Episode 8 Have I Got News for You

APPLAUSE

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

I'm Alexander Armstrong

In the news this week... Following the tedium of last week's

Queen's Speech, a BBC reporter reveals what Prince Philip

would far rather do in the House of Lords.

Go in there and basically go... IMITATES GUNSHOTS

LAUGHTER

1980s out-takes from All Creatures Great And Small

show that inappropriate behaviour at the BBC was more widespread

than previously thought.

It'd be great if he pulled somebody out, though, wouldn't it?

In Pyongyang, North Koreans react to the news that Kim Jong-un

agrees with David Cameron on gay marriage.

And Virgin Airlines launch a shocking new campaign to stop

male passengers fantasising about air hostesses.

On Paul's team tonight is an unashamedly traditional

Eton-educated Conservative MP who was born in 1969 -

at the age of 50.

Please welcome, Jacob Rees-Mogg.

APPLAUSE

And with Ian tonight is a comedian who says she wishes she knew

more about politics but knows she doesn't like the Conservatives.

A bit like David Cameron.

Please welcome, Josie Long.

APPLAUSE

And we start with the bigger stories of the week.

Paul and Jacob, take a look at this.

Oh, yes. Ben Turpin there - cross-eyed comedian, famous.

That's Lord Feldman - perhaps famous or not famous for saying something.

Those are the members of the Tory Associations, I think.

-JACOB: One of them's a friend of mine, actually.

-Really? Which one?

Edmond Costello. He's a very good egg. Very good egg.

So, yes. Somebody has apparently called these people swivel-eyed loons,

-but it's difficult to know who has said this...

-Who didn't?

-Lord Feldman said he didn't say it.

-He absolutely didn't.

But he's the only one that people think did.

Yes, it was definitely not Lord Feldman that made the remark to Times and Telegraph journalists.

There were reporters who heard it who say it was.

-JACOB: No, they don't. They're...

-No, they're sticking to their story.

They're sticking to their story, but they're protecting their source, so they're not saying that

anybody in particular said that the Tories had a strabismus.

LAUGHTER

Tell us about strabismus, Jacob.

Well, a strabismus is when peoples' eyes go off in different directions.

One goes UKIP, the other, Tory.

-I would...

-"Different" direction.

-I wouldn't have put it like that.

It's a... You know, it's a word for boss-eyed, and those various eye conditions that

some people have, but Conservatives almost invariably do not have.

LAUGHTER

ONE MAN APPLAUDS

Thank you!

I don't know any loonies on the right of British politics.

JOSIE: You don't think that Nigel Farage is insane?

No, I don't. I think Nigel Farage is broadly a good egg.

Nigel Farage is, like, the fevered, wet dream of Jeremy Clarkson.

That is all he is.

I'm not sure I quite understand.

And what's Cameron done to smooth things over?

He's written us all a letter, saying that members

of the Conservative Party are marvellous, and I agree with that.

If any of you are members of the Conservative Party here, you're marvellous.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Wahey!

And the rest of you are probably marvellous too. Everyone's marvellous.

Yes, he wrote...

Adding, "Not in a nancy way, obviously."

A lot of them are upset about the gay marriage bill, Jacob.

-You voted against gay marriage.

-Yes, the line of the Catholic Church.

-OK, you took the Catholic whip, rather than...

-Indeed, absolutely.

LAUGHTER

Did anyone hear what Lord Tebbit had to say in an interview

-with the Big Issue this week?

-Yes, but it doesn't bear repeating.

-Well, it really does, actually.

-No, it doesn't.

We've got the quote...

It is a speculative concern, and it is unhelpful.

Like, he could equally go,

"What if a dragon shows up and steals the Queen?" You know?

It's not helpful.

JACOB: His problem - his concern - is one that constitutionally will not

arise from the act that's just gone through the House of Commons.

Well, I hope he's watching, cos that will put his mind at rest.

While we're on Norman Tebbit, do you want to hear his theories

-about how gay marriage might affect inheritance tax?

-Yes.

-He said...

And all these years, people have thought Norman's reactionary(!)

Extraordinary free-thinking liberal.

What did the Conservative MP for Aldershot - Gerald Howarth - warn us about?

-Aggressive homosexuals.

-That's exactly right.

He said...

What next? Bumming on the national curriculum?

That's going back to the 19th century.

What might the House of Lords do?

They're threatening to have a vote on the second reading, which the

House of Lords very rarely does on bills that come up from the Commons.

That's right. They might block the bill's passage. Who's going to be...?

LAUGHTER

In a week of controversial statements,

what has Penelope Keith been saying this week?

She's addressed the housing problems.

It's kind of incredibly mean to be blaming the housing crisis on older women.

Flibbertigibbet 60-year-olds running off. Phwoar! Yes!

-That's exactly right.

-As soon as the children have grown up, they look around them

and think, "Oh, you're quite boring."

This is...personal experience.

You mean you get that at home as well?

That's right. This was in Country Life magazine.

She was complaining about middle-aged women contributing

to rising house prices by divorcing and living on their own.

Well, watch Pointless, of course.

-Do you need your own home to do that?

-Oh, yes. It is advisable.

What did we learn this week about men with big muscles?

-They can lift heavy things.

-Yes.

-Yes?!

-No, no.

This is research published by some university somewhere,

that said, "Men with high upper body strength are likely to be

"more right wing, because they pursue their own self interest.

"Weedy men, on the other hand, are more concerned with

-"the welfare of others."

-I think I disprove this rule, personally.

-Let's see your biceps, Jacob.

I don't know that I've got anything like that.

-Of course, you are a man of the people, aren't you?

-Absolutely. Very much so.

Here's when Andrew Neil sprang a question about social class on you.

I would say, sort of, upper middle rather than upper.

Well, I'm certainly not part of the aristocracy. That's definitely true.

-So, we'll settle for upper middle?

-I'm a man of the people.

"Vox populi, vox Dei."

But, Alexander, aren't you even posher than I am?

I seem to remember reading somewhere that you are descended from William the Conqueror.

which I think makes you a cousin of my wife.

-That's nice.

-So...

-We're family.

So...we're family. May I call you cousin?

APPLAUSE

That's nice.

-Yes...

-I don't think I'm even related to my own parents.

Yes, this is the gay marriage bill.

The move to legalise same sex marriage has outraged many

Conservatives, who believe that marriage

should be between a man and a woman, or several women if you're Boris.

Also, this week, a US committee

criticised the amount of tax Apple pays.

As a company, Apple has always

prided itself on encouraging their creatives,

especially those in the accounts department.

Ed Miliband has attacked Google for its tax arrangements.

Interestingly, if you type Ed Miliband into Google,

it suggests, "Did you mean David?"

OK. Ian and Josie, take a look at this.

That's the next Prime Minister.

Oh, God, please no.

And that's Michael Gove.

Head teachers have proposed a vote of no confidence in him

because he's appalling at his job, and they all hate him.

Yes, this is at the National Association of Head Teachers

Conference in Birmingham.

But he made an effort. Here he is,

asking what it is that's making head teachers so stressful.

I think the first thing that we can do is to engage the profession

and to find out what are the drivers of the stress that you record.

Erm... And I think...

LAUGHTER

I think that...

I think that you're one of them, Michael.

Yes. Teachers say they are getting stressed out

because he's introducing far too many new initiatives,

and that it's like trying to...

A few cheerleaders on It's A Knockout

know what that might have been like.

Jacob, you were quite forward as child.

How old were you when you wrote your first letter to the Financial Times?

I don't know that I've written a letter to the Financial Times.

I was told you were 12. We have a picture of you

here, look. There we are. 12-year-old Jacob.

Aww.

-Yes, thank you.

-OK.

Did you write a leader for the Financial Times?

I-I-I didn't, no.

I did something slightly different -

I went to shareholders' meetings

but I didn't write letters to the Financial Times.

- At 12 years old? - Yes.

- And how did that come about?

I had been given a little bit of money,

birthday present, by my father...

- Oh, and you didn't buy a bike, you bought shares in...

Yes.

When we say, "A little bit of money,"

are we talking six figures here?

No, no, no, no.

No, no. I think it was £150. It was not...

But in 1890, that was quite...

LAUGHTER

Can you identify the third actor in this scene from a 1995 film

starring Christopher Lee and Robert Hardy,

set in a boarding School and called A Feast At Midnight?

Why do they call you "Raptor"?

You know perfectly well, head master.

I...

Oh, yes. You mean the film The Dinosaur.

BUZZER

It's Michael.

It's Jacob.

It's not... No. It's obviously Michael.

I knew he'd done that, actually.

-Did you? He's quite good.

-Yes.

-With just a glance.

-It's amazing, isn't it?

-He's quite good?

-That's a good glance.

Look at that. He's very impressive.

How come...?

He could have had an alternative career, had he wanted.

Oh, how we wish.

Yes, this is Education Secretary Michael Gove,

who was given a vote of no confidence

by the National Association of Head Teachers.

When asked by the Mail if he wanted to be Prime Minister,

Mr Gove replied...

Mind you, that hasn't stopped him from being Education Minister.

A ten-year-old girl has written to the Education Secretary,

pointing out that, in a recent exam paper,

punctuation was used incorrectly on three occasions,

proving what we've all suspected -

Michael Gove doesn't know his colon from his elbow.

And so to round two, the picture spin quiz.

Fingers on buzzers, teams.

BUZZER

Oh, yes. The Church of England

have agreed that swans can marry helicopters.

They thought the issue of the wings and the rotary blades

was incompatible. One's going like that, one's going like that -

two different worlds.

But, no, they've found on that does that simultaneously,

so they're both happy. Is this the priest

-who's got an organ growing out of his head?

-No.

This is the news that swan named Whooper has

-fallen in love with a helicopter.

-No, it hasn't.

-No, it has.

Does anyone know where this great romance has unfolded?

-Yeah, in the books of JK Rowling.

-No...

The day the swan fell in love with a helicopter.

I know, yes. When the swan was born,

the first thing he saw was the helicopter and thought that was his mum,

is that right? And they're going to get married

so they don't have to pay inheritance tax.

It happened at Les Mielles Golf Club in Jersey,

which is where Whooper lives.

According to the times...

Gold digger.

How do we know this is true love, according to the Mail Online?

Because it's not.

It's completely made up rubbish.

What does it mean, "He only..."?!

We've got a picture.

That's just a swan flying past a helicopter.

That's not proving that the two of them are in love!

It's not a very romantic picture, is it?

You cold, cold man.

I think that's tabloid intrusion.

They might be sucked up into the updraft.

If you're lucky!

A swan's natural mate in nature is A - another swan,

B - Ronnie Corbett,

C - a helicopter.

-There's always Zeus, isn't there?

-Zeus, yeah.

Helen of Troy was born out of swan's egg.

I thought you were going to say Swansea for a minute.

She's a Cardiff girl.

IMITATES DAVID ATTENBOROUGH:

The helicopter lands, aware that his mate is somewhere in the field.

As the blades...circle around, the swan picks up the scent of diesel.

And it comes loping out of the aircraft hanger...

and straight into the blades of the helicopter.

Yes. According to the Express, the pilot is so terrified

the besotted bird will fly into the rotors...

Why might Whooper have more luck dating a Prague tube train?

Because a Prague tube train's more his type.

Not so... It won't go off the rails.

Is that where most people fall in love?

The company that runs the underground there

is proposing a singles-only carriage...

He's already got a helicopter to himself.

Why does he need to go and share a train with a bunch of other people.

He's in there with that.

Why is no-one finding love in a Guildford library?

Cos they've closed it down.

No, because according to the Telegraph...

One man came as Mr Darcy, one man came as Rhett Butler

but unfortunately, the convincing-looking

Stig of the Dump turned out to be a urine-soaked tramp.

Eh, so fingers on buzzers, teams.

BUZZER

-It's about meat pies setting off smoke alarms.

-You're very close.

Am I? Meat pies, Yorkshire puddings, smoke alarms, fire alarms.

-Fire alarms.

-Creme brulee.

Creme brul...argh!

It's the news that a spate of Merseyside fires has been

started by Eccles cakes.

Yes, I should explain, Jacob, Eccles, it's a place in the north.

According to James Murphy,

the watch manager at Crosby Fire Station... Good evening.

Yeah, in a nuclear reactor.

Anyone guess what the headline was in the Liverpool Echo?

Heat it.

AUDIENCE GROANS

Don't groan, that's brilliant. Journalism at its finest.

Another scandal, this time a little bit closer to Jacob's home,

to do with caviar.

Oh, yes, I did see that. Um, it was...

Luckily, your butler brought you the paper.

No, no, they did some DNA testing on caviar in some very smart

restaurant and it turned out they were being sold a less good

quality caviar but nobody could spot the difference.

You know I've come on here because you kindly sent me

Creme Eggs cos I'd said I liked them.

It occurred to me afterwards, I should...

God, I didn't think you had to be bribed to come.

I should have said I liked caviar

because then I might have got a pot of caviar which would have been...

When I was on Desert Island Discs, which was a very long time ago...

-Were you somebody's luxury?

-Yeah.

He was somebody's luxury.

APPLAUSE

-They said what's your luxury and I chose Frosties...

-Hmm.

..cos I lived on them at that stage and Frosties sent me

a year's supply and my wife said, "You're an idiot.

"Why didn't you say BMW?"

What were you going to have on your Frosties?

Yeah, it's got no milk on a desert island...

-Coconut milk.

-Ah.

How do you get into the coconut?

With a knife I've fashioned from my own tibia.

Yes, this is the warning not to heat up Eccles cakes in your microwave.

The Eccles cake warning came from a fire station manager

in Liverpool, although the most common

cause of a fire in on Merseyside is static electricity from shell suits.

Meanwhile, cheap,

inferior caviar is being passed off as top-grade Sevruga caviar.

At last, a food scandal that affects us all.

-Or is it just you and me?

-The two of us.

OK, fingers on buzzers, teams.

BUZZER

Ah, now.

I think this is...is this about the guy that's brought out

a guide on how you can quickly sort of subvert these numbers...

-Exactly right.

-That's exactly what it is?

And he's worked it out and he's published this very useful information

so if you're phoning somebody like, I don't know, BT or whoever it is,

he pressed these numbers and it gets you through quickly,

-saves you loads of time. Is that the guy?

-It is exactly right.

The man is called Nigel Clarke from Fawkham, Kent.

Did he used to be the speaking clock?

-Can you skip the music?

-You can skip...

So when they put Pachelbel's Canon on...

-That's the only reason why I phone.

-What?

I only just phone them for the music.

When I get through to somebody, I say,

"You've just ruined the song, thank you."

Confuses them.

If you dial up Aviva Insurance

and you're placed in a queue for longer than five minutes,

he's discovered that if you press option three,

according to the guide, you can switch the music to jazz and swing.

If you prefer pop, press four, and Jacob, for industrial dubstep,

-it's five.

-I must confess I've never heard of that.

-No.

-Mm.

-I suspect they've probably never heard of you either.

-No, no.

Why might this man have a similarly high boredom threshold to

that of Nigel Clarke?

Is he trying to invent the mobile telephone as it appeared in 1984?

He is Neil Brittlebank and according to the Sun...

Mr Brittlebank told the Metro...

-Yes.

-At which point, the reporter put one in each pocket

and jumped into a canal.

Michael Hammett of the British Brick Society said...

Because some collections of bricks can actually be quite dull.

And finally, the Daily Mail printed some pictures of inventions

that never caught on which are part of a new collection.

-Would you like to see what those are?

-Yeah, absolutely.

JACOB: That's a pram in the war, isn't it, with a gas mask,

-effectively.

-A gas-resistant pram, absolutely right.

Also air-resistant by the look of it.

Didn't people have gas masks for an air raid so that person's gone,

"Ooh, it's an air raid, I'll just take the baby out."

And there's this.

That is a piano specially designed for the bed-bound.

Well, it's crushing her. No wonder she can't get out of the bed.

They should put that on the Chopin channel.

AUDIENCE GROANS

I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

And finally, this. Do you want to know what that's for?

Is it for those who couldn't afford the mascot that came with Rolls-Royces?

-A Spirit Of Ecstasy?

-Eh, no, it was used in Paris for picking up drunks.

One was used this week on the M1 for George Michael.

AUDIENCE GROANS

Did anyone see how the Sun covered the

-George-Michael-falling-out-of-a-car story?

-Yes, absolutely.

Yes, this is a new guide which helps you bypass automated

menus on the phone.

The dialling shortcut to report a water leak to

Lloyds TSB Insurance is...

To buy a television from Argos, it's...

And if you've bought a faulty microphone from Currys,

it's one, two, one, two, one, two.

Right, time now for the Odd One Out round.

Ian and Josie, your four are...

Energy Minister Greg Barker and his sausage dog Otto,

Clint Eastwood,

Jacob Rees-Mogg

and a customer in McDonald's in Cork.

They're all lovers of McDonald's.

Jacob in particular.

JACOB REES-MOGG: Yes, absolutely. Jolly good stuff.

OK, I know that you are 100% in favour of privatising

the Postal Service.

So if we can find out that two of these other people

are in favour of really overpriced...

-So, what we are saying is he is a Tory.

-Yeah.

-JACOB REES-MOGG: I may know what it is.

-Oh, tell me.

I was upbraided at Lords last week for putting my feet on the seats.

The dog of Greg Barker had a cushion warmed in the microwave

in his ministry and I don't know about the other two.

In McDonald's in Cork did somebody put their feet on the counter

or on a chair or was thrown out for not wearing any shoes?

You are on the right track. Chairs is what it is all about.

-Clint had a conversation with a chair.

-That's one.

-You were ticked off by stewards.

-A steward. Just the one.

It didn't take a bevy of them.

What were you doing putting your feet on a seat?

Well, they're quite cramped. There's not a lot of space.

Wasn't there an urchin somewhere...?

LAUGHTER

Who do you think is the odd one out?

OK, let's go for the obvious one - Jacob.

No.

-It's the customer in Cork.

-It's absolutely not that either.

It's the bloke with the dog.

It's the dog because Greg Barker didn't do

anything to do with seats but the dog did it.

You're absolutely right. The dog had a cushion.

JOSIE LONG: I'm really sorry. I thought I had it.

The McDonald's customer in Cork found himself in a rather

embarrassing predicament when he got stuck in a baby highchair.

There's a picture of him.

There he is. McMoron.

The man was finally rescued but not before he had crushed his McNuggets.

The Hollywood legend that is Clint Eastwood.

What did Clint say he was thinking behind this ad-libbed speech

-to an empty chair?

-The president was not effectively holding office.

It was as though there was no-one in government.

According to the Telegraph, Clint said it was supposed to be...

He doesn't even know what his name is any more.

Jacob, what of yours was longer than anyone else's in Parliament?

LAUGHTER

-Floccinaucinihilipilification, I've got a feeling that is.

-Yes.

Meaning, of course, the estimation of something as valueless.

-That's absolutely right, yes.

-It was the longest word in Hansard.

