2.Call My Bluff S11E4, S11E5, S11E6, S11E7 (1977) P. Keith,G. Drake,G. Hunnicutt,S. Cusack,Tom Baker

Very British

S11E4 Penelope Keith, Sinead Cusack, Ian Ogilvy, Miles Kington.  S11E5  Gabrielle Drake, Miriam Stoppard, Tom Baker, Alan Coren.  S11E6 Gabrielle Drake, Miriam Stoppard, Tom Baker, Alan Coren.  S11E7 Gayle Hunnicutt, Prunella Scales, Russell Davies, Paul Eddington.  Host/Team captains: Robert Robinson, Frank Muir, Patrick Campbell.

Transcript

00:00:00Now, Patrick.

00:00:02Take an old Jacobean chessboard.

00:00:05Ah.

00:00:08Black and white squares on it.

00:00:10I knew you played chess, and you're kind of amateur, eh?

00:00:13But this is rather special.

00:00:15The lerpings are the black and white squares on the chessboard

00:00:20that are occupied by each side before the game begins.

00:00:24So that.

00:00:26Was it not Rowbottom, the old Jacobean...?

00:00:29LAUGHTER

00:00:31Jacobean. Jacobean chessmaster.

00:00:36It said, "'Cause thyself to retire thy knight

00:00:39"'to the lerping of thy queen.'"

00:00:43That was old Rowbottom, was it?

00:00:46Good old Rowbottom.

00:00:48Old Rowbottom said that it was a chess square,

00:00:51and then another definition was a hingeless gate,

00:00:54and the other one was snapping the fingers.

00:00:56Miles Kington to choose.

00:01:01Any time you're ready, lads.

00:01:03We're indulging in democracy over here.

00:01:06And precious little good, it's done me.

00:01:11I'm sorry that Ian comes from such a sheltered background

00:01:14that it's a very rude gesture.

00:01:20Still, it's a nice thought.

00:01:22I shall try it on my relations later.

00:01:26The hingeless gate.

00:01:32Paddy, um...

00:01:35Didn't understand yours.

00:01:37Again?

00:01:39Go for the gate. I'm going for the gate.

00:01:41The hingeless gate of which you spoke, didn't you, Sinead?

00:01:45Yes, it was you. True or bluff?

00:01:48No, no, no.

00:01:50APPLAUSE

00:01:55No, it wasn't that. It wasn't that.

00:01:57Who gave the true definition of this word?

00:02:00He's got it. He's got it.

00:02:02APPLAUSE

00:02:07It really does mean snapping the fingers,

00:02:09which was very rude when gentlemen were gentlemen.

00:02:123-0. My goodness me.

00:02:14Bomboro is the next word. Miles, you define it.

00:02:17Oh, my God.

00:02:19Is it?

00:02:21Oh, pardon, yes, a little... It's a little pain to you, Peter.

00:02:24I'm all right, though. I'm all right now.

00:02:26Yes, all right, thank you.

00:02:28Couldn't believe your good luck, I was thinking.

00:02:313-0. Carry on, Miles.

00:02:33Mate is a refreshing kind of tea drunk...

00:02:36Oh, I'm getting round to it.

00:02:38..in South America,

00:02:40especially Venezuela and Brazil and Argentina.

00:02:43It's brewed piping hot and is drunk without sugar, without milk,

00:02:47and is a great flavour to the gauchos on the plane,

00:02:50who usually drink it in silver caskets,

00:02:52but it's more commonly in the towns drunk from,

00:02:55and this is where it starts, a bombora,

00:02:58or hollowed-out gourd for drinking mate.

00:03:01Right, it's what you drink it from. Good, good. Penelope?

00:03:05Well, if you saw a bombora in a murky light or far away,

00:03:09you might think it was a hairy, suntanned little child with nothing on.

00:03:14A hairy little child? It's a hairy little child.

00:03:17If you got closer, you'd think it was a sort of pygmy chimpanzee,

00:03:21which you usually find in the Upper Congo Basin,

00:03:24and it's very cheerful and likes lots of games and larks,

00:03:27and, in fact, when it talks, it sounds as though it's laughing.

00:03:31Ha-ha-ha-ha.

00:03:34Some fun there.

00:03:37Offensive little beast it sounds. Frank, you have a go.

00:03:41It's an incredible thought that if a bombora suddenly turned up

00:03:46near Bondi Beach,

00:03:48the beach would soon be littered with broken surfboards

00:03:52and ruptured surfers.

00:03:55For, as any Australian, I mean, pick an Australian, at random,

00:03:59and he will tell you that a bombora means

00:04:02a dangerous stretch of water marked by little waves

00:04:08where the sea is pierced by laser-edged locks.

00:04:12Well said. Which I can't say.

00:04:16So, it's a fearfully good-humoured chimpanzee.

00:04:19It's a gourd from which you drink tea, or they do,

00:04:23and it's dangerous water, kind of waves and that, very dangerous.

00:04:27Ian Ogilvie.

00:04:30Democracy here. Yes, a little bit of democracy.

00:04:33Venezuelan tea gourd hollowed out, I've got here.

00:04:37I think that's pretty accurate. That's pretty good, isn't it?

00:04:40I suppose it could be. We'll pass on.

00:04:44Frank said it was a dangerous bit of Australian water.

00:04:48I did, sir. Yes, it sounds a bit Australian.

00:04:51Yes, sir. But... I'm bang on it.

00:04:53But we're going to go for the Congol...

00:04:57..the Congolese pygmy chimp.

00:05:00The upper Amazon, as I remember it.

00:05:02I don't know, but you did say it, didn't you, Penelope?

00:05:06Ah!

00:05:13Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no.

00:05:15True definition, if you will.

00:05:17Well, it's here for your sport.

00:05:19Ah!

00:05:25Dangerous water, bombora, is.

00:05:28Bebong is the next word.

00:05:30Sinead.

00:05:32I really think that this word should be pronounced be-bong

00:05:36because it would be more onomatopoeically descriptive

00:05:41of its meaning.

00:05:43Because be-bong means the pulsating

00:05:47or the trembling of a musical note,

00:05:50like a tremolo effect.

00:05:53Especially on a clavichord,

00:05:56where you can get the be-bong

00:05:59by variable pressures of the fingertips on the clavichord.

00:06:06Great. Now, Patrick.

00:06:10On a note of high drama,

00:06:12I can now reveal that a be-bong

00:06:16is a clump...

00:06:20..of trees that produce chocolate seeds.

00:06:24Is that all?

00:06:26Chocolate seeds?

00:06:28But not milk chocolate?

00:06:30No, no, no.

00:06:32A free chocolate tree.

00:06:34From the be-bong tree, there fall cascades of stuff

00:06:37that can be turned into tonnes of chocolate.

00:06:40Now, the interesting thing,

00:06:42apart from the high drama bit about the revelation,

00:06:45is that under the be-bong tree,

00:06:47it's cooler than it is under any other tree in Central America.

00:06:51Thank you.

00:06:56Ian, your go.

00:06:58A be-bong is the principal armament of a goop...

00:07:05..a guaracho,

00:07:07which is a Filipino peasant.

00:07:10And it's a sort of curbsaw that looks a bit like a boomerang.

00:07:13It's very sharp, and he uses it for practically everything.

00:07:17Cutting down chocolate trees? Yes.

00:07:20He also uses it...

00:07:22He can use it for killing his enemies,

00:07:24cutting his way through the swamps,

00:07:27or carving the Sunday joint,

00:07:29or whatever.

00:07:31It's very sharp. It's a be-bong.

00:07:34So it's a tremolo effect in music.

00:07:37It's a cocoa...

00:07:39A cool sort of cocoa tree.

00:07:41And it's a sword. Penelope Keith.

00:07:43It's a sword that a guaracho, Filipino servant...

00:07:47Do they have Sunday joints, Ian?

00:07:49No, I don't think I believe it's that.

00:07:53Chocolate tree.

00:07:55Patrick, you could make a fortune

00:07:57if you could only find the seeds of this tree

00:07:59and plant it all over the place.

00:08:01Be-bong seeds, that's all.

00:08:03Be-bong seeds. And it's so cool underneath that tree.

00:08:05No, I don't believe that. I don't believe that.

00:08:08I think it's that wonderful sound that Sinead made so beautifully.

00:08:12Yes, she did do it rather well. I wonder, was she telling the truth?

00:08:18She was.

00:08:20APPLAUSE

00:08:26It's the twanging effect, you know.

00:08:28That's what a be-bong...

00:08:30Sorry, I've been to ring more than once, lads.

00:08:32Stouf is the next word, and it's Penelope's turn.

00:08:36Well, it was always very stuffy in a stouf.

00:08:41Because it was a place that a corpulent lord went to

00:08:45to sweat away his excess tissues and poundage.

00:08:48It was not a room like a hothouse, any sort of room,

00:08:51where there was a stove or form of heating,

00:08:54that this lord would go in and sweat very, very slowly,

00:08:58like cooking a meringue.

00:09:00It was like an early Turkish bath, only quite a gentle one.

00:09:06So, yes, now it's Frank's turn.

00:09:09Don't really want to dwell on this.

00:09:12It's a sort of fish louse.

00:09:18It's nature, so it must be all right,

00:09:20but it's a tiny littley thing,

00:09:22and it settles on host fish in freshwater's bream and chub,

00:09:26and that sort of thing.

00:09:28And it's like a tiny little clove, I suppose you'd say.

00:09:31It hangs around the gills of...

00:09:34It's a... There.

00:09:36Brush them off before you eat the fish.

00:09:40Yes, yes. Well, Miles, what do you say?

00:09:43Well, if you go on an English bus,

00:09:45you often see a man walking up and down who is an inspector,

00:09:48and he is there to see that the customers are not cheating the bus company.

00:09:51But in Glasgow in the old days,

00:09:53and I know there can be a lot of letters from Scottish viewers when I say this,

00:09:56Glasgow in the old days, they had a thing called a stoof,

00:09:58who got on the bus, walked up and down,

00:10:00making sure that the conductor wasn't cheating the bus company.

00:10:03He was a very, very early sort of industrial spy

00:10:06who made sure that the customers' fares

00:10:09didn't stay in the bus conductor's pocket

00:10:12long after the time he got home.

00:10:15Right, so it's a fish louse.

00:10:18It's a kind of a hothouse, an early Turkish bath kind of effort,

00:10:22and it's a spy, a snooper.

00:10:25Sinead, your turn to choose.

00:10:28Well...

00:10:30I'm afraid I don't really believe in Penny's olden-day sauna.

00:10:36Um...

00:10:38I just...

00:10:40My womanly intuition says no to that one.

00:10:44The fish louse...

00:10:46Well, all the time that I've gone to fishmongers

00:10:50and bought my chub and my bream and things,

00:10:52I've never heard of this stoof.

00:10:55He's never told me about it, my fishmonger.

00:10:58So I think my bet

00:11:02is going to be the Glaswegian industrial spy, I think.

00:11:06That was Miles, wasn't it? True or bluff?

00:11:11Blue.

00:11:13APPLAUSE

00:11:18Nothing, nothing. True definition coming up.

00:11:21One of them's got it.

00:11:23Hot and stuffy in a stoof.

00:11:25APPLAUSE

00:11:29Hothouse, place where you go and have a sweat.

00:11:32Friol.

00:11:34Mangolin, I suppose you might pronounce it.

00:11:37I don't know. Patrick.

00:11:39It's called a mangolin.

00:11:41It's a very belligerent beetle that lives in Brazil.

00:11:46The trouble about this beetle is it's also called a bombardier beetle.

00:11:50Because if provoked,

00:11:53it emits a little drop of fluid or two,

00:11:56but with a tiny report

00:11:58and a small, bluish cloud of smoke.

00:12:03LAUGHTER

00:12:09Don't care to add anything to that. No, I've done it.

00:12:12Leave it alone, it's good stuff, is that. Ian.

00:12:15It's not a mangolin, it's a mangelin.

00:12:18It's a French word and you'd expect to eat it, being Mange, but you don't.

00:12:22You hang it off a trumpet.

00:12:24LAUGHTER

00:12:27Or a cornet.

00:12:29It's a little flag.

00:12:31It's a little silk flag that hangs off a trumpet or a cornet.

00:12:35And if you're very grand and you want to show off,

00:12:37you have your own personal coat of arms on it.

00:12:39It's a mangelin.

00:12:41Yep, OK. Sinean, what does she say?

00:12:44Well, I say a mangelin, but I'm not quite certain about that.

00:12:47And it was used as a weight once upon a time in Ceylon

00:12:52for weighing precious stones.

00:12:55And it was roughly equal in weight to seven grains' troy weight.

00:13:00Now, it might also interest you to know that in the 16th century,

00:13:05diamonds exceeding 200 mangelins

00:13:10were quite often hewn from the Single East soil.

00:13:16Well, there, you've got it all there, all to go on.

00:13:19It's a flag dangling from a trumpet,

00:13:21it's a beetle that disappears in a puff of blue smoke, or thereabouts.

00:13:25Or does it at certain times?

00:13:27And it's a weight against which you weigh precious stones in Ceylon.

00:13:30Or did. Frank?

00:13:32Yeah, well...

00:13:34It's a bit neck and crop at the moment, isn't it?

00:13:38I don't think the weighing one is the thing,

00:13:42and Sinead's beautifully done,

00:13:44but I don't think...

00:13:46It's either this silken flag or the belligerent beetle.

00:13:49The trouble is if I choose the belligerent beetle and it isn't,

00:13:53Patrick's going to be so merciless.

00:13:56You believe that load of rubbish.

00:13:58Or is it this silk flag that drops down and says,

00:14:01BANG!

00:14:03And the country is piss-filled?

00:14:06Evening me, me mind. We'll go for the beetle.

00:14:09That is what Patrick had the nerve to tell us, yes.

00:14:12Was it true or bluff?

00:14:14A little puff of blue smoke.

00:14:16APPLAUSE

00:14:23Yeah, he was pretty well pleased with that.

00:14:25Well, he might.

00:14:27Who gave the true definition of this word?

00:14:29Would it not have been little tiny...

00:14:31Yes, it was.

00:14:33APPLAUSE

00:14:38It's the weight that they use, or used,

00:14:42or use in Ceylon to weigh precious stones against.

00:14:46Guyver's the next word, and it's Frank Muir.

00:14:49It's quite simple.

00:14:51It's a mucker-upper of picnics in West Africa.

00:14:54LAUGHTER

00:14:56It's just a fairly revolting gnat.

00:14:59And it's got a sort of mauve head,

00:15:03and it's corpulent and has lacy wings.

00:15:06Apart from that, there isn't much else to say about it.

00:15:09OK, well, Miles now.

00:15:11Well, we've taken you to New South Wales and Bondi Beach,

00:15:15and the next one is actually just a general Australian word.

00:15:18Guyver means roughly an affectation of speech.

00:15:21Now, the Australian has two natural enemies,

00:15:24anything that stops it from swimming,

00:15:26and an Englishman, a pommy.

00:15:28And pommies open their mouths and utter Guyver's.

00:15:31You know, if Lily or Thompson were bowling with an English batsman

00:15:34and tried to knock his head off, and the batsman said,

00:15:37that's going a bit stiff, old chap, isn't it,

00:15:39Lily or Thompson would say,

00:15:41bow-camera-flaming-Guyver-with-me.

00:15:43LAUGHTER

00:15:46Trips off the tongue nicely, that, yes. Penelope.

00:15:49Well, a Guyver is a lump of abrasive stone,

00:15:53like pommy stone or sandstone,

00:15:55that was held in the hand

00:15:58and used to scrub or scar the skin of an animal

00:16:02while you were making it into parchment to write upon.

00:16:05But you must always use the Guyver on the hairy side of the skin.

00:16:09See, to make it nice and smooth to write on.

00:16:12OK, they say it's this abrasive stone for doing what she said.

00:16:16It's a kind of effected speech, according to the Australians,

00:16:19and it's an African gnat.

00:16:21Patrick. Just a moment. Yeah.

00:16:27When do we have it?

00:16:29Is it ready?

00:16:31Just one second.

00:16:33Might get another one in. Oh, yes.

00:16:36It depends.

00:16:39If it were an Australian agar, we would have heard about it before,

00:16:42in the newspaper reports.

00:16:44A brutal game.

00:16:49A scrubbing...

00:16:51It's a...

00:16:53Wait a minute.

00:16:55LAUGHTER

00:16:57Shall I go through the whole thing again?

00:16:59No, no.

00:17:01Yet another word. It's an Australian...

00:17:03It's an African fly.

00:17:05It's an African gnat.

00:17:07Frank, true or bluff?

00:17:09No.

00:17:16To make it exciting, the true one now, before we swiftly pass on.

00:17:20Ka-chow!

00:17:24Effected speech.

00:17:26Now, if we're fairly brisk, we don't have to rush it.

00:17:29How nice for all. Lurge.

00:17:31And Ian Ogilvie kicks off.

00:17:33It's to lay about, to lounge around, to lurge,

00:17:36to lurge with intent to do nothing.

00:17:39Basically.

00:17:41Basically, on the whole, yes.

00:17:43Right, right. Sinead?

00:17:45Lurge is a watercolourist's name

00:17:49for an overmixture of paint

00:17:51that has lost its transparency

00:17:54and become slightly muddy.

00:17:56And you can achieve this by mixing burnt sienna,

00:18:00vermilion and Prussian blue.

00:18:03Luminous.

00:18:05Patrick, what do you say?

00:18:07Lurge is a round pad,

00:18:09usually made of velvet,

00:18:11employed by Victorian ballets.

00:18:14It's a round pad with a good spit on it

00:18:18for the purpose of polishing

00:18:21your employer's top hat.

00:18:25So... Ah, yes, excellent.

00:18:28So it's to loaf about, lounge about.

00:18:31It's a hat polisher

00:18:33and it's a paint that's gone all kind of muddy,

00:18:36opaque, that kind of thing.

00:18:38So it's Miles to choose.

00:18:40Oh. Yes.

00:18:42Ah, I've got my notes mixed up here.

00:18:44It's muddy, valets, overmixed...

00:18:46Ah, lay about. I've got that down.

00:18:48I think I'll go for that one.

00:18:50Oh, that was very swift.

00:18:52It was Ian who said that, wasn't it?

00:18:54Was it true? Because everything depends on this, you know.

00:18:57Ha-ha!

00:18:59APPLAUSE

00:19:07Absolutely astonishing bullseye.

00:19:09I want to change my mind.

00:19:11LAUGHTER

00:19:13Now you're playing with him now.

00:19:15How awful. Anyway, there.

00:19:17So it all hinged on that

00:19:19and the score's standing at...

00:19:21Oh, yes, 4-5.

00:19:23Frank has just won, haven't you?

00:19:25Yes. Three cheers. Very good.

00:19:27APPLAUSE

00:19:34And, of course, Patrick and Co very nearly won, didn't they?

00:19:37APPLAUSE

00:19:43So we'll have another rummage

00:19:45round the attics of the Oxford English Dictionary next week.

00:19:48Until then, goodbye from Ian Ogilvie.

00:19:51APPLAUSE

00:19:53Miles Kingston.

00:19:55APPLAUSE

00:19:57Sinead Cusack.

00:19:59APPLAUSE

00:20:01Penelope Keith.

00:20:03APPLAUSE

00:20:05Patrick Campbell.

00:20:07APPLAUSE

00:20:09And goodbye.

00:20:11APPLAUSE

00:20:24MUSIC

00:20:34APPLAUSE

00:20:42Hello again. Another game, Call My Bluff,

00:20:44where the dice are loaded by Frank Muir.

00:20:47APPLAUSE

00:20:53My guests are Beauty and the Beast, I suppose.

00:20:56About the second half.

00:20:58But the first, certainly, is a beauty,

00:21:01and here, back on the programme again,

00:21:03and none too soon, Gabriel Drake.

00:21:06APPLAUSE

00:21:13My next... Not a beast, really.

00:21:15It's arguably one of the best three writers

00:21:19now writing humour in England,

00:21:22from the pages of Punch, Tatler, Daily Mirror

00:21:27and other journals to humour us to mention,

00:21:29we have Plucked Alan Cohen.

00:21:32APPLAUSE

00:21:38And the thinking man's aim in Andrews,

00:21:41Patrick Campbell.

00:21:43APPLAUSE

00:21:46And my first guest is a woman.

00:21:49She's a female doctor.

00:21:52She's the wife of Tom Stoppard, a brilliant playwright,

00:21:55but her name is Miriam Stoppard.

00:21:58APPLAUSE

00:22:04And we have here on the right, the Time Lord.

00:22:08Not which, Doctor Who!

00:22:11APPLAUSE

00:22:15Tom Baker.

00:22:21We ring the bell and we get the first word,

00:22:24and as you recall, rumptee.

00:22:26Well, that's the word.

00:22:27Rumptee is going to be defined three different ways

00:22:30by Frank Muir and Coe,

00:22:32and two of those definitions are going to be false ones.

00:22:35One is true, and that's the one, I think,

00:22:37that Patrick and Coe are going to try and pick out.

00:22:39So, what about this word, Frank?

00:22:42Rumptee. Rumptee is...

00:22:45..thereby hangs no tail.

00:22:48LAUGHTER

00:22:50Because it's what an Englishman calls a Manx cat.

00:22:55Ah. Rump-tee, you see.

00:22:58And thereby hangs no tail,

00:23:01because Manx cats don't have tails.

00:23:05LAUGHTER

00:23:07I'm not impressing him very much, am I?

00:23:09I say advisedly that it's the English word for a Manx cat,

00:23:14because actually the Manx people themselves call their cats stubborn.

00:23:20What a load of... Next, please.

00:23:23Could be true. You never know.

00:23:25Alan Corrin, your turn.

00:23:27Very sentimental moment now.

00:23:29We have actually to go back to a time

00:23:31when instead of as it is now, the pound was a fraction of something else.

00:23:35It was actually fractions of a pound.

00:23:37A pound was large enough to have small bits.

00:23:40And what a rumptee was, was actually a 32nd part of a pound,

00:23:44or 7½d,

00:23:46which was used by Victorian stockbrokers

00:23:49to denote ups and downs of the market.

00:23:51As it were, they would say,

00:23:53I see Patagonian tramcars went up another rumptee last night.

00:23:57LAUGHTER

00:24:01Gabrielle Drake.

00:24:03My one claim to fame is an uncle

00:24:05who's no less than a general in the British Army,

00:24:08and he it was who first told me about rumptee,

00:24:11because rumptee is in fact army slang

00:24:14for a sort of army-issue meat

00:24:17which was issued to the officers in the First World War.

00:24:21It was a mixture of sort of chopped ham and chicken

00:24:25and was considered vastly superior to bully beef,

00:24:28although apparently, according to my uncle, it was a lot more greasy.

00:24:32Well, it's a special sort of mixture of meat,

00:24:35rather greasy for the officers.

00:24:37It's a manx cat, and it's kind of broker's vernacular, that sort of thing.

00:24:41Patrick, you'll go.

00:24:46Yes, well, we...

00:24:48LAUGHTER

00:24:51If officers was noshing ham and chicken in the First World War,

00:24:56I don't believe, really.

00:25:02Stockbroker's...

00:25:06I've got a little note here that says a tailor's...

00:25:09a tailor's cap.

00:25:11Obviously, it would be tailor's cat.

00:25:14Do you know how to spell it?

00:25:16C-A-T...

00:25:18C-A-T.

00:25:20Oh, well, we see, yes.

00:25:22Well, it certainly isn't anything like that.

00:25:24It'd become a stockbroker's chat coin.

00:25:26That was... Alan, yes, you said that.

00:25:29Were you speaking the truth? No, I wish I hadn't.

00:25:32Ka-chow!

00:25:40Very hard to imagine it, but really,

00:25:43stockbrokers did in those days speak of that kind of money as rumpty.

00:25:47Here we have numbs.

00:25:49Patrick's go.

00:25:51Er...

00:25:53If you could bear a little bit of kind of 19...

00:25:571920 kind of chat, like the cat's whiskers,

00:26:00she was the cat's whiskers.

00:26:05She was talking about numbs,

00:26:07because numbs was an old Cockney word for cat's whiskers.

00:26:13A little wandering pussy...

00:26:18You caught her by the back of the neck,

00:26:21held her up, snipped off the numbs,

00:26:24she would stay at home.

00:26:26Numbs, cat's whiskers. Thank you.

00:26:30Tom Baker's go.

00:26:32The geographic position of the numbs

00:26:35is 14 degrees 10 north,

00:26:384 degrees 14 west,

00:26:40which puts it south-west,

00:26:44at the south-western tip of the Menai Strait

00:26:47between Anglesey and Wales.

00:26:50I think probably for people who don't understand about navigation,

00:26:53any landlubbers here,

00:26:55rather know that it's actually a very, very fierce section of water,

00:26:59which is the nightmare of any sea captain

00:27:02sailing his ship, say, four miles off Carnarvon.

00:27:05Would be, wouldn't it? Yes.

00:27:09What is it?

00:27:11Yes, he'd sooner go the long way round, I dare say.

00:27:14Miriam Stoppard, your turn.

00:27:16Well, now, every dandy needs a numbs,

00:27:20because a numbs was an 18th-century sartorial subterfuge,

00:27:25which we might in modern terms term a dickie.

00:27:28It was a sham collar plus shirt front,

00:27:32which gentlemen, after a very busy day of social engagements

00:27:36and finding their shirts rather grubby and creased at the front,

00:27:40would put on this nice little white dickie you see

00:27:42and present a good face to the world.

00:27:45Right. Well, it means it's a word for cat's whiskers.

00:27:49It's a word for a false shirt front,

00:27:51and it's a kind of rather dangerous bit of water.

00:27:54Frank?

00:27:59Had it been a navigation term,

00:28:03I wouldn't have known about it.

00:28:06So that's not very helpful, is it?

00:28:09It's a good start, Frank, a good start.

00:28:11I can't read what I've put here.

00:28:14A dickie, 18th-century dickie.

00:28:17Dickie. I've never heard of that.

00:28:20I know it's my should have done,

00:28:22but I've never heard of the rushing water.

00:28:25Cat's whiskers is absolute rubbish,

00:28:27so it must be the cat's whiskers.

00:28:30Well, it was Patrick who said that, wasn't it? Yes.

00:28:33True or bluff? Let's see now.

00:28:36Here he comes.

00:28:38APPLAUSE

00:28:44Nothing to do with the cat's whiskers.

00:28:46Someone's got to own up now. Here he comes.

00:28:49Who gave the true one?

00:28:51Oh, dear, sir. Yes!

00:28:53APPLAUSE

00:28:58It's a false dickie or shirt front. That's what it is.

00:29:01True, Neil, I say, I say.

00:29:04That's not a bad word. Trolleybobs.

00:29:06Alan, your turn.

00:29:10Nasty time. It's a time to put the children to bed and the cat under the stairs

00:29:14and turn your faces away from the screen if you're of a nervous disposition,

00:29:17because trolleybobs are the nastier bits and pieces of animals.

00:29:22The pancreatic bits, the odd bits of diseased liver, the appendix,

00:29:27all the sort of stuff you find in an animal

00:29:30which aren't entirely edible but might be

00:29:33and may end up being fed to your cat or dog.

00:29:36It's rather like Numbles from Humble Pie, you know?

00:29:39It's bits and pieces of an animal which have no use after the animal is dead.

00:29:44But there they are, red and horrible.

00:29:46Right. Got to be called something.

00:29:49Gabrielle, your turn.

00:29:51No doubt your great-grandmothers and great-grandfathers

00:29:54wouldn't have known exactly what trolleybobs was,

00:29:56because trolleybobs was a children's game.

00:29:59And, unfortunately, the rules haven't come down now to us.

00:30:03We do know, though, that it was best played on all fours.

00:30:06It was played on a flat surface, like a paving stone, out of doors,

00:30:11and usually they used to use little round pebbles.

00:30:15So, I mean, it was a game available to the rich and the poor.

00:30:22Well, that much was in its favour, wasn't it?

00:30:24Frank, your go.

00:30:26Well, you come down the Menai Straits...

00:30:28LAUGHTER

00:30:30..and, carried by the tide,

00:30:32you eventually find Cornwall, with a bit of luck.

00:30:35You see? And, wrenching off your clothes and tearing off your numbs,

00:30:40you plunge into the briny and start swimming,

00:30:44and the longshoremen say,

00:30:47DOEY, WATCH OUT!

00:30:49The accent is approximate,

00:30:52because they could have moved to Cornwall from another part of the country.

00:30:56But they say, DOEY, WATCH OUT FOR THE TROLLEYBOBS!

00:31:00Which are jellyfish.

00:31:03Ah.

00:31:05Well, it's one of those games.

00:31:07It's some of those entrails, and it's one of those jellyfish.

00:31:11Tom Baker.

00:31:13Well, I'm very impressed by Alan's suggestion

00:31:18that it was the droppings of animals

00:31:22in nurseries, or in pancreatic juices scattered about the place.

00:31:27And, um...

00:31:29..I like Frank's notion about look out for the trolleybobs,

00:31:33which might be jellyfish.

00:31:35But because I'm very impressionable,

00:31:38and yours sounded plausible,

00:31:41and so socially interesting,

00:31:43I think it's a game for kids.

00:31:46That was Gabrielle.

00:31:48Now, were you teasing?

00:31:52No issue.

00:31:54APPLAUSE

00:31:58Who gave the true definition of that interesting word?

00:32:02Well, I hate to bring all the nastiness up again, but...

00:32:05But not the unspeakable nastiness!

00:32:07APPLAUSE

00:32:12It's entrails. No question about that.

00:32:14Trolleybobs is entrails. Are entrails.

00:32:17Incony, we have next.

00:32:19Tom Baker tells us what it means to begin with.

00:32:22Um...

00:32:25The pronunciation is incony.

00:32:27Incony was an adjective that came flashing into prominence about 1600

00:32:32and lasted for some little time and caused some considerable stir.

00:32:36And then, quite inexplicably,

00:32:39it just slid out of the general vocabulary.

00:32:42Oh, dear. Which is a great tragedy.

00:32:45And I think it was Christopher Marlowe...

00:32:47Yes, I'm certain now I come to consider it.

00:32:49It was Christopher Marlowe in that soft porn poem

00:32:52The Jew Of Malta, who quoted, who used it so beautifully, I think,

00:32:57he said,

00:32:59"'Love me little, love me long,

00:33:01"'let music rumble

00:33:03"'while I, in thy incony lap, do tumble.'"

00:33:08And the meaning is...

00:33:10I don't think we wish to know.

00:33:12Fine, soft, gentle, alluring.

00:33:17From 1600? Yes.

00:33:19Thank you. Next.

00:33:21Scantion was never Marlowe's strong point, by the way.

00:33:23Miriam Stoppard, your turn.

00:33:25Well, now, you historians of the culinary arts

00:33:27will recognise the word immediately

00:33:29because, of course, it was a Tudor word for carving fish.

00:33:34But Tudor English, being richer than English at the present time,

00:33:39they had several words for carving for the appropriate sort of fish.

00:33:44So, for instance, one would chine a salmon

00:33:47or culpen a trout

00:33:50or scar a bream.

00:33:52And incony was the word that was used

00:33:55when you attacked a pike with your fish carver.

00:33:59Yep, a pike.

00:34:01Why not?

00:34:03Patrick, his go. He tells us now.

00:34:06You'll find that incony is absolutely awful.

00:34:11Terror, dread, nameless fears.

00:34:15It's the kind of thing that appears... You can't see it.

00:34:18You can't hear it.

00:34:20You can't even smell it.

00:34:23You can't even hear it come.

00:34:25But incony is a fearful kind of invisible demon.

00:34:32It gets to the back of the neck.

00:34:38It's a kind of nameless dread.

00:34:43Whoa, yeah, well, and it's a kind of invisible demon, he said.

00:34:47It means something fine or delicate,

00:34:49and it's a special Tudor word for carving a pike.

00:34:52Alan Corran.

00:34:55Tom, it came in in 1600 or it went out in 1600.

00:34:59Well, I can't be absolutely certain about that.

00:35:01I think it was before, but it was quite...

00:35:04It was around 1600.

00:35:06There are millions of people out there who expect us to know our Marlow inside out.

00:35:09We reckon that the Jew of Mordor, having been written in 1587,

00:35:13incony probably wasn't in it.

00:35:15Anyway, it's a terrible word.

00:35:17You can see why he was stabbed in the tavern if he was using stuff like that.

00:35:20The critics would have had...

00:35:22I don't think it's that.

00:35:24I am very doubtful about the thing that frightens Patrick.

