Episode 2 Russell Howard's Good News Extra

THIS PROGRAMME CONTAINS SOME STRONG LANGUAGE

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you very much indeed. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks very much. Welcome to Good News.

Hope you've had a good week. What's been going on?

Over in Russia, this newsreader was caught in the act.

Did anyone else see Stevie Wonder parking his car on the news?

Is it me, or do some people really fear the north of England?

A woman from Otley has been telling how passengers screamed in terror

as their plane tried to land at Leeds Bradford Airport.

"NO!

"Not Leeds!"

It couldn't be a week in the news

without sexual overlord Eamonn Holmes

telling us how he makes love.

In, out, you know the score.

And finally, there's nothing better than just watching people lose it.

George Osborne...

THEY LAUGH

He denies it, right? He denies it.

Nevertheless, it's come back, because...

-It's

-not funny!

The Mirror has to take responsibility for this...

She... She's been told her phone was hacked

when the Sunday Mirror...

They got so into it they forgot they were on the news

and started making jokes.

This story a few years ago about George

and this woman who clearly no longer takes cocaine, judging by her size.

THEY LAUGH

Anyway, George Osborne

will be dogged by this,

and the lawyer...

Beautiful.

Big news - well, a special baby has been born this week.

Events have been taking place around the world

to mark the birth of the seven billionth person on the planet.

Seven billion people,

and still my brother can't get a girlfriend.

As ever with a big story like this,

the Daily Mail message boards were heaving with madness.

"I want the name of every person in the world right now."

Mind you, not everyone was angry. Some were just confused.

Scientists worry about the increase in population.

With potentially billions more people,

pressure on water, food, oil will grow.

A billion go to bed every night hungry.

-WOMAN LAUGHS

-Don't laugh, madam!

"Hungry?! That's the funniest thing I've ever seen!"

There's too many of us. The planet can't cope.

Is anyone else thinking what I'm thinking?

We need to start bumping people off. But who?

Don't you worry, I've drawn up a list.

Number one, people who play ringtones out loud on buses.

People who still do impressions of Austin Powers. Off you fuck.

People who wear sunglasses indoors, unless you're blind.

People who say, "I am what I am, OMG, LOL,

"reem, I'm real, I'm real, I'm real." Really?

Because I thought you were fucking imaginary!

And finally, anyone who doesn't like this.

Leave!

APPLAUSE

In Blighty, Occupy London was making headlines.

Protesters could remain camped outside St Paul's until the new year

after authorities offered to halt legal action.

Aside from the issues about vicars losing their jobs and evictions,

I couldn't take my eyes off the protesters.

They gave some amazing interviews.

This guy started off by moaning about the lives of the rich.

They still have lavish dinners,

they still have chauffeur-driven Rolls,

they still have butlers and mansions.

All good points. But then he really lost it.

We're at home with our Topshop beans,

separating each bean onto each plate for our children.

Topshop beans?

No wonder his kids are upset - he's feeding them jumpers!

My favourite protester was an Australian called Francis Firebrace.

This old fella is wonderful.

You can't hold me, because I'm not doing any harm to anybody.

I'm an elderly man. Come on, use your bloody nous a bit.

Come on, guys. I love you guys.

Isn't that great? "I love you guys."

Just goes to show, if you're going to protest,

you don't have to be violent.

OK, boys, which one of you fellas have I got to fight?

"I'll rip your eyes out and stick them up your didgeridoo!

"But I still love you."

Staying in Oz, in Royal news, the Queen's been on a trip down under.

The Queen and Prince Philip are in Australia for a ten-day visit.

They'll be based in the capital, Canberra,

but will also travel to Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.

Did you see the Australian media coverage?

Was it me, or were their reports a little bit morbid?

The Queen arrives in Canberra for her 16th visit to Australia,

possibly her last.

..her last trip to Australia.

..on what may well be her last ever trip.

-..her last trip here.

-..probably her very last time.

I hate to use the word "die", so I won't.

I'm surprised they didn't follow her around dressed as Death.

It didn't end there.

Judging by her hand gesture,

this reporter was having a pop at how Liz smells.

The Queen touched down in Perth last night.

"Oh, it's like a dingo's ball bag."

Not all of the reporters were rude. This guy has to win the award

for saying exactly what you see.

The Queen wore lilac and had fresh flowers in her hat.

The Duke of Edinburgh didn't.

"Later on, she'll be waving,

"using her hand."

The Queen and Prince Philip were there for ten days,

and they met some interesting people.

One of my favourites, the BFG's daughter.

Basketball player Elizabeth Cambage towered over the royal couple

as they continued their apparently triumphant Australian journey.

I love the moment when the Queen sees her.

"Hello, you...

"Holy shit!

"Look, Philip."

-AS PHILIP:

-"Bloody hell,

"she's higher than Prince Harry.

"Let's climb her."

The biggest scandal of the trip was definitely this.

In Brisbane, 22-year-old Liam Warriner appeared in court

after he bared his butt cheeks

to the Royal motorcade and mooned the Queen.

Classic Aussie behaviour -

"It's the Queen. I better flash her my shit pipe."

So, how did the Royals react? I bet they were terrified.

The Prince gave me a nice wave. It was lovely.

"Hello.

"It's like a yawning Wookiee."

Next up, this has to be the saddest story of the week.

The veteran radio DJ and television presenter Sir Jimmy Savile has died.

I was gutted. He was great.

You don't get people like him on TV any more. He looked amazing.

Look at that! He's like a cross between Gandalf,

Boris Johnson and Vicky Pollard.

Some of you probably don't know who he was, why he was famous. Check this out.

Good evening, ladies and gentleman. Welcome to Jim'll Fix It.

# There must be something that you always want to do... #

He was the man who made dreams come true.

Damn right he did. Basically, kids used to write to him

and ask him to make their dreams come true.

And back then, their dreams were insane.

"Dear Jim, please could you fix it for me to be a suitcase

"and go on the luggage conveyor at an airport."

THAT is children's TV.

Forget Dick and Dom.

"Can I be a suitcase?"

"Damn right you can"

APPLAUSE

"I'm a suitcase!

"This is amazing!

"People said I should have asked Jim to play football at Wembley.

"Dicks."

Jimmy Savile was such a big part of my childhood.

Without him, I'd never have watched some chubby Scouts

eat their dinner on a roller coaster.

Five, four, three, two, one...

Thanks, Jim.

The only criticism I have of Jimmy - he never answered my letter.

"Dear Jim, can you fix it for me

"to look less like Harry Potter?"

Mind you, those glasses got me a lot of ladies.

Dinner ladies.

Have you seen the latest craze hitting British playgrounds?

Look at this.

Marbles...just say no.

Will kids be in rehab?

"My name is Sarah and I am a marbles gambler.

"It got so bad,

"to pay my debts, I had to put Igglepiggle on the game.

"She's a good little slut, though. Makes me money."

That's a bit full on, Sarah.

"Yeah, it's just how I get when I'm pimping."

Have you seen where they get the money?

They're stealing cash, DVDs and computer games.

Don't steal from your parents. Surely the best way to make money -

blackmail.

Take a photo of yourself naked, put it in your teacher's bag,

threaten to go to the papers!

Easy money.

Over in Russia, there's an alarming promotion in a sex shop.

Casanova 69 is offering kids and adults

the chance to win an unspecified gift from the chain

if they can answer one simple question -

where do babies come from?

That's right, a Russian sex shop is offering children

an unspecified gift

if they can tell them where babies come from.

I mean, it makes obvious sense.

Remember when you were little,

how much you wanted something from a sex shop?

I remember Christmas.

Dear Santa, please can I have some crayons,

a bike

and a vibrating butt plug?

I never got that bike.

APPLAUSE

I'm worried by this news - if sex shops are trying to appeal to kids,

how long before we start seeing children's TV shows like this?

Hi, kids!

I'm Mr Dildo!

Where's Mr Dildo hiding today?

Is he in Mummy?

Is he in Daddy?

Where, oh, where could Mr Dildo be?

RATTLING

Mr Dildo! You are naughty!

APPLAUSE

Technology news.

The iPhone is having a wee bit of bother in Scotland.

It created excitement among techno geeks

when it was launched in London less than two weeks ago.

But now the new iPhone 4s is instead creating confusion.

-Is it a nice day?

-Let's see what it says.

'I don't know what you mean by "Is it NAS Deeta says?"'

That's right, the latest iPhone can't understand Scottish people.

Are there phones in Glasgow saying,

"I do not know where the nearest smack dealer is"?

"I will find one when you have finished school."

It's little wonder the iPhone's confused.

Scottish people are asking it pretty weird questions.

Do you like men? >

'This is about you, not me.'

Remind me to clean my ass cheeks once I've taken a dump. >

-AS iPHONE:

-Remind me to kill myself.

But the iPhone cock-up is nothing

compared to Nikon's face recognition camera.

If you think misunderstanding a Scottish accent was bad,

look what their camera told this lady when she took a photo.

"Did someone blink?"

No.

But someone made a camera that was racist.

From technology that struggles with humans, to humans who struggle with technology.

It's estimated that 8.7 million adults here in the UK

have never been online.

42% of those people are aged 55 or over.

To turn this around, a BBC scheme called Give An Hour was set up

to get pensioners online.

Fair to say, some of them are quite scared of technology.

The biggest fear is when you move that mouse, what's it going to do?

"What's it going to do?

"It's not just the mouse. I heard my computer's full of RAM.

"Someone's put a sheep in my computer."

So how are they getting people like him online?

The challenge - 250 internet users

getting 250 internet virgins online in just an hour.

Well, that is going to be a nightmare.

Not the technology, but protecting pensioners

from the ridiculous amounts of internet porn.

It's everywhere.

Let's do some online shopping. Type what you want into Google.

"OK! I love fudge.

"Bloody hell!"

OK, forget about food. Let's get you a lovely present.

"Okey-dokey. I want a pearl necklace."

No, you don't! Let's get you a scarf.

"No, I want a pearl necklace."

Stop saying that!

Despite that, it's great that pensioners are getting online,

because otherwise they'd miss out on things like this.

Over in New Zealand, check out this massive crime story.

Police say a large dog attacked and punctured four tyres

before taking off.

Holy shit!

A dog is chewing tyres!

You're probably thinking, "Why are you showing me this?"

Why? Because you're about to see

some of the most mind-blowing CGI known to mankind.

A South Auckland police sergeant was patrolling the Mangere street.

Bruno attacked his vehicle, biting the tyre, puncturing it.

The cop changed the tyre,

but when he returned, the bull-mastiff cross

again attacked his tyre,

again puncturing it.

Another sergeant came to the officer's aid,

but he, too, had his tyre attacked and punctured.

It's like Avatar, isn't it?

If you think what he did to the car was bad,

check out what he did to the police officer.

Now a cracking story about Snoop Dogg.

The rapper Snoop Dogg has gone to some extraordinary lengths

to broaden his fan base

by personally appealing to a Welsh farmer

to come to his concert.

This story is brilliant.

A bloke called Ian Neale grew the world's biggest turnip,

and Snoop Dogg invited him to a gig.

Shout out to my homeboy Ian Neale in Cardiff

for breaking the world's record for the biggest vegetable.

Man, when I do my show in Cardiff,

I want you to come backstage and see me,

cos I do vegetation myself and I want to know your secret

so I can show you my vegetables

and see if you can grow that into a real big vegetable.

I wonder what Snoop could be growing?!

It's so blatant - he's literally surrounded by cannabis.

You're probably thinking, "I doubt he went to the gig."

Well, guess again. Not only did he go, he had quite the adventure.

I got my VIP pass with me to show my friends.

And you met him last night?

I met him last night and I had a smoke with him.

I don't smoke, but he offered me one so I took one.

I'm hoping that's just tobacco.

No, it wasn't!

APPLAUSE

"Why do you think I'm wearing this shirt?

"I'm off my tits!

"I feel like I'm in a fruit bowl!"

So, how long did you have with Snoop?

Ten minutes.

There were four of us in my party, and we had ten minutes with him.

What else did you chat about?

"No idea!

"His stuff was so strong, my shirt started talking to me."

I love how he sums up the concert.

Yes, it was an experience. In fact, I'm still deaf.

Mind you, if he's deaf, at least he couldn't hear this.

OUT OF TUNE: # Come on and let me know

# Should I stay or should I go? #

Go.

And take your pubic lice with you.

APPLAUSE

He crucified that classic song.

Over in Scotland, here's a report about an eating competition

that ended in disaster.

An Indian restaurant in Edinburgh has been criticised

after its World's Hottest Chilli competition

left two people in hospital.

Hospital?!

"How was the chilli contest?" "My arse doesn't work."

I know what you're thinking -

if only this story happened in New Zealand.

Imagine the graphics they'd have in the news.

This is the part of the show I don't know anything about.

There's a mystery guest who's been in the news and I have to figure out who it is.

So please welcome my mystery guest.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Hello!

-Your plumage has come down.

-Hello.

-I'm Russell.

-Nice to meet you.

-My name's Ian.

-Can I sit here?

-Yes, please.

So, Ian, I imagine it has something to do with gardening.

-No.

-Nothing to do with gardening?

Good curve ball. We're in a greenhouse. Has it got something to do with your hat?

No, that's health and safety reasons.

Right. Makes sense, doesn't it?

Health and safety making you dress like a bullock.

-IAN LAUGHS HEARTILY

-Good laugh.

That was the kind of laugh of a man who should be next to a fire.

RUSSELL CACKLES

-"Pull my finger."

-Fire - that's close.

-Fire's close.

-Yes, yes.

-Are you the firestarter?

No.

-Twisted firestarter?

-No. No!

Do you smack your bitch up?

No. No, no.

-You'll piss yourself when you get it.

-Nice!

I love these interviews. They're not like Parkinson.

-No.

-OK, you're going to have to help me out.

-I'll give you another clue.

-OK.

Oh, that's an infrared... Do you shoot things at night?

-No.

-Are you the champion of...? Why have you got

an infrared sight? What's that?

Do you go...?

I am the current

-40th and 41st world pea-shooting champion.

-Oh!

There you go!

APPLAUSE

-Would you like to have a go?

-I'd love to.

Back a bit. Come on.

12 foot.

12 foot, 12 inches,

and we fire peas at the target.

-OK.

-Every now and then you get a bad pea.

In fact, pea selection is key to the...

You seem like a lovely bloke,

but that is one of the dullest things any man has ever said to me.

You are lovely, but "Pea selection is a very important thing...

"ladies."

That's it, that's it.

-Very close.

-That was crap. You do it.

I've dropped my pea. I've pea-ed on the stage now!

Show me how it's done.

-OK.

-Let's make this interesting.

Actually, hang on a minute.

This will be like a really weird recreation of how...

Agh!

APPLAUSE

Get it!

Oh, nice. Nice. And again. No, let's do it like Robin Hood.

Can you do it like this?

APPLAUSE

-You did it, though.

-I know!

-You can't put a champion off.

-I can't put a champion off.

-Let's do it again.

-Give it a good go. Hey, careful!

You can't!

APPLAUSE

Do it again and touch my dick, come on.

No!

You can't put a champion off.

No, no, go downstairs.

Go on, rub it, really rub it.

Go on, touch my dick!

No!

It won't go.

YEAH!

APPLAUSE

So, the first question that leaps to mind,

why the Viking helmet?

-Health and safety.

-You keep saying that.

There's people shooting behind you as you're trying to shoot.

-It protects the back of your neck.

-I get that, but why the horns?

It was just given to me as a gift.

That's a back story.

-Who gave you that as a gift?

-My daughter.

-Lovely!

-How old is she?

-Er, 26.

-I'm

-24!

Did you hear that?

APPLAUSE

-That's on telly.

-It changes every year!

That's on telly forever.

-I enjoyed that. Nice to meet you.

-Thank you very much.

-A genuine pleasure. Ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for my mystery guest!

-Russell?

-What?

I was on the news for something else as well.

-Ian?

-I, er...

-Ian...?

I trimmed a bush.

-You what?

-I trimmed a bush into an obscene shape,

a todgery-type shape.

So you turned your bush into a penis?

Yes.

That's not often been done.

-Yeah...

-What made you do that?

I couldn't do a dog.

APPLAUSE

-Please give it up for my mystery guest!

-APPLAUSE

Now, if you think you've woken up grumpy today,

you've got nothing on this guy.

Confused and angry,

an elderly man in a morgue in South Africa...

..led away from the premises

after he was found alive

in the mortician's fridge.

Workers thought he had died the day before.

Imagine waking up in a morgue.

It would be horrific.

Mind you, if that were me, I'd have to take the piss.

When they pulled me out, I'd freak them out and do the Thriller dance.

What I want to know, how the hell did this happen?

His family asked the morgue to collect his body

after they could not wake him.

How shit are his family?!

"Grandad?

"He's dead. Whack him in the fridge."

Grandad will never sleep again. "What do you want for dinner?"

"Red Bull and cocaine!"

This week's story is about a young man called Patrick Hughes.

It's wonderful.

Born without eyes

and a tightening of the joints that prevents his limbs straightening,

Patrick has been blind and crippled from birth.

We asked, "Why us?" We played by the rules.

We worked hard. We just didn't understand.

That heartbreak began to fade even before Patrick's first birthday,

from his first moments at the family's piano.

By his second birthday, he was playing requests.

Can you play You Are My Sunshine?

HE PLAYS THE MELODY

OK, we're not going to play baseball,

but we're going to play music together. That was really exciting.

MUSIC: "Clair de Lune" by Debussy

He's my hero. I've told him before.

What he goes through,

it's taught me that I don't really have any complaints.

God made me blind and unable to walk.

Big deal.

He gave me the ability, the musical gifts I have

and the great opportunity to meet new people.

How would you describe your disabilities?

Not disabilities at all, more abilities.

It's Saturday night so it's time for my stand up guest.

This next bloke's brilliant.

I saw him a few years ago, he was amazing,

he keeps getting better.

He's lovely, imaginative funny, great.

So please welcome the brilliant Henry Paker.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Hello, thank you, thanks.

Hello, yes, come on!

Before we start, I want to get something straight, OK?

Because I'm slightly tall, and don't really have any hair,

er, occasionally people confuse me

for somebody who might be interested in a fight.

I want to make it quite clear that I'm not. Right.

Basically the hardest thing I've ever done is I once punched the air...

..because I'd just successfully cooked meringues.

"Crunchy on the outside, soft in the middle, get in!"

So I'm not hard, but I do get angry.

This morning I got quite angry,

because I had to pretend to be French.

Just briefly I had to pretend to be French,

I don't know if anyone else had that.

No? Just for about three seconds

this morning I had to pretend to be French.

It happens to me most days, actually.

The reason is that the pastry that I like to order

in my local cafe is called...

IN FRENCH ACCENT: ..pain au chocolat.

And you have to briefly pretend to be French, don't you,

while saying, "Pain au chocolat". You're not allowed to say,

IN ENGLISH ACCENT: "Pain o chocolate".

They don't like that.

So you have to pretend to be French and it stresses me out.

I'm in the queue waiting to get to the front, sort of warming up.

"Er, pain au chocolat, pain au... pain-pain au chocolat."

"Pain au chocolat, pain au chocolat, pain-pain-pain au chocolat."

"Pain au chocolat."

Sort of getting into character.

IN HEAVY FRENCH ACCENT: "Pain au chocolat."

"Pain au chocolat!"

"Bof, c'est pain au chocolat, oui, c'est pain au chocolat,

"mais en meme temps, c'est, ouai, c'est pain au chocolat, oui!"

"Oui, c'est pain au chocolat, mais en meme temps, c'est pain au chocolat!"

"Bof!"

"C'est pain au chocolat!"

"Pain au chocolat, mmm!"

So I get to the front of the queue, right,

everything else is in my normal voice,

"Hello, hi, yeah, how are you? Brilliant, yeah.

"Yes, so today I'm going to go for, er,

"Yeah, just on the left of the sausage rolls, yeah.

"In-between the sausage rolls and the lemon drizzle...

"You're going to make me say it?

"Yeah, the PAIN AU CHOCOLAT!"

I fucking nailed it this morning, it was unbelievable.

"Oui, monsieur."

Also, I don't think this happens in France, does it?

Do they do this in France as well?

Do they go into the boulangerie, "Bonjour, monsieur." "Bonjour, madame."

"Alors, aujourd'hui je voudrais, alors, deux croissants,

"une baguette, et un...

IN ENGLISH ACCENT: "pasty."

"Merci beaucoup, merci."

"Mmm, mmm, oh, delicieux.

"Oui, j'adore le pasty!"

"Mwah, bon appetit."

So I like to go to my local cafe and sit there with my laptop,

you know, taking on the big questions in life.

Like for example, what is the point...

of the insert key?

Why have they put this key on the keyboard?

The insert key? Who...?

This is the key that you press by accident.

Nobody ever deliberately presses the insert key.

This is the key where you're typing away happily,

not a care in the world, you look up at the screen,

and you see that you're typing through what you wrote before!

Who does that on purpose?

I think there's too many capital letters

and too many exclamation marks in text messages.

Everyone's shouting everything the whole time.

And there's that weird one,

the question mark, exclamation mark combo.

What is that emotion?

I've never felt like that.

"You coming to the pub?"

"?!"

"See you later."

"I don't know?!"

Very stressful.

I don't use exclamation marks, I use dot-dot-dot.

Yeah... Very different mood...

created by dot-dot-dot...

Turns my text messages into little thrillers.

"Ooh, what's going to happen next? It's so exciting."

"Do you want to have a pizza later...?"

"What could he mean?

"Who is this man? I need to get under his skin, work out how he thinks."

But my phone has this really annoying habit -

when I try to punctuate, my phone predicts a smiley.

That's not what I want.

So I might be texting a lady, trying to sound suave,

"See you later at the pub...

"Anything could happen..."

Quite suave, isn't it?

Quite suave and seductive, yeah?

Except that my phone turns it into, "See you later at the pub...

"Anything could happen..."

Anti suave!

Not remotely seductive.

I'm not a very seductive person in general, actually.

I'm very bad at seducing ladies.

One of my main problems is that I'm very bad at giving the eye.

It's a skill I've never mastered, giving the eye.

I tried to do it the other day in the cafe.

There was me and this girl sitting there, no-one else there.

I thought I'd give her a bit of the eye.

So I started looking at her, I can do eye contact.

That's the first bit, eye contact, I can do that.

But the crucial thing is the smile,

because if you don't do the smile, it's just...

So the smile is crucial.

So I was looking at her and I thought, I'm going to do the smile.

But I chickened out.

When it came to the moment of smiling,

I chickened out and I looked away, I looked down.

But this was the pathetic bit.

I then thought to myself, maybe it's not too late.

Maybe it's not too late for the smile.

Maybe I can still do the smile after I've looked down

and it will have a sort of retrospective smile effect.

So this is what happened when I gave her the eye.

APPLAUSE

Now one of the many problems with this is that it looked as

if I was picturing her murder.

Either that or flirting with my pain au chocolat.

But, er, I just want to make it very clear,

I have never murdered anybody.

But if I did, if I did murder somebody,

I'd like to think that when they interviewed my friends

on television, they would say

what the friends of murderers always say, which is,

"Yes, so when I found out that Henry Paker had murdered a lady,

"I couldn't believe it, I couldn't believe it.

"Henry Paker of all people. He was such a normal guy.

"I couldn't believe it, Henry Paker! I couldn't believe it.

"He was such a normal guy, Henry Paker, I couldn't believe it.

"I couldn't believe it!"

I don't want to be the first murderer of all time...

who, when they interview my friend on television, he says,

"Yes, so when I found out that Henry Paker had diced up a lady

"and turned her into a Shepherd's Pie,

"and then sort of made her skin into a kind of tutu...

"..I thought to myself...

"yeah.

"Classic Paker.

"He is a legend."

Another of my problems is that, er, I'm a big fake.

I feel guilty about it. I'm a big fake, I'm living a lie.

Cos I tell people I'm really into culture and stuff.

I'm into books and literature and films.

But it's bollocks. It really is.

I'm also very slow at reading.

I'll always have a book that's on the go.

And every two or three months, I'll come back to it,

fish it out from under my bed, find my bookmark where

I left off two months ago, and start reading from there.

But the trouble is it's been so long

since I read the book that I've forgotten who all the characters are.

I don't really know what's going on.

I have a little trick, which is that I go back ten pages.

No-one needs to know.

I go back ten pages and start reading from ten pages ago.

This gives me a sort of refresher course on all the characters.

It's a good system except that about five pages later...

HE SNORES

So the bookmark goes back in the book,

the book goes back under the bed.

Three months later, I come back to the book,

I think I'm really going to nail it this time.

Really going to read this motherflipper.

Fish the book out, find my place, no idea what's going on,

go back about ten pages and read about another five pages.

So I'm going backwards!

I unread!

I've invented unread.

Eventually, I end up back at the front cover,

"Oh yes, Oliver Twist, yes.

"I've been meaning to give this a go. I'm going to read Oliver Twist."

Then I realise I've completely forgotten everything

that happened in the previous book that I read.

So I have to go back and unread the previous book,

then unread the book before that, then unread the book,

before that book, before that book, before that book, before that book,

before that book, before that book...

I'm currently on The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Which, by the way, when you unread it, is about a bulimic butterfly.

It's not as nice.

It's not as uplifting.

I unread the Bible.

Very different when you unread the Bible.

In the New Testament, right, when you unread it,

God sends Jesus down to earth on a cross...

..which he isn't very happy about.

But luckily, there are these helpful Romans gathered there.

And they spot Jesus up on the cross

and they go up the hill and they rescue him.

And they carry him down the hill and let him go on his way.

It's quite nice.

Mel Gibson hates that version.

Then it gets a bit weird,

because Jesus starts touring the Holy Land, lecturing people.

But he does seem to be quite boring,

because he gradually has less and less followers.

I think it's cos he's pissing people off.

Like, he meets this man who can see and makes him blind.

He's quite irritating in this version.

5,000 people, happily tucking in to bread and fish...

Jesus Christ has got other ideas.

He turns up, turns all their food into five loaves and two fish.

Eventually, he ends up as a little baby in a barn

and three old men come along and nick all his presents.

Which I think he had coming, frankly.

The Old Testament is also very different,

when you unread the Old Testament.

Adam and Eve are this highly-sexed couple...

..always doing it in different places and positions.

They decide to break into a garden, to spice things up a bit.

They are about to make love when, suddenly, Eve regurgitates an apple.

GRUNTING

They are both so disgusted by this

that they both permanently lose their sex drives.

God is so pissed off about this that he has a day off...

LAUGHTER

..and then destroys the entire world.

APPLAUSE

I was Henry Paker, thank you for listening. Goodnight!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Ladies and gentleman,

please give it up for Henry Paker!

Thank you very much for watching Good News. Goodnight!

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