg would like the rest of you to WATCH.

Now I can't get it out of my head.

It's gone. It's gone.

Anyway, having paused, engaged, reflected and listened for two months now,

what's he gone and done?

He's decided to re-write the whole reform package.

He's changed quite a lot of it and the man who wrote it - poor old Lansley - has been hung out to dry.

He says he's unveiled five pledges concerning the NHS.

-Anyone know what they are?

-Pledge one - it'll still be called the NHS.

No, his first pledge about the NHS was...

..which is obviously reassuring. The others are a bit dull so I won't bother to read them.

They're not THAT dull. They're quite encouraging if you USE the service.

-Maybe it's just that dull people like them.

-Yeah.

I'm not being horrible. I love dullness. You should meet my husband.

Compared to him, Ian seems like the Great Bambino, whoever that is.

The Great Bambino?

-With the white tights and silvery waistcoat?

-I've no idea, I just made him up.

-I did, too. I made him flesh to the figure.

-Yes.

-He told NHS workers...

-The Great Bambino did?

I thought he was a fictional character. Now he's advising the government on the NHS?

Politics moves quickly in this country!

He'll be Prime Minister next!

You're right - it was Cameron. ..told NHS workers at University College Hospital, London

that he learnt a lot during the pause. What has he learnt?

That it's going to be OK privatising NHS, cos he did a bang-up job with the trains.

He's learnt that he wants to keep his targets. Isn't that one of his other things?

-People actually like that fact...

-Yes.

-..it's only 18 weeks waiting...

-Oh, indeed.

-..before you...

Die.

To find out if you're pregnant?

18 weeks to find out.

What did Andrew Lansley - the minister responsible for the proposals - say this week?

Was he pausing and looking and learning and reflecting?

No, he's actually...

..which will be...

Jo, you're quite familiar with the workers of the NHS,

-having co-written and starred in...

-Having pretended to be a nurse.

-You get picked as a nurse quite a lot, don't you?

-It's because I'm fat. It's as simple as that.

I'll have to give it a quick mention again. ..in Getting On.

-Yes.

-Set in a medical ward for the elderly.

-Are we allowed to do product placement?

It's not a product, Ian, it's a work of art.

APPLAUSE

Didn't you win a BAFTA recently for Best Female Comedy Performance?

Oh, no, sorry, that was me.

APPLAUSE

-Sorry.

-Forgiven!

Before we leave the NHS behind, can we please have a look at a man

who, negotiating some steps outside the Savoy Hotel in London,

was lucky not to end up in A&E?

Oh, here we go...

-Ooh.

-AUDIENCE: Ooh!

I think he's going to hit that thing at the bottom.

He's going to hit that yellow thing. Go on...

And you're saying this is Boris Johnson?

Go on, hit the yellow thing, hit the yellow thing.

AUDIENCE GROAN AND CHEER

Don't worry, he was fine.

Shall we join him as he continues his journey home?

To put your minds at rest, I know you'll be worrying,

yes, he does fall over again.

He seems to be being chased by the Sun newspaper!

It's lowered his IQ so much, he's forgotten how to walk.

How does the Sun get the copyright on CCTV footage?

I expect it has a relationship with the police.

Or Satan.

They'll take that out.

Back to politics. Where else has the government made a U-turn this week?

-Sentencing?

-Indeed. Please enlarge.

-Um, they were going...

-LAUGHTER

Honestly! I...

Really, you're going to sit there

and act like you don't know what you did?!

APPLAUSE

Controversial changes to sentencing laws including halving sentences in return for a guilty plea...

-Yes.

-..are to be shelved

after a meeting between David Cameron and Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke.

The suspicion is that it's cos it costs a lot of money,

to keep people in prison.

And so, um, people thought "Why should we just go and have justice on the cheap?"

So Cameron's changed his mind. People didn't like it.

And Ed Miliband said, in the Commons, "You've changed your mind.

"And quite right, cos I didn't agree either."

Which is an amazing debating point.

Well, he did accuse David Cameron of overseeing...

To be honest, he's not wrong.

Jedward's dad!

