Episode 5 Have I Got News for You

Good evening, welcome to Have I Got News For You, I'm Jack Dee. In the

news this week, as the Jamaica Inn sound quality row continues, the BBC

asks the recording engineer responsible to explain what might

have happened. MUMBLES INCOHERENTLY LAUGHTER.

In Stoke-on-Trent, one Good Morning Britain viewer makes the mistake of

complaining that Susanna Reid hasn't got her legs on show.

LAUGHTER And in Somerset, as the floodwaters

finally recede, a local finds it hard to adapt to the new drier

conditions. LAUGHTER.

On Ian's team tonight, a comedian who collected Foster's comedy award

wearing a T-shirt saying "No more page three", and she got an extra

round of applause when she took it off. Please welcome Bridget

Christie. APPLAUSE.

And with Paul tonight is a writer and broadcaster who is widely seen

as the most miserable man on telly. I haven't even got that any more!

Please welcome Charlie Brooker. APPLAUSE. Now we start with the

biggest stories of the week. Ian and Bridget, take a look at this.

Patrick Mercer MP, he is saying goodbye. That's for free, he hasn't

charged for that bit. Bye, bye. Goodbye. You're off. Ooh! That's a

severe penalty! Oh, and that is Farage. Again. Who

has taken a job running a mini cab firm.

There he goes. Be five minutes.

There's a by-election coming up, which anybody could win. Except

Farage. Because he won't stand. Because it would look opportunistic

because he doesn't have a relationship with Newark. He doesn't

have a relationship with earth. I think that is the Robin Hood bit.

Newark and Sherwood. The same area. Which is where traditionally you rob

from the rich and give to the poor. Which is Farage's policy - take the

money from the EU, and you give it to your wife. Any way, Robert

Kilroy-Silk used to be the MEP for the area, and he is very good with

the sound bite, so we have a little moment of him. Haven't seen this for

a while. Their fate will be in each other's hands, as they decide

whether to share, or to shaft. LAUGHTER.

So did you see when, I think it was Eamonn Holmes, Sky News, got the

scoop on why Nigel Farage decided not to stand.

You have announced in the past half hour, Mr Farage, it is not for you.

The question is have you bottled it? Yes.

LAUGHTER. In fairness, I think Nigel is

suffering from a time delay there. He thinks it is 1957. I think we

came out just before two cars collided behind him.

He has got all the publicity and the Tory party, who should be very

embarrassed, one of their MPs was caught taking money to ask

questions. Really pretty obvious sting by Panorama and the Telegraph.

Someone coming up and saying "Would you ask some questions about Fiji?"

"Oh yes I will ask questions about Fiji. Anything."

I'm glad this came up because Jack, I had an e-mail from Patrick Mercer,

and he said that he would pay me ?10 if I asked you how much money you

were being paid to ask about his cash for questions. For tonight?

For tonight. And then he said he would give me an extra ?5 if I said

at least he didn't read his questions from an autocue. OK. What

if I give you ?100 to shut up? Well, I am quids in. I am quids in. See me

afterwards. He said he was resigning because:

True to his word after 11 months of shilly-shallying, he nobly resigned.

What is shilly-shallying? I'm surprised you don't know that.

Sshilly-shallying. I don't know what you do all day. He does his hair! Do

you have any idea how long that takes? Apart from the by-election,

there's the referendum in Scotland. Yes. Yes, Ed Milliband told the

Scots not to vote for independence but to wait for him to save them

when he is Prime Minister. He's going to save them all, he said:

That is right. Good one. That is two things to look forward to, isn't it.

What is Ed Miliband's Scottish dilemma? If Scotland go independent,

then he will never get into power again. Because the figures suggest

it's a permanent Tory Government without Scotland, which is a good

reason for Scotland to vote no. Please. That is the dilemma, so

Scotland, it is time to decide whether to share or shaft.

APPLAUSE. Did you see what UKIP MEP Roger

Helmer was quoted as saying? Was he the one talking about Lenny Henry?

That was Henwood. This is guess the lunatic. He said:

He doesn't like the taste. LAUGHTER.

He doesn't like squeezing the bag. Apart from Farage and... Far-arge. I

won't call him that. It is like sausage. Any way... It is the same.

He's a big sausage. Any way, what I was saying, was

whenever somebody - you only see him, when somebody speaks they have

to resign or they are sacked. One of the UKIP euro election posters was

photographed next to a poster for camping equipment. Here is the UKIP

one, and then right next to it is one for camping equipment.

OK, so this is Patrick Mercer who quit as an MP after accepting ?4,000

to lobby on behalf of Fiji. What kind of person would accept to

promote Fiji, blessed with over 300 tropical islands, magnificent coral

reefs and beaches that seem to stretch on forever? The resignation

is a double blow, the people of Newark have lost their

representative in Parliament, while at the same time the people of Fiji

have lost their representative in Parliament.

So, Paul and Charlie, take a look at this.

High speed railway is being built, that is the prototype model. It's a

pump wagon. How did you know that? There is David Cameron, meeting

people. He is meeting the cast of the Quality Street tin. That is

right. He has gone back to the 19th century. This is some hot girl on

trunk action. Exactly. This is about the high speed railway and that is

probably about somebody who loves the countryside and doesn't want to

it go through their back garden. You are completely right. The dream of

being able to leave Birmingham quickly has been brought one step

closer. How did David Cameron vote on the High Speed Rail Bill's second

reading? He is all for it. He didn't turn up. He was on a train, it was

late. He didn't bother, even though he

lives across the road,. Apparently he was having a date night, and Nick

was really looking forward to Mayor of London, Boris Johnson is a

supporter of the high speed rail link, but how did he sensitively

answer those voicing environmental concerns? He said it is absolute

bollocks. All these environmentalists, they don't care

about butterflies and trees, all they care about is their house

prices. Do you know what, if Boris Johnson was like a woman, or a poor

person, they wouldn't get away with the things he says, but because he

was well-educated and posh... Is there a problem coming here? No, but

I think - no, but we wouldn't get away with it, but people assume that

his stupidity is deliberate because he has been so well-educated. He

said trees were stupid and they didn't need to be saved because

there are no trees in this country older than 200-years-old. Why is he

so anti-tree? He hate trees. They all think the environment is for

pussies, don't they, and girls and stuff. No, they do! They make me

sick. Who is "they"? All you lot! APPLAUSE.

. The question here is, is he right?

And what I'd like to do now is now play how old is this tree? Come on,

this is my idea, so please join in. Try and make it work. Have I Got

Yews For You. First of all, here's a picture of a London plane tree. How

long can they live? 185 years. No, no, Paul, they've been known to live

to 400 years. I've been misinformed. Either that or you were sold a duff

one. Yeah. Let's have another one. How long can a sweet chestnut live?

Ah, sweet chestnut, yes. 200? I think it's much more. Yes, go on.

201? No, 600. This is not the format of the show I was expecting. They

can live up to 700 years, so, yeah. I've got a mulberry tree in my

garden. Have you? They are very rare. They are protected, aren't

they? Yeah, and it's about 450 years old. Really? You've been there that

long? I have, yeah, but I've cut it down because I don't care. Wild

holly, wild cherry and crack willow are three of the girls Boris employs

in his office. Crack Willow? Yeah, yeah. That is what I was working

towards, that joke. Couldn't see the joke for the trees, really, could

you? Now, a report by think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs, cast

doubt on the rail link's ability to improve the North. The report was

called: By J K Rowling. There's too much

transportation really. I'm against any new train tracks or anything,

because it's never worth going anywhere. If you think about it,

have you ever been anywhere that it was worth going? There was a letter

in the paper today saying we shouldn't bother with trains because

there are going to be driverless cars by the time it's finished in

2026. You'll just get in your car, say Birmingham, and it will take you

there. Can you get in this car and say other towns as well? The lead

only stretches as far as Birmingham. How does it actually work? It's very

complicated. You want to know EXACTLY how it works?! Yes, because

I don't believe it. Cars will talk to each other, so if you are on a

motorway and you come off and there is a pile-up round the corner, your

car will be told there's a pile-up by the other cars that are in that

pile-up. How they got the pile-up in the first place, I have no idea.

Somebody switched it off. Could you play a driving simulator while

you're driving? Yeah, absolutely. You can pretend you're driving to

somewhere more interesting. You can put that across your windscreen.

There are driverless cars now already, aren't there? I saw a few

parked outside earlier. This is the HS2 bill. One leading Tory rebel is

Michael Fabricant. Always keen to do his bit for the environment. For a

start, he has at least three species of woodland bird nesting in his

hair. And so to Round Two and it's a

welcome return of the Have I Got News For You Wheel Of News. And

here's the first spin. George Clooney is getting married.

And that's become a news item on this show. He's the first man to get

married in America since 1968, I think. It's been a long, long time.

A very long time. George Clooney is getting married to British lawyer

Amal Alamuddin. Lovely. Amal Alamuddin, I think is how you

pronounce it. Not one of those names you should say when you're rubbing a

lamp. No, no, no. Or maybe you should? Rubbing a lamb? A lamb? Amal

Alamuddin. No, that was racist. I imposed an accent on that and I'd

like to withdraw the accident I put on. It was wrong. Just say you were

doing an impression of Jeremy Clarkson and you'll get away with

it. How does the world's media think that they may know this? They went

out for dinner in LA, I think, with a couple of other celebrities. Ethel

Merman and Ken Dodd? Oh, who was it? I should remember because they were

quite a funny couple. You're not confusing this with Oceans 11, are

you? A reporter was there and they went look at her ring and whatnot.

Ring. Ring, yes. But it's an amazing ring. It produces coffee. You just

press it and outcomes this fantastic sort of cappuccino. I've seen the

ad. He has been married before. I think the first marriage was dark,

it was bitter, it was over in an instant.

There's people complaining that he's off the market. Do people really

care? It's like Prince Harry and his girlfriend splitting up. I find it

very hard... Am I sociopathic or is it impossible to care about these

bloody people you're never going to meet and their stupid bloody lives?

That's right. According to the Mail: John Simpson must be gutted, mustn't

he? Let's have a picture the Mail used

to bring readers the news. Is his jumper going grey? What does that

picture say to you? It says the cameras are on us. Look happy.

According to the Mail: Shall we play the game of... Give us

your look of someone who hates commitment. Bridget, the look of a

man who hates commitment. You must have seen that look enough times.

Come on. That was not necessary. Actually, I'm hitting them off with

a shitty stick, Ian. Beating them off is the expression, isn't it? Is

it? I imagine it is. Hitting is better. Give us your look of someone

who hates commitment, Paul, please. Which new programme went to town

with the story? Which new programme? Is this Good Morning Britain? It is.

It landed with disappointing ratings, didn't it? They paid a lot

of money for Susanna Reid to present it and people moaned that she was

sitting behind a desk and they couldn't see her legs. And there

were viewers saying it's like buying a Ferrari and keeping it in the

garage. Who are these people who can't sit through television for ten

minutes were trying to break into a bank? What's wrong with them?

Did you manage to watch it, Bridget? The show? No, God no. You missed

quite a big television moment. What did I miss? TV legend Andi Peters

gets to host a mini format within the show called Wheel of Cash! Andi

Peters was the Broom Cupboard, wasn't he? Wasn't he Edd the Duck? I

don't know, was he? Yeah. Yeah, he was in the Broom Cupboard, remember?

Not a safe place to be in the BBC in the 1980s.

This is the news that George Clooney is getting engaged to barrister Amal

Alamuddin. He wanted to keep it out of the papers but for some reason

Max Clifford wasn't returning his calls. So here is the next spin.

No! George Clooney is getting married. BBC dumbs down. Repeats

happen every seven minutes these days. That's in yellow. Yeah. It's

Bernie Ecclestone. It is the news that Bernie Ecclestone could have

pulled off one of the biggest tax dodges in history. Here is Bernie

and his ex-wife Slavika. There they are. So why did she end up paying

him huge sums of money after they divorced? She ended up paying him?

She ended up paying him. Why was that? Are all his business interests

in her name? She has been paying him $100 million a year. It's either the

most amicable divorce in the history of human beings or it stinks. Yes, I

have to stop you there. We can't actually legally go into too much

detail on how he did this, is alleged to have done this tax dodge

in case Jimmy Carr is watching. He did a deal with HMRC, customs over

here, so he paid a very, very small amount of tax and he settled. It was

like Vodafone and all these other companies. It's one of these very

bizarre deals wherethe more tax you owe, the less you pay. I should

point out it's his wife's trust that settled with the Revenue, not Bernie

Ecclestone. And we know his wife isn't him in a wig. Where are Mr

Ecclestone's tax affairs under scrutiny? Germany. You were right in

there before I even asked the question. It is sub judice. Or as

they say in Germany... GERMAN ACCENT: Sub judice. I don't know why

I did that. This is in German courtroom. There we are. And he is

charged with giving a German banker a ?27 million bribe, in this case,

he could be facing ten years in jail. Well, let's be honest, life.

He might get a long stretch while he's in there as well. And here he

is, trying to get into the courtroom. AS MURRAY WALKER: There

he goes, in the revolving door, round and round!

Here we go with the next spin. Yeah? ET and Max Clifford, really, there's

a link there, is there? No wonder he wanted to go home. Max Clifford, big

name in PR, the Paedophile Register. Yes. Earlier this week, the

publicist Max Clifford was found guilty of eight counts of indecent

assault, or as he's spinning it, fewer than ten. What is Max Clifford

threatening to do now? Gets the judge a role in the Bill? Only if

he's a good judge. Yes, very good judge. Is he threatening to name

names? Yeah, basically, that's right, he's going to write a

kiss-and-tell book in prison. He said, "You wouldn't believe the

story I could tell." Yeah, that's right, you wouldn't. Having lied to

the jury, erm... Yeah, he couldn't tell it in court, could he? I can't

think of anything sort of funny to say about him. No, no, that's

rapists for you. Time now for the odd-one-out round, and it's one

between all of you this week, so fingers and buzzers. Adolf Hitler, a

walrus, Jeremy Paxman, and Major General Ambrose Burnside. And that

was Ian and Bridget. It's facial hair or beards. Hitler, moustache.

He had a moustache. Definitely. Walrus, moustache. Yeah, he...

They've all got moustaches, except Paxman, who had a beard! I think you

know this show better than that. What kind of moustache did Hitler

have? He had a Hitler moustache. That's exactly what I wanted you to

say. No, Hitler moustache, so why would that be a good clue? So does

this walrus have a walrus moustache? Ah-ha, here we go so... And what did

you say his name was? Burnside, he was... Oh, so sideburns. Brilliant!

That's exactly it. Did they reverse his name? So who's the odd one out?

Paxman, because no-one refers to a beard as a Paxman. That's right,

they don't, that's exactly it, well done. Yeah, they've all given a name

to a type of facial hair, apart from Jeremy Paxman, who has quit

Newsnight to perform a one-man show about his beard. Book early! A

clean-shaven Jeremy Paxman will sneer about pognophobia, you know

what it is precisely. Fear of beards. A fear of beards or a

beard-like structure. What happens if you're a pognophobic and you're

trapped somewhere without razors? Jack, can we just be very, very

careful? Yeah, yeah, that's good, yeah. That's quite a structure! If

you were worried where they buried the WMDs... Yes, yeah, so it's...

I'm just glad that WG Grace is still alive. Good to see you! Are we doing

a round on beard lengths now? It's the best bit of the show! It's

probably shouldn't be a surprise that Paxman is giving up doing

Newsnight, the signs have been there for a while. That's all from

Newsnight tonight. Martha is being punished for some offence in a

previous life by presenting tomorrow's programme. In the

meantime, it's all available again on the website, along with our

editor's pathetic pleas for you to send us your old bits of home movie

and the like so we can become the BBC's version of Animals Do The

Funniest Things. Good night. It's like an art installation where

a depressed man is in a glass box talking only to evasive liars he

hates. Another Jeremy has been in the news.

Oh, Jeremy Clarkson. Yes, do you know what for? One of the papers had

a story today on the front page about him saying something he

shouldn't have said. The Mirror claim that he used the N-word, the

N-word. But wasn't it in the context of Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe? It was in

that context, and no-one knows why he had to mention Nick Clegg in that

way. And obviously Adolf Hitler, the Fuhrer gave his name to a moustache.

Can I just point out I don't call him the Fuhrer? It's written there.

Sorry, it's there. I know I've gone a bit over the top. You're only

following orders. The most recent German leader to

sport a Hitler moustache. Angela Merkel, who was slightly

unfortunately given one by the shadow of Israeli Prime Minister

Benjamin Netanyahu's finger. There it is. According to Wikipedia, adult

walruses are easily recognised by their whiskers. And the fact that

they are bloody great walruses. Jeremy Paxman this week announced

that he was quitting Newsnight, saying he was... What, the minute

Newsnight starts? Time now for the missing-words round, which this week

features, as its guest publication, Packaging Scotland. Or as we'll be

calling it very soon, one of those poncey foreign magazines. We start

with... I love this package, its design is

the best I've ever seen. You're not far off, really. I love this box.

Hmm. Its bevelled edge is the best I've ever seen. Lid!

It's for the M beetroot range. The resealable lid is a boon to the

Scots, cos you can simply take the top off and scream, "Ah, we've

bought vegetables," close the lid and take it back to the shop. Why is

this programme deliberately trying to lose the referendum?! Next...

Whisky! All of humankind. Is it Sir Bruce Forsyth? The answer is... 200g

of chopped pork and ham in a plastic tub. All I'd say, gents, don't make

it her main present. And finally... Alcohol! Cirrhosis of the liver!

It's actually... Here he is there, this is the chap.

He's a lookalike. Is that real? It was real about the bar, yes, the

whole bar is themed around Bin Laden. What, and his consumption of

alcohol? Yes. He famously liked a drink, yeah. Oddbin Laden.

So the final scores are Bridget and Ian have four, and Paul and Charlie

have six. No! On which note we say thank you to

our panellists, Ian Hislop and Bridget Christie, Paul Merton and

Charlie Brooker. And I leave you with news that at a courtroom in

Germany the clerk fetches the specially prepared Bible for Bernie

Ecclestone to swear on. In Uzbekistan, an artist condemned to

death for his decadent western surrealism is allowed to choose the

means of his own execution. And following this week's Tube strike in

London, a scheme is unveiled to increase the number of bike racks.

Good night. Part of the Big Bumper Comedy

50th Birthday Weekend.