00:35:27Nothing, I feel, frightens Patrick, whether you can smell or see it or whatever else.

00:35:31I am inclined to go...

00:35:33Was it a verb that you... Or was it a thing for carving pike?

00:35:36No, it was a verb, the way that one does it.

00:35:38It's a funny verb, isn't it?

00:35:40They had funny words in Tudor English.

00:35:42I think it's Patrick's fear.

00:35:45It was Patrick, the phantom.

00:35:47So he was a kind of nameless, dread phantom, that kind of thing.

00:35:50Are we telling the truth, lads?

00:35:53I was happy.

00:35:55Not for a minute!

00:36:01Nothing to do... No, nothing of that sort.

00:36:04Someone else must own up now.

00:36:06Is it actually around here?

00:36:08Someone has, yes.

00:36:10It is.

00:36:12But who's got it? You've posted it down the hall.

00:36:14Oh, this is to drag the drama out intolerably.

00:36:16He's got it there.

00:36:18Don't give it to him.

00:36:20It's the first time I've...

00:36:22Give it to me, I'll tell you.

00:36:29You mustn't give it to me, you know.

00:36:31People will talk if you do that.

00:36:33So, actually, the true definition was fine and delicate and so forth.

00:36:37I don't know all about that and Marlow and so forth.

00:36:39But the definition was the true one, no question.

00:36:42Toggy's the next one. Gabrielle.

00:36:45If I ever went for a stroll around the North Pole,

00:36:49being a very cold person,

00:36:51I'd be very thankful I had my toggy on.

00:36:54Because, in fact, a tog...

00:36:56..a toggy is a nice, thick, heavy overcoat.

00:37:01Not very fashionable or beautiful.

00:37:04It's made of patches of reindeer skin.

00:37:08And it's... In short, it's an overcoat that's worn in the Arctic regions.

00:37:14Yes. Frank, your go.

00:37:17A toggy is a...

00:37:19..is a long, thin pole

00:37:22at the top of which, spasmodically, there's a window,

00:37:26and at the bottom of which, the south end, you might say,

00:37:30stands a chap called a knocker-upper.

00:37:33And a knocker-upper used to walk round the streets

00:37:37of mining towns and industrial towns

00:37:39and knock up the people,

00:37:41half past five in the morning or something, to say,

00:37:43''Time to get up!''

00:37:44And he'd go, ''Tonk, tonk, tonk,'' with his stick.

00:37:47His toggy.

00:37:48Because it had to reach to the bedroom window, you see.

00:37:51So it's a long... Pardon me.

00:37:55Bang on the window. Yes, right. Alan.

00:37:58Well, our side had problems with this,

00:38:00because if any of you is an old Harrowvian,

00:38:02you'll know immediately what it was, because it's old Harrow slang.

00:38:05We rather thought that Miriam might well be an old...

00:38:07Other two are clearly Bulgarians.

00:38:10A very simple piece of Harrowvian slang.

00:38:13It just means a swat.

00:38:15Over-industrious boy.

00:38:17Won't say more, will you? There's not much more you could say after that.

00:38:20No, it's a swat, knocker-ups pole

00:38:23and a coat you'd wear in very cold weather,

00:38:25in the Arctic particularly. Miriam.

00:38:29Well... I don't know, it's fair to say.

00:38:31Yes, yes, it's fair to say. We all don't know.

00:38:34Yes, a fair bluff.

00:38:36Well...

00:38:38It certainly does sound like a slang word, Frank.

00:38:41You know, the pole,

00:38:43the elongated barber's pole for knocking people up in the morning.

00:38:46Sounds like that, true.

00:38:48And it sounds also the sort of word that might be used at school

00:38:51for a swat.

00:38:53But I'm attracted to the polar overcoat.

00:38:58The reindeer-skin job.

00:39:00You're going to choose that, are you, my dear?

00:39:03Are you well advised now?

00:39:05Gabrielle will own up and tell you.

00:39:07Was it the Arctic overcoat?

00:39:09It's true! It is!

00:39:11APPLAUSE

00:39:19Not clear who calls them toggies.

00:39:21I don't know whether the Eskimos or the people who visit there call it.

00:39:24Dr Stoppard does.

00:39:26Dr Stoppard certainly does, yes. She knows what's what.

00:39:29So here we have OBE, yes.

00:39:31But I don't know how you pronounce it.

00:39:33OBE. OBE. Miriam.

00:39:35Well, now, if you'd been at Runnymede

00:39:37about the time of the signing of the Magna Carta,

00:39:40you might have come sleepily out of your tent and said,

00:39:43"'Lo, it is OBE,'

00:39:45because OBE was the 13th-century word for daybreak or dawn.

00:39:49"'It was the beginning of the day.'"

00:39:52And perhaps if Kipling had been around,

00:39:54he might have said,

00:39:56"'The OBE is coming up like thunder in the road to Mandalay.'"

00:40:00In deference to you, Alan.

00:40:03He just might. Yeah, I think that's fair to say.

00:40:06Patrick Campbell's go.

00:40:10I think the West Coast of America around about the 1880s.

00:40:14Japanese kind of pouring in by canoe and that kind of thing.

00:40:18Bringing with them...

00:40:21..tea.

00:40:23Tea? Tea.

00:40:25Not palatable to the Americans in the 1880s,

00:40:28around about San Francisco, California.

00:40:30But they toasted the tea.

00:40:34It was called Oabe.

00:40:37They pressed it into toasted tea cakes.

00:40:40No, just toasted plain tea out of a packet.

00:40:43Called Oabe. Thank you.

00:40:45Next. Right.

00:40:47Next. Right, yes. Tom Baker is the next.

00:40:51An OBE was an administrative district

00:40:54in the ancient Greek country of Laconia.

00:40:57Now, Laconia, as you know, has for its neighbours the Arcadians,

00:41:00but that's a diversion.

00:41:03What is important about the inhabitants of the OBE

00:41:08was that they were, by temperament, quite...

00:41:12..not timid, they were diffident, withdrawn,

00:41:15taciturn...

00:41:17Laconic, I think, would be the word.

00:41:19Ah.

00:41:21Well, it means daybreak,

00:41:23it means that kind of district of Greece,

00:41:26and it's a kind of toasted tea.

00:41:29Gabrielle.

00:41:31Um...

00:41:33An actual district of Greece.

00:41:35Mm. Area.

00:41:37Yes, it was administered by districts

00:41:40and an OBE was an administrative district.

00:41:42An OBE was an administrative district, yes.

00:41:44Um, I don't know.

00:41:46I'm not totally convinced by that.

00:41:49And this OABE, it's a marvellous pronunciation of the word,

00:41:53and I would have never guessed that it had been pronounced like that,

00:41:56and I don't think it really was.

00:41:58I, um...

00:41:59LAUGHTER

00:42:00..would have liked to have come out of my tent

00:42:02sleepily at Runnymede to greet the OBE.

00:42:04I think it's the dawn.

00:42:06You think it's the dawn. It was Miriam.

00:42:08Yes, Miriam, you said it. Is that true?

00:42:10Well, I'm afraid Gabrielle would have been...

00:42:13Oh, no, no, no.

00:42:15APPLAUSE

00:42:20No, no, it wasn't. It must have been one of the others.

00:42:24Here it comes.

00:42:26He's got it. He's got it!

00:42:28APPLAUSE

00:42:32That administrative district of Greece that stood him so well instead.

00:42:37I say 5-1.

00:42:39Don't go on about it. No.

00:42:41There will be red faces after the programme, I can tell you.

00:42:44Gurgeon, Frank.

00:42:46Gurgeon is a...

00:42:49Gurgeon, maybe.

00:42:51..is a tree in the Philippines.

00:42:54But it's not just...

00:42:56It is no ordinary common or garden tree, this one.

00:42:59It's got bark on it.

00:43:01Well, I suppose some...

00:43:03But it's got a sort of greyish bark,

00:43:05which the islanders pound down under pressure and whack

00:43:11and extract from it a substance, a sort of gooey substance,

00:43:15which they use for face cream,

00:43:17and they use on their canoes as well.

00:43:20Not at the same time.

00:43:22It's Gurgeon...

00:43:24Face cream on canoes?

00:43:26No, no, no, the ladies use face cream,

00:43:28but the chaps, stuck for something to slap on their canoes,

00:43:31put a bit of Gurgeon on.

00:43:33It's highly reckoned in the Philippines.

00:43:36Your Japanese might have had it on their canoes.

00:43:39Oh, I'll bet.

00:43:41I think it's about time we butted in, Alan.

00:43:44I'm tired of dabbling in nastiness this evening,

00:43:47but a Gurgeon is actually a falconry term,

00:43:50and it's a piece of meat that gets stuck in the throat

00:43:53of your falcon or hawk, prevents it from swallowing,

00:43:57interferes with its flight,

00:43:59and the only way to get it out

00:44:01is to take your hawk upside down and go...

00:44:04Like that.

00:44:06Beat a bit of rubbish in the throat of your hawk.

00:44:09So, Gabrielle, will you tell us?

00:44:12Yes, Gurgeon, or a pair of Gurgeon,

00:44:15would have been worn by ladies in medieval times.

00:44:19They were stockings, really,

00:44:21made of a soft, dough-like leather

00:44:24and held up by a nice little tiny row

00:44:28of leather buttons at the back.

00:44:30Luckily, zips hadn't been invented then,

00:44:33or they might have got stuck.

00:44:35OK, so it's a kind of...

00:44:37It's a bit of food that the bird can't swallow.

00:44:40It's a soft leather stocking,

00:44:42and I think I'm safe in saying it's a substance.

00:44:45Yes, it's a substance.

00:44:47I'll go along with you on that.

00:44:49Would that be all coverings pretty well?

00:44:51Patrick.

00:44:53How one can guess that a thing called a substance

00:44:58can be an elephant's toenail?

00:45:00At five to one, you could force yourself.

00:45:05Who's doing the guessing, you or me?

00:45:08Without doubt, absolute nonsense,

00:45:11but a leather stocking

00:45:13unblocking falcon's necks with glue,

00:45:17it's a face cream for putting on canoes.

00:45:20Now, Frank...

00:45:22I see it now, I see it!

00:45:24APPLAUSE

00:45:28Thank you.

00:45:32He did tell you that now, I mean, after all.

00:45:35So it's what he said it was.

00:45:37And it comes from a tree.

00:45:39Not sure whether... Yeah, the tree produces the substance,

00:45:42and then they do with it what they will.

00:45:44Chute, or chout. Patrick.

00:45:48You possibly remember the Marathas,

00:45:50a tribe, a kind of marauding tribe,

00:45:54early 18th century.

00:45:57You've got the Marathas, they're kind of boiling in,

00:46:01and they conquer you.

00:46:07Can we have your chute, please?

00:46:09Which was a quarter of the national income.

00:46:13And if the people that had been conquered failed to pay,

00:46:17these Marathas, they retired for a week or two

00:46:20and came back again and asked for it all over again.

00:46:25A tax.

00:46:27A tax, in the sense of an tax, yes.

00:46:30Not a tax on...

00:46:32Antri, yes. Yeah.

00:46:34That kind of thing. Tax what you pay, that kind of thing.

00:46:37Tom.

00:46:39Oh, a chout is a label

00:46:43which merchants used to use formally,

00:46:46some still do in remote areas,

00:46:48by which they label their goods or their livestock at markets.

00:46:53Of course, many years ago,

00:46:55when very few people could read,

00:46:58maybe...

00:47:00The chout took quite a simple form.

00:47:03Sometimes it was a bit of coloured wool tied round a cow's horn,

00:47:06or it might be something slightly more elaborate,

00:47:08like a metal star,

00:47:10which would be stuck quite deeply into the flank of a vegetable marrow.

00:47:15That's the chout.

00:47:17Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:47:19Miriam Stoppard.

00:47:21Well, sensually speaking,

00:47:23the chout provides 50% of the pleasure during osculation.

00:47:31It's the lower lip.

00:47:33It's a countryman's word for the lower lip.

00:47:35Now, in the part of the country that I come from,

00:47:37which is Geordieland, Tyneside,

00:47:39when a child pouts a bit and he's feeling a bit depressed and sulky,

00:47:42we say he's got a pet lip.

00:47:44But now I know the correct countryman's term.

00:47:47One should say he's hanging the chout.

00:47:50Down in the mouth.

00:47:52So it's the lower lip, it's the lower lip.

00:47:55It's a kind of a tax that these marauders exacted,

00:47:59and it's a label that you sometimes stick into a vegetable marrow.

00:48:03Frank.

00:48:04If you stick a label into a vegetable marrow,

00:48:07it sort of expires, doesn't it?

00:48:09It bleeds.

00:48:11You couldn't stick anything into it.

00:48:16I must say, it's very tempting to think of the maracas

00:48:19sweeping through India in the medieval times.

00:48:24Deingeld, sort of an Indian word for deingeld.

00:48:27Oh, long after, dear.

00:48:29Long after that.

00:48:31Oh, yes.

00:48:33I think it must be the lower lip.

00:48:35The lower lip. That was Miriam, wasn't it, you spoke of that.

00:48:38I wonder if she was pulling your leg, Frank.

00:48:41Oh, she was.

00:48:43APPLAUSE

00:48:49That was just so much Tiddy Valley.

00:48:51Who gave the true definition?

00:48:53Here it is!

00:48:55APPLAUSE

00:49:00Didn't sound likely, did it?

00:49:02But there you are, that's what this game is all about.

00:49:05And we really don't have much time...

00:49:07Indeed, we have no time for any more.

00:49:09And what I have to announce...

00:49:11Are you sure? Do you want to go on?

00:49:13Yes.

00:49:15But anyway, the score, I hardly like to announce it, it's so obvious.

00:49:18The score stands standing at 7-1.

00:49:20Patrick and Curve won!

00:49:22APPLAUSE

00:49:31Taking it on the chin. Sportsman, sportsman.

00:49:34Well, we shall have some more old bottle tops

00:49:36from the Oxford English Dictionary next week.

00:49:38Until then, goodbye from Alan Corrin...

00:49:41APPLAUSE

00:49:43..Tom Baker...

00:49:46..Gabrielle Drake...

00:49:49..Miriam Stoppard...

00:49:52..Frank Muir...

00:49:54..Patrick Campbell.

00:49:58And goodbye.

00:50:00APPLAUSE

00:50:08Thank you.

00:50:28APPLAUSE

00:50:30APPLAUSE

00:50:36Good evening, call my bluff where the words are dealt off the bottle of...

00:50:40LAUGHTER

00:50:42..are dealt off the bottle of the pack...

00:50:45..the bottom of the pack by Patrick Campbell.

00:50:48APPLAUSE

00:50:54I may have brought my doctor back again from the bottle of the pack.

00:50:58LAUGHTER

00:51:02A lovely Miriam Stoppard.

00:51:04APPLAUSE

00:51:11We've got the other hairy doctor here, Mr Tom Baker.

00:51:15APPLAUSE

00:51:22And the man who weaves his own bow ties, Frank Muir.

00:51:25APPLAUSE

00:51:28Thank you.

00:51:33So it's the remark of a male chauvinist dove.

00:51:36I welcome back with pleasure

00:51:38the utterly delightful actress Gabrielle Drake.

00:51:41APPLAUSE

00:51:48And also earning the second half of his fee

00:51:51is literary wordsmith, incorrigible Alan Corrin.

00:51:56Thank you.

00:52:01We may never do better, who knows?

00:52:03We ring the bell, we get a word.

00:52:05GALIAC. Yes, GALIAC.

00:52:07And Patrick Campbell and his team will define GALIAC three different ways.

00:52:11Two of those definitions are false, one true.

00:52:13That's the one that Frank and co. will try and seek out, so...

00:52:16What about this word, Patrick?

00:52:18GALIAC...

00:52:20..rather roughish French wine...

00:52:24..but quaffed by the gallon by Henry VIII.

00:52:29Three tonnes of this was consumed...

00:52:34..by Henry VIII in 15...

00:52:36A moment, I've read my notes.

00:52:381550.

00:52:41Little white wine from Languedoc.

00:52:44A little bit gauche and frivolous, you know.

00:52:47Aren't we all?

00:52:49Too much kind of afterflash after you've drunk it.

00:52:52But that's all it was.

00:52:56Tom Baker's go. He tells you.

00:52:58Well, GALIAC was a smallish but highly manoeuvrable Portuguese vessel

00:53:04which was used not far off the coast for boarding offending vessels

00:53:08and capturing them and things like that.

00:53:10I can't really think of anything interesting to say about GALIAC,

00:53:14but I can possibly think of one thing that would be useful,

00:53:17and that is that, in design, the cut of its jib, do you say, gig,

00:53:22it wasn't all that unlike a Gravesend tiltboat.

00:53:28I hope that's of some help.

00:53:32Miriam, will you tell us?

00:53:34Well, GALIAC was the North Country word

00:53:37given to a rather sort of antisocial gypsy

00:53:40that arrived here in this country from France in the mid-17th century.

00:53:45Now, in about 1658, a couple of thousand of them went on the rampage,

00:53:51looting and generally being very unpleasant,

00:53:56and they were rounded up and well and truly trounced at the Battle of Pateley

00:54:02when you could hear the Geordie voices ring out,

00:54:05''How do we them GALIACs?''

00:54:08Yes, yes.

00:54:10Well, it's a sailing vessel, it's a kind of a wine and it's a kind of a gypsy.

00:54:14Frank, you're to pick whichever he chooses.

00:54:17Are you sure, sir? No, no, I'm not.

00:54:19This might destroy a tenuous friendship we've enjoyed.

00:54:25My friend said they didn't have white wine in the time of 1550.

00:54:30Not in Languedoc, they didn't. Not in Languedoc.

00:54:32So that's wrong.

00:54:34Is it a Portuguese vessel or is it an antisocial gypsy?

00:54:40GALIAC, he might be losing us into thinking that it's like a GALION, a GALIAC.

00:54:47Might he not? He might.

00:54:49What do you think? Well, I think you might be right.

00:54:51On the other hand, you might not.

00:54:53I think it's a gypsy.

00:54:56You think it's a gypsy?

00:54:58You know, the time is passing. Yes, I know.

00:55:00Very enjoyably.

00:55:02Like them.

00:55:04We...

00:55:07A minority of us here, but the most beautiful of us,

00:55:11think that it's your white wine from Languedoc.

00:55:18That was... Drunk by Henry VIII.

00:55:20That was Patrick who said it, wasn't it?

00:55:22On a Tuesday in 1550.

00:55:24Yes. Never made in the Languedoc, you said, Alan, I think.

00:55:27Well, now we'll know.

00:55:29Against the Canoes' advice.

00:55:31Oh!

00:55:33APPLAUSE

00:55:36No.

00:55:41Never in the South, Alan.

00:55:43I never order anything much earlier than about 1975.

00:55:451550 is a bit off my wine list.

00:55:47That's it. It should go up to 3 Bob, you know.

00:55:50Anyway...

00:55:52I don't know about Henry VIII, but anyway, much of what he said was true.

00:55:57It's there. I rang it, but it was already with us. Thank you, lads.

00:56:01Firbury, Frank, your turn.

00:56:03Flushed with my partner's success,

00:56:06I am able to tell you, I am here to tell you,

00:56:10that a Firbury...

00:56:13What is it? It's a kind of...

00:56:15LAUGHTER

00:56:17It's a kind of trick, it's a kind of ploy,

00:56:19it's a kind of attempt to convince you of something,

00:56:23to bend your mind into believing something which is not really true.

00:56:26A typical example might be

00:56:30the three-card trick or party political broadcast.

00:56:36If this was a bluff,

00:56:39I could attempt to execute a Firbury upon you

00:56:44and make you believe it's true.

00:56:47What are you on about, Frank?

00:56:49As it's true, I can't Firbury you.

00:56:54But any time, if you're free...

00:56:57LAUGHTER

00:57:00I've grown to a halt.

00:57:02Well, that'll do very nicely, Frank.

00:57:04But what was it? It was a trick, he said, a trick.

00:57:07I'll repeat it again. Alan.

00:57:10Watch carefully.

00:57:13Firbury.

00:57:16A lot of antisocial disorders in the world,

00:57:18you tend to find the more antisocial, the more euphemisms there tend to be.

00:57:22Firbury is scurf, dandruff.

00:57:27Firbury, or what, in fact, I have it here,

00:57:29the Oxford Dictionary defines rather nastily

00:57:32as small bran-like particles of spent epidermis.

00:57:36LAUGHTER

00:57:38A journey, isn't it? Bran-like structure is imponderable.

00:57:41But anyway, that's what Firbury is.

00:57:43A family show.

00:57:45You've got a shirt full of old men.

00:57:47LAUGHTER

00:57:49Let's ask Gabrielle what she's going to say.

00:57:54Well, Milton knew very well what the verb firbury meant.

00:58:00It came into one of his poems, I think it was Milton,

00:58:03wherein rich trees with fruit bright firburied

00:58:07with golden rind hung abiable.

00:58:10It means to polish or to cause to sparkle or glint.

00:58:15Charlie Knight, touch of class there, very good, Milton.

00:58:19Anyway, it's dandruff, it's to polish,

00:58:21and it's a kind of a trick. Patrick's go.

00:58:27All this shredded bran mash that people get on this...

00:58:30LAUGHTER

00:58:33The polishing trees with the...

00:58:40Whatever you're talking about, Frank, it's you.

00:58:43You came to that rather swiftly.

00:58:45It kind of come.

00:58:47It was Frank who said it was a trick.

00:58:49Don't see it, lad. Don't see it.

00:58:51Was it a trick, Frank? No, it wasn't.

00:58:53Ah!

00:58:55APPLAUSE

00:59:02But it was. A firbury is a trick.

00:59:04Failed in this case, lad.

00:59:06Oh, dear.

00:59:08Oslin is the next word we have.

00:59:10And it's Tom to go.

00:59:13An oslin was a member of a German heretical sect.

00:59:18And this sect was banned out of Germany in the 15th century.

00:59:22And they were forced to settle in the Upper Baltic.

00:59:26When the devil rides, you must go to the Upper Baltic

00:59:29if that's the only place to go.

00:59:31The only interesting thing I can think about the Oslins

00:59:34was they're probably the only religious sect in history

00:59:37to have been named after an Alsatian.

00:59:40Because their leader, Dieter Oss, who was a friar,

00:59:45he was also called Dieter Boy by his intimates,

00:59:48actually came from Alsatia.

00:59:55It's got everything in it.

00:59:57Miriam's go now.

00:59:59Well, oslin is an out-of-vogue material

01:00:02that was used in dresses in the old days.

01:00:04It's a beautifully loosely woven fabric of cotton and wool.

01:00:09It might even come back now that there's a fashion for calico

01:00:13and those lovely light, filmy materials.

01:00:16And, in fact, if you know your East Lynn,

01:00:20it is actually mentioned in there,

01:00:22a pert and pretty damsel walking out in her oslin gown.

01:00:28Sounds nice enough. Nice enough.

01:00:30Patrick.

01:00:34An oslin is a...

01:00:37..a Scottish eating apple.

01:00:44Better known as the Arbroath Pippin.

01:00:51It used to grow in profusion within a scant three-iron

01:00:55shot of the 18th...

01:01:01..green...

01:01:03..at Yon St Andrews.

01:01:06Right.

01:01:09It's a...it's a wee Scot's apple.

01:01:12It's a kind of a cloth

01:01:14and a kind of a religious heretic, I suppose.

01:01:17Yes. Alan Corrin.

01:01:19There are a lot of red herrings and red Alsatians and all the rest of it here.

01:01:23Tom's Alsatian that led people to the Upper Baltic

01:01:26and asked them to follow him.

01:01:28Why do these intimates call him Dieter Boy?

01:01:30Is it an Alsatian?

01:01:32As it were. Here, Dieter Boy.

01:01:34I don't know about loosely woven fabric.

01:01:37It sounds very like muslin.

01:01:39While you're casting a red herring,

01:01:41you might choose a loosely woven fabric.

01:01:43East Linn and Oslin, there's a lot of stuff I don't know about.

01:01:46Arbroath Pippin.

01:01:48I thought it was very good flyweight that used to...

01:01:51..fight out of Glasgow, but still.

01:01:53I am inclined...

01:01:55..to turn back from Pippins and muslins and all that sort of rubbish

01:01:59back to Tom's Balt.

01:02:02The Balt of whom he spoke. True or bluff?

01:02:06Ah!

01:02:08APPLAUSE

01:02:13Nothing to do with that.

01:02:15They'll own up now, or someone will.

01:02:17Who gave the true one?

01:02:19Alan Trehearn shot.

01:02:21Aha!

01:02:23APPLAUSE

01:02:27It is the Arbroath Pippin.

01:02:29To one.

01:02:31Snaid is our next word. Alan Corrin defines it.

01:02:35There are lots of unsavoury things about the mackerel.

01:02:38You don't even have to leave them around to find what they are.

01:02:41They're very unsavoury alive, too.

01:02:43One of the things about the mackerel is that it is a cannibal.

01:02:46It will eat its own kind, it will eat its own offspring,

01:02:50and no doubt, in a lean week,

01:02:52it will even take a bite out of itself to help get by.

01:02:55As a result of the mackerel being a cannibal,

01:02:58fishermen used bits of the mackerel to catch other mackerels.

01:03:03And the snaid is a small piece taken from near the tail of the mackerel

01:03:09with which to bait the hook,

01:03:11so that other mackerel, hungry for a chomp on their relatives,

01:03:14come to the hook.

01:03:18That can't have been done.

01:03:20Now... Yes.

01:03:22Yes, I think it's Gabrielle.

01:03:24Yes. Well, snaid is, in fact, smugglers' slang.

01:03:28It's the word that smugglers gave to smugglers

01:03:32to a sort of ash leaf which they dried

01:03:37and mixed in with their illicit imports of tea.

01:03:41As you know, tea used to be very, very expensive

01:03:44when it first was imported into this country.

01:03:46There was a heavy tax on it.

01:03:48And smugglers used to import it

01:03:50and they used to mix it with these leaves

01:03:52in order to make it, of course, of a much larger quantity

01:03:56and thus deteriorated the quality.

01:03:59Oh, you are awful, Pat.

01:04:01Frank Muir has a turn.

01:04:04It's fight and talk...

01:04:07..to call a snaid a snaid.

01:04:09LAUGHTER

01:04:12A snaid is he who, in the United States of America,

01:04:18doing a card game, probably poker,

01:04:22is timid, will not make good bids,

01:04:26refuses to make a gamble.

01:04:28A bit of a spoil sport.

01:04:31Snaid. S-N-A-D-E.

01:04:34Yes, you've got the spell. There's no denying that.

01:04:37It's a kind of a bait.

01:04:39It's kind of a tobacco substitute

01:04:41and, you know, they mix in with the tobacco and make it more...

01:04:44Tea? Tea.

01:04:46Tea, tea. Tea, tea, yes, yes.

01:04:48Wouldn't have us need them.

01:04:50On a shorthand note, that's a trouble.

01:04:52And a kind of very cautious gambler.

01:04:54Tom Baker.

01:04:56Well...

01:04:58Wait a moment.

01:05:00LAUGHTER

01:05:06Wait, wait, wait!

01:05:10Would you like a song while I wait here?

01:05:12In a minute, in a minute.

01:05:14Girls were made to love and kill.

01:05:18And who am I?

01:05:20Well...

01:05:22Well, I'll make up for that, yeah.

01:05:25Mackerel's tail used as bait.

01:05:28And that...

01:05:30And that mackerel might...

01:05:32No.

01:05:35Spoil sport.

01:05:37Someone who won't...

01:05:39No.

01:05:41Smuggler's jargon.

01:05:43Yes.

01:05:46You mean, you rest your case...

01:05:48It'd come out, wouldn't it?

01:05:50She said about the tea,

01:05:52Gabrielle drew a bluff, tell us less.

01:05:54You're a big dick.

01:05:56APPLAUSE

01:06:02What a shocking thing to say to a member of your own team.

01:06:05Awful thing.

01:06:07Anyway, so, who gave the true definition of snade?

01:06:10Well, I'm afraid they really are.

01:06:12Oh, no!

01:06:14APPLAUSE

01:06:20Yeah, well, snade is what he said it was.

01:06:23I mean, bait.

01:06:25Miramolin is the next one.

01:06:27Scores standing at two all.

01:06:29Miriam, your go.

01:06:31Well, it's pronounced Miramolin.

01:06:33It's a lovely soft word because it comes from a...

01:06:36You know, it has connotations of glamour.

01:06:39In fact, it should be prefixed by Your Excellency,

01:06:42Your Excellency the Miramolin,

01:06:44because he was the potentate...

01:06:47..in the Middle Ages of Morocco.

01:06:49The potentate of Morocco.

01:06:51Now, if he'd been pushed to tell you what it actually meant,

01:06:54it does have an equivalent in English

01:06:56and it's called the Commander of the Faithful.

01:06:59That's the translation.

01:07:01Great. Patrick.

01:07:03Here he comes.

01:07:05It's called the Miramolin.

01:07:07Are you sure?

01:07:09You can barely see it.

01:07:11You're in a state of deep depression.

01:07:13I've got the Miramolin with you.

01:07:15It's the same thing as the French le cafard.

01:07:18There's the English version of the cafard.

01:07:21Hopeless despair, misery.

01:07:24Crying, your mother's gone on fire, the house is burning down.

01:07:28You've got the Miramolin.

01:07:30What period? What?

01:07:32What period?

01:07:34Now. Now?

01:07:36Yeah, in Norfolk.

01:07:40I was waiting for the regional touch.

01:07:43Now we know where we are, thank goodness, Patrick.

01:07:46Thank goodness.

01:07:48Norfolk at last. Tom Baker's go.

01:07:51The word is a miramolin

01:07:54and it's a watchtower

01:07:57which was commonly set atop a castle

01:08:00or a rich man's house

01:08:02and in days gone by was very popular

01:08:05in places like Transylvania

01:08:07or Lusitania, places like that.

01:08:10And the purpose it served, of course,

01:08:12was to allow someone to stand at the top of his miramolin

01:08:15and look down and detect who was coming

01:08:17and if it was a friend and he was happy

01:08:19and if it was an enemy he could run down the stairs

01:08:22and lower the drawbridge or close the gate

01:08:25depending on what sort of a place he had.

01:08:27It's a charming thought.

01:08:29It's a nice or rather useful thing.

01:08:31It's the term you use when you address the Sultan of Morocco.

01:08:35It's a depression in Norfolk

01:08:38and it's this kind of spy place,

01:08:41you know, watchtower kind of thing.

01:08:43Gabrielle.

01:08:45Well, now...

01:08:50I think my team and I are united here, which is delightful.

01:08:53We did... I mean, this hopeless despair.

01:08:57Was it the miromolin?

01:08:59There are so many different pronunciations of this word.

01:09:02Well, I've heard of many words for hopeless despair

01:09:07but I haven't heard of that, Patrick.

01:09:09You'll come new to it, my darling, I promise you.

01:09:11Stick around.

01:09:13And as for this watchtower...

01:09:15Ooh. Miramolin?

01:09:18Miramolin.

01:09:20Miramolin. Miramolin for watchtower.

01:09:22I don't think it's the watchtower.

01:09:24I think that it is the word

01:09:27for the potentate of Morocco,

01:09:29commander of the faithful.

01:09:31Well, just sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't on this programme.

01:09:34Shall we find out? It was indeed you, Miriam, wasn't it?

01:09:36Yes, it was.

01:09:38True or bluff?

01:09:40Your unanimity is...

01:09:42Ah!

01:09:50Sometimes it's Norfolk,

01:09:52sometimes it is the Sultan of Morocco.

01:09:55I never know when, but you did that time.

01:09:57Finimbrun is the next one.

01:09:59Gabrielle Drake.

01:10:02A finimbrun is

01:10:05no less than a trinket,

01:10:08a little piece of nonsense,

01:10:10a valuable little piece of nonsense,

01:10:12something like a Fabergé Easter egg

01:10:15or a little diamond brooch

01:10:17or something like that.

01:10:19And, in fact, if...

01:10:21It's the sort of thing, I mean, if a Cockney actress

01:10:24had been courted by a lord

01:10:26in the 17th century, 18th century,

01:10:29she'd say to her friend,

01:10:31I've just been given a lovely finimbrun.

01:10:33I've not in my whole life, ever.

01:10:35Of course you have. Thank you.

01:10:37Just mine, just mine.

01:10:39Frank Morescoe.

01:10:41Lovelyness.

01:10:43Tremendous word, this.

01:10:45Finimbrun.

01:10:47Finimbrun.

01:10:49Midlands word.

01:10:51Nottingham.

01:10:53And it means...

01:10:55Tremendous time when you ate and ate and ate and ate

01:10:58because it's the...

01:11:00Because you're going into the fast, you see.

01:11:02So you want to eat plenty

01:11:04because you've got to go into the fast.

01:11:06Going into Lent, it means Shrove Tuesday.

01:11:08LAUGHTER

01:11:10Yes, yes.

01:11:12Alan's go. Alan Corrin.

01:11:14Finimbrun is a Highlander's short stick.

01:11:17They don't use them any longer.

01:11:19Oh!

01:11:21LAUGHTER

01:11:23There were times when the Highlanders were...

01:11:25Well before the current football riots,

01:11:28were prepared to take one another apart on a Saturday night

01:11:31since one came from a different clan from the other.

01:11:33And on said Saturday night, the various sets of clans and little pockets

01:11:37would sit in their small declivities in the Highlands

01:11:40and a runner would come with a finimbrun

01:11:43if a clan war was on the cards.

01:11:45If, as it were, the McDonalds came over the hill,

01:11:48the bloke would get up, run like hell, carrying the finimbrun.

01:11:51Short stick, about that large. Pass it on.

01:11:53They couldn't shout, they couldn't use horns, obviously,

01:11:55because it would alert the other side.

01:11:57It was a token marked with a clan mark

01:11:59that was carried from group to group

01:12:02to make them aware that there was a clan war in the offing.

01:12:06It's a fairly long word for a short stick, isn't it?

01:12:08LAUGHTER

01:12:10It's very hard getting it down.

01:12:12They say it's Shrove Tuesday.

01:12:15They say it's a kind of token of alarm in Scotland. Passed on, you know.

01:12:19And trinket, a thing of nought.

01:12:21Miriam.

01:12:24Don't be interested in me.

01:12:26No, no. I'll keep my own counsel, shall I?

01:12:29Yes. Right.

01:12:32They all seem attractive to me, actually, sitting where I am.

01:12:40Gabriels. Yes, a very nice Cockney accent.

01:12:43Thank you.

01:12:45Not many...

01:12:47Yes, not many actresses were given Fabergé Easter eggs.

01:12:50They were very lucky lasses.

01:12:52Never mind. A Shrove Tuesday feast.

01:12:55Shrove Tuesday.

01:12:58Yes.

01:13:00It's very near, isn't it?

01:13:02Yes.

01:13:04And a Scottish stick for giving the alarm.

01:13:08Well, all in all, Frank,

01:13:10I'm going to go for the Shrove Tuesday get-together.

01:13:13Shrove Tuesday itself, you said it was, wasn't it, Frank?

01:13:16True or bluff, he'll tell you now.

01:13:19Ah.

01:13:21No, no.

01:13:28Not Shrove Tuesday, something else.

01:13:30Here he comes, must know. Couldn't go home without knowing.

01:13:33It's a lovely Finembrun.

01:13:35Yes.

01:13:40So, a Finembrun is a trinket or a little gift.

01:13:45Samba is the next one, and Patrick will define it for us.

01:13:50It was Samba.

01:13:53He was a light infantry soldier, Madagascar.

01:13:59Hmm.

01:14:02Under guidance of Prince Ramada,

01:14:05a great kind of king, Ramada Madagascar.

01:14:08But these lads, with short, hooked knives,

01:14:12they were murder on the battlefield.

01:14:14Must have been.

01:14:16You don't go near them.

01:14:18That's what they are.

01:14:22Murderers back in...

01:14:25Madagascar.

01:14:27Short, hooked.

01:14:29Soldiers, thank you.

01:14:32Well, now, Tom Baker, what does he tell us?

01:14:35If one went to tea with a Dalai Lama,

01:14:38it would almost be certain that he would serve you Sambas.

01:14:42Sambas are small Tibetan cakes made of barley meal.

01:14:48And no self-respecting Tibetan would be seen dead

01:14:52without a Samba in his hand.

01:14:54The interesting features of the Samba are,

01:14:58while it's extremely nourishing, extremely nourishing,

01:15:02it's not all that appetizing to taste.

01:15:06Sir Richard Burton, when he was travelling in Tibet,

01:15:10wrote back in one of his letters and said

01:15:13that he'd had a belly full of Sambas,

01:15:16and they were quite disagreeable,

01:15:18even when all smeared with yak butter.

01:15:23You hit his style off. He's always saying that sort of thing.

01:15:26Miriam, your go.

01:15:28Well, in these days of electricity in the twin tub,

01:15:31Sambas have rather fallen from favour

01:15:33because they're the very necessary equipment

01:15:36for an Ethiopian laundress.

01:15:39And any other laundress, for that matter.

01:15:42They're those beautiful flat-topped stones,

01:15:45you know, where the ladies take their washing down to the river,

01:15:48find a lovely flat stone,

01:15:50and then hammer the daylights out of the washing.

01:15:55So it's a kind of cake,

01:15:58it's kind of an infantryman, a Madagascan infantryman,

01:16:02and it's the washing stone that those who wash on stones

01:16:05beat the clothes against. Frank, your turn.

01:16:08May I say that we are again unanimous?

01:16:11My beautiful, beautiful team, we're all completely unanimous.

01:16:14The Madagascan foot soldier

01:16:18rushing up and down with his hook knife,

01:16:21well, really...

01:16:23What's wrong with him?

01:16:25Well, the marvellous bluff on the rancid yak's butter cakes,

01:16:30which had everything in it.

01:16:32It had Dalai Lama, it had Burton, Richard Burton,

01:16:35it had Billy, the word Billy.

01:16:38It was a full, rich dialogue.

01:16:40But, meh...

01:16:42LAUGHTER

01:16:44The flat stones on which ladies do their laundry

01:16:47are known worldwide as flat stones on which you do your laundry.

01:16:51LAUGHTER

01:16:53So it must be the Madagascan foot soldier.

01:16:56Ah, that was Patrick, wasn't it, yes?

01:16:58Patrick tells us now. Was it true?

01:17:00Was it a bluff?

01:17:02Slashing around with a knife.

01:17:05Oh, it was a bluff.

01:17:07APPLAUSE

01:17:12What could it possibly have been, then?

01:17:14I wonder, which of the other two?

01:17:18He's got it. Has he? Can he?

01:17:20Yes, it is!

01:17:22APPLAUSE

01:17:25And the whole thing, smeared in yak butter,

01:17:28and for once it's true.

01:17:30Oh, I say, just got nice time.

01:17:32No, we haven't got nice time, we've got rather swift time for Mowly.

01:17:35Frank, rather briskly.

01:17:37Mowly is an Indian gardener of the second class,

01:17:40junior to an Indian gardener of the first class.

01:17:43Right, Adam.

01:17:45Earth in my jar, hanging from roof of cupboard wagon,

01:17:47full of water so that those beleaguered could have a quick.

01:17:49Right.

01:17:51And Gabrielle?

01:17:53Mowly means to be exactly like a mole to burrow,

01:17:55i.e. like all those people from Colditz

01:17:57who used to escape by tunnelling under on wooden horses and things.

01:18:00So it's a kind of a water pot,

01:18:02and it's a kind of a, like a mole, Mowly,

01:18:05and it's an inferior Indian gardener.

01:18:08Patrick?

01:18:10Well, certainly it's a little Mowly, isn't it, from a mole?

01:18:12You're choosing it, Gabrielle?

01:18:14No, wait, wait!

01:18:16We haven't got much time.

01:18:18Water pot of Alan Corran.

01:18:20You're absolutely right.

01:18:30Now, you know, for the real juice of the occasion,

01:18:34who gave the true definition?

01:18:36It is...

01:18:42You can't win them all, Mowly.

01:18:44You snatched the cup from your own lips.

01:18:46You can't win them all.

01:18:48You're right, you're right.

01:18:50It would have been rotten, you're quite right.

01:18:52Anyway, there we come.

01:18:54End of the game, 3-5, and Frank Muir's team has won.

01:19:05So we'll have another rack of words surplus

01:19:08to our higher department next week.

01:19:10Until then, goodbye from Tom Baker.

01:19:12Goodbye.

01:19:16Alan Corran.

01:19:19Miriam Stoppard.

01:19:22Gabrielle Drake.

01:19:25Patrick Campbell.

01:19:27Frank Muir.

01:19:30And goodbye.

01:19:34Oh, what wretched luck, what wretched luck.

01:19:47MUSIC

01:19:57APPLAUSE

01:20:06Good evening, this is Call My Bluff,

01:20:08which features, as ever, the plausible Frank Muir.

01:20:12APPLAUSE

01:20:17I think every show should start with a beautiful moment.

01:20:21And what more beautiful moment could one have

01:20:24than to say that my first guest is Gail Honeycutt.

01:20:28APPLAUSE

01:20:35My next guest isn't very beautiful, but he's practical.

01:20:38He's a journalist, he's a book critic,

01:20:42he's the film critic of The Observer,

01:20:44and also, as some of you have probably noticed,

01:20:46he's also an impressionist with a wicked ear.

01:20:50It's Russell Davies.

01:20:52APPLAUSE

01:20:58And that very mature leprechaun, Patrick Campbell.

01:21:02APPLAUSE

01:21:08My first guest is a beautifully funny girl.

01:21:11A beautifully funny girl.

01:21:13On leave from faulty towers could only be Prunella Scales.

01:21:17APPLAUSE

01:21:24And the other one is a gentleman,

01:21:26on leave from the good life, Paul Eddington.

01:21:30APPLAUSE

01:21:37So, I ring the bell and we get the first word,

01:21:40and the word is...

01:21:42Pancelet or Pancelet, I don't know,

01:21:44they'll pronounce it in different ways, I don't doubt.

01:21:46Anyway, Frank and his team will define Pancelet

01:21:49three different ways, two are false, one is true.

01:21:52And that's the one that Patrick and co are going to try and pick out.

01:21:55So, Frank, what of this word?

01:21:57You're an early English carver,

01:22:01or perhaps head of a household, nobleman.

01:22:04You've got the leg of lamb in this hand,

01:22:06about to dig the knife in,

01:22:08and the leg of lamb goes zoomp across the floor

01:22:11because the grease has flown out of your hand.

01:22:15Likewise, you've got a chop.

01:22:17All your hands get greasy as you...

01:22:19..into your mouth, you see.

01:22:21So what you do is you wrap a bit of linen around it, you see,

01:22:24a pancelet, and you've got both a handhold

01:22:26and also a hold that stops the grease getting on your fingers.

01:22:30Silly, I know, but...

01:22:32It is pretty silly, isn't it, really?

01:22:35Think on it. With the best will in the world.

01:22:38It's silly-ish, I would say.

01:22:40A kind of anti-grease rag, really.

01:22:43In a word. Well, three words.

01:22:47Let's try Russell Davis, shall we?

01:22:49Well, a pancelet is a high-heeled shoe

01:22:53for man's second or possibly third best friend, the horse.

01:22:58It's a shoe in which the ends are thickened and strengthened

01:23:02to beautify the ankles of the beast or to make it look taller,

01:23:06but simply to supply strength to an injured heel.

01:23:11Right. Now, it's Gail Honeycutt to tell us something.

01:23:15Yes, Milo, you tell me all about it.

01:23:17I will.

01:23:19A pancelet is a net,

01:23:21which is found in Cambridgeshire...

01:23:25Don't laugh, you. Yeah.

01:23:27Smile and everything goes.

01:23:29..and it's actually used for snaring snipes.

01:23:32You take it, it's made of finely woven horsehair,

01:23:36and you take it and you throw it over a bush or a head

01:23:40or anything in which you think a snipe might be lurking,

01:23:43and it traps the poor little thing.

01:23:47Pancelet.

01:23:49Cruel, really, isn't it? Yeah.

01:23:51Well, it's a net for getting hold of a snipe and so on.

01:23:54It's something to hold meat with.

01:23:56Stop your fingers getting greasy.

01:23:58Special highish sort of horseshoe.

01:24:01Patrick chooses now.

01:24:04Well, now, all this...

01:24:07I can't say either word like this.

01:24:09A snipe snarer.

01:24:11It isn't a snipe snarer at all,

01:24:13because if it was a snipe snarer,

01:24:15it'd be called a snipe snarer.

01:24:20An anti-grease rag.

01:24:23It's called a pancelet.

01:24:25It's called a pancelet.

01:24:27You say, pass me the pancelet, I want a card.

01:24:29Get away!

01:24:33This is a kind of...

01:24:35Is it?

01:24:37I think it's a kind of horse's boot.

01:24:39Wait, do I?

01:24:41Yes, I do, really.

01:24:43Horse's...

01:24:45Wants it to be the horse's high...

01:24:47That was Russell Davis who said it.

01:24:49Was he telling the truth?

01:24:51True or bluff?

01:24:53APPLAUSE

01:25:01Yeah, it is. You followed your instinct there.

01:25:03The other week, you just missed it.

01:25:05It was a long walk.

01:25:07Well, well.

01:25:09Cop tank is our next word,

01:25:11and Patrick Campbell will tell you what it means.

01:25:13A cop tank...

01:25:15A regulation headwear

01:25:17for a fully paid-up,

01:25:19card-carrying

01:25:21male Puritan.

01:25:25A kind of hat

01:25:27that almost mounted to a

01:25:29kind of cone on top, but not quite.

01:25:31It got sawn off before it got to

01:25:33its ultimate cone.

01:25:35And you could have it

01:25:37like the Henry Ford Model T

01:25:41any colour you like,

01:25:43if it was black.

01:25:45LAUGHTER

01:25:47Right, Paul Eddington tells you.

01:25:49Well, I haven't consulted all the reference books,

01:25:51but I believe that

01:25:53the most celebrated cop tank

01:25:55in this country

01:25:57is the so-called Bewdley Bowl,

01:25:59which is one of the

01:26:01principal treasures of Ripon Cathedral.

01:26:03It's a dual-encrusted bowl,

01:26:05and it is, in fact,

01:26:07a christening cup.

01:26:09Not a christening mug. It's a thing for

01:26:11conveying holy water

01:26:13from the font

01:26:15to the forehead of the

01:26:17baptisee.

01:26:19Hose.

01:26:21What? Christmas. Hose.

01:26:23No, no, no.

01:26:25What hose was that?

01:26:27What hose?

01:26:29Yes. No, no, no. Let's get on with it.

01:26:31Brunella, your go.

01:26:33I think it's worth mentioning that

01:26:35the British used captured

01:26:37cop tanks in

01:26:391653

01:26:41as fireboats

01:26:43to attack Van Tromp's

01:26:45anchorage.

01:26:47It's a Dutch

01:26:49waterman's boat

01:26:51normally used

01:26:53on waterways, such as the Zuiderzee

01:26:55cop tank,

01:26:57for repairing and maintaining dikes.

01:26:59Right.

01:27:01So it's a kind of christening

01:27:03mug, it's a

01:27:05Puritan's hat, and it's

01:27:07a Dutch boat.

01:27:09And Frank Muir will tell you what he has out of that lot.

01:27:11Well,

01:27:13no problem here.

01:27:15Just one, a tiny one, which one it is.

01:27:17It's a

01:27:19Puritan hat.

01:27:21It's very interesting.

01:27:23A pewter hat? No, no.

01:27:25Or is it a pewter hat? No.

01:27:27Puritan hat, yes.

01:27:33Church vows, I think it's a sort of

01:27:35tank and cuptic, one's trying to

01:27:37one's led to believe on that.

01:27:39And the cop tank

01:27:41for the vessel

01:27:43seems to be... Right.

01:27:45I am going to

01:27:47choose one of those

01:27:49three.

01:27:51I'm going to go for the

01:27:53Puritan hat. Puritan hat,

01:27:55Patrick, yes it was. Patrick, will you

01:27:57tell us?

01:27:59I'm amazed.

01:28:01You got it.

01:28:09It's a Puritan hat.

01:28:11Everything he said

01:28:13about it was true. It's a Puritan's

01:28:15hat. And it's one all

01:28:17now. And the next word is slinge.

01:28:19At least that's the way I'd say it.

01:28:21Russell Davies, your go. Well, slinge is a nice

01:28:23disgusting word. A tin miner's

01:28:25word for finely

01:28:27crushed or powdered ore

01:28:29rendered down into a sort

01:28:31of mud. So a tin miner

01:28:33with slinge on his boots is the last

01:28:35man you want to have Morris dancing

01:28:37across your axe minster.

01:28:39Morris dancing?

01:28:41It's slinge. Cornish

01:28:43tin miner's mook. Stuff on his boots,

01:28:45yep. Right, Gail Honeycutt.

01:28:47To slinge,

01:28:49it's a verb,

01:28:51yes. It means to skulk

01:28:53or loaf or loiter

01:28:55about. It's one of those lovely words that's

01:28:57a bit of slang,

01:28:59English slang, made up of slink

01:29:01and lounge. Hence

01:29:03slinge.

01:29:05And you

01:29:07might hear it used by

01:29:09a sergeant major on parade ground

01:29:11if he had some raw recruits.

01:29:13He'd tell them to stop that slinging

01:29:15and get cracking.

01:29:17And get what?

01:29:19Cracking.

01:29:21That's what we say in Texas.

01:29:23Hit the vice off awfully well.

01:29:25Frank.

01:29:27Would your turn

01:29:29bit of a cold

01:29:31move away from the set?

01:29:33A slinge,

01:29:35roughly speaking, is slightly less than a quarter

01:29:37of a cow.

01:29:39But years ago,

01:29:41it's round about the period

01:29:43of November

01:29:45to about March.

01:29:47And if you wanted to find a slinge,

01:29:49you wouldn't find it on a cow because there weren't any cows

01:29:51because they haven't got any fodders. They used to slaughter them.

01:29:53So a slinge, in fact,

01:29:55this almost a quarter of a cow, existed

01:29:57in a bucket of brine.

01:29:59And regularly bits of it were brought out,

01:30:01washed off, and boiled up

01:30:03to make a nice winter meal

01:30:05with herbs.

01:30:07It's a quarter of a dead cow pickled.

01:30:09Or it isn't.

01:30:11Or it isn't.

01:30:13I leave it entirely to you, the decision.

01:30:15So it's bits of a

01:30:17cow pickled.

01:30:19It's to loaf about.

01:30:21And it's powdered,

01:30:23sort of tin ore,

01:30:25when made into mud.

01:30:27Paul Eddington, what do you think?

01:30:29Yes, well, I'm

01:30:31not attracted,

01:30:33who would be,

01:30:35to the piece of cow

01:30:37in brine.

01:30:41Oh dear,

01:30:43that's unsettled me.

01:30:45I think, too,

01:30:47that

01:30:49the idea of slinge

01:30:51or skulking, it's a bit too...

01:30:53Is the word onomatopoeic?

01:30:55Exactly. Thank you, yes.

01:30:57It seems a bit too easy to me.

01:30:59Slinge, slinging about.

01:31:01I like the idea of the mud.

01:31:03The muddy ore,

01:31:05or whatever it is.

01:31:07That's what you're going to choose, is it?

01:31:09You've decided on that, right. That was Russell Davies.

01:31:11True or bluff?

01:31:13Oh, he was fooling you.

01:31:21Now we need to know.

01:31:23None of us can go home tonight without knowing

01:31:25what slinge actually means.

01:31:27Here it comes.

01:31:29I'm afraid you weren't

01:31:31skulking enough.

01:31:39It means to loaf, to hang around,

01:31:41you know, like that, and it does sound like it,

01:31:43and so she was right in all she said.

01:31:45Ah, well, yes.

01:31:47Try again.

01:31:49Run at it.

01:31:51I would say.

01:31:53Potamogatan, is that how you pronounce it?

01:31:55Yes, Potamogatan is the

01:31:57end product

01:31:59of a piece of necromancy,

01:32:01a piece of

01:32:03magic. It's a sort of

01:32:05manifestation as a result

01:32:07of a spell. I suppose the

01:32:09most celebrated

01:32:11piece of

01:32:13Potamogatan, or I'm not sure,

01:32:15yes, Potamogatan,

01:32:17was recorded about

01:32:19the ancient Greek

01:32:21necromancer called Nicaeus,

01:32:23who entirely

01:32:25by himself, without any assistance

01:32:27whatsoever, conjured up

01:32:29an entire city

01:32:31called Kambalou.

01:32:33People actually walked in the streets and

01:32:35sat under the trees and so on and imagined they'd seen it.

01:32:37It was all a bit of

01:32:39hokum, a bit of Potamogatan.

01:32:43Pretty hard work, I should think,

01:32:45but still.

01:32:47Well,

01:32:49Potamogatan grows

01:32:51practically anywhere,

01:32:53anywhere you find fresh water.

01:32:55The celebrated travel explorer

01:32:57Ernest Floyer,

01:32:59having noted it

01:33:01on a duck pond in

01:33:03Lincolnshire, was astounded

01:33:05to find the very same thing

01:33:07in darkest Baluchistan.

01:33:09It is a floating

01:33:11freshwater

01:33:13pondweed

01:33:15with oblong

01:33:17leaves growing in any fresh water

01:33:19anywhere.

01:33:21Yep, right.

01:33:23Patrick, what do you say?

01:33:25Potamogatan

01:33:27is a rather

01:33:29ponderous, polysyllabic

01:33:31imitation

01:33:33funny word for a heavy

01:33:35drinker.

01:33:39The word Potamogatan

01:33:42it first

01:33:44appeared in print in the Times,

01:33:46the correspondence columns,

01:33:48I think

01:33:501908, not sure about that,

01:33:52but some

01:33:54pompous ass

01:33:56wrote to the Times

01:33:58to say,

01:34:00at the moment,

01:34:02though I'm

01:34:04not an apostle of temperance,

01:34:06neither am I

01:34:08to be numbered among the

01:34:10ranks of the tottering

01:34:12Pocatotoplanes.

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