The one that I'm confused about is the one where they're hammering down in the dawn raid.

-Yeah, that's a rather silly story.

-Yeah?

The police went round to smash into someone's flat in London,

and Boris decided to go as well.

DCI Johnson!

He's got his own series.

-Do you want to...

-A maverick cop, with a slightly dodgy private life.

-He cycles, that's the...

-He cycles! Oh, that's brilliant.

"I'd better do some house-to-house investigations. I might be some time...

-"Particularly number 43..."

-MUMBLES LIKE BORIS JOHNSON

Reg, would you like to see Boris doing a drug raid with the police?

-Yes, ma'am.

-Here we go.

PAUL LAUGHS

He went in, and there was a bloke in there who was being arrested.

He saw Boris and said, "What the f... are you doing here?!"

-"What the

-BLEEP

-are you doing here."

-I think that's what he said.

-I don't want to come across all Wayne Rooney.

Get yourself down Harley Street then, mate!

So, this is the NHS reforms.

There have also been reforms in Britain's policing.

The new National Crime Agency is replacing the much-maligned...

Which was, at least, an improvement on the Frivolous Organised Crime Agency.

The Serious Organised Crime Agency has listed various achievements in its defence, saying...

Though that's largely down to Charlie Sheen switching to heroin.

-Paul and Reg, here's yours.

-All right.

Right, this is, er... Oh, yes.

This is Wayne Rooney, and he's had a...

That's him before. That's how he used to be.

And um, that's... I don't know where that is.

-Oh, yeah.

-That's the cheap alternative when he was in Sly and the Family Stone.

It's about his hair transplant.

It may be a hair transplant. It looks a bit like crop circles.

Perhaps he's planting crops and growing a full head of wheat.

You're looking at me as if I'm mad, Reg.

He's growing wheat on his head so he can feed his children.

I'm looking at you like we ain't gon' win.

APPLAUSE

I'll revise my answer.

-This is Wayne Rooney, who this week had a hair transplant.

-Thank you.

-Do you know how the operation actually works?

-Yeah.

They find the hairs on his arse and pull 'em all the way through.

I knew it. I knew it.

He found a donor, but unfortunately, it was Bobby Charlton.

Apparently, what they do is dig out the hair follicles

from a place on his body where hair is still growing

-and stick them on his head.

-Exactly.

Jo, give us a point.

You've just got a point for that.

All right. Here, Reg. Here's another question for you.

Get this right, you might get another point.

How much did the operation apparently cost?

In the future, when you ask questions, can you leave out the sarcasm?

We're trying to win here!

You can do something about your tongue too!

A teacher's salary. 30,000.

30 grand. How did the news leak out that Wayne had had a weave?

He tweeted on Twitter.

He showed his bonce, his arse bonce, to the world.

His bum-head was displayed.

Indeed, he took a picture of the top of his head and put it on Twitter.

There he is, old bottom-nut.

Not bad, but he was actually trying to take a picture

of a dog having a shit.

What, in his car?!

And what did his message that accompanied the picture say?

"My head feel great, but my ass hurt a little bit."

APPLAUSE

I wish it had. It said -

Would you like to see what Wayne's head has looked like over the years?

Er, I think, on balance, probably yes.

REG: He don't need no hair there.

Oh, he needs hair there.

Yeah, boy.

Oh, it's coming back.

He needs some help.

That's an aerial shot, right?

How would you describe Wayne's old hairstyle?

Defunct? Gone?

Technically it's known as a widow's peak which usually,

for Wayne, is around 75.

-Who encouraged Wayne to start using Twitter?

-Ryan Giggs!

It must be!

You got to give us two for that one, baby.

-It don't matter if it ain't true!

-Rio Ferdinand.

It was Rio Ferdinand.

who actually recently came top of a survey to find the footballer

with the poorest vocabulary on Twitter.

What are the major commercial ramifications of Wayne's big decision?

-He's endorsed the person who does it.

-No.

His avatar on the brand new FIFA 12 football game will need to be altered,

as it features his old widow's peak.

I think if you look closer, in the background of that picture

you can just make out Ryan Giggs shagging his sister-in-law.

LAUGHTER

Which great big hairy thing gave up the ghost this week?

-Shrek. Shrek the sheep.

-Well done.

-In New Zealand.

-That's right.

He's been living on a ledge, very high up,

escaping the shearer for...decades.

-He ran away in 1998...

-Wow.

..and didn't come back for seven years,

by which time he looked like this...

JOANNA: Wayne Rooney!

That shot would be funnier if you reversed the image,

if you started out there and went in, that would be funnier.

REGINALD: This just in...

LAUGHTER

There we go.

This is Wayne Rooney, who this week, admitted to having a hair transplant.

If you don't want to see the result, look away now.

The Express explained the transplant technique, saying...

Though in Wayne's case, they were taken from his palms.

LAUGHTER

Rooney's earned the ridicule of his Manchester United team-mates this week,

after a humiliating photograph appeared in the tabloids

of him on holiday...

with his wife.

LAUGHTER

And so, to round two,

the Strengthometer of news.

Fingers on buzzers, ready? Here's the first one

This is Prince Philip, obviously his 90th birthday coming up

and there he is, um...

-REGINALD: Describing the first time he met a black dude.

-Yeah.

Indeed. Now, Philip's birthday was obviously an opportunity for the papers to look back over his life,

shall we have a Philip's Facts And Foul-Ups quiz?

Oh... Yes, yes!

Yeah, great, fantastic(!) Woo(!)

It's like you can read our souls.

"Arseholes", Reg.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

How did Philip describe China to his hosts while on a tour of the country?

BUZZER JOANNA: Ghastly.

Correct. Well done.

APPLAUSE

And what did he say to the MP for Stoke-on-Trent

whilst on a tour of the city?

He told her it was...

-BUZZER

-Ghastly.

He did.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

What did he ask Lord Taylor of Warwick,

whose parents happen to be Jamaican. He asked...

Can you say a sentence with "ghastly" in it?

-Where do you come from?

-Yes, that's almost right. He said...

To which Lord Taylor replied...

-And now, oddly, Lord Taylor's at Her Majesty's pleasure.

-He is indeed.

-You visited him?

-Yeah.

I visited quite a lot of prison. Erm...

Last time I went to Wormwood Scrubs,

erm, I was having lunch there

and one of the old lags said to me,

"Prison nowadays, I mean it's so soft, it's not a deterrent.

"When I started, THEN it was a real deterrent."

True story.

APPLAUSE

On meeting the President of Nigeria,

who was dressed in traditional robes,

-BUZZER

-what compliment did the Duke pay him?

Are you a woman?

Sadly not.

-BUZZER

-No!

-Are you just about to go to bed? Are you wearing your pyjamas..

-He did, he said...

Compliment from the Duke!

What did Philip say to the Queen following the Coronation...?

-BUZZER

-Where did you get that hat?

-Yes!

One I remembered.

What a lot of people don't know is what he said next.

It is ghastly!

In other Royal news, what was Camilla up to this week?

BELL

Ian?

I don't know.

She was actually meeting another Camilla.

REPORTER: And then Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall,

met Camilla, the dog.

Very nice to meet you.

I said, "We named her after you,

"because it's such a beautiful name."

"She said, "Oh, thank you." She was overwhelmed, I think.

This week was Prince Philip's 90th birthday.

According to the Express, Prince Philip speaks fluent German and French.

And Chinese.

Well, he can do the eyes.

Now, here we go again.

How many different ways are there of doing this?

Fingers on buzzers.

BUZZER

That's Naomi Campbell, and she's been in the news...

Cadbury's chocolate put up an advert for some sort of chocolate bar

that said, "Move over, Naomi, there's another diva in town",

something like that was the slogan,

and this was taken as a racial insult

because some black people feel to be associated with chocolate

is a reference to their skin.

This is the second or third time Cadbury's have done this in the last two or three years,

so it's either they are completely ignorant of what they're doing

or they bring this story up once in a while so people can mention Cadbury's on TV.

When you look at the things that black people have been called over the decades,

how you gon' get mad about being called chocolate?

I mean, you like chocolate when black people ain't involved.

You chew chocolate, you suck on it and you think it's good.

And then, you know... It's kind of a compliment, really.

It'd be different if there was, like, a poo,

and then they say...

"Move over, black people". Now, that's offensive.

But it was a piece of chocolate.

I'm not saying it's not a problem.

I'm just saying, we've got bigger ones if it is.

Klu Klux Klan rather than Kit Kat.

LAUGHTER

If I run for Prime Minister, I want you to head my campaign.

I would consider it an honour.

I can see a poster with my face and the words, "Why not?"

Cadbury claimed the campaign was...

The social pretensions?

-I was at a party...

-Yeah?

-..when one of them Cadbury things was there,

and it was up its own ass!

According to the Times, Cadbury claimed the advert...

Convinced by that, Reg?

Yeah, I'm...I'm sure when I go back and sit with the black committee

they will be satisfied.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

I've never heard of a Bliss bar. Have you? Anybody?

-Are they new?

-Ah, you may have hit on the very reason why we're hearing this story.

Apparently when you eat it, it tastes so good, you go, "Mmm!

"Black people!"

OK...

The ad features a chocolate bar lying on a bed of diamonds.

Clearly even a year on, Naomi's a bit sensitive

about anything that refers to diamonds and lying.

The advert made Naomi Campbell furious,

but to be fair, she gets furious

when she doesn't have water from a glacial stream in the Andes pipetted into her mouth

by a Norwegian midget.

Time now for the missing words round,

which this week features as its guest publication

Epitaphs, the magazine for and by cemetery lovers.

And we'll start with...

Start a fire.

-REGINALD: Have sex.

-Have sex?

Bob and Rusty?

Is it, steal bodies and sell them for medical research?

No, even though they are.

No, the answer is...

Talking about their local graveyard, Rusty says...

Sadly, the only unmarked grave in the cemetery!

And the next one...

That's not Saturn out the window,

it's a reflection of a ping-pong ball on top of the wardrobe.

REG: That's not cemetery etiquette,

it's ghastly!

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, it's...

MI6 hacked into an al-Qaeda website and replaced instructions on how to make a bomb

with a recipe for cupcakes.

That's not a bomb, that's a cupcake -

probably Mr Kipling's least successful advertising campaign. Next.

Greek, isn't it? Taphophiles - people who love graves. Grave-lovers.

Yes, you are along the right lines.

And they ARE people who like graves.

-Um...

-I didn't know rabbits could do maths!

Have you ever heard of rabbits doing maths?

This is an article about the kind of people who like wandering around cemeteries,

and who are also known as...

..who share their name with one of Ann Summers' less marketable products.

Next.

Um...rare.

Herr Ha-ha.

I think, Ian, you're near enough to it.

There's some survey that said that ranking countries by how funny they are, the Germans came bottom.

That's the right answer - there isn't one, apparently!

But it was voted for largely by countries who the Germans had invaded at some stage.

The Germans are not a funny race. "Knock, knock." "Who's there?"

"The Gestapo." That's it.

We're going to have the German Ambassador complaining to this programme again.

Has he complained before?

He has complained repeatedly about how this panel is stuck in the Second World War.

It's our only reference, it's the only thing we ever think about German.

"It's the Gestapo AGAIN."

No sense of humour, you see.

-MOCK GERMAN ACCENT:

-For you, Ambassador, the joke is over.

So, the final scores -

we've got to that point - are

Ian and Jo 4, and Paul and Reg... Ooh, they've run away with it,

-and have 7.

-Well done!

On which note, we say thank you to our panellists Ian Hislop and Joanna Scanlan,

Paul Merton and Reginald D Hunter,

and I leave you with the news that there are suspicions that Government cutbacks

are affecting the Metropolitan Police's Rapid Response Unit...

At his 90th birthday party, Prince Philip asked the Bishop of Durham, "Did you spill my pint?"

And Disney admits it was a mistake to hire Quentin Tarantino

to direct the new Winnie The Pooh movie...

Good night!

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