Episode 3 Have I Got News for You

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

I'm Warwick Davis. In the news this week...

At Camp Bastion, word gets out

that the Foster's tanker has arrived...

LAUGHTER

On Newsnight, there's further evidence of George Osborne's

incompetence, as he tries to do a piece to camera.

LAUGHTER

And in Moscow, the Russian Mafia launch their own version of Ocado...

LAUGHTER

On Ian's team tonight

is a comedian who says that if he wasn't in comedy,

he'd probably be an undertaker.

Well, if this week has taught us anything,

it's that there's a lot of money in funerals.

Please welcome Joe Wilkinson!

APPLAUSE

And with Paul tonight,

the current President of

The Association of British Scrabble Players,

who is also a firm opponent of the British Honours system

so he'll never accept an "O", a "B" or an "E".

Please welcome Gyles Brandreth!

APPLAUSE

And we start with the bigger stories of the week...

Paul and Gyles, take a look at this.

This is the funeral of Margaret Thatcher.

-I didn't see it myself but...

-This is...

-That's George Osborne.

-George Osborne.

Ed Miliband. These are the people turning up.

There's Terry Wogan, and..

the man of the moment, who's had a haircut, by the look of it.

Oh!

LAUGHTER

A man with clear political vision.

You were there, weren't you, Gyles?

I was there. I was very honoured to be there and, in fact,

it was a very moving service.

But, I have to say, I was seated amongst all the sort of

ex-Parliamentarians and Parliamentarians

and I sort of looked around, and it was honestly like, sort of,

finding you'd woken up in the middle of an episode of Spitting Image.

Because sort of 25, 30 years on, these people

actually now look like the puppets.

There was a moment, in fact,

I actually thought that the Great Lady herself

-was going to come to life once more.

-Oh, really?

-Because...

-That could have been interesting television, wouldn't it?

Well, it would have been wonderful for the world,

but the reason I thought it might have happened,

seriously, is I glanced under David Cameron, the Prime Minister's,

chair. He was seated adjacent to The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh

And under his chair was a bottle of Evian water.

French water in St Paul's, at Margaret Thatcher's funeral.

I was surprised that the casket didn't burst open, and a hand

come out and grab it from under the chair.

She would not have approved of that.

Most people don't come back from the dead because of mineral water.

Tony Blair was there, looking less orange than of late.

You know, he's become the sort of Dale Winton

of the Middle East peace process.

That's what the Middle East peace process was missing -

-that energy that Dale can bring to it.

-Absolutely.

Well, he was looking positively pallid.

There were other people I thought...

Well, I saw Dr Kissinger was there.

I thought I saw Angela Merkel

but it turned out to be Clare Balding.

JOE: All the ex-Prime Ministers were sitting there going,

"They're not going to do this for me, are they?

"I'd be lucky to get a bloody buffet."

That sounds very like John Major.

Well it was, as Gyles has said, an occasion where people like

Michael Crawford rubbed shoulders with Baroness Boothroyd.

Ooh, Betty.

Do you know what the dress code was for men?

Trousers.

-Were you in top hat and tails?

-No, I wasn't.

I was just wearing a sober dark suit.

-Were you an usher?

-I wasn't.

We've had the wedding, and we're going to have the birth,

as you know, later in the year.

This is a funeral to keep us going meanwhile.

I did think that, about halfway through.

Having started off thinking, "Oh, what a waste of money."

Then I thought, "Well, actually, we've got all this kit.

"We've got these cathedrals, we've got the choirs, we've got the army.

"May as well use them, really."

-JOE: Take the Bishops out of storage.

-Absolutely!

But it was great.

I mean, I do like funerals, and I realised halfway through,

I'm really enjoying this and I don't really care whose funeral it is.

LAUGHTER

You had everything.

You had Vaughan Williams and Bunyan, and...Elgar, Nimrod.

I mean, for some of us, it was just worth every penny.

For people like you, Ian... I bought your magazine this week.

Page, after page, after page.... You adored...

That's how magazines work.

Yeah.

They work like that.

APPLAUSE

I thought the reverend and sensible thing to do was to produce

an issue and then sell it for as much money as possible.

And it's what she would have wanted.

Well, to get back to the question...

..which I asked some time ago.

If you read your invitation, it would have said...

Which is a shame, because George Osborne might have fallen on it.

He did a bit of blubbing, though. Here's a picture of him.

Looking rather upset.

It showed he was human, didn't it?

I think he just stopped blinking.

LAUGHTER

Big screens relayed the coverage of the funeral to the British

people all across the land.

LAUGHTER

Gyles, of course, was a prominent figure in Margaret Thatcher's

reign, which were very different times.

It's difficult for people who weren't alive then to believe

that scenes like this were a daily occurrence.

LAUGHTER

That makes you feel a bit repulsed to look at that? Does it?

GYLES: Not really.

I don't think would cause the people from Operation Yewtree to call on me.

Do you?

LAUGHTER

-Who didn't go to the funeral?

-A lot of people didn't go.

It was on a Wednesday, and quite a lot of people have jobs.

Not as many as before, but...

GYLES: Glenda Jackson didn't go. JOE: She had a Zumba class.

What protests were expected at the funeral?

Oh, it was going to be huge.

Again, if you read the press,

you'd have thought there was going to be the Poll Tax riots.

And then, when there aren't, they say, "Look! Ha! There are no riots.

"People couldn't even be bothered to turn up.

"That just shows you."

There is a great moment where they thought something had happened.

They said, "Someone's thrown something!"

And then they found out it was a flower.

So, apart from Prime Minister's Questions,

what else didn't happen at the House of Commons?

Big Ben. Big Ben didn't chime.

They didn't want Big Ben going "ding dong". Yes.

They thought it would be disrespectful.

And in very poor taste.

APPLAUSE

That's right, yeah. Big Ben didn't bong.

For the first time since Churchill's death.

And, staying with "ding dongs", who's making a large

chunk of the money from the sales of The Witch is Dead?

Andrew Lloyd Webber.

-That's right.

-Which is...as a die-hard... Sorry, a bad phrase.

As a...a...dyed-in-the-wool, em, Conservative

that must be a touch embarrassing

to be making money out of this protest song.

Indeed. The cast recording from his production of The Wizard Of Oz

is selling as many as the 1939 MGM film version.

The original song was sung by the Munchkins -

slightly creepy-looking with goblin-like features.

Lord Webber was present at the funeral.

Now, staying with funerals and cemeteries for a moment...

-Yes, let's.

-..what is this man doing?

Is he visiting the Dignitas clinic?

GYLES: Or is he bringing his wife back from it?

LAUGHTER

Or are they on their way to the cremation?

Is it a boil-in-the-bag person?

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Now, there's a very good reason he's in a bag.

He's in fact an ultra-Orthodox Jew,

who cannot come into contact with the remains of a dead person

and that includes flying through the airspace of a cemetery.

So this was the ceremonial funeral of Margaret Thatcher,

which dominated the media on Wednesday.

At the service in St Paul's, David Cameron gave the second

reading from the Gospel of St John.

He told the congregation...

And then he started reading from the Gospel of St John.

Lady Thatcher's former press secretary Bernard Ingham

paid the biggest tribute possible

by wearing his full, ceremonial eyebrows.

Ian, Joe, take a look at this.

Oh, that's One Direction.

Oh.

JOE: Vince falling over a cable.

That's people falling in love with One Direction.

Vince...

not falling in love.

He was asked about them at a press conference, is that right?

I think so, yeah. Well, no he wasn't.

I think he wasn't and then he just started talking about them

and no-one knew why.

He started having a go about how much they'd earned last year, I think,

which, clearly, is a little bit jealous cos his looks are fading.

Eh.

So what did he actually say? You sort of touched upon it.

Did he say it was immoral how much they earn?

And, eh...and then he, em...

I think he just sort of went, "I don't know where I am."

LAUGHTER

Yeah, yeah, he was at an Institute of Directors event

on wealth inequality

and he seemed to agree with criticism that the £25 million

earnings of boy band One Direction were "mad."

Although it was all a bit of a muddle.

Institute Director Simon Walker got their name wrong

and called them "New Direction."

And then, according to the Times...

It's easily done. I often get Vince Cable confused with

Gunther von Hagens, the bloke who does autopsies and makes ice cream.

LAUGHTER

In other financial news, what have French president Francois Hollande's

cabinet ministers been ordered to reveal?

GYLES: Ooh. Their Swiss bank account numbers because

one of them was discovered to have a stash of booty

in a secret Swis-sh bank account.

-Swish.

-Swish.

-Fur-lined vaults.

-Yeah.

-Flunkies at every door.

-Can you imagine?

-Yeah, exactly.

-They do tax avoidance properly.

-Yeah.

I mean this is just, sort of, corporations avoiding it.

-This is individuals.

-Yes.

This was actually the minister in charge of the budget, in charge

of raising tax, has an offshore bank account and pays no tax himself.

I mean, I hope our cabinet are taking note...

-cos this is how it's done properly.

-Absolutely.

They were told to declare all their personal wealth and assets.

Michele Delaunay, minister for the elderly,

declared over five million euros including property

and art collection, jewellery and watches

while the housing minister, Cecile Duflot, admitted she owned...

Meanwhile, what's special about this shirt?

JOE: It's worn by a really cool dude.

It's bought by Datta Phuge of India.

It's gold. Actual gold.

That's right, it's made out of gold worth 250,000.

GYLES: Why is a third of the sleeve missing?

LAUGHTER

JOE: Is it...? Do you know by any chance, is it machine-washable?

Because if it's not, there's no point.

You'd be up and down from the drycleaners, cost you a fortune.

-He's also been given the nickname "The Gold Man" cos...

-Why?

LAUGHTER

According to BBC News, Datta Phuge is obsessed by precious metal.

Or a high-profile sexual offender.

LAUGHTER

So...

We mentioned One Direction earlier, didn't we?

In other music news, how has singer Justin Bieber caused offence?

Anne Frank's...he visited Anne Frank's house

and was surprised that she wasn't there.

Em...and then wrote in the visitor's book that

if she'd been alive at this point, she'd probably be a Belieber.

-That's what he calls his followers I think.

-That's right.

But I have been round Anne Frank's house and I walked around it.

At no point did I think, "You know what this place lacks?

"A Justin Bieber poster."

It hasn't been a great couple of months for Bieber.

His pet monkey was stuck in quarantine in Germany and when

he was due to perform at the O2 in London,

he turned up two hours late, much to the anger of his fans.

I'm totally and utterly disgusted. We're all fans and now we hate him.

LAUGHTER

This is Vince Cable's attack on the earnings of One Direction -

that's the band One Direction,

not to be confused with the government, no direction.

According to the Guardian...

..and once you deduct Simon Cowell's cut,

they're still getting just above the minimum wage.

Meanwhile, Justin Bieber has been slated for suggesting

Anne Frank would have been a Belieber.

To be fair, she may well have been a fan of Bieber's music,

although she'd have probably kept the volume down.

-And so to round two - the Picture Spin Quiz.

-Whey.

Now, fingers on buzzers, teams.

BELL RINGS

JOE: Eh, is this where a hotel is hiring out a fish for the evening?

LAUGHTER

I might still be dreaming.

Em, I believe you can hire a goldfish if you're...

Yeah, I might have made this up.

What, if you're lonely?

-I think so.

-Yeah.

This is the news that lonely guests at a hotel in Cheshire

can now rent a goldfish called Happy.

APPLAUSE

I think it's been going for a while. Imagine what that goldfish has seen.

LAUGHTER

-It doesn't matter - he won't remember.

-Thank God.

That's why it's the ideal pet for a hotel.

GYLES: What's that over his shoulder? That could be...

-That could be a gun.

-Yeah.

Or even worse, it could be a frying pan hidden in his holdall.

He is going up there to toss that goldfish.

Oh, well. It's the companionship for him.

You're right. It's an unfortunate use of phrase, I agree.

But if you ask at reception, they know what you mean.

How much does Happy cost?

£10-a-night. That's an outrageous sum of money, isn't it? £5.

I think it's going to be a fiver.

Indeed it is. £5-a-stay or he's free

if you can throw a hoop round a skittle.

What does Happy offer the guests?

-Oh, please.

-The full package.

Synchronised swimming.

Which is easy to do if there's only one of you.

He's a good listener.

"My wife doesn't understand me."

Actually, you're sort of on the right track there.

APPLAUSE

According to Jeff Riley, who runs the Happy Guest Hotel Lodge...

Paying £5 for a goldfish is a slightly strange thing to do when

you're staying in a hotel but don't worry,

to spare you any embarrassment at reception it comes up

on your bill under the generic term "porn".

The fish is called Happy,

unless you get hungry in the middle of the night,

in which case it's called sushi.

Fingers on buzzers, teams.

BUZZER

-It's Eric Pickles.

-I thought it was a boiled egg.

LAUGHTER

They're changing the planning laws and people are very unhappy

about it, or some people are.

It's to sort of try and encourage the building industry

but you'd no longer have to... Is it about the planning laws?

Indeed it is.

There's a giant conservatory in the background, you see that?

No, that's his fridge.

LAUGHTER

So, yeah, you can build up to 25 foot or something.

You don't need planning permission any more.

That's right. It's the news that Eric Pickles has to work out

what to change about this home extension legislation

to get it through the Commons. What was the initial plan?

They would do away with the red tape. You could just extend your

conservatory. It could be as big as you like,

and this would energise the building market.

This is one of those typical Coalition not-thought-through bills.

And someone said, "What about your neighbours?

"What if they don't want the whole of the garden as a conservatory?"

And they went, "Oh, we didn't think about that."

I know him quite well because we became members of Parliament on the

same day but the public liked him.

LAUGHTER

So he's still there, whereas I'm not.

That's a shame.

Did the public throw you out or did you go of your own accord?

No, I'm afraid the public spoke and, in my case,

in no uncertain terms.

And I was tempted to go back but my wife said to me,

"Listen to the people, they have spoken, they don't like you."

I've taken it on the chin. Of course, he has more to take it on...

LAUGHTER

Didn't happen to him.

Who would like to see Bob Ford, Mayor of Toronto,

and an Eric Pickles lookalike walking down a corridor?

Yes, please.

There's people that are for it and people that are against it,

that's why we're having it. Excuse me, guys.

BLEEP

In other terrible planning news, how did one resident in China

ensure he had hot water throughout the winter?

Bought a kettle.

How I do it.

Well, he's the only resident in his block of flats

still fighting a proposed demolition.

Let's see how successful that plan was.

LAUGHTER

What a nutter.

On the subject of plumbing nightmares,

who can spot what's gone wrong here?

And... And here?

I have that problem with every toilet door.

Let's see the next one.

And finally, here.

It's actually quite clever though, isn't it?

-Somebody's thinking.

-Improvised.

-Yeah, absolutely.

This is the rejection of Eric Pickles' plans to double the size

of home extensions.

According to The Mirror...

Well, so long as it's an even number,

they're still heading in the right direction.

Time, now, for the odd one out round - one between you this week.

Warwick Davis, a pair of mating tortoises,

a potato and Brian Blessed.

BUZZER

They've all hosted this show...

..apart from the potato.

They've all had sex with that tortoise in the top right.

Hang on a minute.

Oh, sorry, not the potato.

Ooh. Yes. You could eat them all but only one if you're a vegetarian.

LAUGHTER

Think of Brian's voice.

Boom! Boom!

That's Basil Brush you're thinking of there.

-Give us a clue.

-What have I done?

You're all in Star Wars.

-Oh, you've all been in sci-fi.

-You've all been in Star Wars.

Brian's been in...the other one...

-Flash Gordon.

-Flash Gordon.

The odd one out is obviously...

the potato.

-No.

-The odd one out's Brian Blessed cos he was in Flash Gordon,

-not Star Wars.

-That's the point.

I don't know if that's the right answer. Is that the right answer?

You're wrong. You're all wrong.

-It's the tortoises.

-Yeah.

The one in front is blind and the one

behind is pushing him all the way to...

LAUGHTER

They have all appeared in Star Wars, apart from the mating pair

-of tortoises who were in Jurassic Park.

-Oh.

Anyone know what part they played in Jurassic Park?

Did they provide the catering?

Did they play Jeff Goldblum?

The screams of the velociraptors in the film Jurassic Park were made

-by a pair of mating tortoises...

-Caw.

..as revealed this week by sound engineer Gary Rydstrom,

who told an interviewer...

So here is the sound of the tortoises having sex.

GROANING

LAUGHTER

GROANING

So the other one was me, of course.

I was in Star Wars, not just one film but two.

Um...

Sound excited!

LAUGHTER

-Do you know, in America they'd have given that a prolonged round of applause?

-Yeah.

-A woop-woo and everything.

-Yes, how nice, that is a nice and lovely...

Don't do it now, it's just sarcastic.

Brian Blessed provided the voice of Boss Nass in

Star Wars Episode One - The Phantom Menace.

Did he rule over a tribe of hard-of-hearing people?

The special effects company behind Star Wars, Industrial Light And Magic,

managed to sneak a potato into a sequence of The Empire Strikes Back.

According to effects virtuoso Ken Ralston, who was behind the stunt -

And Ken of course later found fame as Head Chef at Findus.

They've all appeared in Star Wars, apart from a pair of

mating tortoises.

George Lucas picked me out for the part of Wicket, the leading Ewok in Return Of The Jedi.

I've also had the honour of playing Yoda, the wise and powerful

Jedi Master. Though, not wise enough to predict,

-IMITATES YODA:

-In Vodafone ads, selling out I will be.

Time now for the Missing Words round.

This week's guest publication is the ESB Newsletter, bringing you news

from the Earthworm Society in Britain.

Unfortunately, even if you tear the newsletter in half, it still keeps going.

And we start with -

Men who are too handsome ordered to what?

JOE: Grow beards.

APPLAUSE

Take a fish home.

We don't know.

Leave Saudi Arabia.

According to The Telegraph, the unwelcome visitors to Saudi Arabia

were approached by the religious police,

with their traditional line of "Allah, Allah, Allah, what's all this then?"

APPLAUSE

Next, small brown-nosed worm is what?

Bit of a looker.

Is alternative to goldfish at the

Happy Guest House, Cheshire.

Is promoted above his contemporaries.

The answer is, it's cosmopolitan.

According to the ESB Newsletter, it's been described by scientists as

"a cosmopolitan worm",

as it's found on both sides of the Atlantic.

And because it loves reading about beauty, fashion and sex.

Next, Ed Miliband has what?

LAUGHTER

Nice worm.

Caravan in Newport.

Has broken wrist.

-That's right.

-Oh, well done!

-Is exactly right.

I knew there was something interesting about him.

He broke his wrist on holiday in Devon...

That's the line he's taking, anyway.

At first he thought the pain in his wrist was because he'd been too vigorous

when waving his brother goodbye.

Next, woman used a quiche to what?

Improve a salad.

Lure Boris down a back alley.

I think we'll - let's move on before

we start examining all the meanings of that sentence.

-The answer is, assault a police officer.

-Ah!

And finally, what has

a brain, five hearts and breathes

through its skin?

The Labour back bench.

-It's a type of worm.

-It is, yeah.

It's a superworm!

-Superworm?

-Superworm! You could do the voice.

If you were on a railway carriage that was

hanging off the edge of a cliff,

and you called for a superhero, and Superworm turned up...

Yaay! Oh, my god, I'm going to see this movie!

I'd like to be in this movie.

-Are you all right?

-No.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

The truth is, I'm on drugs.

So yes, it's the earthworm.

Indeed it is an earthworm.

The article also tells us

that earthworms produce their own

weight in casts.

In case you're wondering, the cast of an earthworm is,

much like the cast of Hollyoaks, shit.

So, the final scores...

-Are...

-Well, that's one production you won't be in!

Joe and Ian have six points, while Gyles and Paul have seven.

APPLAUSE

-But before we go, there's just time for the caption competition.

-Ohh!

Oh, look. Do you know, let's not.

-Let's just sit back and enjoy this picture.

-Yeah, exactly.

Let's not ruin it with any protest, just love it.

What about "Mouse celebrates spring by tickling bum with pollen."

APPLAUSE

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

and Joe Wilkinson, Paul Merton and Gyles Brandreth.

And I leave you with news that John Kerry

and William Hague can hardly contain their excitement at meeting me.

At a factory in Enfield,

a man models the world's most pointless hairnet.

And as Piers Morgan's success in the States continues to grow,

he moves his production company into a new office.

Goodnight.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd