Episode 4 James May's Man Lab

Hello and welcome to Man Lab, a Transit van of radical thought

careering out of control down the high street of convention.

'Bursting from today's man bag of ambition...' Dig for gold!

'We pillage the south coast in search of buried treasure.' 2008.

It's remarkable. All those years!

'Turn our Man Lab railway into a physical junk mail filter.'

Lower the arm.

Beautiful. this.

'And challenge the establishment with Man Lab Pirate FM.'

To have sold 25,000 copies of a book just about soldering is a remarkable achievement.

Thank you.

WHISTLE

Now... this is St Anthony of Padua.

And he is the patron saint of things that have gone missing.

And Catholics and other people who believe in the intercession of dead monks,

have a little poem that they say to him if they can't find the car keys, for example.

It goes "Tony, Tony, turn around, something's lost and can't be found".

But what if something's really missing?

This is Sandbanks, a small peninsula of paradise on the south coast of Poole Harbour.

It's one of England's cleanest beaches and boasts the fourth highest land value in the world,

with houses going in excess of £10 million.

But amongst all the sunbathers, bad shorts and bloody expensive property,

there is a sad figure wandering along the beach,

lost in memories that even a mint choc-chip Feast cannot erase.

I was sitting somewhere around here making a dimensionally accurate sand model of the Kremlin

when I heard his baleful cry go up.

That man is in fact my dad, James May Senior,

and I remember the moment as if it were 1973... which it was.

MUSIC: "It Was A Very Good Year" by Frank Sinatra

The Mays took a May bank holiday holiday to Sandbanks most years,

but on this one my dad lost his wedding ring.

-I mean, I was only ten.

-Yes.

-I remember the incident very well,

but I can't quite work out what you did. You said you shook your hands.

-Yes, that's as I recall it.

-And you felt it?

We'd been scrummaging around doing something,

probably making a castle with a moat round it, or something like that,

I had sand stuck on my hands and I went like that.

-Don't do it again!

-Well, that's not going to come off in a hurry.

-And I felt it go.

-Right.

Didn't see it, didn't see where it went but felt it go.

I was a bit too young to appreciate the significance of losing your wedding ring,

but how did Mum take it?

She ran back to the bungalow, which was maybe half a mile away,

-and came back with the deep fat fryer basket, like a deep sieve with a handle.

-Yes!

-And we could sieve tons of sand through that.

-I'd completely forgotten that bit. Yes.

-And...

-The fryer basket thing.

-She came back with this and we still didn't find it.

It is exactly like when you're in the garage and you drop a screw,

-you've got to find it straight away.

-Otherwise...

But it is there, it will be there somewhere.

And that must have been there somewhere but not where you were looking.

Absolutely true. That's got to be the only truth, we looked where it wasn't.

As a mere boy, I could only watch helplessly as my parents

tried to pass most of Dorset through a chip pan.

Now, as a man, I return better equipped.

If we're to stand any chance whatsoever of restoring that ring to its rightful finger,

we're going to have to employ ruthless logic, technology, manpower,

some fatuously appropriate music,

and even a little bit of what Professor Brian Cox would call New Age woo-woo.

But let's start with this man.

This is Vincent May, he's no relation, he is a geomorphologist.

-That's right.

-Geomorphologists study how land masses change over time

and Vincent specialises in this coastal area.

So if this is a fool's errand, he's the man to say so... now.

Let's say for argument's sake, I mean Dad and I aren't clear on this,

but let's say he was down here, quite near the water,

let's say the ring fell there 40 years ago.

How far could it have moved?

It might have moved, if it was on the surface, something like 450 feet in a year. Along the surface.

-A year?

-Yes.

-But it was 40 years ago.

-Yeah.

-So that's miles?

-Yes.

But it could equally have just got buried,

and that's what's happening here at the moment.

If you, if you watch the pebbles down here, you can see that as the wave is washing in,

you can see sand in suspension. And if we watch this wave here, it's pushing material up the beach.

If the ring were sitting down there, it could get dragged down,

but it could equally very quickly get buried.

-In some ways I'm encouraged by that, because...

-Yes.

..it could be pretty much where it fell,

wherever that is, we don't know. It could be there.

But it could be, what, 20 feet down, ten feet down?

No, ten feet. Or less than that, probably four, five feet.

-So as long as we can detect it, and...dig, we could...?

-Yes. Yeah.

So, to recap.

The ring is either just a few feet below the sand right here,

or it's in Swanage.

But one thing gives me hope.

In the '70s this section of beach was protected by groynes,

long stone structures built to stop the sand setting off on a holiday of its own.

But even if the ring is still here, it's going to take a mammoth crew to find it.

-Morning.

-ALL: Morning.

So I've gathered every metal detectorist, archaeologist,

scuba diver and treasure hunter in the area.

Come in. Man with a spade.

Right, it's a very simple exercise.

We're looking for a gold ring lost in 1973.

I have here a picture of the beach as it was in 1973 when we were here.

And it's substantially different.

I know that we came down the path and settled roughly here,

which means on the modern picture we're looking at an area

basically between the new groynes, if you see what I mean.

'The ring is just a standard gold band but should be positively identifiable.

'It will have the same assay marks, stamps used to show gold purity, maker and so on,

'as my mum's ring which I've been able to check, because Mum didn't lose hers.'

-Anything else? Happy?

-ALL: Yeah.

-Dig for gold!

-ALL LAUGH

The science of finding the misplaced has been appropriately dubbed findology.

In his book How To Find Lost Objects, professional findologist Professor Solomon writes,

"There are no missing objects, only unsystematic searches".

Our search today will be the most thorough organised hunt

that St Anthony and all his dead monk friends will ever have seen.

We've split the beach up using a grid system and assigned different teams to each grid square.

This way we can methodically cross off each section of beach as we go

and leave no stone unturned, no sand unsifted.

-Off you go.

-OK.

Our detector army will take to the beach, scuba divers will scour the ocean bed.

Thanks to a camera on a toy helicopter, even the skies will aid us in our search.

We have solid methods and men in rock-hard sunglasses.

Ring and finger are as good as reunited.

This gives us a helicopter eye view of the whole ring recovery exercise,

so we can see if anything's been missed.

This bit of the beach doesn't seem very big, but when you start looking at it close up,

you realise actually it's a huge area.

It's like a massive garden.

Tutankhamen's Tomb, The Dead Sea Scrolls, The Rosetta Stone,

all of them will seem like things found in a kitchen drawer

compared with the rediscovery of May Senior's 9-carat ring.

We will stop at nothing to find it. Not even at using Rory.

-Pants on.

-Never wear pants.

-No, pants on!

-No, no, pants off, I think she's saying.

-It's a rule.

-No, pants on.

-Well, they'll just get wet.

-Swimming trunks, Rory.

-Have you got spare pants?

No, it goes over the top of it, so I won't get wet.

It's a wetsuit, you berk!

You look like an action doll you get free with breakfast cereal or something.

So armed with an underwater metal detector and a head-mounted aquatic camera,

Rory heads off for his very first scuba dive,

charged with the simplest task we can possibly find for him,

sinking in water.

Rory?!

Sadly, the dive instructor has failed to allow

for the immense buoyancy of his student's hollow head.

Still, if he does submerge, the seabed will be a fertile hunting ground.

Back on dry land and about an hour into our search,

we've worked our way through about 10% of our grid area

and our detectorists have our first promising signal.

-Have you found something?

-I've got a good signal and I've looked around here.

It shouldn't be a cable, so hopefully it's something.

BEEPING

-The hand probe, is that just...?

-It's just easier to get into the hole once you've dug the hole.

-So it's the same technology, it's just a little bit more localised?

-Yeah.

For those of you who can afford to buy your own valuables,

a metal detector works by pulsing an electromagnetic field into the ground from its transmitter coil.

Any metallic object the field hits generates a weak magnetic field of its own,

which is then picked up by the receiver coil.

The weaker the return field is, the deeper the object is buried.

Some detectors can even give you a rough idea of what the object might be.

I just saw something then.

-Ah-ha!

-There we go.

-It's a pound, isn't it?

-Yeah, it's a one-pound coin.

2008.

-It's remarkable, all those years!

-MAN LAUGHS

Well, it's a pound. Technically, that's yours.

-It is. Thank you very much.

-And as we worked our way through the grid,

that was just the start of a hoard that Time Team could only dream of.

It is... 20 pence!

A 5p piece.

Another five pence.

-It's an old barbecue.

-Scruffy sods!

-Yeah.

-It's just a button!

-It's silver paper.

-Just a Coke can.

Argh! Look at the depth! Just a barbecue.

It might be just a copper stud or something like that off a pair of jeans.

I wish people would throw stuff in the bin.

The most interesting thing we find is the chamber from an old pistol,

presumably used by the spouse of a metal-detector enthusiast on his or herself.

But apart from that, it's a Tutankhamen's trash can of ancient beach bum's litter.

I don't think it's a very good match, do you, fellas?

It's not very good at all.

Well, nevertheless, it's interesting. We can look at this and say "What does it mean?"

"What does it mean?" It means someone didn't put their rubbish in the bin, really.

-That's about it, isn't it?

-Yeah.

We're now six hours into our search and our booty of bottle tops and barbecues

has crossed off over 70% of our search area.

But I refuse to be disheartened.

After all, buried treasure is found in the UK all the time

and mostly by metal detectorists.

From Dave Crisp in 2010, who found a hoard of 52,000 Roman coins,

to divers right here in Sandbanks finding a 17th century wreck with stunning baroque carvings.

And talking of maritime disasters, Rory has managed to sink and is now homing in on a promising signal.

It's another bum's beer can.

But as Rory rises like Aphrodite, I notice something more worrying.

Rory?

Rory,... where's your camera gone?

-Lost it.

-You've lost it?

-We're going to try and find it.

-You've lost the camera?

-It's... fell off his head!

Did you find anything?

It's a Stella can.

Is that it?! And you've lost Rory's camera?

I'm now prepared to accept that we won't find the ring,

but it would be nice to go home with the kit that we came with,

otherwise we've merely contributed to the world's losses.

-Yes, exactly!

-Which is not really the object.

So, with one of our £200 underwater cameras now underwater for eternity,

we've become the first archaeological dig in history

to leave behind more treasure than we've discovered.

But just as I'm considering packing all this in,

there's exciting news over at the detector grid.

-So, you think you might have found something?

-Half-decent signal.

It's either a ring pull or silver or gold!

HE LAUGHS

FAINT BEEPING

It's a ring of some description.

Hang on, did he say a ring?

-What have you found?

-A small piece of jewellery.

It's maybe a little ring, something like that.

Well, it may be silver and not gold, but finally we have found a ring.

And the small flotilla of archaeologists we brought down for the day

actually have something to do.

Yeah, it's amazing.

I mean, you know, we have found a ring

-And we came to look for a ring, we found one.

-Yeah.

Not the one we were looking for,

-but it's still, you know, pretty good going.

-It is, yeah. I am impressed.

And just half an hour later, out at sea.

MUSIC: "Fortunate Son" by Credence Clearwater Revival

It's not the missing ring, but it's a ring.

It's taken most of the day, but amazingly we have found a gold ring.

And it says 18 carat. 1-8-CT.

That's not the one we want tragically, but it does mean that somebody's lost it.

Actually, if you think you lost it, you can write to us, you know,

[email protected] - mark your subject line That's My Ring.

But you will have to correctly identify the two initials on it to claim it.

As people across the country everywhere hit rewind to that close-up of the ring a minute ago,

I survey our hoard. We've now scoured every square of our grid and found bottle tops,

bolts, cutlery, a pistol chamber, a rather nice silver St Christopher medallion

-and a camping kettle whistle.

-WHISTLE

And even two rings.

But my dad's 1956 band of gold remains as lost as Atlantis.

One part of me thinks "Well, the ring is here somewhere, why wouldn't it be?"

And one of the rules of findology is that it's not lost, you're lost.

You're looking in the wrong place. But then I also think in the 40 years since that happened,

I fell off my bike a few times, discovered girls, went to sixth form college, went to university,

had several false-start careers, bought several houses, met several people, travelled around the world.

All those things have been going on and in all that time

the wind has blown and the sea has washed over the sand and it could be anywhere.

How could you possibly find it?

Look how big it is.

Coming up - we crank up the search, turning to the mechanical

and the mystical.

-You can actually ask that questions?

-You can.

ill we recover the lost ring from the sands of time?

Wait a minute!

Here's something that baffles me.

Why is that my mobile phone provider writes to me

constantly with details of special offers?

Why doesn't he just ring me up?

In fact, why do all these people keep writing to me?

"Free". I get a free tape measure if I spend £150.

Yes, an art gallery opening, something about sandwiches,

outdoor buildings, recycling my T-shirts,

Would I like to pretend I've been injured in an accident, car insurance.

Somebody would like to rent my house. Pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza.

I reckon that I'm employed for about 15 minutes every day on behalf of British commerce

tidying up their litter.

There must be an easier way.

DRILL WHIRRS

-Choice, bro.

-Morning, Tony.

-Morning, James.

What we have in mind is a labour-saving mail sorting system

that gets rid of the junk and brings the proper post to my office without me having to leave my desk.

And to make it even more exciting, it's going to be delivered by train.

This is where we rely on the Man Lab Integrated Transport Solution System,

or model railway if you must.

Down there by the letterbox, Simmy reckons he can devise a system for sorting the mail.

Good things that I want to read and then all the leaflets from people who think they can take my money

just because they've printed For You My Friend Special Price in one corner.

These will be loaded on to special wagons on the train,

which will then make their way down here, gathering speed,

thundering through the curve here behind the drawing board,

past the tool board, the Swiss army bicycle, and it'll make its way,

gathering yet more speed furiously, a flurry of connecting rods, through the bar,

down here toward the kitchen. And then, somehow or other,

the junk mail will be dropped off and will become kindling for lighting our pizza oven.

Now, the train, unburdened by offers to buy your house even though it wasn't for sale,

will roar off, given new wings by its light burden, across this bridge,

past the £50 electric organ, round the curve,

over the illuminated suspension bridge and round another left-hand curve here as yet to be built,

to arrive here where Sim has devised something rather special.

-Sim?

-The train will come along, come on to this bridge section here,

trip some switches, and the whole thing, train, carriages, mail,

everything will go up to your office,

join the other railway, which will then continue into the office.

-Through the hole that Tony made earlier?

-Yes.

And arrive on my desk.

In theory, this all seems simple enough, but in practice,

it poses a few tricky technical problems, not least working out

how to sort the post automatically.

Letterbox may be round here somewhere.

Letters will come in and stack.

But then I have this little parallel motion arm,

which will have a sucker on the end of it, which will come down and suck up the mail.

If it's good mail it will drop it there.

If it's bad mail, junk mail, it will pick it up,

take it across to this side, drop it here and it will end up in there.

What we do with it then, I have got no idea.

Sim's automatic mail sorting suction arm will require a lot of electronics and wiring.

While I get down to some serious soldering, Simon wrestles with another thorny issue.

How to use the train's forward motion to activate the lift.

The train operates the switch to lift it.

As soon as the train hits the trip switch, a small electric motor starts winding the lift heavenwards.

When it reaches the top, another switch brings it neatly to a halt.

The trick is then to deliver power to the track so that the train can continue on its journey.

Lovely!

This project is stretching Sim to the limit.

Eventually he snaps and has the shortest tantrum in the history of television.

The fact that it's a... BLEEP impossible thing to do in the time! HE LAUGHS

But many hours later, he's ready to test the automatic mail sorting arm.

Now, what I've got here is a remote control system

connected down to... that thing over there.

This panel of switches drive tiny motors called servos, which control the motion of the arm.

Another circuit controls an air pump, which delivers the suction needed to pick a letter up.

-Look at that!

-The entire sorting process is monitored with a webcam.

Picked up the letter.

Oh, it's dropped it. That's good.

Into the train. We're ready to go.

The final hurdle is to work out how to get rid of the junk mail.

Sim's come up with a sort of swinging hopper wagon,

but getting it to empty into the shredder is pushing him towards another O-gauge hissy fit.

The problem is to get the junk mail off here, to go into here.

That is not flipping easy.

Prodding it with a stick may look futile,

but in fact it's the inspiration for a very elegant solution.

When the train hits this buffer, a holding pin is released and a weighted arm does the rest.

Ingenious!

We've committed hundreds of hours to this project, but so we should -

it's an important labour-saving device.

Finally, we're ready to tackle whatever the postie brings.

So here's how it works. It is a little bit complicated so bear with me.

On my desktop computer I have a remote view of the post that's just arrived

and I also have some controls here that operate the sorting system.

So, I have a look at the first thing on the pile there.

It's a piece of junk mail.

So I bring the operating arm over...

It will swing into view on my camera. There it is. Fantastic.

I turn on the vacuum... and then I lower the arm,

select the piece of junk mail, and then select "junk",

take it to one side and it should have deposited it.

Let's have a look. Bring the arm back. Yes, the arm is empty.

And I notice that the next thing in the pile is also junk mail, so vacuum on.

It's beautiful, this.

Vacuum.

This is absolutely fantastic.

-Now look at this next one.

-HE READS

That is for me. So I'll bring the rocker arm back,

vacuum on, pick up the mail,

but this time I don't want to deposit it to junk, so I simply kill the vacuum

and it drops straight down into the good mail carriage.

Now we are ready for our mail train to start its long

and arduous journey up to my office. And really what we've done here

is we've completely automated mail handling and delivery

and we're invoking really the golden age of the post office,

when everything was done in a hurry, on the move, with things like

the travelling post office, a railway carriage in which there was a sorting office,

so the letters were being sorted whilst they were on their way.

In fact, it was the subject of a great public information film,

The Night Mail, words by WH Auden. music by Benjamin Brittan.

This is the night mail crossing the border, bringing the cheque and the postal order.

Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,

the shop at the corner or the girl next door.

Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb.

The gradient's against her but she's on time.

WHISTLE

Our junk mail train is almost indistinguishable from the 1930s original

as it gathers speed through the Man Lab.

WHISTLE

It bursts from the tunnel towards Sim's as-yet-unpatented shred-o-matic.

It works! Pizza leaflets instantly transformed into pizza oven kindling.

Now the train hurtles on towards its ultimate test, the self-raising lift bridge.

As our plucky train is hoisted aloft,

Sim and I can look back with pride at our mail train's triumphant journey.

It's been such a success that I feel moved to verse myself.

Here is the junk mail crossing the Man Lab,

bringing us offers of pizza and kebab.

Sitters for babies, sitters for cats,

send us your old clothes, rent out your flat.

Work from your bedroom and earn instant cash

or send us a claim for bogus whiplash.

What will she bring me?

I bet it's amazing, not cable or broadband, or cheap double glazing.

See how she comes home, steady as we go.

Ah, it's from the guild of English poets. They regret... it's a no.

Still never mind. How brilliant is that?

A remote system for sorting and delivering your good mail directly to your desk.

And I haven't even had to get out of my chair.

What could be simpler?

And now this.

CHATTER

Hello. You join me in a very, very busy pub where we are investigating a centuries-old problem.

I can easily carry two pint glasses full of beer,

and at a pinch I can manage three like that,

but only the exceptionally talented can carry more than that.

Which means, if you're out on a big night with a load of your mates

and it's your turn to get the massive round in,

you have to resort...to the tray.

MUSIC: "O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana by Carl Orff

It's all so tragically familiar.

Now, though, we think we have the solution.

Simmy has a very ingenious invention - very simple as well.

It relies on atmospheric pressure, which is, of course, all around us.

And we're not really aware of it until you take it away,

and then you discover it's about 14 1/2 pounds per square inch.

That's like having about six bags of sugar on an area like the end

of your thumb.

'Thanks to atmospheric pressure, we can create a vacuum by simply

'putting a rubber disc over the pint glass and pressing down.

'We also have a family-sized pack of vacuum gauges.'

We've had the dials of these specially made for us, but

they are marked "safe", "careful"

and, right down at the bottom, "oops".

They measure, effectively, the absence of air pressure,

so if I suck on it...

-Tasty?

-No.

'Time for a demonstration.'

Here is a standard pint glass.

We'll fill it just with water in this case.

What we're going to do is effectively create a partial

vacuum inside the glass,

and it was Aristotle who originally observed all this stuff.

It was he who said, "nature abhors a vacuum," and indeed it does.

But we can turn it to our advantage, especially -

and Aristotle wouldn't have understood this -

if you have to get a really big round in. There is your pint.

'Our gauge is reading "careful," but that's OK. Let's try this.

'I'd say that's a success.

'Even with Simmy literally trying to pull the pint glass off,

'it won't budge.'

That's a huge force. That's basically all my strength.

So, let's return to the pub and put this to the ultimate test.

A truly massive round and a very ham-fisted boy.

'We've improved our prototype

'by creating a Perspex coat-hanger style frame for our beer caddy.

'This can be written on to say which drink is for whom in your round,

'or to get your order understood in even the noisiest bar.

'Once you've got your pint, simply put the pressure pads onto

'the top and push down to create the vacuum.

'Hook the tops of the pads onto the carrying frame and away you go.

'Even the most elbowy pub in Britain holds no fears

'for the carrier of the beer caddy.'

Here you go, guys.

Ah, very good.

'Once you have your pint, simply peel off the rubber seal...'

And enjoy.

That's absolutely brilliant. I'll have the same, please, Rory.

This bulging folder is absolutely rammed with ideas that have

been proposed for Man Lab, but that have never made it onto the screen.

Why not? Well, some of them, frankly, are rubbish,

like the dog training challenge, or build your own Viking long ship.

But a lot of them are great.

They're simply not very suitable for television.

They're too long winded or they're not very "visual",

as our director would say.

But it does seem a pity to waste them,

so then we had another idea that won't make it onto the television.

We'll do them on the radio.

Why are we really doing this?

It's because, despite the proliferation of newspapers,

magazines and radio stations and TV channels,

there are still people who don't have a voice.

And, with Radio Man Lab - 107.0 FM - we are giving them

a forum, a place where they can speak freely about art and

science and natural history and love and personal problems and metalwork.

Free of any sort of populist or commercial considerations.

And there are of course people who won't like this.

That's why we're broadcasting from a place where no-one can touch us.

Offshore.

So, here we go.

In the spirit of the great pirate radio pioneers - Caroline,

obviously, we are broadcasting from a long boat,

Elizabeth of Glamis, on the Grand Union Canal in all its beauty,

just outside Milton Keynes in Bedfordshire.

Never done this before. Here we go.

Cast off.

Now, if you're too young to know what one of these is,

let alone one of these, pirate radio was popular in the '60s,

thanks to offshore radio ships like Caroline.

Because they were technically in international waters,

they could broadcast unlicensed anarchy,

and give listeners something they'd never had before,

challenging the orthodoxy and giving the people a voice.

We're going to be doing exactly the same,

and with the latest technology.

Is that being broadcast?

'So, at Radio Man Lab, everything works through 3G.

'At the back of the boat is this box,

'which contains six mobile phone SIM cards.

'We simply transmit on whichever SIM card has the best

'signal at any time.

'That signal then whizzes back to a secret local rooftop

'where it is converted to FM

'and blasted out of these antennas

'to enthral the whole of Milton Keynes.'

Radio Man Lab, 107 FM, just cast off here on the Grand Union Canal

and heading for our first lock gate.

Good morning, everybody.

# Ma-a-a-an la-a-ab. #

Coming up later on the show:

We've got Peter, the mingy comumbus coracle man, in the water

giving us live reports of action as it happens here

on the Grand Union Canal.

'There is just one small hitch in our mission to inform,

'educate and anarchise.

'While the BBC obviously love to promote the kind of illegal

'radio activity that stuffed them in the '60s, they've told us

'we have to get a licence, or they will replace us with MasterChef.

'We may now be the most regulated anarchist pirates in radio

'history, but we can still be the people's station.'

Man Lab, 107 FM.

'We've bludgeoned the Biebers, garrotted the Gagas

'and instead of generic auto-tune pop, we have guests that would

'otherwise never see the light of day.'

Joining me off the riverbank finally and on the boat is Peter Mingy Comumbus,

our coracle builder from the previous series of Man Lab.

-Peter, hello.

-Good morning, James.

One of humankind's most primitive watercraft, I suppose.

I mean, after the cut-out log, and so on, it's the coracle, isn't it?

The sea boats were used by the Mesolithic people 8,000 years ago.

So I think the coracle could be beyond the last ice age,

we don't know. A very, very ancient form of transport.

And what are you going to do for us?

You've bought your trusty coracle along, one we've seen before,

and you're going to paddle up and down the river.

And what are you going to report on?

-I'm looking for interesting flora and fauna.

-OK.

You go off, if you don't mind, and get in your coracle

and we'll fade up CD player two - I've no idea what's on it.

'This is what Man Lab FM is all about.

'Here is a man who spends his time wandering around the forest

'alone and in tiny shorts picking up sticks to make Neolithic boats.

'He's never had anyone to talk to, but now,

'thanks to our semi-pirate radio station, he has.'

Anyway, Dan, I'd love to go over to Peter Mingy Comumbus,

who is - I can see he's behind us. He's trailing a bit, to be honest.

How do we get him up on our airwaves, Dan?

We can talk to him whenever we like. Apparently.

OK, let's see if we can work out...

Just in case you've only just joined us,

ladies and gentlemen, we've never done this before,

and Dan is making a face at me to say, no, no, it's not possible.

We can't get Peter Mingy Comumbus up on the mic.

'It may not look it, but this could be a very expensive problem.'

-So is the out of range of the radio?

-He is out of range.

He's on the camera right now.

'Because we're now being regulated by broadcasting law,

'any radio silence or dead air can land us a fine from Ofcom

'of up to £25,000 per minute.'

Oh, which radio mic is he on?

'Peter, now broadcasting to no-one, is making the most expensive,

'cosy riverside nature report in radio history.'

There's some wild Angelica there,

that's the stuff they put on tops of cakes, Angelica.

-So we can't speak to him.

-Not yet.

You don't often see moles on surface. Especially in the daytime.

-Will I be able to hear what he's saying?

-No.

Very good nectar source. If you have these in your garden, it's very good.

This hasn't worked.

'As the first person we've tried to give a voice to drifts off half

'a mile downstream, we're left with a two-hour gap in our schedule

'and a gargantuan fine looming over us.

'If we're going to stick to our guns and refuse to churn out pop music,

'we're going to have to resort to drastic measures.

'Luckily, I've been keeping an ace up my sleeve

'for just such an occasion.'

Anyway, on line one, I believe we have Jane,

who is here to play radio battleships.

-Hello, Jane, are you there?

-'Good afternoon, James, yes, I am.'

Excellent, fantastic.

You should have a 10 by 10 grid marked one, two, three, four,

five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10.

And A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J down the side. Have you got that?

'Yes, I have, yes.'

You now need to draw some battleships on

and they are an aircraft carrier, which is five squares long.

The battleship, which is four squares long.

A destroyer and a submarine, each of which are three squares long...

'This went on longer than the Battle of Trafalgar.'

'C4.'

-'Jane?

-Yes, I'm here. Yes.

-That's an miss. Oh dear.

'Hang on, I'll play the sound effect.'

SOUND OF MISSILE HITTING WATER

-'I3.'

-I3.

'This is, even by Man Lab FM standards, a bit of a low point.

'We might be filling up the airspace,

'but this is hardly the kind of programming we set out to produce.

'I would like to fire a shell roundly at square B3.

'After two hours of radio battleships, Jane finally

'triumphed when she sank my little boat

'with a direct hit on square D6.

'And then, Dan the producer said we were ready to have another go

'at Peter Mingy Comumbus's one-man riverbank menagerie show.

'Fingers crossed.'

On radio mic one, I believe I am now in contact with

Peter Mingy Comumbus in the coracle on the Grand Union Canal.

Are you there, Peter?

-I certainly am. I'm puffed, but I'm all right.

-Yes, I'm sure you are.

-Look what we've got here. A little baby moorhen.

-Oh, I can see that.

Just off the starboard bow.

I had an amazing experience in a forest once when I was out running.

There was a baby deer, just a tiny one, came up to me

and was nuzzling my knees.

I think mum might have been shot or something the night before.

'Peter's unconventional and slightly disturbing nature report

'fills the gap before our afternoon guest.

'After some initial hiccups, Man Lab FM is back on track,

'and if we can keep this going until 4pm,

'when our licence expires, we might just do this.

'And as the rest of our guests arrive, finally,

'the people's station starts to come together.

Hello, listeners - I hope there are some of you -

I'm joined on the longboat now by the man very much responsible

for restoring the aqueducts over which we are about to cross.

Good morning, James, it's a fantastic aqueduct.

A wonderful, historic structure, 200 years old.

'Here is a man who is shunned by a society that refuses to accept

'that Romanesque waterways are totes amazeballs.

'Now he can share his passion with the world.'

There were two engineering challenges.

The first was the hill, which they solved by putting a 300-yard

tunnel through, and the other was getting over the river Ouse.

Restricted view seats. Radio Man Lab's art, culture

and literature slot. To sell 25,000 copies of a book essentially

just about soldering is a remarkable achievement.

Thank you.

Well, a good flux, especially pre-flux solder,

should immediately dissipate.

'Would Radio One liberate the creativity of its listeners

'by gathering together their forgotten teenage love poetry

'and have it read by the poet laureate of Milton Keynes?

'I think not.'

"I know you looked at me in the gym

"and I know you'll never love me because of him

"If you only knew the things I could do

"When I'm alone I think of you

"It often makes me feel real blue."

'And, across Milton Keynes, people are actually tuning in.'

-'What are you going to play?

-I'm going to play Thomas Campion.

Thomas Campion, 1567 to 1620. Lovely.

# That Midas spell has governed me too long. #

'And Milton Keynes is starting to talk back.'

Are you listening to our radio station in your taxi at the moment?

-I am, indeed, yes.

-What do you think of it so far?

-It's brilliant.

"Dear James, at the moment I am not in a relationship,

"however I am very close to my cat, Molly.

"Do you advise me to try and find a man or to buy another cat?"

'Even if our offshore studio is creating its own problems.'

Producer Dan, we have a phone call... Er, no, we've lost them.

I think we went under a bridge.

Is there any way we can stop the boat reversing while we try

and learn to play the lute?

Can we please move the radio station away from the bloody railway line?

-RUMBLING

-What the hell was that?

'Even ear-shredding locomotives cannot daunt us in our quest

'to bring important matters to local radio, such as local history.'

Life was generally pretty grim for most people - I think

that's what we tend to forget.

'The world of the psychic.'

I'm sure I've got a man standing at the bottom of the stairs

in my house. But only I've ever seen him.

'Although our celebrity booking could do with some work.'

I'm not actually sure, having looked over your shoulder at your notes,

that I'm the Julia Roberts you think you're going to interview.

# Radio Man Lab

# Man Lab FM. #

So far, we haven't had any official complaints about Radio Man Lab.

Presumably, the listeners - and there aren't going to be that

many of them - are reasonably forgiving because they know

it's me and they know it's the first time we've done it.

But, to be brutally honest,

it's the hardest job in the world, and it's dangerous to say this,

but compared with presenting television, doing radio is very hard.

Television, I'm talking and there's a man there

and he operates the camera. There's a man there

and he operates all the knobs that control the sound.

There's a man there who tells me what to do.

When you're doing the radio, you're operating the kit

and being the bloke on the radio.

The really remarkable thing is that Richard Hammond used to be

able to do this.

'As we approach the end of our day's broadcast, I do have to admit

'there is something rather pleasant about a life on the canal.'

Quite difficult, this radio lark.

I can tell you we are rounding a gentle left-hand bend

on the Grand Union Canal and going past a slightly derelict warehouse.

It's altogether lovely, actually.

It's a different view of the world from the canal.

Not a fast one, but a nice one.

'As we near Fenny Stratford, and our docking point at the local pub,

'it's time to bring our grand voyage on the airwaves to a close.'

We're coming to the end of our first and only ever Radio Man Lab

broadcast, which is coming up to nearly five hours of broadcast time.

We've just about worked out how to operate the stuff, have we not, Dan?

We certainly have.

Now we're going to find out, as we arrive at the pub down there,

how well or badly we've done, because everybody

down there has been listening to Radio Man Lab, 107.0 FM,

broadcasting to you from the Grand Union Canal,

just outside Milton Keynes.

'In these days of 1,000 TV channels, blogging, webstreaming,

'and face twits, the humble radio might seem as dead as The Buggles

'would have had you believe.

'But maybe, by bringing a taste of the Renaissance to pirate radio,

'we can bring pirate radio to a renaissance.

'Today, we successfully brought voices to coracle builders,

'aqueduct historians, soldering experts,

'floppy hatted musicians, psychics, poets and Hollywood doppelgangers -

'what more could anyone want?'

Is it any good?

It was all right, mate, yeah,

but it could do with a bit more about the fishing and the canals,

the history of the canals.

I'd listen to it if it was on,

but obviously have different topics to listen to.

But the station as a whole was quite good, yeah.

It sounded quite talk-based, but the sort of thing I would listen to.

It was quite interesting.

I think I would like to sit there and listen to it all day.

That was absolutely rubbish.

'Well, you can't please everyone. But that's rather the point.

'What we've delivered today has been divisive,

'underground and utterly niche.

'You can't get more pirate radio than that.'

Well, there you go - the medium of radio is insatiable.

So, if you know a great deal about fishing,

the frequency 107.0 is free in the Milton Keynes area.

Fill your boots.

'Earlier in the show,

'we embarked on a treasure hunt worthy of Indiana Jones himself,

'to find my dad's wedding ring, lost on Sandbanks Beach in 1973.'

I didn't see where it went, but I felt it go.

'After consulting with geological experts...'

-So, as long as we can detect it, and dig...

-Yes.

'..We put together an army of metal detectorists, archaeologists

'and scuba divers.

'And devised a grid search system to thoroughly comb the whole beach.

-'So far, we've found a lot of junk.'

-It's just a button.

-Silver paper.

Just a Coke can.

'And even one or two rings, but our grid system is all

'but exhausted and our situation is looking desperate.'

Look how big it is.

'But then, we come across a man who suggests a drastic change of tack.'

The difference between dowsing and using a metal detector is

obviously a metal detector can only look for the metal under the ground.

You can use this as a directional finder.

So if you asked which way the sun is shining,

the rods will then point towards the sun.

'Adrian Incledon-Webber is a professional dowser,

'who claims to be able to tell us

'precisely where Dad's ring has got to.'

There is no scientific explanation for why dowsing should work.

And yet, there are continuous examples of it being used

successfully throughout history.

Even to the extent that troops in the Vietnam War dowsed

to avoid booby-traps.

Einstein was convinced by it, claiming it simply showed the

reaction of the human nervous system to factors unknown at this time.

We may be entering the realm of the peculiar.

-Can I interrupt? You can actually ask that questions?

-You can.

With most dowsing rods you get a yes or no response, so normally

when people ask, you ask for a yes response and the rods will cross.

A no response is the other way round.

But you should just be able to ask a simple question - show me

where Jim walked, and just really follow the rods to see where

he ended up, where you ended up as a family.

-If you go and start over there.

-Absolutely.

-Sure, let's do that.

Yes.

I do sort of want to ask him,

is this serious or are you a bit of a nutcase?

But it seems actually quite rude, and it's very easy to dismiss it.

Let's see what he comes up with. I think he's roughly right so far.

'Supposed explanations of dowsing include anything from the rods

'channelling the human subconscious to discussions on ley lines

'and the nonlinearity of time.

'But regardless, and rather freakily,

'Adrian does immediately head to the spot where I think Dad was.'

Possibly, possibly, yes.

'I'm a long way from convinced, but at this point,

'I'm willing to give anything a try.'

The ring disappeared off about here.

Well, in that case, we should mark out another square here.

'So, with a slight adjustment to our grid system,

'we're ready to commence Operation Dowse.'

As Vincent, our geomorphologist, said,

the sands will have built up over time, but as we are now

concentrating on a smaller area,

we can pool our resources and dig deeper.

So we cordoned off a new area here, we're going to concentrate on this.

The geomorphic evidence is it would be down at least two

or three feet, so we need to dig away, scan, dig, scan until we go down

maybe three or four feet, and then we stand a chance of detecting it.

So all our searchers are being mustered,

they're going to invade this square and we're going to go for it.

'And so we reach the moment traditional for all blokes'

'days out at the beach - digging a bloody great big hole in the sand.

'Like a slightly trainspotter-y chain gang,

'our detectorists toil in the cruel Sandbanks sun.'

'But even with all our volunteers, and one or two extra ones,

'we still can't search deep enough or fast enough.

'But I think I've found a solution.'

ROCK MUSIC

'In the back of my mind there's a small worry that,

'like Alec Guinness in Bridge On The River Kwai,

'I've allowed obsession to turn to madness,

'that finding this ring isn't that important after all.

'Maybe I've taken this that bit too far and just

'disturbed everyone's day at the seaside.

'Nah.'

Mark the local digger driver has

taken this area of the beach down to the level of the old sand,

about three feet, so now everybody's going to come in,

thoroughly scan and sift this lot

and this, of course, is where it will be, somewhere in here.

Go.

MUSIC: "Wipeout" by The Surfaris

'This is our literal last-ditch attempt in our

'glorious crusade in the name of St Anthony.

'Men, women and children standing up as one and saying

' "No, you shall not take our car keys.

' "You shall not leave me without a pen.

' "Even though I swear I put it down right there just a moment ago.

' "We will search, we will hunt, we will scour." '

Anything?

' "And we will find nothing." '

I'm slightly amazed.

I thought the detectors would all go completely mad down at this level.

Well, they normally would...

'But before you can say "What a waste of time that was,"

'Adrian has a brand-new theory.

'Dad did drop the ring here, it's just not here now.'

Now, the great thing about dowsing is, it's

just nice to be able to sit at home and actually do some remote dowsing.

When the phone call came through, or when the e-mail came through from

Rory, I copied a map off of the computer, and when I dowsed -

"Is it on the beach? No, it's not. Where is it?"

and actually by looking at the X and Y axis,

actually found it about maybe 2,000 yards into the sea.

When I dowsed the next morning, I actually

found it about two, you know, about three and a half, four miles inland.

-So I think what happens...

-It's a big area.

It is but, yeah... But what happens,

we could probably pinpoint it on a map or a street,

is that my initial impression was somebody actually found it.

Probably about three weeks later, a metal detector came down,

found it. But one of his first ever finds and rather than wearing

it round his finger, I think he's got it on a little chain around his neck.

When it was in the sea that day, I think he's got a boat.

A little fisherman goes out and he's actually still got it with him.

It's a nice story.

It is not a bad story. That's kind of what...

Fits together quite well, doesn't it?

'I suspect there might be another reason why Adrian's

'remote dowsing produced a different result each time, but he

'convinces me to go in a car with him to where he believes this

'mystery '70s metal-detecting fisherman might be.'

-When I first dowsed, it was out to sea.

-Yeah.

The next time I dowsed remotely,

it was actually a couple of miles that way,

and then, dowsing this morning, it kind of picked it up

a lot earlier in a boatyard over the other side of

-the chain-link which is...

-Oh, it is a boat yard?

-Yeah.

-Do you know it's a bloke?

-It's definitely a bloke, yeah.

He was about 26, 27 when he found it,

-so he's going to be in his mid-60s now, I think.

-Yeah, OK.

65, 66 that sort of age group.

And the person's name you think begins with A?

I think it begins with A. and I was hoping...

-Can you ask what the second letter is or...?

-I haven't yet.

On his name? That's probably not easy dowsing in here but...

So the first half of the alphabet. Yeah.

MUSIC: "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane

Probably an I, I think.

'I feel like I've fallen completely down the rabbit hole.'

That, I think, is the boatyard.

'I'm not entirely sure how this has happened.

'I started off the day with a detailed scientific plan

'involving grid systems and now I'm wandering

'towards the Poole Royal Motor Yacht Club,

'feeling like a psychic Challenge Anneka.'

Can you tell me anything else before I go in? Cos it's going to be quite

a difficult introduction to make - "I'm looking for a man in his..."

-60s, mid-60s, who...

-Yeah.

-..done a bit of...

No, I can't really do much more than that. Let's have a... Let's see.

We're looking for a man in his mid to late 60s,

whose name begins with A.

-Yeah, we only know A, possibly A, I.

-What does he do?

-Well, that we don't know.

-We don't know.

-Mid-60s...

-OK.

-..whose name begins with A.

-With A?

I feel he was actually out on the sea yesterday as well.

What's told you that?

Just dowsing.

-What's your name?

-Rob.

-It's not you, then?

-No.

It's one of the most bizarre questions I've ever been asked.

I bet it's been quite difficult asking it, because...

Do you need a quick conclusion? Can we spread the word?

-Oh, please, do spread the word. No, seriously.

-Yeah.

-We're very keen.

-That's the way you're going to find out.

-Yes.

Brilliant. Thank you. Good.

OK, thanks again, thanks.

-It's still lost.

-Thanks for being so accommodating as well.

It's still lost!

'We've been digging and detecting now for nearly ten hours

'and the whole team has sand

'permanently stuck in places it shouldn't be.

'We've scoured every inch of beach and, even with all our

'resources and all our methods, I don't think we've even come close.'

It does at least lay to rest this old idea that

-Britain is the dirty man of Europe.

-BEEPING

Wait a minute! Cos this beach is spotlessly clean. Do it again.

What have you got?

We don't know but...

You're not just picking up his metal...

Anybody got a little shovel, a little sieve?

-Chip fryer.

-Oh, here we go, we've got the chip fryer of tradition.

BEEPING

'If this is it, if, 40 years later, we find the ring again

'using the chip pan fryer, it may be one of the most poetic,

'non-award-winning moments in televisual history.'

MUSIC: "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" by U2

METAL DETECTOR SOUNDS

-Is that a good one?

-Yeah, yeah.

-That's a good one?

-Yeah.

-Right. Hold on.

# I have run through the fields... #

BEEPING

Yeah, let's make a separate pile here. See if it's in there.

What is that?

-It's metal, whatever it is.

-It's a metal rod. Has anybody got a trowel?

A spade?

'Although we couldn't be sure and we couldn't get it out,

'it felt suspiciously like the handle

'of a long-forgotten metal detector.'

It's definitely metal but it's not a wedding ring.

'And so, having exhausted every option, both scientific

'and mystical, we ruefully pack up the digger and say our thank-yous

'to the detectorists, archaeologists,

'scuba divers and dowser.

'I feel disappointed but not entirely disheartened.'

This has been an exercise in so-called findology,

the semi-science of looking for things

and it may appear that we've failed here

but I don't think we have because this has been a genuine scientific

experiment, ruthlessly pursued, and the point of an experiment,

of course, is to get a result, to see what happens and we do have

an unequivocal set of results

from which we can draw a concrete conclusion.

It's lost.

Shall we go and get some cockles?

Yes, come on then, let's do that.

-Can I have a 99, Dad?

-A 99?

-Yeah.

-What have you done to deserve a 99? I don't know.

-I built a sandcastle.

You see, it may not be on the beach

but, thanks to the dowser and the Royal Motor Yacht Club of Poole,

the tentacles of this search will now reach out all across Dorset

and ultimately go global and I sort of think it will yet turn up.

So now from a cause that seemed hopeless but may not be,

we'll move on to a musical instrument

that seemed useless but may not be.

Here to play us out on the Theremin,

it's Jake Rothman with Theme From Man Lab. Goodbye.

HE PLAYS THEREMIN

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd