Episode 6 Have I Got News for You

Hello, the name's Moore - Roger Moore - and tonight I come up against another evil mastermind.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

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

I'm Roger Moore. In the news this week...

After pledging to take the BBC in the right direction,

the new director-general makes his way home.

After his defeat in the police commissioner elections,

there is evidence that John Prescott is in despair.

And as luck would have it, a camera is on hand

to film my arrival at the back door of the studio.

With Ian tonight is a journalist and author who has a new book out.

Presumably that's why she's appearing on the show.

It's the only reason I'm here.

APPLAUSE

Please welcome Rachel Johnson.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And with Paul is a stand-up comedian

who has also performed in beat-boxing battles

with Shlomo and Bellatrix.

I've no idea what I've just said.

But there again, I'm a consummate actor.

Please welcome Marcus Brigstocke.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And we start with the bigger stories of the week.

Ian and Rachel, take a look at this.

-That's women bishops.

-Yes, it's welcome to Have I Got Pews For You.

GROANING

We must have had that joke before, Ian.

No, and there's a reason for that.

No, no. There's the outgoing Robert Runcie

hugging what could be a...

I think it's Rowan Williams, actually.

Oh, it was Rowan Williams, wasn't it? Did I say Runcie?

Yeah, he's dead, but in a real sense he's still with us.

I think everyone was a bit startled... Shaken and stirred.

Shaken and stirred?

I was thinking of covering the Israel-Gaza crisis.

No, we're on the women bishops.

Yeah, well, I reckoned a women bishop's story would keep it light.

It just shows you how wrong I can be, doesn't it?

I know you're a Christian, Ian. Would you have voted for women bishops?

Well, now, really, in this country you can't go around throwing

-that sort of accusation at people.

-You are openly Christian.

I'm a member of the Church of England, which is very, very different.

Is it? Well, it is now.

They're going to do what the C of E does,

"We're going to take our time, "we're going to pray for each other,

"we're going to bitch about each other really badly in private

"and then in another hundred years we'll have another vote."

But it was stymied by the laity.

Whatever that means.

-Right, whatever it means, it's happening.

-Who are the laity?

I don't know, but they specialise in stymieing.

Do you think it would help if Eve said sorry about that whole apple thing?

Cos I can't help but feel that really ever since then

it's been difficult, you know?

You do one thing like that and everyone's like for ever.

I mean, literally for ever.

And I just think if she stepped up and said,

"I'm terribly sorry - it just looked delicious.

"And anyway, the snake did it. Or someone at Newsnight," and...

So how did the papers cover this story?

The Times front page had...

The Independent said...

And the Sun's front page screamed...

We've got another headline here...

What's that all about?

She's been asked to leave I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here.

But it is quite important because it's the first Tory win on any vote.

Yes. Yes!

Incidentally, where did the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, go to school?

Eton.

Do you wish you'd been able to go to Eton like your brothers?

Yes, I think I would. Where were you at school, Roger?

-I never went to school.

-Really?

-Cold showers and sodomy. Oh, yes.

-Never did Boris any harm, did it?

-Never did me any harm.

And finally, how did the Pope surprise everyone this week?

He jumped out of a wedding cake.

He forgave Jimmy Savile.

GROANING

He's published a book.

He actually declared that the entire Christian calendar

is based on a miscalculation. Any idea whose fault it was?

I think it's the publisher's fault.

He's probably coming on this show next week like you just to plug it.

He was Dennis the Small.

Sounds like a Bond villain,

like Herve Villechaize, you know, who was very small.

-Very small.

-Yeah.

-He was...quite oversexed.

-How do you know?

-The Pope?!

-No!

We were making Man With The Golden Gun,

he would go to the girly clubs with a flashlight

-in Hong Kong and Bangkok.

-And a stepladder.

And he would say, "you, you, you -

"not you - you, you, you,"

and then I said, when we were leaving Bangkok,

"How many women have you actually,

"sort of, done things with since you've been here?"

He said, "54."

I said, "But that doesn't count because you paid," he says,

"Oh, yes, it does, because even when I pay, sometimes they refuse!"

Do you know,

sometimes I think it's better not to know the behind-the-scenes stories.

This is the vote against women bishops

seen as a test for the new Archbishop of Canterbury.

One commentator said,

"These days an Archbishop needs the patience of a saint."

THE SAINT THEME PLAYS

Oh, wonderful!

My life is now complete! Fantastic.

It's quite easy to get that up there.

You squeeze together and...

Paul and Marcus, take a look at this.

Yes, OK, this is obviously a chimpanzee roller-skating

and may be the same one driving a car and this is the...

They're re-doing celebrity stories on BBC Four and that's Groucho Marx.

-No, it's monkeys having a mid-life crisis.

-Absolutely.

RACHEL: How do they know the chimps are happy?

-That's what I don't understand.

-Oh, they ask them.

One of the study's authors pointed out...

They want to roger more.

APPLAUSE RACHEL: Very good.

I always thought it was funny that your real name

was like one of those terrible Bond names.

It never occurred to me until you mentioned it.

It actually said, Roger, that middle-aged men are very unhappy

but when you get older you get happy again.

-Is that true?

-That's bollocks.

-It is wisdom you get as you get older, isn't it?

-Yes, certainly.

And timing.

This is the news that monkeys suffer

from their own form of mid-life crisis.

This news comes at the same time as the government has released

its first annual well-being index.

According to the Daily Mail...

For what it is worth, we're pretty happy in Monaco.

Here's another one for you.

Yes. That's the police, all of them.

This is the election speech. He looks happy, he's just lost.

-Oh, look.

-There's an empty ballot box.

That's the tumbleweed rolling past the polling station, did you see that?

MARCUS: Either that or a very fat hedgehog.

-This was the...

-It was the police commissioner. PCC.

It was this election and it was a disastrous turn-out. 15%.

But there was one polling station in Wales where there were no votes,

which is only significant because it means the three candidates

couldn't be bothered to vote for themselves.

Some people turned up to spoil their ballot papers.

Now, here's my favourite.

How did the Home Secretary, Theresa May,

react to the disappointing voter turn-out?

-What vote?

-She said...

Four years' time?! I wouldn't worry about it, darling.

Is that the way for Bond to address the Home Secretary?

-Technically she's your boss!

-I've retired.

-Who had a great election day?

-UKIP?

-The Labour Party.

-They won everything.

-There's a new Mayor of Bristol.

-No, it was UKIP.

-That's what...? I said that as well!

Yeah, but don't worry, it doesn't matter.

-It's not like Mastermind, is it?

-No, the right answer is not a problem.

-OK. Even if you give it?

-No.

-Nobody notices?

-No.

That's cos you're a woman!

Staying with the police, did you hear the story of the man

who has been charged with an unusual offence involving a police horse?

Yes - he gave the horse a bun or a bit of bread or something to eat?

-A sausage roll.

-A sausage roll, that was it.

According to the police, when he was asked not to do so, the man...

Surely it doesn't need to go to court.

A swift kick in the Ginsters would do.

-Here's another for you.

-A very depressed-looking chimp.

Oh, yes - this is Andy Coulson

and there's Rebekah Brooks with her husband, there.

Oh, this is the green book.

Police have done well to get that evidence, haven't they?

The green book, I think, in this case, is a book that carries

the, sort of, personal numbers of the royal family, mobile phones

and all that kind of stuff and he's charged with paying a public servant

a lot of money in order to get access to this book, I believe.

That's what it's about, that's what he's been charged with, isn't it?

-Coulson? Yes.

-We can't really say anything about this story

cos it's contempt of court. They've just been charged.

Oh, go on - say something, Ian.

You can't get unlucky again, surely.

What else are News Corporation employees alleged to have paid for?

It's the photograph of Saddam Hussein in his underpants.

-RACHEL: Are we going to see it?

-Oh...

Can I ask that we don't?

Anyway, all this is happening as Lord Leveson is about to deliver his report.

What did the Daily Mail uncover about the people

who are advising the Leveson Enquiry?

It says here that Ian will explain.

RACHEL: Ian?

The Daily Mail decided, for reasons I think entirely known to them,

to spend about 12 pages of their morning paper

explaining this sinister group called Common Purpose

who train people in the public sector

and they managed to prove that nearly everybody

who's ever had a job was trained by Common Purpose.

-It was just cobblers.

-What?! In the Mail(?)

I'm going to go and work for the Mail, Ian, so I'm glad you can...

You may say that, but I couldn't possibly comment.

Don't work for the Mail. No, it's awful.

Is there any connection between the "Mail" and The Lady?

APPLAUSE

Those sort of things can't be coincidence.

These are the latest criminal charges to be brought against

David Cameron's close personal friends, Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson.

Brooks faces allegations that The Sun paid retainers

totalling £100,000 for stories to an MoD official, Bettina Barber.

Now, this is the first time we've heard of Bettina Barber.

Still, The Telegraph found this photo.

The Times did the same, as did The Independent

while the Guardian reporter...

-Did they ever hack your phone?

-I don't have a phone.

Did they ever hack your pigeon?

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

RACHEL: I'm sure we'll win, though.

Now, just wait a second. I have to write something.

-GUNSHOT

-Urgh!

I'm terribly sorry about that.

Now you mustn't get up for the next hour otherwise it spoils the joke.

Time now for the Odd One Out round. Paul and Marcus.

Wills and Kate, Winston Churchill, Sean Connery and Nero's mother.

Sean Connery, amongst his many jobs,

he was a male model, I think, at one point.

-Yes, he was very good-looking, wasn't he?

-Yes, extremely good-looking.

MARCUS: Very, very good-looking.

Nero's mother was called Agrippina.

MARCUS: That's a venereal disease, I think.

Well, I'm sure there was quite a lot of that in the family, too.

He tried to kill his mother.

He tried to scupper the boat she was on so that it would sink.

Is this in the notes at all?

-Yes, this is absolutely true.

-Oh, right.

Well, this is the stuff I know, the stuff that's really topical -

about a couple of thousand years old.

They've all had a car that was specially adapted

apart from Nero's mother who had a boat modified for her by Nero

so it would sink.

There was a big family problem.

They were on Jeremy Kyle, weren't they?

"Stop speaking Latin, stop speaking Latin!"

The Land Rover modified for Winston Churchill

has just been sold for £129,000.

Does anybody know what was special about it?

A special contraption to light cigars? An ejector seat! It must be an ejector seat.

That's why you're here, you're on the show, you press a button...

No, no, no. Churchill had the passenger seat of his Land Rover widened.

Would that affect Mr Churchill's car insurance?

Oh, yes.

-Do you want to get Martin Clunes back?

-Oh, yes.

-Oh, yes.

-Oh, no.

That's Alan Bennett!

-Sean Connery.

-Yes. He was good.

Best warm-up man I've ever seen.

Do we think Sean is a good actor?

He's terrific. He's managed to convince everyone

he's in favour of an independent Scotland whilst living in Spain.

-It's magnificent.

-But he's not as good as this man.

Hello!

-Oh, hi, Dad.

-Hello.

And actually goodbye.

THEY SPEAK IN GREEK

Oh, no, Dad - I'm in a hurry. I'll be back, I promise.

But why don't you just stay a bit?

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

I am so happy.

I am so happy to have seen that

because it proves that I am not the worst actor in the world.

-Tell me there's a new series starting called Big Shot.

-Um...

That... That is a...

RACHEL: You've got a lot of explaining to do.

It's a Greek television series,

it's an adaptation of a novel written by my wife...

Who did you sleep with to get that job?

It wasn't a huge budget

and they paid for some other proper actors and they needed

someone to play an Englishman who wasn't very good at Greek.

They could have got Telly Savalas.

Did they offer you the job of Finance Minister while you were there?

They're finding that job very difficult to fill.

There's a new one out called The Thread.

RACHEL: Look, everyone else is promoting other people's books...

I've a new book out called Bond On Bond.

Ian and Rachel, George Bush junior and George Bush senior,

Frederick Humphries, quadruplets in Shenzhen and Patrick McGoohan.

This is about numbers. Now, the Bushes are the 41st

and 43rd Presidents of the United States.

-Those are the four quadruplets.

-They've got numbers.

-On their heads.

Have they?

Doesn't the mother have to shave the numbers into their heads

so she knows which one is which?

He's Agent Shirtless.

He's the FBI agent in the General Petraeus case

who sent pictures of himself without his shirt on.

-But he's got a number. I don't know what it is.

-She's got his number.

Agent Shirtless is the odd one out

because he's the only one who doesn't have a number.

-Ah. Yeah, I think that's right.

-Thank you, Paul.

Roger, is that right?

I haven't got a clue.

Can we have an independent enquiry?

Preferably led by a retired judge?

-Your points have come up so it must be right.

-Yes, that's right.

George Bush junior and George Bush senior refer to each other

as number 41 and 43 respectively. Why?

-Because that's their IQ.

-No.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

It's the order, 41 and 43, in which they became president.

Bill Clinton is number 42, sandwiched between two Bushes.

A Chinese woman got a barber to shave numbers

on to the heads of her quadruplets. Explaining why, she said...

Racist!

Let's have a look.

AUDIENCE: Aw!

That's also how the father remembers his PIN number.

It is time now for the gun barrel of news.

JAMES BOND THEME PLAYS

Buzz in when you know what the story is.

BUZZ

That is a picture of the last typewriter made in Britain.

-Absolutely correct.

-Absolutely.

-RACHEL: Well done, Paul.

APPLAUSE

Do you use one rather than e-mail, Roger?

Are you still hammering away at the keys?

Well, I don't hammer. I just dictate.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

-To Moneypenny.

-Of course.

Yes, I have a Moneypenny in my life.

I have a lot of loose change, too.

You could always drop some of it to the taxman if you fancied it.

All right.

Now, fingers on buzzers, teams.

DING RACHEL: I think I buzzed.

-Yes, it's you.

-So I answer the question?

I was... I was fast asleep.

This is to do with the 65th anniversary

of the Duke of Edinburgh and Her Majesty the Queen,

which they celebrated by going to the Royal Variety Performance

and watching a dog called Pudsey dance to a selection of Bond tunes.

-What a brilliant evening's entertainment.

-I can't imagine.

Apparently, the Duke of Edinburgh had to also go through

the Girls Aloud, Gary Barlow full experience and apparently

he told them afterwards, "It's all right - we're both stone deaf." Didn't he?

They've been married for 65 years. Amazing.

-What is that - blue Sapphire?

-Blue Sapphire.

-Sounds like a Bond villain, doesn't it?

-Sounds like a porn name.

-Sorry, I shouldn't say that in front of a Christian like you.

-Yeah.

No, no - C of E, a very broad church.

That's another porn name - Broad Church.

What myth about Prince Charles was dispelled this week?

He prefers grapes to cucumber.

No...

"I wanted parboiled, you moron!"

"This one doesn't even have a little face on it! Wanker!"

"You can shove that back up the chicken!"

Fingers on buzzers, please.

BUZZ

MARCUS: This is Sally Bercow.

She libelled Lord McAlpine by doing a, sort of, furtive tweet

pretending she didn't know why anybody was talking about him

and in telling you that I have now also libelled Lord McAlpine so...

And I've done it again by saying that I've just libelled Lord McAlpine.

This is why you shouldn't say something twice.

It just racks the bill up. It doubles it up.

-Every time you say Lord McAlpine, it goes up.

-Higher, higher.

She's essentially got Twitter diarrhoea,

which a lot of people have out there.

MARCUS: She's got the twits.

-She said you need a law degree to be on Twitter nowadays.

-No, you don't.

It's very, very simple. You just don't repeat libellous comments

if you don't know they're true or not.

-MARCUS: Says Ian Hislop.

-Yeah, yeah.

Who has, in fact, got some experience.

And if I do, I expect to be prosecuted for it.

And you should be able to defend yourself.

I'm all for you can say the stuff but you can't complain.

Publish and be damned but not publish and go, "Ooh - gulps!"

-That's not the quote.

-Do innocent face.

Time now for the Missing Words round,

which this week features as its guest publication

the knitting patterns of Patons And Baldwins Ltd.

That's me.

Is it you on the right?

And we start with...

"Fully inflated."

This is not the Edward Heath who ran the country,

but the Edward Heath who built a model of Buckingham Palace and set light to it.

Is that treason?

Next...

"Tempted to count chickens before they are hatched."

Is it "Chancellor of the Exchequer?"

"Running up a tab at Morrisons."

No, the answer is...

Next...

"South America."

"Leather wallet."

It says up there illegal immigrant

but I shouldn't read that out because it's your go.

MARCUS: Let's say illegal immigrant,

or you can, now that you're writing for the Mail.

Say it over and over and over again.

APPLAUSE

Illegal immigrant.

Next...

MARCUS: "Knitting. A parachute."

"I am not landing in Luton. Seriously, have you seen it?"

-RACHEL: "I'm on the plane."

-No.

-"I'm on the piss."

No.

As I am.

And finally...

"To Mr Knit of Knit Towers, Knittingham."

Is it "the knitting ombudsman"?

MARCUS: "Ofknit?"

The answer is...

Though don't expect a prompt reply.

I'm still waiting for my Swinging '60s Willy-Warmer.

So the final scores are Ian and Rachel, 8,

Paul and Marcus have 7.

Do I get a high five?

So for our winners this week, survival,

and for our losers, this...

But before we go, there is just time for the caption competition.

Sausage roll-eating horse banned from swimming gala.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

On which note we say thank you to our panellists,

Ian Hislop and Rachel Johnson, Paul Merton and Marcus Brigstocke.

And I leave you with the news that in a bid to improve their libidos,

the pandas at Edinburgh Zoo are given access to pornography.

It emerges that London's new cable car service

offers spectacular views of the nearest Spearmint Rhino.

And in his private estate outside LA, Piers Morgan inspects

the monument to himself he's just had commissioned.

Good night.

It was easier making Bond.

Did anyone check whether that chap who got shot was all right?

-I'll get him again.

-Oh!

-GUNSHOTS