Episode 5 Room 101

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Hello, I'm Frank Skinner and welcome to Room 101,

the show where three guests compete

to get their pet hates exiled forever

to the dark vault that is Room 101.

Our guests' choices have been sorted into categories

and in each round only one item can be chosen.

The final decision is mine.

So let's meet this week's guests.

Joining me tonight are comedian Josh Widdicombe, DJ Sara Cox

and singer turned broadcaster Aled Jones.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Right, then. Well, let's have our first category.

It's the wild card.

So in this round there are no restraints.

You can pick anything at all that winds you up.

So, what is Sara's wild card?

It's the eyelashes on car headlights.

-APPLAUSE

-Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for your support during this very difficult time.

So, I think that humans have eyebrows and eyelashes

to possibly stop sweat going in their eyes.

So, what, you think you've got a sweaty car?

Or are you trying to accentuate the car's "eyes"?

Why have you got so much time on your hands

that you can be bothered to stick stupid eyelashes on your car?

Why do you want your car to look like Amy Childs?

I don't get it.

Well, actually, my car is customised

in a more middle-aged man kind of a way.

This is my car.

LAUGHTER

It just looks like you've hit a badger.

Yeah, just trapped in the wheel arch.

I've been going up the kerb, trying to get it out.

Hate it when that happens.

I also think that maybe women drivers, you know,

still get a little bit of stick. Like, "Oh, women drivers."

And if you've put eyelashes on your car,

you're not really helping your cause to get respect on the road.

Let's have a look. In case any of you think,

"I've never seen eyelashes on a car,"

this is an advert for eyelashes on cars.

'Has your car ever winked at you?

'Carlashes - the latest automotive accessory for women.

'Flexible plastic lashes you attach above your headlights.

'With Carlashes on your car,

'expect smiles to follow you everywhere you go.

'Finish off your Carlashes with a dazzling second accessory -

'diamond crystal eyeliner,

'rows of twinkling diamond crystals

'that throw rainbows in the sun.'

APPLAUSE

-I feel that was the perfect campaign video...

-Yeah!

..for me to get those into Room 101,

especially with the voiceover.

Well, I felt the audience here had been quite anti-eyelashes on cars.

When they saw the diamante eyeliner,

-a few people went, "Oh, hold on."

-"Ooh, yeah."

I'd have thought the main problem of lashes on the car

is you have to keep one of these in the toolkit.

LAUGHTER

Oh, that is the best prop I've ever seen in my life.

Are you old enough to remember

when they used to have those sun strips on their cars,

-with the bloke's name and the girl's name?

-Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. But what'd happen when you spilt up?

-Were you allowed to detach her name and put on a new name?

-I think...

-You had to take it off...

-You just wound it round, like that -

-like a bus.

-Like a bus!

OK, then. Well, what is Josh's wild card?

Yeah, this is Lord Of The Rings.

BOOING AND HISSING

-SMATTERING OF APPLAUSE

-Oh!

-I didn't realise it was such a controversial choice.

-Well,

I think a lot of people have a great deal of love

-for Lord of the Rings.

-Well, firstly,

it's not particularly realistic.

LAUGHTER

-Yeah.

-If it's a book about Russia, I struggle to identify with it.

If it's a book about a fictional place

with people with furry feet and trees that live,

that...that's not going to happen!

And if you're going to do fantasy,

make the story more interesting than a man finding a ring.

I mean, that is barely an anecdote, at best.

This might be a deep-seated issue with Lord Of The Rings,

but I, against my better judgment,

three years ago auditioned

for the lead role in The Hobbit.

-Ah.

-So that might be why...

-You didn't get it, did you?

-No. Cheers, Aled(!)

I have to ask this. Were you on the short list?

LAUGHTER

So has this made you bitter, then?

No, I hated it beforehand, but now it's got personal.

Is there any part of you, Josh, and maybe I'm owning up a bit here,

that thinks there could be things like elves?

-No, Frank.

-OK.

I still think if I walked in the countryside

at three o'clock in the morning on a summer's night

and there was a bit of dew on the grass,

I might see a tiny figure moving...

That sounds like the kind of excuse a Tory MP would make.

LAUGHTER

"I was looking for elves, Officer."

So, what is Aled's wild card?

I know you thought it would be The Snowman,

but it's actually fish bones.

APPLAUSE

You faff around, don't you?

You know, you get a fish and you think to yourself,

"Oh, God, here we go."

And you get a tiny bit of meat at the end of it,

and every mouthful is...

well, it could be death.

LAUGHTER

Yeah, it's hard work. I mean, I'll give...

-What's the point?

-I will give you that.

Well, I think they're to hold the fish together.

How are you with anchovies?

Because of course, they have - anchovies, whitebait -

they have the bones but you just eat the lot.

-How are you with that?

-No, I can't stand anchovies.

-Really?

It's the worst food in the world. What's the point?

Just put more salt on it.

I like the fact that you don't have to...

-you just eat the whole thing.

-Yeah.

It's like, you know in Jurassic Park

-when the Tyrannosaurus Rex eats that goat?

-Yeah.

-It just crunches the whole thing up.

-Yeah.

It's like that.

-If there was a dinosaur version of Room 101...

-Yeah.

..would they be putting in goat's bones?

Yeah, exactly.

They'd be saying,

"Yeah, what's the point? And the horns!"

-"I just want a bit of goat."

-Yeah.

"If I hadn't have eaten that horn, I'd still be around."

"As it is, we're completely extinct."

And also the T Rex'd be saying,

"I can't even reach the plate."

"I find that annoying."

LAUGHTER

OK. Well, I tell you what I think you need.

-What's that?

-You need a Wunder Boner.

Oh.

LAUGHTER

'OK, who wants to clean and debone him?'

I'll do it!

What gives?! You want to do it?!

Just wait till you see what I've got.

It's the Wunder Boner.

-THEY LAUGH

-The Wunder Boner?!

Oh, you laugh now. Just watch.

You just assemble the Wunder Boner's stainless steel rods, like this.

You take the fish, you find the top of the spine

and you slide him through the ring on the Wunder Boner. And...!

THE AUDIENCE GROANS

..voila!

The Wunder Boner!

My wife would like that!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

So we've come to the end of that round.

I don't feel I can put eyelashes on cars...

-Oh, come on, Frank. Please.

-..because I think it is fun

and I think there's so much road rage and unpleasantness.

And I'm not going to put in Lord of the Rings...

-Oh, why not?

-..because I love a bit of fantasy.

-Oh!

-I love dragons and wizards and all that side of stuff.

-I am terribly sorry.

-APPLAUSE

But I have to say,

if there's one thing that makes a meal into a chore,

it is the bones in fish.

So I am going to put the bones in fish into Room 101.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Next category, please.

Nature!

OK then, what winds up Sara about nature?

-Dill.

-LAUGHTER

Oh, I can smell it. It's disgusting.

It ruins everything that its filthy little green fronds finger.

And I just can't bear it.

And it just has ruined so many meals out when...

It's never listed on the menu.

Some chefs just casually chuck it into a dish

and I can just sense it.

I'm like, sort of, a specialised bloodhound

who's just really good at herbs.

If you were to go through the gates of hell,

in Beelzebub's herb garden would be dill,

and I detest it.

-And please put it in Room 101.

-Wow!

-Wow.

-I've got a friend who's like this about chives.

-Mm.

And I've been to restaurants with her

and she'll say things like, "I'll have beans on toast, please.

"No chives."

LAUGHTER

I would say this, that I appreciate that you don't like it.

You've made that extremely clear.

I used to hate olives, really hate them.

But what I decided to do,

because I don't like the idea of a food that I can't eat,

is every 12 months or so, I'd have another crack at olives,

-to see if I liked them.

-Mm.

And after about four or five years of that,

I tried them one year and thought, "Actually, they're all right."

And now I eat them all the time.

So I think it's worth going back and giving it a go.

I don't know how many more chances I'm going to give Robert Mugabe.

LAUGHTER

No, but I mean, anything that you don't like,

I think it's worth having another...

No, it's never going to be a relationship that will form, here.

It's...I'm sorry, it is you.

It's not me. You're horrible.

I'm talking to it now. I hate it.

And actually, can I move it away from me?

Yeah, course. Oh, no, away!

I'll have it over here for this bit. Thank you, Aled.

You would think that this may be an issue with a show

where people talk about the things they hate the most,

-that then you've decided to put them next to them.

-Yes.

-Is this all right, like this?

-It looks nice.

-Yes.

I don't want people switching on and thinking,

"Oh, Frank Skinner's doing a double act with Paloma Faith."

LAUGHTER

OK, what doesn't Aled like about nature?

Hold it, hold it. You'll love this.

Oh, Jesus!

I mean, after the dill incident,

-that was very irresponsible indeed, wasn't it?

-I know.

-This is deep-rooted, isn't it? Can you tell?

-Yes.

It's a scorpion.

Basically, when I was singing as a kid,

I was in Israel and I was singing On The Little Road To Bethlehem,

singing The Little Road To Bethlehem,

and the director said,

"Sit on that rock and we'll film you."

And so I went to sit on the rock

and the Israeli floor manager said to me,

"Be careful where you sit, cos there's loads of scorpions here

"that'll kill you".

So, I'm 11, supposedly singing a nice little carol

about Jesus and the like,

thinking any minute I'm going to die.

So if you spool forward about four years,

my dad thought it was really funny

-to hold my hand above quite a few scorpions in a zoo.

-Oh.

If social services are watching,

they live in Llandegla in North Wales, by the way.

-They'll never find that.

-No.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

-So then you spool forward again...

-Yeah.

..and I've got two kids.

And we were abroad and they were at an age

where they have plastic toys, you know,

little bugs and stuff like that.

And I went to pick up what I thought was a black rubber scorpion

-and that tail went up...

-Oh!

..and honestly, it was one of the worst moments of my life.

It was worse than my voice breaking.

-LAUGHTER

-Oh, no.

It was. What's the point of them?

You can't take them for a walk.

-Don't do it again.

-I won't!

I can see it in your evil eyes.

-I thought you were going to do it.

-No, no.

You can't cuddle them and they can kill you.

Yeah.

Well, yes, you argue that well enough.

In order to empathise with the scorpion,

-I bought one of these.

-Oh, God.

Living your life like this must be pretty tough.

You just look like a weird squirrel.

But the thing is, when you put it on you realise this...

is that you sort of... it's constantly...

-You're almost stinging yourself, aren't you?

-Yeah, exactly.

You must think, "What's that?"

"Ow!"

Or, "I'll just lie back, have a bit of a... Argh!"

-Life must be like that.

-Good.

I'm going to take this off now cos it's driving me crazy.

-I don't know how they cope.

-It's why they're in bad moods, isn't it?

-Because they've got that sting just hanging over.

-Constantly there.

OK. What aspect of nature winds up Josh?

I'm quite scared now.

LAUGHTER

It's the only thing more controversial than Lord Of The Rings.

This is the home of nature and the great outdoors

-and it is Devon.

-OK.

-Which is where I am from, so this is OK.

-Right.

I think Devon's all right if you're not from Devon,

because you don't have to have spent your childhood in Devon.

To give you an idea of what it's like,

my parents have got dial-up internet.

LAUGHTER

-What even is that?

-It's like the Third World, Frank.

Now, I don't want to come across as a city slicker here

but I can make a phone call

and go on the internet at the same time, in my house.

That's amazing. It's like James Bond.

And do you know how many children there were

in my year at primary school?

Four.

Two boys, two girls.

Four children in your year?

Yeah, including me.

You should have done so much better in life, shouldn't you?

You had, like, private schooling.

If someone had said to me when I was 11

I'd get to meet Aled Jones

and he'd tell me my life wasn't going very well...

LAUGHTER

..I'd have snapped their hand off!

There's a kind of rivalry, as well, between Devon and Cornwall.

over little things. Where you go...

For instance, I don't know,

if you were to have a cream tea, Frank...

Oh, it just so happens!

Now, which one of those would you choose?

-Cos one is cream over jam...

-Oh.

-..and one is jam over cream.

-One is a Devon scone and one...

-One is Devon,

and the other is completely disgusting and wrong.

-Yeah.

-I like jam first and then cream on top.

-Correct decision, Sara Cox.

-Oh, really?

-No, but that's Cornwall.

-That's Cornwall.

No! Jam on below, cream on the top - that's Devon.

-No. Devon is...

-No, that's Cornwall.

-Devon is definitely the cream on...

LAUGHTER

So the Cornish are right.

I was...I was....

-This place!

-I'm confused. Shouldn't you know?

-To tell you how bad this place is, it's worse than Cornwall.

-Yes.

This gives me the shudders, I'll tell you why.

Something happened to me.

I was at a cricket match, right,

and I was with the wife of quite a high-ranking cricket administrator.

I won't say who.

And she was a sort of... How can I put it?

She was a sort of full-figured woman

and they started bringing out the cream teas, and I said,

because she was the wife of a cricket administrator,

-I said, "I'll bet you've had a few cream teas in your time!"

-Oh!

Oh!

Oh, dear.

I meant because her husband was a cricket administrator.

And I tried to explain that in a sort of a, you know...

People, when they're crying, they don't listen.

LAUGHTER

Aled, I hate to ask this of you, but you wouldn't be so good

as to put the dill back onto Sara's platform, would you?

-Yeah. Of course, Frank.

-Thank you so much.

I know, you're too big to carry dill.

Oh, you looked like the worst bridesmaid ever then. No offence.

-With the dill.

-Yeah.

"Oh, I wonder if I'll catch the dill."

OK. Well, look, for a start, I can't...

I just can't put Devon in.

I've been on a walking holiday and it was a beautiful experience.

And you've moved away now,

so you don't have to put up with it every day.

-Fair enough.

-So, no Devon.

Now, this is an age-old choice between dill and scorpions.

Rarely do we get a guest

who has been so vociferous in their hatred of a choice,

-so I am going to put dill into Room 101.

-Thank you!

APPLAUSE

Next category, please.

Ah, modern life.

So, what doesn't Aled like about modern life?

It's the Christmas round robin.

It's basically the Christmas card that you receive and you think,

"Oh, how nice of the Evans family to remember me this Christmas."

And you open it up

and inside there's a folded piece of A4 paper

and it tells you about how wonderful their year has been.

The fact that little Jimmy, you know,

passed his GCSEs at the age of six.

They've been on six holidays, built a mud hut in Malawi.

They've retired, they're going to go and live in the Himalayas somewhere.

And you think to yourself, "God, I've had a rubbish year, haven't I?

"Why isn't my family like their family?"

I've never got one of these, so I...

I'm going to send you one.

-I would love to get a round robin from the Jones family...

-OK.

-telling me what you've done this year.

-OK.

-That'd be brilliant.

-I'll play it down.

There's a book by Simon Hoggart,

which is a collection of round robin letters

and one is written from a dead dog.

It says, "It probably won't come as a huge surprise

"when I tell you that these greetings come to you

"from my new home in the happy hunting ground.

"Now my body lies four foot down,

"deep in the underworld, in one of my favourite places in the garden

"with Michaelmas daisies and lilies on top

"and a shark's fin headstone to speed my night sea crossing."

-Happy Christmas.

-LAUGHTER

Here's another.

"Holidays this year included two weeks in Turkey

-"on the side of a small bay..."

-Here we go.

"..voted one of the best views in the world.

"Our second holiday took us to the Red Sea Riviera,

"where we went to see the Pyramids.

"(Overrated.)"

Do you ever rank your Christmas cards?

What?!

I put people I like best at the front.

Yeah.

And then, like, I put them in the corner of the room

and then as I go back, it's people I like less.

They don't know this.

There are people I put behind the one from the local curry house.

LAUGHTER

The other thing I like is Christmas cards

where people have had the photos taken especially.

-Do you ever get any of them?

-Yes.

-Oh, yeah.

-I hate them as well.

-Do you?

-Yeah. Not keen.

We have some pictures of these personalised Christmas cards.

See what you think. This is the first one.

Is that a dead one in front of the boy?

I'm not going to lie to you, Frank,

I'm not sure that the boy's alive either.

So that's...you might say that was a bad decision.

Let me tell you, THIS is a bad decision.

Oh, no.

That shouts out Christmas though, doesn't it?

Is she wearing a coconut bra?

She is.

-That's not Christmassy.

-That's not very festive.

-Yeah.

Not that that was my issue with it!

She's got a Christmas hat. That's all right, isn't it?

-It should be like, I don't know, a couple of, like...

-Holly?

-Christmas pudding.

-Chocolate orange.

Two chocolate oranges...

and a Toblerone.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

I'm going to send Sara one like this of me,

except it's going to be dill.

So, what doesn't Josh like about modern life?

Slogan T-shirts.

-Oh!

-You'll see these people walking down the street,

-or you'll meet a friend...

-Mm.

and they're wearing something that says, like,

"You've got Hotmale," mail spelt like you're a man.

-Mm.

-Like, when you say something funny, you laugh.

You don't go, "That was really good, Frank.

"I'm going to get that made into a T-shirt."

That's my dream.

What about this one?

Oh!

I mean, don't hold that up, Frank,

you're a recovering alcoholic.

LAUGHTER

I daren't. I daren't wear this.

This is a funny one.

Oh!

I mean, that's dodgy.

What if you walked past a school? I mean...

Well, it doesn't say when. It's some time in the future.

I just think it's the, kind of, whole level of, "I'm a bit wacky."

It's a bit like wearing a funny tie or funny socks.

What about this one?

"Dill with it."

LAUGHTER

Do you know, this is a genuine... We haven't made this.

-This is a commercially available...

-Really?

-..T-shirt.

-It's kind of good.

-"Dill with it."

Can you believe that someone sat around and thought,

"What's going to be a money-spinner?

"What about a confrontational T-shirt for dill lovers?"

I mean, I'm sort of anti-T-shirts, generally.

You're going to go skins?

No, I just don't... I never wear T-shirts.

I'm the wrong age.

Also, I've got a slightly...

You can't tell in this lovely cut jacket.

I've got a slightly round shoulder on this side,

so if I wear a slogan T-shirt,

the end of it is basically lost in a crumple.

I had to stop wearing my "I love Dick and Dom."

LAUGHTER

OK. So what doesn't Sara like about modern life?

-Wow.

-Death metal.

Death metal?

Now, as a DJ, it's my job to respect all genres of music.

-Mm.

-You know, be it jazz, funk fusion, drum and bass.

But the kind of music

that makes me want to pull out my eyes and stuff them in my ears

is death metal.

That sounds like a lyric from death metal.

It could well be.

I don't mind rock,

I don't mind guitar music, I don't mind indie music,

I have no problem with that.

It's just when people are screaming

-over really heavy, hard music.

-OK.

In case there's anyone watching

who doesn't know what death metal sounds like,

it sounds like this.

SONG: "Bring Me The Horizon" by Shadow Moses

APPLAUSE

Well, I love it.

Hold on, where's my wallet?

It would sort them out on X Factor, wouldn't it?

Can you imagine? One week they do the love week

and then they do the death metal week.

It would be brilliant.

Well, if they did something like that,

you might get something like this happen.

My name is Aaralyn O'Neil and I am six years old.

RASPING: # Everyone, listen to me

INDISTINCT

# I'm gonna eat you up right now!

# A-a-a-a-a-rgh!

# I'm gonna eat you up right now! #

APPLAUSE

-That was quite good, actually.

-That was brilliant.

I do love music, and I get that people love all types of music

-but it's just really not for me, that.

-No.

And plus, I've got a nice show like Sounds Of The '80s on Radio Two,

so perhaps maybe my ears are adjusting.

Are you using this as a plug?

No. Well, it is BBC and it's great. 10:00pm, Saturday night.

Also, I have to say, I never, ever would play that sort of music

on Classic FM between 9:00 and 12:00 every Sunday.

Never.

OK. Well, look, we've come to the end of that round.

I am so intrigued

by the whole world of round robins,

and I hope to use this as a springboard

to encourage my friends to send me round robin letters.

And death metal, I know...you know,

it can be a shock to the system

and there is a certain sameyness about it

but I really respect the amount of devotion and commitment

that the people involved with it seem to have.

I know I'm sounding like an old man but I don't care.

I, however, and although it is a branch of comedy,

I do worry about slogan T-shirts.

I think maybe people should be witty and charming verbally

rather than through fibre.

So I'm going to put slogan T-shirts into Room 101.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And that brings us to the end of the show.

And well done, Sara,

you were the most persuasive guest so you are this week's winner.

Excellent. Thank you.

CHEERING

-Well done.

-Thank you.

Thanks very much, Josh Widdicombe, Sara Cox and Aled Jones,

and thank you. Good night.