Episode 11 Have I Got News for You

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

I'm Mel Giedroyc. - I'm Ray Winstone.

I'm Richard Osman. - I'm Kathy Burke.

I'm Jo Brand. In the news this week,

backstage at Strictly Come Dancing, Bruce Forsyth's family

watch him finally get to the end of an autocue link.

LAUGHTER

There's evidence that whilst Nigella Lawson was on drugs

she may have made a few mistakes with her burrito recipe.

And in Cyprus,

after his meeting with the finance minister is cancelled,

Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls has two hours to

kill before his flight home.

DANCE MUSIC PLAYS

This is the funeral of Margaret Thatcher, and the man of the moment,

who has had a haircut by the look of it.

Oh! LAUGHTER

A man with clear political vision.

I did think that about halfway through.

Having started off thinking, "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 choir, we've got the army,

"might as well use them, really."

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."

People like you, Ian. I bought your magazine this week.

Page after page after page.

-You adored...

-That's how magazines work.

They work like that. Just one of them and it's just a sheet of paper.

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 would have been interesting television, wouldn't it?

Well, it would have been wonderful for the world.

But the reason I thought that... LAUGHTER

..I thought it might have happened, seriously, is I glanced under

-David Cameron, the Prime Minster's, chair...

-Yes.

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.

Did you see how the BBC announced the news?

Yes. Can we see it again?

I have to interrupt you there cos there's one more line,

just as you were reading that, which has come in from Lord Bell.

And he's been quoted saying, "It is with great sadness that

"Mark and Carol Thatcher announce that their mother Baroness Thatcher

"died peacefully following a strike this morning."

Did you hear about Julian Stiles? According to The Mirror...

30 years without a job?

Pull your finger out, Julian, you lazy bastard!

I'll chin you, you bastard!

Let's abandon this show. Let's...

Brian says, "Who wants a fight?"

I'm going... Am I on that?

Yes, you're on this now.

I don't know what you're on.

Jeffrey Archer paid tribute to Lady Thatcher, saying...

Jeffrey Archer, not just a terrible writer,

but also a terrible writer.

Yes. UKIP. That's Ken Clarke.

This is the crushing defeat of the Conservative Party.

Well, you may laugh, but by the time this goes out...

Nigel Farage will be Prime Minister.

That's the problem - Kenneth Clarke.

The Tories were incredibly scared that UKIP would take

-all their seats, so Kenneth Clown...

-Kenneth Clown!

APPLAUSE

Thank goodness it wasn't Jeremy Hunt.

APPLAUSE

Which other high calibre names are lining up to be UKIP General

Election candidates? Do you know?

-Both the Hamiltons.

-That's right.

-Christine and Neil.

Yes, you groan.

But come the Farage cabinet, you're looking at the Home Secretary...

..and the First Lord of the Admiralty.

That's Christine.

I don't think there are any loonies on the right of British politics.

- You don't think that Nigel Farage is insane?

No, 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.

Shall we have a look at Farage on the front page

of the Times this week?

It's Hitler combined with a sort of one-sided Fu Manchu.

Tommy Robinson, what did he do this week?

He resigned from the English Defence League and...

And found out, much to his horror, that a lot of them are racist.

And do you know what Tommy Robinson does for a living?

Does he work at the United Nations?

-He also used to run a tanning shop.

-Exactly right, yes.

-What? Changing the colour of people's skin?

-Yeah.

So your customer comes in, "Come in, madam."

Half an hour later, "You can get out!"

Explaining his decision to quit the EDL, Tommy Robinson said...

Yes, it's always the tiny minority that makes

marching on a mosque such an unpleasant experience.

I don't know who these people are.

So, what...?

I can't say who these people are or I can say who they are...?

-We are allowed to report the facts.

-OK. 1066 was the Battle of Hastings.

I mean, Andy Coulson is still allowed to give interviews in GQ.

I mean, we're not allowed to say anything about him

under the laws of contempt, obviously, and I wouldn't want to.

Instead... If we are so wary of words,

is there any way you could express

an opinion through contemporary dance?

You'll get sued. You'll get sued.

At last, someone could go to prison for mime.

There's one High Court case we can talk about.

Did anyone see Bernie Ecclestone turning up for his case?

It was great. He was rather baffled by the concept of revolving doors.

Here he goes. Now so far, so good, you see?

Now, just come - walk out. No, no...

No, no, no.

No, no, no...

This is the trial of Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson.

Since we can't make jokes about any of the defendants,

let's make some jokes about you, Godfrey.

Here's what you got up to 30 years ago on your stag night.

VICTORIA: Oh, bless her, she's doing such a good job of smiling,

-isn't she?

-Oh, I know.

-Amazing.

GODFREY: I was a good looking dude in those days, Victoria.

- You're very good looking now. - Very kind of you.

- But it's possible that standing there in just her pants

while a man in a suit rubs his face in her tits wasn't the greatest

night of her life. It's possible. APPLAUSE

I know you've said that women aren't very good drivers,

but they're much better than men at finding the mustard in the pantry.

And I wondered, was that a euphemism?

Like, have you often found yourself, you know, with women,

and you feel like you've been rummaging for ages

in the pantry, and...

You know, she's screaming, "You just can't find the mustard."

Is that... LAUGHTER

..where that came from?

I'm sorry, are we talking French or English?

This week it was reported that the Mirror Group is now facing 55 claims

of phone hacking, so before we're not allowed to talk about that case,

can I just say, Piers Morgan is a total arse.

-It's Ed.

-Is Ed Miliband trying not listen to an Ed Balls speech?

Oh, look, there's someone spying on him from the Mail.

And that's Karl Marx's grave.

This is the Labour Conference, and they had Damian McBride's book.

-Yes, Damian McBride was hoping to upstage the Conference.

-Yes.

Did you see him being introduced on Newsnight?

Damian McBride.

McPoison, as he's known to his many enemies,

or McPrickface as he was referred to

in a recent cache of Downing Street e-mails.

He's so used to being called McPrickface...

Would anyone like to see the chat up technique

-of Danny "Fancy A Brandy?" Alexander?

-Oh, yeah.

-This Conference has been so busy. FEMALE JOURNALIST:

-Yeah.

I've had so many things to do. So, I haven't been up late, um...

..relaxing in the bar, so that's not a problem.

-That'll come on...Wednesday, maybe?

-Maybe tonight.

Maybe tonight, good.

-How about you?

-Um...

What have Ed Balls and Ed Miliband been 'inting at?

-Been...?

-Been hinting at?

-Yeah.

-What have they been hinting at?

-Don't know.

So posh.

-Oh!

-You're wearing a suit.

I can afford it.

That's cos you don't pay any tax.

AUDIENCE GROANS

Aww.

That's why he's dressed up, he was in court this morning.

Also, did anyone see how Mark Austin addressed ITV's News at Ten viewers

-this week?

-No.

-Would you like to?

-Yes.

-Yeah.

This is ITV News at Ten,

with Mark Austin and Julie Etchingham.

Good evening, paedophiles.

Brilliant!

This is Camilla, and she made her first speech in French,

and she was a bit nervous about it, but it went very well.

She's a golden creature that seems to bathe in heavenly light

wherever she goes.

She smokes fags, as well.

-That's correct.

-It IS correct.

And before she set off, she had a word with the press,

and sounded extremely confident

about how well her first solo trip would go.

-My first solo.

-Brilliant.

My first solo - probably my last.

No, no, no!

Yeah, and it would've been, had the Duke of Edinburgh's men

not been waiting in the wrong tunnel.

LAUGHTER AND GROANS

What did Dame Helen Mirren do while dressed as the Queen?

She was doing the audience in the West End of London,

reprising her role as Her Majesty the Queen,

-and a bunch of gay drummers was drowning her out.

-Mm.

And she come out and complained about it.

-I think...

-She told them to

-BLEEP

-off.

How did they know it wasn't the Queen?

Precisely, yeah.

They must've thought, "Bloody hell!"

-Well...

-When she says

-BLEEP

-off...

-Yeah, you stay

-BLEEP

--ed off.

Helen Mirren stormed out of her West End play this week

in order to shout at a group of drummers publicising a gay festival.

The organiser said...

What, a screaming queen on a gay parade? That IS a shock.

Er, this is clearly somebody trying to post letters, there.

There's the dog helping him out.

The Royal Mail has been sold off, hasn't it, Mark?

Now, even Thatcher said, "We will not privatise the Royal Mail,"

but this lot have decided to do it.

And you have to conclude they really, genuinely would sell their granny.

It's as if the country is being run by Ryanair, now.

You just pay for your little thing, and that's it, nothing else.

"I don't want to pay for libraries, I don't go to the library.

"I'm not paying for the fire service, I'm not on fire.

"Look at all the money that gets wasted on guide dogs.

"I can't climb a tree, nobody buys me a gibbon."

APPLAUSE

According to the Times,

this might not be the last privatisation we see, as well.

What else have they suggested might be privatised?

The Queen.

They haven't yet, but that would be oversubscribed, wouldn't it?

I'd like a piece of her.

I've heard the rumours.

What else have they got left to sell off?

I think the next one will be lampposts.

I think they'll sell off lampposts,

only you'll have to put 5p in a little meter.

And it'll give you just enough light to get to the next one,

and you'll put another 5p in.

Somewhere George Osborne is writing that down.

You know that, don't you?

Yes, this is the mad rush to buy shares in the Royal Mail.

To our younger viewers, a letter is a bit like a text,

but you write it down with a pen and you put it in an envelope,

and then buy a sort of sticker to put on it,

and then you put it in the hole in one of those red boxes,

and within two days it'll be delivered to the wrong house

somewhere near where your friend lives.

Dancing, socks.

-Oh, more Scottish dancing.

-More dancing.

You're talking about dancing a lot, aren't you? Yes.

Yeah, I'm sorry, we'll get on with it. Um...

If they go independent, the Chancellor has said to them,

"Well, you can't have the pound."

-Ah.

-And Alex Salmond, who will be in charge of Scotland...

His title isn't clear yet, it may be King.

Last year, he was really keen on having the euro

but then something happened, er...

So what do the Scots want?

Well, we don't know yet, we haven't asked them on the referendum.

Well, hold on a minute. They want independence...

-If I give the wrong answer, do you get out the pliers?

-No, you get cut.

So what's the latest economic news, then?

We nearly went into recession but we didn't,

so George Osborne says, "That's fine.

"We've got enormous growth of about 0.3%."

-That's bang on, yeah, which is four-fifths of

-BLEEP

-all.

We're still apparently 1.2 trillion in debt

and if we pay back at this rate, how long would it take to clear it?

It depends if we go to Wonga or not.

-400 years.

-(God!)

-So it's not really our problem, is it?

This is a row as to whether the independent Scotland would be

able to use the pound as its currency.

Alex Salmond has called for the creation of a Sterling-Zone,

which sounds good but the way the economy is going, I think

we'd be calling it Poundland.

-It's a train.

-Mm-hm.

-Oh, that's a proper train.

Yes, well, you know they're building this enormous boondoggle up north,

-Ian, and...

-Is that a technical term?

Yes, boondoggle, it's...

In economics, it's called a big fricking waste of money.

You can't get to Birmingham fast enough.

You can in your virtual self.

Impossible.

Do you know this week's figure of how much it's going to cost?

I think it's 130 zillion.

Well, the government's current budget is 50 billion,

although one independent study says it's going to cost 80 billion.

You've got Mark Carney now as the Bank Of England chief,

he can just print it. Just print any bill, just print it,

that's what he does, that's what he's there for. Print more money.

Doesn't matter if it's 100 million, 200 million,

just print money, it's fine.

You put the money in the train and take it to Birmingham.

Listen, max - one hour 20 minutes to Birmingham. It's too long.

It's more like an hour.

Did you hear the actual words of the dire warning from the government

about the consequences if Labour do not and everybody does not...?

-I'd like to hear you say it.

-The precise words were...

It's just hard to imagine what that would be like, isn't it?

And so to Round Two, The One-Armed Bandit Of News.

Fingers on buzzers, teams. Here's the first one.

BUZZER

That's a mocked-up Alex Ferguson, Sir Alex Ferguson,

English football's most successful ever manager has just resigned.

Absolutely. John, will you be writing a poem for the occasion?

-Are you a Man United fan?

-I approached this from the wrong angle.

I was looking at this monitor and that monitor

-and trying to spot the 15 differences.

-Oh, I see, yes.

I'm going to have to give this one a swerve.

-So can we do a quick Fergie quiz?

-Yeah. Yes, please.

What does Alex Ferguson keep by his bed?

His wife.

Hopefully he keeps her in his bed, not by it.

Do you think she has to stand there all night?

She's on the subs bench until she...

He calls her on.

No, he keeps... By his bed, he keeps JFK's autopsy report.

Now can anyone here impersonate a Liverpudlian?

I have to tell you that Jon Snow can't.

Here he is discussing Alex Ferguson's departure.

Well, I was driven here by a Liverpool supporter who said...

LIKE A PIRATE: "Oh, I hope they take Moyes..."

because they really do regard him.

-LIKE A PIRATE:

-When the tide is high

and the crow flies towards the horizon...

..there will be change of management, arr!

This is the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson.

As the news spread on Wednesday, shocked Man United fans

gathered in the city centre,

bringing London's traffic to a standstill.

BELL RINGS

This is the new motto for the Fukushima nuclear power plant

which had a meltdown last year and unbelievably...

I don't know if I can actually say this live,

but this character, because it's Fukushima, is known as Fukuppy.

Amazingly, you're almost exactly right.

This is Fukuppy,

the mascot of Fukushima industries which makes commercial freezers.

"It really is a schoolboy error for a company to leave

"the name of its fridges open to such puerile jokes,"

said the managing director of Smeg.

-I know this one.

-Is it inbreeding in the Royal Family?

-Isn't that the Duke of Clarence?

-I'm quite nervous, it's my first show.

I mean, my dad actually rang me and went, "Don't spoil this for us."

What a starter for 10.

He had me sat there, going, "Just don't, don't,"

because there's a discussion

going on around me and in my head

two kittens are fighting over a pork chop.

Is it the original Olympic...?

-There's beer swilling and shin kicking and...

-Yes, go on.

-The Cotswold Olympics.

-That's it.

They were chronicled in an ancient pamphlet which is up for auction.

Let's see if you can identify the sort of games that were played

using an image taken from the book.

Well, it looks like sword fighting we can see top right,

standing on your head in the middle...

-Yeah.

-..misunderstanding perspective.

That was a very popular sport at the time.

Anyone know what dwile flonking is?

It sounds like a daytime presenter - over to Dwile Flonking.

-Is that the beer thing?

-Yes.

-Well done.

-It's dodging beer-soaked rags.

-Dodging beer-soaked rags.

Why would you dodge them?

Now it's time to play The Wheel Of News Or Not News.

I'll spin the wheel and you have to identify the story and tell me

if it's news or not news.

BUZZER

Not news.

-It's... What's the story?

-There isn't a story, it's not news.

It's a policeman giving

Iain Duncan Smith a head massage.

Clairvoyant police?

It is clairvoyant police.

And it's...

The police are going to be able to predict crimes before they happen.

-You think I'm making it up?

-No.

-No, you're not making it up,

you're reading out something that somebody else has made up.

-According to Pre-crime Commander, Simon Letchford...

-Pre-crime?!

Which has already identified the county of Midsomer.

The technique of identifying

and arresting potential criminals before they commit a crime is

based on a method developed by the Metropolitan Police.

Know as "institutional racism".

Time now for the Odd-One Out Round.

Cliff Richard,

the Oxford cox,

the Norwegian log fire

and the new Dutch King's inaugural song.

The new Dutch King had a song written for his coronation,

a special song...and decided he hated it.

-The Oxford cox. He swore a lot during the race, this year.

-Yes.

Swore like a porn star all the way through.

Wasn't there a Norwegian TV show about logs, and getting logs,

and putting them in a fire?

And they complained about the way the logs were stacked.

-That's exactly right.

-But no-one has ever complained about Cliff.

It's about people moaning.

Cliff isn't known for making people moan, is he?

LAUGHTER

They have all caused an audience to complain

apart from Cliff Richard whose music caused his audience to die.

According to Gardeners' Question Time,

a study conducted on the effect of music on plants

revealed that the plants which had been played Cliff's music all died.

A song composed to mark the inauguration

of the new King of the Netherlands was withdrawn by the composer

after it attracted a storm of criticism.

Let's have a look.

THEY SING IN DUTCH

Perhaps he's trying to get a reduction on his car insurance?

According to the Daily Telegraph, in musical terms, the song is

..known as crap.

-I think I'd rather like that. Zadok the

-BLEEP.

Best reaction I've ever got out of Paul.

-You've never said

-BLEEP

-before.

It's time, now, for the Missing Words Round,

which this week features as its guest publication...

..the magazine of the North of England Rat Society.

For northerners who don't find pigeons dirty enough.

And we start with...

Sexual tension.

MILES: The body count. It was an absolute blood bath.

The safety officer.

Looks all right to me.

Just chuck the rats on it.

This is good stuff.

The overall standard of ears.

Next...

One of the rounds on Bake Off.

Do you think you can just add boiling water and come back again?

The process reduces the body to powder,

and has been pioneered by a company called...

..whose slogan proudly states,

"We're the people who put the gran into granules".

Next...

Can't I be called Mr Chubby Chops instead?

Director of Fat says, "Put it over there with the rest of the fat.

"Stop asking me, it's obvious, that pile there."

It's...

Next...

A birdie. An eagle.

-An eagle?

-That would be a good story.

-Might be owl?

Takes an owl in his pants?

A two-week holiday?

The answer is...

Next...

Grow beards.

Leave Saudi Arabia.

According to the Telegraph,

the unwelcome visitors to Saudi Arabia were approached by the...

..with their traditional line of "Allah, Allah, Allah...

"What's all this then?".

Before we go, there's just time for the Caption Competition.

"What's that, Skippy?

"The guy fell down the stairs and none of us touched him?"

"That's nice, isn't it? I've only just come to visit your country,

"and here we are remembering old times."

And I leave you with the news that, on the set of the new Transformers

movie, one of the extras gives up queuing for the toilet.

In Aldershot, in the playground of a primary school,

a pupil prepares for a visit from Michael Gove.

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

he moves his production company into a new office.

Good night.