It has since been beaten by the length of the "boo"

whenever George Osborne starts to speak.

Jacob Rees-Mogg also stirred controversy

when it was revealed that he and the King of Spain

had their own special loo to sit on in Claridges.

Jacob explained...

-JACOB REES-MOGG: That's pretty true.

-Adding...

I don't know if you have heard but being a member of the public

is not strictly speaking a disability.

-Oh, dear. Yes.

-Paul and Jacob, here are yours.

Oh, it's our turn, is it?

Grandpa from The Munsters,

an owl's face,

Dan Brown

and Ali the turtle.

The owl does look like he's got his face on upside down.

Ali the turtle, I don't... Dan Brown has got another book out.

He wrote The Da Vinci Code.

What is interesting about the owl? That's a good clue.

He's meant to look like his head is upside down but is that...?

-Upside down is a good tack.

-A good way to look at it.

Ah, yes, cos bats hang upside down, don't they?

So Grandpa as a vampire would go to sleep upside down.

JOSIE LONG: I know that Dan Brown hangs upside down.

-That is his cure for writer's block.

-Is right, yeah.

The turtle is odd one out because it had its back

-opened and weights put in so it would sink.

-Absolutely right. Yes.

They all hang upside down. Well done.

APPLAUSE

They all hang upside down apart from Ali the turtle,

who has been fitted with a special belt so she doesn't turn

upside down whilst in water.

Do you know why she was turning upside down?

She got an infection, I think. Got a bit of air in her back.

She was hit by a boat. An air bubble, yeah. An air bubble

under her shell. Using a scuba diver's weight belt,

the Weymouth Sealife Centre has found a way to keep her upright.

Experiments are now being carried out to see

if the same technology will, in fact, work for George Michael.

The marine biologist responsible says he got the idea

when disposing of an unwanted puppy at Christmas.

Dan Brown has revealed that to cure writer's block he hangs

upside down and after reading one paragraph of Dan Brown

I usually want to hang myself the right way up.

Dan Brown's new book Inferno is now in the shops.

According to the Sunday Times...

But not one of them has been able to translate it into decent English.

Time now for the missing words round.

This week's guest publication is Psychic Today.

I have to say I really did enjoy next September's issue.

And we start with...

-It's not jail, is it?

-No.

-Good.

Space, coincidentally,

being a place where you really do need to tie your kangaroo down.

Next.

Apparently he was in the pub one lunchtime and drink some beer

and then was like, "Ooh." Started going all funny.

He went into a church and saw a swan getting married to a helicopter.

"I'm never having any more of that again," he said.

Signed the pledge.

Ben Fogle reckons his drink may have been spiked by Russian agents,

who could have mistaken him for CIA spy Ryan Fogle.

Sounds far-fetched until you learn that Russian TV has just

asked Ryan Fogle to present Crufts.

And finally...

JACOB REES-MOGG: There's a James Bond film about that

but I can't remember the ones that come out. She draws the pack.

-Live And Let Die.

-Live And Let Die.

-Can you sing the theme tune?

-I'm not going to do that now, no.

-Oh, go on.

-No, no, no, no.

Modernising Tory party? Sing the theme tune.

It is...

-The two of cups?

-JACOB REES-MOGG: And what does that mean?

The two of cups is the second most powerful card in the tarot deck.

Just below the ace of crap.

HE MOUTHS

And so, the final scores are

Ian and Josie on four

but Paul and Jacob on six.

APPLAUSE

Well done.

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

Rural communities more relaxed about gay marriage

than people who live in towns.

And I leave you with news that

midway through her Eurovision performance,

Bonnie Tyler glances towards the wings

in search of a supportive gesture from her family.

Before leaping off a cliff,

a group of lemmings decide to enjoy one last meal.

And in Liverpool, animal rights activists complain that John Bishop

has forced his dog to undergo unnecessary veterinary procedures.

Good night.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd