3.Call My Bluff S11E7, S11E8, S11E9,S11E10,S11E11 (1977) G. Hunnicutt,K. O'Mara,B. Blessed,B. Norman

Very British

S11E7 Gayle Hunnicutt, Prunella Scales, Russell Davies, Paul Eddington.  S11E8 Gayle Hunnicutt, Prunella Scales, Russell Davies, Paul Eddington.  S11E9 Kate O'Mara, Gemma Craven, Brian Blessed, Leslie Thomas.  S11E10 Kate O'Mara, Gemma Craven, Brian Blessed, Leslie Thomas.  S11E11 Gemma Jones, Anouska Hempel, Barry Norman, Dinsdale Landen.  Host/Team captains: Robert Robinson, Frank Muir, Patrick Campbell.

Transcript

00:00:00Something of a test of sobriety anyway, one way or another. It's a kind of a heavy drinker,

00:00:07it's a kind of pondweed and it's a sort of vision. Russell Davies.

00:00:11Well now, I can't feel that it would be a heavy drinker, because that is a mega potatoper,

00:00:18probably. I think that's what you're thinking of. And why anybody should go to the lengths

00:00:26of calling into being a city called Kambaloo, just so they could have this word, potamogaton,

00:00:32to flash about. I think the pondweed sounds suitably unlikely. I think it's the pondweed.

00:00:39You do. Now, who was that? Yes, it was Prunella, you said that, didn't you? Oh no.

00:00:48You mean you're not best pleased? Potamogaton sounds like their old medieval dish, Jugged

00:01:05Cat. Oh yes. Not frankly relevant, but it cheered everything up, frankly. More of that

00:01:15to these years. Jolly good. Anyway, yes, it's pondweed. Now we have Lana, and yes, Gail,

00:01:24your turn. Lana, excuse me. Just start talking, you'll have to shut up. Technical problems

00:01:32broken out here, but it'll be all right. You're a Chataway. Lana, I've talked before, is a

00:01:38certificate used by Romans and signed and sealed by a Roman magistrate to certify that

00:01:44the bearer of this certificate was a heathen. In other words, that he worshipped pagan gods.

00:01:54And it was often carried by people who were afraid of being eaten alive by lions. I see,

00:02:03but lions could read, of course, you just showed them the certificate.

00:02:06You're too charming for words. No, I'm just putting your leg, Frank.

00:02:11Ridiculously simple. It's a long, very strong pole, about a sixth of the way back, a bit

00:02:24sawn off, and a cross piece is nailed on. And you shove one end under something heavy,

00:02:33and about six lads from the farm hang on the other end. And you lifted heavy objects, millstone,

00:02:41dead cart horse, huge, huge mother-in-law who'd fought anything. These are just suppositions,

00:02:49because it was an implement in a very simple way, just lifting off the ground something very heavy.

00:02:55Right, now it's, um, yes, Russell Davison, go.

00:02:59A lana is a species of Mediterranean falcon, a bird not unlike a peregrine,

00:03:05but a couple of sizes smaller, according to whatever scale is used to measure peregrines in.

00:03:10It has the habit of uttering its cry as it lands.

00:03:18Look out for me, that kind of cry. There have been other birds that did this.

00:03:21It's a fact which caused Longfellow to write, and I quote,

00:03:26downward fluttered sail and banner as alights the screaming lana.

00:03:32Oh no, not in a hundred years.

00:03:40Trouble is, he wrote an awful lot like that, didn't he? Anyway, it's a falcon,

00:03:44it's a very long pole, and it's a certificate for saying you're a heathen should you meet a lion.

00:03:48Prunella.

00:03:52I don't think it's a certificate for saying you're a heathen if eaten by a lion, um,

00:04:00and I don't think Longfellow ever wrote that either.

00:04:03Just because I've said that, he obviously did.

00:04:05I think it's a pole for lifting mothers-in-law.

00:04:07Frank, you said all that about the pole.

00:04:11True or bluff?

00:04:15It is.

00:04:15True, isn't it?

00:04:18So who gave the true definition? Let's see.

00:04:41I wish it had been that certificate for showing to the lion, but it wasn't.

00:04:45Very seldom is.

00:04:46Anyway, notchall is the next one, and Prunella will define it for you.

00:04:51To notchall, it's an old verb, is to declare in public that one will not be

00:05:00responsible for the debts of a person named.

00:05:07It's, uh, it is obsolete.

00:05:08It's rather a pity.

00:05:09It'd be lovely if it was still, still extant.

00:05:13Um, Patrick, it's your go.

00:05:23A notchall is a sideways jab of the elbow.

00:05:29That's your notchall there.

00:05:33If you give a nudge without the notchall, it's a non-event.

00:05:39Thank you.

00:05:47Paul Eddington.

00:05:48Well, there's an area southwest of Glastonbury, southwest of the Tor,

00:05:53which is very marshy.

00:05:55Somerset, this is.

00:05:56And notchall, as it's pronounced in the local dialect, is a kind of style.

00:06:01And it's, it's rather unusual in that it joins two fields, not separated by a hedge,

00:06:05but separated by a ditch, a kind of agricultural ha-ha.

00:06:09So that it acts both as a sort of little bridge and a gate as well.

00:06:15Notchall.

00:06:16Right.

00:06:17So it's a style for that part of the world.

00:06:19It's a jab of the elbow.

00:06:21And it's announce, an announcement saying that you won't be responsible for somebody,

00:06:25somebody's debts.

00:06:26Gail Honeycutt.

00:06:28Um.

00:06:29Evening.

00:06:30Evening.

00:06:31Um, I don't know, Patrick.

00:06:36A sideways jab of the elbow.

00:06:38You must never give a nudge without a notchall.

00:06:41Is that right?

00:06:42Yes?

00:06:42With a notchall on the elbow.

00:06:43Not, notchall, yes.

00:06:45Well, I'm not sure about that.

00:06:48Uh, I, I'm glad that, uh, it no longer is in existence of people not declaring their debts.

00:06:54I like having my herds bill paid.

00:06:56So I don't think it's that.

00:06:58And I've never been to Somerset, so I don't really know about styles and ditches and gates.

00:07:05So I'm going to think it's a, a nudge.

00:07:08Nudge.

00:07:09You do.

00:07:09That was Patrick, wasn't it?

00:07:11Yes.

00:07:12All malarkey, was it, or what?

00:07:14No?

00:07:14Two more bluffs, here it comes.

00:07:16Found in somber mood.

00:07:17Ha-ha!

00:07:26Nothing to do with elbows or anything like that.

00:07:29I'm sure you want to know who gave the two definition.

00:07:31I certainly do myself.

00:07:32Who is it?

00:07:34Who should have it there?

00:07:35She's got it there.

00:07:36She has it there.

00:07:37I think it's nice of you, I love you.

00:07:43Fine, fine.

00:07:44One of those announcements of which Prunella spoke.

00:07:48Hammer is the next.

00:07:49Frank Muir.

00:07:52It's, um, it's, it's painfully simple, actually.

00:07:57It's a third century Assyrian smoke ring.

00:08:00Oh.

00:08:02I know it, it, I mean, the mind boggles, doesn't it?

00:08:05Have I seen a mind boggling?

00:08:07It's yours now.

00:08:08But the Red Indians didn't invent a third century smoke ring.

00:08:12You know, messages with, by puffs of smoke.

00:08:15And that's what a hammer is.

00:08:17It's a, a Syrian, um, signaling smoke thing, third century BC.

00:08:24It's an astonishing life.

00:08:27Well, but fairly boring from time to time.

00:08:30Astonishing and boring.

00:08:32I think that was rotten, Patrick.

00:08:34Russell, what do you say?

00:08:36It's the prototype body belt of many centuries ago.

00:08:40A long strip of linen which gentlemen would wind around themselves as a preventative against

00:08:45appearing pear-shaped.

00:08:48So, uh, if you hear of an Etruscan pot, it's probable that the owner forgot to do up his hammer.

00:08:54LAUGHTER

00:08:59Frank Easley makes those jokes, you know, Russell.

00:09:01He must have gone to the National Trust.

00:09:07Very good.

00:09:07The two good ones there.

00:09:08Gayle.

00:09:09An armour is a mule.

00:09:12And it is distinguished by the fact that it's all white.

00:09:16But it's not an albino mule.

00:09:18It doesn't have pink eyes.

00:09:19It just is all white.

00:09:21And because of this unusual characteristic, it's considered to be very good luck by the Arabs.

00:09:27It's an Arab word.

00:09:29And the only problem with an armour is that, like most all-white animals, it tends to be a little deaf.

00:09:40Well worth knowing.

00:09:42It's an Assyrian smoke signal.

00:09:44It's a white mule.

00:09:45And it's an early corset.

00:09:47Patrick.

00:09:49My God, a deaf, white mule.

00:09:56There are no white mules.

00:09:57Nobody has ever seen a...

00:10:00Well, at least of all, a deaf mule.

00:10:04A deaf, white mule.

00:10:05Gayle.

00:10:06Gayle.

00:10:08All this kind of smoke being dribbled.

00:10:11I wrote down the word.

00:10:13I read it at Trusts.

00:10:15Yeah, of course.

00:10:17Everyone knows it's an Assyrian smoke ring.

00:10:20The Assyrian smoke ring of which Frank spoke.

00:10:24True or bluff?

00:10:25This is...

00:10:26You've got the wrong card.

00:10:27That means you as well.

00:10:29I can't get it open.

00:10:31I can see it from here.

00:10:42It's only a game, as I tell them both afterwards.

00:10:44It doesn't do any good.

00:10:45Who's given the true definition?

00:10:54All right, then.

00:10:55In spite of the puns, it was true.

00:10:57It's something you wrap around yourself, keep your belly in.

00:11:00And now I think this is our last word.

00:11:04Atchison.

00:11:05Yes, Patrick.

00:11:06It's a very, very sad word.

00:11:08This, it means...

00:11:10Death.

00:11:12Somebody passes on, they put it into a wooden box.

00:11:16They travel into the hearse.

00:11:18But an atchison is a hearse that's got little seats on either side of the coffin.

00:11:25On which the mourners sit.

00:11:28They turn inwards, peering at the remnants.

00:11:31Our uncle Fred, what has passed on.

00:11:35That's an atchison.

00:11:36Paul Eddington.

00:11:38An atchison, like the doubloon and the groat and the farthing, is in fact an obsolete coin.

00:11:46A coin not exactly of this realm, it's of the Scottish realm.

00:11:49And in the reign of...

00:11:52Don't laugh.

00:11:53In the reign of James the Sixth of Scotland, many an atchison...

00:12:01...passed on.

00:12:02An atchison...

00:12:05...passed hands and pockets.

00:12:07One of its unusual features was that although made of copper, it was coated in silver.

00:12:18An atchison is a cheap day ticket.

00:12:25American, Americanese for have it away day.

00:12:32Excursion.

00:12:36Well, as any railway buff will tell you, it comes from the original company that started these tickets.

00:12:42The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe.

00:12:47Lime.

00:12:50It's a funeral carriage of the sort described by Patrick.

00:12:53It's an obsolete coin and it's a cheap day ticket.

00:12:58Frank to make his choice.

00:13:00It's not a cheap day ticket.

00:13:04Because...

00:13:06I don't know.

00:13:07Male instinct.

00:13:09Male instinct.

00:13:11The...

00:13:12Dismiss that logically.

00:13:13The...

00:13:14Patrick's very interesting.

00:13:16All that garbage about the seats, a sort of weak break.

00:13:22Even less likely could it be a silver coated copper coin.

00:13:31So...

00:13:32But as you all fell about with laughter at his definition, that is one we will choose as the true one.

00:13:37Which is then just...

00:13:37Frank, they fall about it.

00:13:39It was the gentleman on your left who gave the Scottish coin Atchison.

00:13:43The one dipped in silver, quite right.

00:13:44Was that Paul?

00:13:45Is that true or bluff now?

00:13:47Something of a bullseye!

00:13:51APPLAUSE

00:14:01So, there you have it. Well, well, well. Well done there, yes.

00:14:05We've just about come to the end of the game.

00:14:07I'm stammering like this because we've got a few seconds to make up, that's about all.

00:14:11Anyway, the score's standing at 6-2, without question.

00:14:14Frank Muir's team has won!

00:14:16APPLAUSE

00:14:24So, then, we shall be photographing some more mirages

00:14:29from the Oxford English Dictionary next week.

00:14:32Until then, everyone says goodbye in order, beginning with Russell Davis.

00:14:36APPLAUSE

00:14:39Paul Eddington.

00:14:41Gail Honeycutt.

00:14:44Penella Scales.

00:14:47Frank Muir.

00:14:50Patrick Campbell.

00:14:53And goodbye.

00:14:55APPLAUSE

00:15:12MUSIC

00:15:22APPLAUSE

00:15:29Hello, this is Call My Bluff,

00:15:31featuring the only 6'4 member of the Little Folk, Patrick Campbell.

00:15:36APPLAUSE

00:15:42I'd plough deeply into Fawlty Tower

00:15:45to get my aid back again, Penella Scales.

00:15:48APPLAUSE

00:15:55And the other lad, after an unbelievable defeat last week,

00:16:00I send to him again, from the good life, Paul Eddington.

00:16:05APPLAUSE

00:16:09And the Stuart Hibbard of the panel game, Frank Muir.

00:16:14APPLAUSE

00:16:20Good evening.

00:16:22Reasonably enough, I've brought back the winning team last week.

00:16:27Actress Gail Honeycutt.

00:16:30APPLAUSE

00:16:34And book critic and film critic of The Observer, Russell Davis.

00:16:39APPLAUSE

00:16:44Let's have a word.

00:16:46Ring the bell and we get one and we get Jerry Mumble or something like that.

00:16:50And I'm to tell you that Patrick Campbell and his team

00:16:53will define it three different ways.

00:16:55Two of the definitions are false, one is true.

00:16:58I don't know why you're giggling, Patrick, I just don't know.

00:17:01But anyway, kick off with this one. There's a deer.

00:17:04You've got Jerry Mumble.

00:17:07A kind of 14th-century edible glue.

00:17:11LAUGHTER

00:17:13Thank you.

00:17:15I've barely begun.

00:17:19Which is pretty good.

00:17:21LAUGHTER

00:17:24I've barely begun.

00:17:28Which is quite like 20th-century fudge.

00:17:31LAUGHTER

00:17:34Honey, some flour, stir over a small flame.

00:17:42Before it sets...

00:17:45LAUGHTER

00:17:47Just before it turns into a little monkey or a rabbit.

00:17:50With the pleasure that the children are going to eat it anyway.

00:17:53That's very sweet.

00:17:55Right. Right, we're off.

00:17:57Paul Eddington, his turn now.

00:18:00The action of Jerry Mumbling is a rather unattractive

00:18:04but very necessary culinary business.

00:18:09It is, in fact, the gutting and cleaning of fish.

00:18:13After a stiff drink, I've been known to Jerry Mumble myself.

00:18:16I've Jerry Mumbled sardines.

00:18:19Anything larger calls for a stronger nerve than I have.

00:18:23That's what Jerry Mumbling is.

00:18:25Right enough. Now, what does Prunella tell us?

00:18:29Jerry Mumbling, it's Scots vernacular, of course.

00:18:33It is to haggle, to wrangle, cavil or dispute a point.

00:18:43You'll find that there's the Scottish slang, a Jerry Mumbler,

00:18:47which means a specially verbose or disputatious advocate or attorney.

00:18:55So they tell you that this is the case.

00:18:58It's 14th-century fudge, it's to haggle and it's to gut a fish.

00:19:02And Frank Muir will choose one of those.

00:19:05I accuse...

00:19:09..Poo of trying to mislead us with Jerry Mandering,

00:19:13which means to wrangle and dispute and talk too loud,

00:19:17which is an American word after Mr Jerry Mander.

00:19:21Finish. Right.

00:19:24That's not. So, edible glue.

00:19:2814th-century edible glue.

00:19:32I think, sir, I rest my case here,

00:19:36that it is the cutting and glee...

00:19:39..gutting and gleaming of fish.

00:19:43You say then, Frank, that it's the gleeking or cutting of fish.

00:19:47I've put out that suggestion, yes.

00:19:50Paul, true or bluff, because you were the one who said it was thus.

00:19:54You're right!

00:20:02You've got a fish, you Jerry Mumble that fish, it seems.

00:20:06One nil.

00:20:08Tenny dish, we have, Frank Muir defines.

00:20:11You've got your stained-glass artist,

00:20:14and there he's got the glass in front of him.

00:20:17Yes, yes. And he's got the dye. He's got his dye here.

00:20:21How does he get that to that?

00:20:23He puts it on it. He puts it on.

00:20:25But he can't just throw it on. What does he do with it? Where is the dye?

00:20:29I don't know. It is in a tenny dish,

00:20:33which is a lump of lead, Mark. Hang on.

00:20:36Lead, which is scooped out, roughly.

00:20:39And the dye is inside, and then you work...

00:20:42You put the dye from the tenny dish, pour a little on,

00:20:45then you work the lead round, and it works the dye into the glass.

00:20:52And that's what the chaps do, who make stained glass.

00:20:56Yes, they do.

00:20:58A bit of an attempt to deceive.

00:21:00Next, please.

00:21:04Thank you. Yes, it's Russell Davies's turn.

00:21:07As quaint old customs go,

00:21:10tenny dish is a good'un.

00:21:12It's a Derbyshire custom, involving, at one point,

00:21:16the lowering of a choirboy down a well.

00:21:21How far, you ask? How fast?

00:21:23What for? What goes on beneath that?

00:21:27I can't tell you.

00:21:29Don't rush me, boy.

00:21:31I can only say it's part of a beating-the-bounds ceremony

00:21:36around Derbyshire parishes,

00:21:38and, by extension, the word has come to mean parish too.

00:21:42In Derbyshire.

00:21:45OK, you say so. Gail Honeycutt.

00:21:48Tenny dish is a very gloomy Elizabethan adjective,

00:21:52for it means to be wholly without light,

00:21:56to be thrust into the abyss, into pitch darkness.

00:22:00In fact, a very famous Elizabethan ecclesiastic

00:22:04was quoted as describing hell as being

00:22:07palpably tenny dish,

00:22:09into which the eyes of heaven can never see.

00:22:13Smashing, girl. Well done.

00:22:16OK, well, they say it's a kind of a container for dye

00:22:20that the man who's doing the stained glass windows uses.

00:22:23It's an old Derbyshire as opposed to Norfolk custom,

00:22:26and it's a pitch... It's pitch black.

00:22:29Patrick.

00:22:31Well, what were doing lowering choirboys into well?

00:22:37Voluntary, voluntary.

00:22:39What happens at the bottom? It stays as it is all up again.

00:22:44Not a lie for a choirboy.

00:22:48All this nonsense about...

00:22:53A little piece of painting, kind of grind it onto the... Yes.

00:22:57Of course, it's tenaire, but it's something to do with gloom.

00:23:01It's... You're a little lot done, isn't it?

00:23:03Let's see a true car, just for once.

00:23:06The term Gail... No, no, she's smiling.

00:23:09Was she telling the truth, or was it a bluff?

00:23:12Ah!

00:23:14APPLAUSE

00:23:23Didn't mean a word.

00:23:25Who gave us the true definition?

00:23:28Oh, no!

00:23:30APPLAUSE

00:23:36Kind of a lens container for the colour that they put on windows.

00:23:41Musha is the next word.

00:23:44I leave that to Paul Eddington.

00:23:46Musha.

00:23:48It's rather like a jarvy, only a slightly larger way of business.

00:23:53He's a horse-drawn taxicab owner.

00:23:57Self-employed, so he doesn't get any dole, of course.

00:24:01And he's also a part-time driver.

00:24:04He keeps this little fleet of taxis,

00:24:06and he keeps the horses probably in a muse somewhere.

00:24:09He's also the owner of a rather flooded countenance and a walrus moustache.

00:24:16Yes. That's what a musha is.

00:24:18A bit personal, but there. Prunella.

00:24:21Well, a musha should really be called a slusher,

00:24:25because it is a sort of broom without any bristles.

00:24:30It's a wide-headed broom,

00:24:32and it's used in North America for cleaning the snow off paths

00:24:38and from your back door.

00:24:40You have your musha in your backyard...

00:24:46..and you sweep away the slush with it, with a mush.

00:24:51Yep. Patrick.

00:24:53A musha was a small bouquet of flowers...

00:24:58..carried by the groom and the best man

00:25:02and the groomsman at country weddings.

00:25:06Not the end of that, by any means.

00:25:09Because after the bride had been done, after the ceremony was over,

00:25:13the groom gave his musha to his mother-in-law.

00:25:20In a symbolic swap.

00:25:25That's all about that.

00:25:27Well, it's that kind of a bouquet.

00:25:30I think you said a horse-drawn taxi owner.

00:25:33Imagination boggles, and it's something you sweep snow up with.

00:25:37Russell Davis has the choice.

00:25:39Well, imagination boggles indeed.

00:25:41The philosopher Eddington, you see, wants us to believe

00:25:44that this chap's sitting on top of this carriage,

00:25:47going mush-mush, presumably, isn't it?

00:25:49That's why he's a musha. Too likely, that's.

00:25:52And a broom...

00:25:54..to propel the mush down the driveway.

00:25:57No, no.

00:26:00I think, because the country wedding appeals to me,

00:26:04he and our mother-in-law take away the musha.

00:26:07Lovely. I think that's a nice scene.

00:26:09You're choosing that one, are you? It has to be a bouquet.

00:26:12I would like to know it's you.

00:26:14OK, that was Patrick. Now he tells you.

00:26:17You've got the wrong wedding.

00:26:19APPLAUSE

00:26:22Come on, come on.

00:26:26Who gave us the true definition of that interesting word, musha?

00:26:30Here it comes. One, two, three, go.

00:26:32Well done, Paul. Superstitious.

00:26:34Yes, indeed.

00:26:40A horse-drawn taxi driver. That's what it is.

00:26:43Now, shoal is the next one.

00:26:45And Russell Davis to tell us.

00:26:47Well, a shoal is nothing but a small puff of smoke.

00:26:51Such as that inhaled and then exhaled during pipe smoking.

00:26:55And in the old days of the pubs,

00:26:58you would find a church with a pipe often circulated among the clientele

00:27:03with the cheerful invitation,

00:27:05come and have a shoal, lad.

00:27:07That's all it is.

00:27:10Puff of smoke.

00:27:12Yes. Right, Gayle?

00:27:15A shoal is a word that is of importance to members of the Jewish faith.

00:27:20It's a commentary upon the Hebrew scriptures,

00:27:23which amplifies them and explains them,

00:27:26although leaving the writer free for allegorical interpretation.

00:27:32That word, yes. That word.

00:27:36Frank, your turn.

00:27:38You've got a boat.

00:27:40Not a flat-bottomed boat, because it doesn't sort of count for that,

00:27:44but a round-billed boat, right?

00:27:46Are you with me so far?

00:27:48You haul it up to do some work on it,

00:27:52and you put balks of timber along the side,

00:27:56known as shores.

00:27:58Are you with me that far?

00:28:00Right. Now, you say, being an intelligent girl,

00:28:03I'm not looking at him, being an intelligent girl,

00:28:06what stops the boat doing that

00:28:08and the shores diving into the sand?

00:28:12What stops them is shoals,

00:28:15which are feet.

00:28:17Which are shoes, wooden shoes,

00:28:19which are bunged under the shores,

00:28:22thus stopping the shore being driven into the sand or mud.

00:28:27Exciting.

00:28:29Is that all? That seems to have flawed you.

00:28:31I think I've covered it. Not a word from the...

00:28:33Well, it's a puff of smoke.

00:28:35It's a Jewish scriptural commentary,

00:28:38and it's a shore for a shore.

00:28:40It's something you, as he said, poured.

00:28:42Well, I rather think that if it were a puff of smoke,

00:28:44we would have heard of it.

00:28:46Yes.

00:28:47It seems unlikely that this very common saying

00:28:50shouldn't have existed in some form or another today.

00:28:54Um...

00:28:56I'm deeply suspicious of the nautical term,

00:29:00because, of course, it's so like a shoal,

00:29:03which we know is a nautical term,

00:29:05though spelt differently.

00:29:07And also, you went on at such length about it.

00:29:10But, of course, this may be part of the game.

00:29:12I'm new to using veritably.

00:29:14I rather incline towards the Jewish word.

00:29:17That was said by you, Gail, wasn't it?

00:29:20True or bluff, you have to tell us.

00:29:22Oh, well...

00:29:24Looks as if we've done it again.

00:29:26APPLAUSE

00:29:34Here comes the true one.

00:29:37Well, shove it under yourself.

00:29:40APPLAUSE

00:29:45In spite of all the acting, it was true.

00:29:48The shoal is what you put under a shore.

00:29:51Sempact is the next word,

00:29:54and I invite you, Prunella, to speak of it.

00:29:58The sempact was the war office building in Constantinople,

00:30:04the Turkish military headquarters.

00:30:08There...

00:30:10Just incidentally, there was a war office

00:30:13incidentally, there was a mezzo-tint of the sempact

00:30:17in the Illustrated London News

00:30:20for July the 8th, 1876,

00:30:24showing its characteristic Byzantine façade.

00:30:29LAUGHTER

00:30:31I wonder what Patrick tells us now.

00:30:34A sempact is an aged Benedictine monk.

00:30:39LAUGHTER

00:30:41This poor old lad lying on his bare cot.

00:30:46You get some privileges out of the age of 60.

00:30:52They include not having to scamper off to Athens at 4.30 in the morning.

00:30:59A sip of Benedictine if it's going free.

00:31:03That's a sempact.

00:31:05An old, semi-retired monk.

00:31:07Thank you.

00:31:10They all end up on Cormod Lough, don't they?

00:31:14Paul Eddington, please go.

00:31:16Sempact is the seed of a variety of North African millet,

00:31:21which had a peculiar use amongst 17th-century pharmacologists.

00:31:27The oil of it, made into a poultice,

00:31:32was used to cure an affliction known as copper face,

00:31:38which was a sort of brownish discolouration,

00:31:42which is thought today to have been due to a vitamin deficiency,

00:31:46and apparently if clapped on the face for sufficiently long,

00:31:49it did it some good.

00:31:51That's what sempact did.

00:31:53Well, it's this sort of seed thing that made you better, if you suffer from that.

00:31:57It was also the Turkish HQ in Constantinople,

00:32:01and it was a superannuated Benedictine monk.

00:32:06We're rather confused over here, but we'll dive in.

00:32:11Well, if the aged Benedictine monk didn't have to scamper off to Matins,

00:32:17I would think that would be very much against the principles of being a monk.

00:32:21So I don't think...

00:32:23What a day, anyway.

00:32:25Well, we won't go into that.

00:32:28I think I've been in Istanbul,

00:32:33and I don't remember ever...

00:32:35Mind you, I wasn't in the War Office, I have to admit,

00:32:38but I somehow don't believe it's a Byzantine War Office building.

00:32:43I think it might be a seed of North African millet,

00:32:48although I've never heard of anyone being a copper face.

00:32:52I forget that.

00:32:54That's the one you're going to choose, my dear, are you?

00:32:56Yes, that was Paul Eddington.

00:32:58I wonder if he was just fooling you, or whether he was telling the truth.

00:33:05Ah!

00:33:07APPLAUSE

00:33:13No, nothing like that.

00:33:15True definition, here it comes.

00:33:17Of course it did.

00:33:19Yes, it did.

00:33:21APPLAUSE

00:33:24It's the old Benedictine monk, yet again.

00:33:27Now, here's another word, perdonium.

00:33:30And, Gayle, you tell us.

00:33:33A perdonium is a medicated cushion.

00:33:37A what?

00:33:39A medicated cushion.

00:33:41And, you know, you see them in little shops filled with herbs.

00:33:45And although some are used for sleep, to put you to sleep,

00:33:49a perdonium is used for other kinds of therapeutic purposes.

00:33:54A perdonium is actually made up of bay leaves,

00:33:57and it is said to be efficacious in the cure of bronchial ailments,

00:34:02which the patient is considered to be able to cure by sitting on the cushion,

00:34:07hence the medicament going up through his posterior.

00:34:11LAUGHTER

00:34:13What happened next?

00:34:15LAUGHTER

00:34:17Well, it would, wouldn't it? Frank told us.

00:34:20Mine's a bit boring, actually.

00:34:23It always is.

00:34:25It's unusually boring this time,

00:34:27because it's a term used in rhetoric for a little pity diversionary tactic,

00:34:33a little sort of argument you whip up to divert attention from the main body,

00:34:38such as if Paddy suddenly says,

00:34:40Oh, get on with it, or you'll be going on forever.

00:34:43That is a perdonium.

00:34:46Is it?

00:34:48No, but that's what I'm pretending it is.

00:34:52Russell Davies.

00:34:54This lovely word is the refined word you would have used

00:34:58in the Victorian drawing room

00:35:00if you'd had to refer to that vulgar receptacle, the colescuttle.

00:35:05Of course, you wouldn't actually fill the colescuttle,

00:35:08you'd simply summon the butler and say,

00:35:10Perkins, replenish the perdonium.

00:35:13Whereupon he would.

00:35:15LAUGHTER

00:35:19They claim, then,

00:35:21that it's a sort of medicated cushion that does you good,

00:35:25it's a debating point of no particular magnitude

00:35:28and it's a kind of a colescuttle.

00:35:30Brunella Scales.

00:35:32We don't know at all, Jack.

00:35:35Well, you're all trying to blind me with science.

00:35:38The medicated cushion, you're trying to make me think of a pomander or something,

00:35:43and that thing you said, Frank,

00:35:45you're trying to make me think of pergerable or something.

00:35:48Perdonium, you're trying to make me think of piano legs

00:35:51and harmoniums and Victorian things like that.

00:35:54It might be any of them.

00:35:56I think it's what you said.

00:35:58I can't remember what it was.

00:36:00Who's you, Brunella?

00:36:02Frank.

00:36:03What he actually said was it was some kind of trivial debating point.

00:36:07There's a trivial debating point, that's what I think it was.

00:36:10Oh, I can't believe it!

00:36:12APPLAUSE

00:36:14I think that's bloody tricky.

00:36:18No.

00:36:20Need to know now who gave the true definition.

00:36:22One, two, three, here we go.

00:36:24Oh, no!

00:36:26APPLAUSE

00:36:32Perdonium.

00:36:33Colescuttle.

00:36:35Colescuttle.

00:36:36And scores standing at 4-2,

00:36:38we have the word Rumpa.

00:36:40Patrick, your go.

00:36:43A rumpa is a light rowing boat for a single sculler.

00:36:49Very suitable, yes.

00:36:51This is my work, you get your turn later on.

00:36:55The first rumpa appeared on the Thames in 1886.

00:37:02Its front and back ends were exposed to the water.

00:37:07Later on, people found that if they were rowing round with their rumpas,

00:37:11they had the water pouring in over the front and over the back as well.

00:37:16I thought, how to avoid this?

00:37:18They put a bit of canvas over the front and over the back.

00:37:23Because the water came in still in the middle of it,

00:37:26but they rowed away like mad.

00:37:28Huge men,

00:37:30flee-bitten vests up and down the Thames Estuary.

00:37:33LAUGHTER

00:37:35They pulled away with their rumpas, like anything.

00:37:39We got all that down, right?

00:37:41Do you want to say some more? No, it's enough.

00:37:43No, no, no. We're sketching in briefly what the rumpa is.

00:37:46Have a brief word. Paul Eddington.

00:37:48This is a shepherd's word for a sort of American tar,

00:37:54of the consistency of molasses

00:37:57in the state in which it was sold and manufactured,

00:38:01but diluted.

00:38:03This made a very efficacious sheep dip

00:38:07and it killed all sorts of ovine parasites

00:38:12like ticks and fleas and all the rest of them.

00:38:15Good enough, good enough. Now, Prunella.

00:38:18I'm so sorry.

00:38:20A rumpa was a sort of mid-17th century Willie Hamilton.

00:38:26He was a supporter of the so-called Rump Parliament,

00:38:34which, of course, I don't have to remind you,

00:38:36was a group of ardent Republicans

00:38:39bent on dethroning and disposing of Charles Stuart,

00:38:47King of England.

00:38:49Yes, yes, yes.

00:38:51So it's a supporter of the rump, that particular one.

00:38:54And it's a racing boat, singly manned,

00:38:58and it's tar that was pretty good for sheep dip.

00:39:01Frank.

00:39:02Oh, dear.

00:39:04Very worrying, Paddy's rowing boat,

00:39:07what comes in the front and the back.

00:39:09But in a rowing boat, the front is the back, isn't it?

00:39:14Because they go backwards.

00:39:16LAUGHTER

00:39:18I'll come back to you.

00:39:21This spoiling American sheep for Hayworth of Tar

00:39:26is also playing on the word rump.

00:39:30You know, in a family programme,

00:39:31I'm not really certain that's a terribly good thing.

00:39:35The rump and the rump parliament sounds frightfully good.

00:39:39So it's really a question between the three of them, isn't it?

00:39:42LAUGHTER

00:39:44My friends have turned round me, all smiles for the camera,

00:39:48and said I hadn't the faintest idea.

00:39:51So I am going to go for the rump parliament.

00:39:57I'm going to go for Poole's.

00:39:59Yes, she did say it, didn't she? Prunella, own up.

00:40:06Oh, yes!

00:40:08APPLAUSE

00:40:15The rumper supported the rump parliament.

00:40:18It was indeed that sort of would-be Republican.

00:40:215-2, and the word is trucks.

00:40:24Right then.

00:40:25Frank.

00:40:27Trucks is a fiery drink from the West Indies.

00:40:31Is this a quickie? I forgot to ask.

00:40:33By no means. Not so far as I know.

00:40:35Let me take you away.

00:40:37Don't begin here at the beginning.

00:40:39The sun shines to the West Indies, where they had a fiery drink,

00:40:43which was a sort of cross between rum and ginger beer.

00:40:47Next, please.

00:40:49It was made from rum, or molasses and stuff,

00:40:53and ginger root, black ginger root.

00:40:56And that's very... I don't think I can add to that, you silly.

00:41:00I could sing a song if you're short of time.

00:41:02No, I think... Well, we might call on you later, but who knows?

00:41:05Let the others have a go. I'll be waiting.

00:41:07Right, Frank. Russell.

00:41:09Trucks was a medieval indoor game resembling billiards,

00:41:13but the table had no pockets at the sides or corners,

00:41:17but 13 holes in the surface of the table,

00:41:20and it was played with wooden balls.

00:41:2313 holes in the middle of the table?

00:41:2513 holes dotted about the table.

00:41:27Apparently, Mary, Queen of Scots, awaiting execution in Fotheringhay Castle,

00:41:31I believe it was, used to play trucks with her lady-in-waiting.

00:41:34Ha-ha!

00:41:36LAUGHTER

00:41:40Gayle.

00:41:42Trucks is a word that I doubt that any of you would know,

00:41:45unless, of course, you've served time as a guest of Her Majesty.

00:41:50In which case you would know that it is prison slang

00:41:54for that period of prison exercise

00:41:57when you go into the yard and you walk aimlessly round and round in circles.

00:42:02Trucks.

00:42:04You said... Right. It's a kind of prison exercise,

00:42:07a rather potent drink and a sort of game of billiards.

00:42:10Patrick.

00:42:12I'm speaking from an empty mind,

00:42:15devoid of hope or joy.

00:42:17You should be a politician.

00:42:19If you hurry, we'll get another one.

00:42:21LAUGHTER

00:42:23Obviously, it's a prison word.

00:42:25Prison word. Now, Gayle, you said that, true or bluff.

00:42:28Show up.

00:42:30One, two, three...

00:42:32Nothing.

00:42:34APPLAUSE

00:42:39Except the true one.

00:42:41You've got it there somewhere.

00:42:43Produce.

00:42:45Oh, he's right!

00:42:47APPLAUSE

00:42:51Look, my goodness, you'll have to be quick.

00:42:54Let's do this word just for that.

00:42:56All backwards, lads, that's it, yes.

00:42:58Talcy. Paul. Very quick.

00:43:00Yes, it's a sort of marquetry made with little bits of bone or...

00:43:03That'll do nicely. Lovely.

00:43:06Trunella.

00:43:08It's jangling together of handbells.

00:43:10Yes, yes. Jolly good.

00:43:12This'll test them. Patrick.

00:43:15LAUGHTER

00:43:19Russell, quick.

00:43:21Russell, choose.

00:43:23Without a doubt, it's marquetry.

00:43:25It's marquetry. Marquetry. You said that, did you not, Paul?

00:43:28I mean, you said nearly that before I stopped you.

00:43:30True or bluff. Got it there.

00:43:32What a shame. No!

00:43:34APPLAUSE

00:43:39May we quickly have the true one?

00:43:41Quick, the true one.

00:43:43The true one. Ah, in your excitement.

00:43:46It's there. I knew, I knew, I knew.

00:43:48It's covered in talc. It's talc. That's what talc is.

00:43:51Covered in talc. Oh, what an exciting finish.

00:43:54Makes it all worthwhile.

00:43:56But anyway, there. And you pulled up by one.

00:43:58So the score's standing at 3-6.

00:44:00Nonetheless, Frank Muir's team has won.

00:44:03APPLAUSE

00:44:06APPLAUSE

00:44:11So we shall have another trip through the cobwebs next time.

00:44:15Until then, goodbye from Paul Eddington.

00:44:18APPLAUSE

00:44:20Russell Davies.

00:44:27Brunella Scales.

00:44:30Gail Honeycutt.

00:44:33Patrick Campbell.

00:44:35Frank Muir.

00:44:40And goodbye.

00:44:42APPLAUSE

00:45:02APPLAUSE

00:45:17Let me welcome you to Call My Bluff,

00:45:20to which the rector of St Andrew's University

00:45:23adds a little tone.

00:45:25Yes, Frank Muir.

00:45:27APPLAUSE

00:45:33It's true, it's true.

00:45:35Good evening. I'll ignore comments from the other side of the house.

00:45:39Good evening, my first guest,

00:45:41burst most beautifully upon...

00:45:43She's an actress and hasn't been on this programme before.

00:45:46Burst beautifully upon the screen quite recently

00:45:49and it's a bit of a Cinderella story

00:45:51because it's Cinderella herself from The Slipper and the Rose,

00:45:54Gemma Craven.

00:45:56APPLAUSE

00:45:59My...

00:46:01My next guest is a bit different, he's a bit ugly,

00:46:04but he's a writer, a novelist, a very funny novelist

00:46:08who also writes very funny novels,

00:46:10which aren't always the same things,

00:46:12and he wrote The Virgin Soldier Books

00:46:15and Tropic of Rice Lip

00:46:18and his latest one is Dangerous Davies

00:46:20and here's Dangerous Leslie Thomas.

00:46:22APPLAUSE

00:46:29And the tallest admiral in the Irish Navy,

00:46:33Patrick Campbell.

00:46:35APPLAUSE

00:46:42One doesn't often meet a sultry beauty in these hard times.

00:46:47My first guest, a sultry beauty,

00:46:49will be given to a brother that's terrible trouble,

00:46:52Kate O'Mara.

00:46:54APPLAUSE

00:46:59And the other lad is a chunky thing

00:47:02who's been doing a superb Emperor Augustus.

00:47:06Brian Blissett.

00:47:08APPLAUSE

00:47:14After those enjoyable preliminaries,

00:47:16the game begins with a ring on the bell

00:47:18and the word choppy moors.

00:47:20Frank Lione's team will define choppy moors three different ways.

00:47:23Two of the definitions are no good, they are false,

00:47:25one is true and that is the one

00:47:27that Patrick and Co are going to try and pick out.

00:47:29So tell us about choppy moors, Frank.

00:47:32Choppy moors is a kind of cold country Hobson-Jobson.

00:47:37It's a jargon which the Hudson's Bay Company

00:47:43used to talk to the North American Indians at Eskimos,

00:47:47whom they employed to trap and things,

00:47:50and it contained more gestures than words,

00:47:54which was a very good idea.

00:47:56Because, I mean, if you go...

00:47:58Or...

00:48:00I mean, anybody knows what you mean.

00:48:02So it contained a lot of...

00:48:06Oh, dear.

00:48:08Now we have Leslie Thomas, he tells us.

00:48:11Choppy moors are a small, brown, boring sort of oyster

00:48:18that lives in the Delaware River in the United States.

00:48:22The extraordinary thing about choppy moors

00:48:24is they are apt to be homesick.

00:48:28And if they're transplanted elsewhere, they just don't grow.

00:48:33On the other hand, some people think it's because

00:48:35there's a lot of sulphur in the Delaware River.

00:48:38And there's a useless piece of information for you.

00:48:40Thank you very much indeed for it.

00:48:42Anyway, thank you.

00:48:43Yes, it's not the first and it won't be the last on this programme.

00:48:46Gemma Craven.

00:48:47Choppy moors were a style of 17th-century ladies' footwear,

00:48:52which consisted of shoes raised grotesquely above the ground

00:48:56by thick cork soles.

00:48:58Now, of course, these days they're very fashionable

00:49:00and are worn by very beautiful ladies.

00:49:04But choppy moors were once described as high shoes for little women.

00:49:09High shoes for little women?

00:49:11Yes, yes.

00:49:12You're not joking, are you?

00:49:14Yes, it wasn't bad, it wasn't bad.

00:49:16So it's a brown boring oyster.

00:49:18It's footwear of that sort that the lady described

00:49:21and it's a sort of pigeon English.

00:49:23Patrick.

00:49:25Not easy.

00:49:27Not easy.

00:49:28Steel heels, sir?

00:49:31It's my turn now, dear. Wait for it.

00:49:34Your turn will come.

00:49:36They're not brown oysters, absurd nonsense.

00:49:38They're not high shoes.

00:49:42Eskimo sign language.

00:49:45The pigeon... Ah, Frank, yes, Frank.

00:49:47Two more bluffs.

00:49:48Can you cut that, please, quickly? It's a bluff.

00:50:00Lovely gesture there, very good.

00:50:02We need to know the true definition.

00:50:06Oh, no!

00:50:07Yes.

00:50:09Right.

00:50:14All she said about the footwear, plus the joke, perfectly true.

00:50:17It was, you know, high-heeled footwear of an early date.

00:50:20Kalanchoe.

00:50:21The next one, and Patrick is going to define it.

00:50:26On Kalanchoe,

00:50:29it's an English sailor's adrift in the tropics.

00:50:33They get a high fever.

00:50:36About two degrees, perhaps.

00:50:39And they say, let me out.

00:50:42I was surrounded by fields.

00:50:45No, lad, this is the sea.

00:50:48It's fields, I want to walk on it.

00:50:52He got Kalanchoe terribly.

00:50:58Hallucinations.

00:51:00Fever.

00:51:02Sounds desperate. Brian, bless it.

00:51:05Kalanchoe is a natural mineral mixture.

00:51:08It's an alloy of tin and zinc.

00:51:10It's mined in the Far East, notably in Siam and Malacca.

00:51:15And one of the cottage industries of those areas

00:51:19is designed to...

00:51:21spreading out and flattening the Kalanchoe metal into sheets

00:51:26and fashioning these into tea caddies.

00:51:32Just the thing for the mess.

00:51:34Kate O'Mara.

00:51:36Kalanchoe is a grand, rather snooty name

00:51:39for the stalk or stem of a cabbage.

00:51:42It's the words used, I imagine, only by rather refamed hostesses,

00:51:46you know, snobby ones,

00:51:48who might choose to describe their cabbage stalk soup

00:51:51as potage kalanchoe.

00:51:55Yeah, so it's a very strange fever.

00:51:58It's a cabbage stalk, and it's a sort of alloy.

00:52:02And Frank Muir is going to make a choice now.

00:52:06Sorry, it's rather...

00:52:08I must lean a little occasionally.

00:52:10It's, um...

00:52:12Well, no, I think tea caddies were made of cedar wood

00:52:15and plywood laterally.

00:52:17I don't think they were made of metal originally,

00:52:19unless they were precious metals, which zinc.

00:52:21So that... Very well done, Brian.

00:52:23LAUGHTER

00:52:25But it didn't fool this lad.

00:52:29Paddy's sailor walking on the weeds

00:52:33is interesting, because kalanchoe sounds a bit like hot,

00:52:37doesn't it, in some way.

00:52:39But I think it's this silly cabbage.

00:52:41The cabbage stalk of which Kate O'Mara spoke.

00:52:44Was she telling the truth, or wasn't she?

00:52:49LAUGHTER

00:52:52It's there somewhere.

00:52:54It doesn't matter if it's true.

00:52:56Ah!

00:52:58APPLAUSE

00:53:03No cabbage stalk.

00:53:05We need to know now who gave the true definition of the word kalanchoe.

00:53:08Here it comes.

00:53:10Well, of course we have it all here.

00:53:12Sailor's walking on imaginary seas.

00:53:15LAUGHTER

00:53:17APPLAUSE

00:53:21Near miss there, Frank.

00:53:23But it really is that sort of fever

00:53:25which makes the poor sailor think that the sea is the land.

00:53:28One all. Shoe is the next word.

00:53:30Leslie Thomas.

00:53:32Now, we're back to the sailors again.

00:53:34A shoe, spelled S-H-U-E,

00:53:39is a sort of shovel

00:53:42with which sailors...

00:53:44They sort of put it into troughs of water

00:53:47and they throw the water onto the sails of the ship.

00:53:50Now, this is not to get them clean or anything.

00:53:53It's merely to give them weight

00:53:55when the wind doesn't blow and the ship won't go.

00:53:59So, if you see a sailor and you say,

00:54:02hello, sailor, and he says shoe, you know why.

00:54:05You'll probably throw a bucket of water at him.

00:54:08That's shoe.

00:54:10So, now it's Gemma Craven's go.

00:54:12Well, the practice of shoeing,

00:54:15shoe being a verb,

00:54:17can be observed if you pay a visit to the children's play area

00:54:21in Kensington Gardens.

00:54:23Because to shoe means to seesaw upon a seesaw

00:54:28or to swing upon a swing.

00:54:30They're not, of course, to do both at the same time.

00:54:33No, no.

00:54:39You're quite right, Patrick.

00:54:41Frank.

00:54:43This is rather fascinating.

00:54:46A bit dull, but fascinating.

00:54:48A shoe is a coin

00:54:50usually distinguished by rather imperfect workmanship.

00:54:54It's lumpen or not quite round or something.

00:54:57Because a shoe is a coin which is struck during a siege.

00:55:04Quite a good example of it

00:55:06is there's a star-shaped florin made of brass

00:55:10which was struck during the siege of Pontefract

00:55:14in The Wars of the Roses.

00:55:19It's cool stuff, isn't it?

00:55:21And very fascinating also.

00:55:23It's a sailor's shovel, it's a kind of a coin,

00:55:26something to do with Pontefract,

00:55:28and it is to seesaw or swing.

00:55:31Brian Blessed makes a choice.

00:55:35Let him do it, Paddy. He's big enough.

00:55:43Yes, we disagree.

00:55:45Yes, I'm on my own.

00:55:47Leslie's story rings very, very true.

00:55:50All three stories ring very true for me.

00:55:52Leslie has a story of the sailor,

00:55:56and it certainly rings very true.

00:56:01And so does Gamma's story, too, deliciously told.

00:56:04And Frank's story seems to be just that little bit over the top.

00:56:09Just that bit dramatic.

00:56:11Leslie's story I must go for

00:56:13because he said exactly the same to me as Basil Brash said the other day.

00:56:17Hello, sailors. I'll go for Leslie.

00:56:19So, Leslie, it was who said that it was a kind of a sailor's shovel.

00:56:22True or bluff?

00:56:25He's got it there, I'm sure.

00:56:39Sailors may have shovels, but they're not called shoes.

00:56:42Who gave the true definition? Here it comes.

00:56:46They're pretending.

00:56:47Not good.

00:56:53It means to see-saw.

00:56:55Ding-a-ling.

00:56:56We have Pilser.

00:56:58And Brian Blessed will define it for us.

00:57:00A pilser is he who is equipped with a pestle and mortar,

00:57:04and he spends his working days producing medicinal pills.

00:57:10One of the strange insights into a pilser is very revealing,

00:57:14and particularly in an 18th-century full-scale paper.

00:57:18And the quote is, and I'll read it,

00:57:20the pilser has a morbid secretiveness as to the soap and bread

00:57:24wherewith he binds his wares.

00:57:30Fine.

00:57:31Yes, that was a revelation. Now, Kate O'Mara.

00:57:35A pilser is a moth or fly or other winged insect

00:57:40that, tired of living, perhaps,

00:57:43commits hara-kiri by flying into the flame of a candle,

00:57:46thus joining its ancestors immediately.

00:57:49Since the invention of the electric light bulb, of course,

00:57:52pilsers have had a much harder time committing suicide.

00:57:58What does Patrick say?

00:58:02All join hands now and dance off into fairyland.

00:58:07LAUGHTER

00:58:11Love on my cynicism and disbelief in Tinkerbell.

00:58:15A pilser, a little fairy hobgoblin,

00:58:18but he's got a kindly nature.

00:58:24Is he a farmyard?

00:58:27A pilser sees a farmer coming on in bare feet, perhaps even,

00:58:33but he removes stumbling blocks and pulls...

00:58:37He's a good little goblin.

00:58:40Oh!

00:58:42Rather sweet.

00:58:44Very nice. So it's a pill-maker, it's a kindly goblin

00:58:48and it's a winged insect which flies into the light

00:58:52and burns itself. Leslie.

00:58:54Yes.

00:58:57Very difficult.

00:58:59I'd like to think that...

00:59:02Possibly. Possibly.

00:59:05Leslie's captain at the moment.

00:59:07Yes. I'd like to think that Paddy's was true

00:59:12because, coming from Ireland,

00:59:14he obviously knows all about leprechauns and goblins

00:59:17and things like that.

00:59:19But I don't think it's so.

00:59:21The first one, Brian's, sounds very convincing, actually.

00:59:25A pilser sounds as though it might well be a man

00:59:28who makes pills.

00:59:30I mean, a Wainwright and all those strange crafts they used to have.

00:59:34But I'm inclined to think that it is, in fact,

00:59:39a moth or a fly which commits harikari or whatever you said.

00:59:44Yes. Harikari. It used to be in films.

00:59:47It was Kato O'Mara. She's going to own up now.

00:59:51True or bluff, was it? You did say it was a winged insect.

00:59:55I did say it was a winged insect.

00:59:57Ahoy!

00:59:59APPLAUSE

01:00:06Didn't seem at all likely, but that is the name of the game.

01:00:10A pilser is indeed a winged insect which does away with itself.

01:00:14Chod chod is the next word. Gemma?

01:00:18Well, a chod chod is a communal kitty

01:00:22to which South Sea Island fishermen put their catch.

01:00:26And then they divide the catch amongst them

01:00:29and they can all go home and have a nice fish supper.

01:00:31The thing about a chod chod

01:00:33is that some lazy chap who comes along and just catches one prawn

01:00:36can toss the prawn in and get just an ample of supper

01:00:40as his good, industrious friends.

01:00:44Right, and now it's Frank Muir.

01:00:48Um...

01:00:50A chod chod is a fine, fine old Hebrew word

01:00:55from a fine, fine old Hebrew language.

01:00:59It's a portmanteau word,

01:01:02which means materials.

01:01:05Chod chod is not...

01:01:07sort of PVC shower curtains, not this sort of thing,

01:01:10but rich, rich old velours and velvets, if they had them,

01:01:15and rich stuffs.

01:01:18Chod chod.

01:01:21You see. You see if I'm not right.

01:01:24Follow that... Shut up!

01:01:27LAUGHTER

01:01:29Three-one.

01:01:31Follow that, Leslie.

01:01:33A chod chod.

01:01:35A chod chod is an Eastern word

01:01:37and it means a sort of rendezvous, a road junction.

01:01:41Perhaps on the road to Mandalay or on the Golden Road to Samarkand

01:01:45or somewhere like that.

01:01:47And it was a meeting place

01:01:49and if you had a sort of four- or five-star chod chod,

01:01:53there was usually a holy man, you know,

01:01:56he was generally there for consultations.

01:01:59That's a chod chod.

01:02:01So it's the total catch of fish from a group of fishermen.

01:02:05It's rich merchandise and it's an Eastern rendezvous.

01:02:09Kate, your turn.

01:02:11Ah, yes.

01:02:13Yes.

01:02:15Gemma's, I think, confusing chod chod with chad or something to do with fish.

01:02:19She's got it all mixed up there.

01:02:21So I don't think it's that one.

01:02:24The Eastern rendezvous.

01:02:27I'm glad that, as you know,

01:02:29there's a certain amount of five-star hotels and all that,

01:02:32but I don't think it's that one either.

01:02:34I think that Frank's was so outrageous.

01:02:37I think it must be the Hebrew materials or something, furbishings.

01:02:42Yes, it came with a good deal of that sort of thing.

01:02:45True or bluff, Frank?

01:02:47Yes, come on now, it's another bluff, isn't it?

01:02:52Oh!

01:02:54Well done, Frank.

01:03:01Chod chod does mean exactly that.

01:03:04It's rich stuff.

01:03:06Hopperdozer, and Kate O'Mara will define it first.

01:03:09Here she goes.

01:03:11Is it me?

01:03:13Right. Hopperdozer.

01:03:15To embark in a hopperdozer is a rather mundane and unglamorous way of going to sea.

01:03:21A hopperdozer is, in fact, a barge made fast to a dredger

01:03:25into which the dredger discharges all the mud and sand

01:03:29and little prams, boots, whatever you have, etc.,

01:03:31that it has dredged up from the bottom of the sea.

01:03:34Now, the hopperdozer is then towed out to the very deep water

01:03:38where its contents are shoveled in to get rid of.

01:03:41Logical.

01:03:43Yes, yes.

01:03:45Patrick.

01:03:48Take about...

01:03:50Take the American nation,

01:03:53torn between Jerry Ford and Jimmy Carter,

01:03:57but suddenly they've got a plague of locusts.

01:04:00And never mind for Jerry...

01:04:02The other one.

01:04:04They take...

01:04:06...a sheet that has a bedspread,

01:04:09they tuck around it in a wooden frame

01:04:13and put glue on the bedsheet and throw it over the locusts...

01:04:18...who are feeding off the corn.

01:04:23They've won.

01:04:25LAUGHTER

01:04:27I wonder what Brian Vesit now says.

01:04:30A hopperdozer, well, it could be abbreviated to hopper,

01:04:34is an Australian horse-racing slang for bent jockey.

01:04:39Now, I don't mean that the jockey is bent over with arthritis or old age.

01:04:45I'm in a jockey that, through a show of money, misuses his skills

01:04:51to make sure that the favoured horses finish up with the also-rounders.

01:04:56Right. So it's a crooked jockey, he says.

01:04:59It's a kind of a barge and it's a device for catching locusts.

01:05:04Gemma Travert.

01:05:08You do...

01:05:10...astonish us.

01:05:12Yes. I'm sorry, what did Kate say it was?

01:05:15Kate said that it was a barge full of mud.

01:05:18Posh dump, yes.

01:05:20Well, I don't think it's an Australian bent jockey.

01:05:25Exactly, yes.

01:05:28Um, no, I don't think...

01:05:30Hopperdozer. Although it sounds rather nice.

01:05:33No, I don't think it's that one.

01:05:35The locusts.

01:05:38Hmm. Be a good way of catching them if you wet them, I suppose.

01:05:42No, I don't... I think I'll go for the barge.

01:05:45You think that is the right one?

01:05:47Yes, I go for the hopperdozer being a barge.

01:05:50Well, that's Kate, she said it.

01:05:52True or false?

01:05:55Oh, no.

01:06:01Not that. Who gave the true definition?

01:06:04I've got to take a...

01:06:10It's that sheet of plastic with the glue and you sometimes catch a locust doing that.

01:06:15I don't know, but you know.

01:06:17Three all. Now the game gets interesting.

01:06:20What's wrong with a banana?

01:06:22Stone.

01:06:24Why don't we start with Frank and ask him what buffal means?

01:06:28What a good, excellent idea, because it's so silly.

01:06:31It's a verb, it's a perfectly obvious word, buffal.

01:06:34It means to harden up soft water for the purpose of making beer, as you know full well.

01:06:40For instance, if you're making beer in Burton-on-Trent,

01:06:43which has very, very soft water, you've got to process it, you've got to buffal it.

01:06:47What else do you do but put it through a process involving gypsum and magnesium sulphate?

01:06:52I rest my case.

01:06:55What?

01:06:56Full of protein, that one. Leslie Thomas.

01:06:59Now, a buffal, as any ornithologist will tell you, I should think so anyway,

01:07:05is a big-headed duck.

01:07:10And it's to be found quacking in Carolina, in the United States.

01:07:15And it's not that it's conceited or anything,

01:07:18but it's got some very strange yellow feathers that make its head look very, very big.

01:07:25And this could be why it's also known as a butterball.

01:07:32That's a buffal.

01:07:35Right. Gemma, what do you tell us?

01:07:38A buffal is a leather pouch that's used by carpenters or tilers

01:07:43for carrying nails upon their person.

01:07:45Now, it's not been completely unknown for them to carry other items in them, of course,

01:07:49like half-smoked cigarettes and pool school ponds and even a change of socks.

01:07:53But its intended use is for carrying nails.

01:07:58OK. Well, it's a pouch used in that way.

01:08:01It's a substance for hardening water and it's a big-headed duck.

01:08:05Patrick.

01:08:08But nobody, even in Yorkshire,

01:08:13even in Norfolk, would call a big-headed duck a buffal.

01:08:22It's meant for carrying nails.

01:08:25Why call it a buffal?

01:08:27Call it a pouch.

01:08:29I think all that drivel you were talking about,

01:08:31can it soften in water or do I?

01:08:38Thinks again.

01:08:40Of course, obviously, it's drivel about softening water.

01:08:44The stuff about the magnesium tiddly or whatever.

01:08:46True? Was that true on Bluff Frank?

01:08:48I'll let you know, Robert.

01:08:50Oh, good.

01:08:51In a moment.

01:08:53It's true, isn't it?

01:09:03No, no. No, no.

01:09:05Just let's see who gave the true definition for this one.

01:09:09You won't believe it, will you?

01:09:11But there, yes, he's got it.

01:09:13At last! It's him!

01:09:18Yes, a buffal is a duck with a big head.

01:09:21Try not to forget that.

01:09:23Collary. Collary is the next one.

01:09:25And Patrick kicks off.

01:09:27If we have something called a collary,

01:09:31and you're living downwind of it,

01:09:36you ought to put your house on the market instantly

01:09:38before it begins to pop it up, because...

01:09:43About a little house during the Christmas break,

01:09:45round about three weeks of Christmas,

01:09:47about a little house,

01:09:49it begins to work again,

01:09:51and somebody says,

01:09:53what is it, man?

01:09:56It's a glue factory, dear.

01:09:59You can buy a house south of a glue factory

01:10:02with a north-west wind coming in and out.

01:10:04You're done.

01:10:06I think we'll stick with that.

01:10:08It's a glue factory.

01:10:10So, Brian Blessed now tells us what it is.

01:10:12The collary were a race of 18th century bandits

01:10:15who roamed southern India,

01:10:17and they caused disruption and discontent and array,

01:10:21wherever they went.

01:10:23And their main weapon of offence

01:10:25was a banana-shaped stick.

01:10:27It's not unlike an Australian boomerang.

01:10:32It's not unlike an Australian boomerang.

01:10:35That's what it is, not unlike.

01:10:37It's not unlike. I see, I see.

01:10:39Always negative.

01:10:41Kate, your turn.

01:10:43A collary is known also as a harvest bottle

01:10:46and also as a Wiltshire piggin.

01:10:48It's a glass bottle,

01:10:50usually holding about a gallon,

01:10:52and usually provided with handles made of rope.

01:10:56And it was traditionally filled with cider or beer

01:11:00and passed around the harvesters for their refreshment.

01:11:03Oh, good. Well, it's a sort of big jar, that kind of thing.

01:11:07Glue factory or a banana-shaped thing,

01:11:10something like a boomerang.

01:11:12It probably doesn't come back, I don't know.

01:11:15Or a pink Australian jar.

01:11:17So, Frank, would you like to have a little choose?

01:11:20Early last century, the races in India

01:11:23were going round strangling infidels with all manner of things,

01:11:27with toogs, with hankies,

01:11:29but hitting them with bananas is a bit odd.

01:11:32A collary.

01:11:34Well, I don't know, it could be.

01:11:36I don't think a glass bottle's it, really.

01:11:39It just doesn't seem very right.

01:11:41See, we're stuck here with col...

01:11:44..having reference in the French language to glue and neck.

01:11:47La colle, yes.

01:11:50So I think it's the...

01:11:52Well, I don't, but I've got to think of one.

01:11:55Show us your card, Pad.

01:11:57Come on, flash it. Is it the glue factory? Come on, help with it.

01:12:00Level with him, Patrick. Is it glue factory or not?

01:12:03Of course it isn't, you fool!

01:12:11Let's quickly get the true one,

01:12:13and then we may just squeeze another in, and we need to, don't we?

01:12:16Who'll get the true one?

01:12:18Here we go!

01:12:23In fact, it's the stick and the bandits who used it,

01:12:26in case anyone gets clever with us.

01:12:28I think I'm right in saying that.

01:12:30Oh, yes. We've got to do this really fairly swiftly.

01:12:33Leslie?

01:12:34Ludden.

01:12:36Now, ludden is... One word.

01:12:38Not too much.

01:12:40To file a horse's teeth down.

01:12:42Lovely. Gemma?

01:12:44It's one of the tin sockets that hold the shanks of needles

01:12:47on automatic knitting machines.

01:12:49Gee, congratulations for saying that so quick.

01:12:52Frank?

01:12:53My old man said, follow the band, Ave Maria.

01:12:57It's the chorus of a song.

01:13:00So they say that it's the chorus of a song.

01:13:03It's filing a nag's teeth down,

01:13:05and it's part of a knitting machine, part of a knitting machine.

01:13:08So, Brian, you can choose.

01:13:10Four.

01:13:11I think it's Frank.

01:13:13That was very quick. Now, can you remember what he said?

01:13:16No, I don't remember what he said.

01:13:18No, yes, yes.

01:13:20He said it was... Well, he did all the singing.

01:13:22True or bluff, Frank?

01:13:24Ah!

01:13:25APPLAUSE

01:13:34That's truly amazing.

01:13:36It wasn't the knitting machine, which you'd forgotten,

01:13:38and it wasn't filing the nag's teeth, which you'd forgotten,

01:13:41but it was certainly the one you remembered,

01:13:43which is a horn, a chorus, you know,

01:13:45blown on or sung or whatever.

01:13:47So that's what Lutton is, and here we come to the end,

01:13:49and just by a whisker, it seemed perfectly clear

01:13:52that Patrick and his team have won.

01:13:54APPLAUSE

01:14:02Very close round of six. Anyway, there you are.

01:14:04We'll be back next time with more Broken Biscuits

01:14:06from the Oxford English Dictionary.

01:14:08Until then, goodbye from Lesley Thomas.

01:14:10APPLAUSE

01:14:12Brian Blessey.

01:14:15Gemma Craven.

01:14:18Kate O'Mara.

01:14:20Frank Muir.

01:14:22Patrick Campbell.

01:14:27And goodbye.

01:14:29Thank you.

01:14:44APPLAUSE

01:15:02Good evening.

01:15:04Welcome to Call My Bluff,

01:15:06which is featuring television's Father O'Flynn,

01:15:09Patrick Campbell.

01:15:11APPLAUSE

01:15:15Father O'Flynn...

01:15:19..a lifelong pleasant.

01:15:22We're pleased to be introducing...

01:15:27..with an Irish name,

01:15:29called Kate O'Mara.

01:15:31APPLAUSE

01:15:37Here in the right room...

01:15:40..is Emperor Augustus.

01:15:42Brian Blessey.

01:15:44APPLAUSE

01:15:49And in the Tom Keating role,

01:15:52Frank Muir.

01:15:54APPLAUSE

01:16:00And thank you, Barb.

01:16:02My first guest is, of course, back for the second week,

01:16:05the dancer, singer and actress,

01:16:07all rolled together into the very tiny form of Gemma Craven.

01:16:11APPLAUSE

01:16:17And in the blue corner,

01:16:19I have novelist, screenwriter,

01:16:21mal-vivre,

01:16:23Leslie Thomas.

01:16:25APPLAUSE

01:16:30Oh, yes, we get a word.

01:16:32Indeed, we get what looked like two words, duk-duk.

01:16:35And Patrick and his team are going to define duk-duk three different ways.

01:16:39If they remember a false one, one's true.

01:16:41That's one that Frank and Kerr are going to try and pick out.

01:16:44So I'll ask Patrick to define duk-duk for us.

01:16:47A duk-duk is surprisingly in love, surprisingly in love,

01:16:50surprisingly in love, a duk.

01:16:52Not a duk-duk.

01:16:54Two duks.

01:16:56It's a short-lived...

01:16:58..South American...

01:17:02..kind of white-feathered cormorant.

01:17:06A sharp bird about hoarding...

01:17:10..I mean, herding fish into nets.

01:17:14A Chilean farmer's watching the poor duk-duks hanging around.

01:17:20They're after them.

01:17:22And they've got a lot of fish.

01:17:25Thank you.

01:17:27Tartar.

01:17:29Brian, blessed. And his turn.

01:17:31A duk-duk was the nickname once bestowed

01:17:33upon the boys of the Duke of York's military school at Woolwich.

01:17:37It's a Dickensian-type academy for the education of soldiers' sons.

01:17:41It's unlikely that any old duk-duks are alive today

01:17:45because the school was disbanded by the War Office

01:17:49in the year of our Lord, 1886.

01:17:53Right. Kate O'Mara. She tells us.

01:17:56At the risk of infringing the Official Secrets Act,

01:17:59I have to tell you that the duk-duk

01:18:02is a secret society among the natives of the Bismarck Archipelago,

01:18:06which is, need I say, part of the island of New Guinea.

01:18:10In that the duk-duk exercises its authority

01:18:13by threats of mayhem and murder,

01:18:16it could be described as a sort of oriental mafia.

01:18:21So, kind of a secret society, it seems.

01:18:24It's a cormorant as well,

01:18:27and it's a schoolboy from that particular school.

01:18:30Frank.

01:18:32It's...it's...it's...

01:18:34..very beguiling, really.

01:18:36What trouble are you?

01:18:38You've got a couple of cormorants that are called a duk-duk,

01:18:41or maybe one cut in half with green peas.

01:18:45But Military Academy, splendid effort there.

01:18:49Well done, lad.

01:18:51Six out of ten for effort.

01:18:53But wrong.

01:18:56So it's either the cormorant

01:18:58or it's this, um...

01:19:00..archipelago sect,

01:19:03which I think it is.

01:19:06The secret society thing, of which Kate spoke.

01:19:09True or bluff, my dear?

01:19:13Bullseye.

01:19:20What else could a duk-duk be but a secret society?

01:19:23And it is.

01:19:25So we have Geminis, but they're pronounced in many ways, I imagine.

01:19:29Frank, your turn.

01:19:31Oh, um, Geminis...

01:19:34It's one of those...

01:19:36No words suddenly happen into the language.

01:19:39They always grow from the seeds of other words,

01:19:41as mushrooms might be said to grow from the spore of other mushrooms.

01:19:45And Geminis is a kind of spore word,

01:19:48if I may coin a word then, an etymological term,

01:19:52but Geminis is the word used by the early 18th century,

01:19:57late 17th century poet Jonathan Flavell, the Restoration poet,

01:20:01who used it for the first time, and frequently,

01:20:04and it is believed now to be the origin of the modern expression

01:20:08by Gemini.

01:20:10LAUGHTER

01:20:12Beyond that, I cannot and will not go.

01:20:15And I've come at four minutes, Frank.

01:20:18Passed like lightning.

01:20:20Leslie Thomas's turn.

01:20:22Geminis.

01:20:24Now, there's only one set,

01:20:27and they are a flight of stairs

01:20:31that go down to the River Tiber in Rome,

01:20:36and they go down the Aventine Hill.

01:20:40It's a bit gruesome, but in the old days,

01:20:43criminals were executed and thrown down these stairs,

01:20:47or rolled down the stairs,

01:20:49and they used to splosh into the Tiber,

01:20:51and their blood used to spread all over the place.

01:20:54Anyway, that's the Geminis.

01:20:57OK, Gemma, your turn.

01:21:00Well, Geminis are the rudiments of grammar.

01:21:04They are, in fact, its first principles.

01:21:07If I may just quote,

01:21:09Geminis are the basic rules

01:21:11that govern the usage of words in the formation of sentences.

01:21:14That's to say, I's instead of I am.

01:21:18Or, you is instead of you are,

01:21:22are to completely ignore

01:21:25the traditional Geminis of the English language.

01:21:29So, it's a sort of exclamation,

01:21:32it's Roman steps, and it's the rules of grammar.

01:21:35Patrick.

01:21:40I'm a cultured man, you understand.

01:21:45The rules of grammar.

01:21:49We're not throwing down the steps, are we?

01:21:52You should know that.

01:21:54Not in my reign.

01:21:58Could you whistle while you're thinking?

01:22:01The show's losing pace.

01:22:09We believe here, well, some of us, like her.

01:22:13If she's wrong, it's her fault.

01:22:16It's Spohr's.

01:22:18Spohr's?

01:22:21Spohr's wasn't exactly what he said.

01:22:24He said that he coined something that had the Spohr,

01:22:27was the Spohr. I was listening, Patrick.

01:22:30He said it was an exclamation.

01:22:32But she says it's that.

01:22:34You'll have that, and you don't want the Roman steps,

01:22:36you don't want the rules of grammar, so that was frank.

01:22:39I've forgotten whether it's true or bluff.

01:22:42May I have a little peek first?

01:22:44Yeah, come on.

01:22:54No, no, nothing to do.

01:22:56It wasn't an exclamation, it was something else.

01:22:59Here comes the true definition now.

01:23:01Oh, no.

01:23:07It's the little set of Roman steps of which Leslie Thomas...

01:23:11Let's ring a bell.

01:23:13..and have a chapoux and invite Brian Blessed to define it.

01:23:17A chapoux is an evil spirit

01:23:19that is alleged to have lived in the Caribbean Sea

01:23:22and furthermore is alleged by the inhabitants of the area

01:23:26to be responsible for every local disaster,

01:23:29from crop failure to multiple hernia.

01:23:33The chapoux is apparently male

01:23:37and has a consort known incredibly as Madam Kettle.

01:23:43Really well done. Kate O'Mara.

01:23:46A chapoux is a featherweight unisex hat

01:23:50worn by the natives of French Guiana.

01:23:53It has a very flat crown and a wide sombrero-like brim.

01:23:57And because it is made from sun-dried grasses,

01:24:00it is exceptionally light,

01:24:02and so it is also used by fishermen to buoy their nets.

01:24:06Yes, so, and what does Patrick tell us?

01:24:09I heard a lot of chat about diseases of sheep on this programme

01:24:12for years after years.

01:24:14This is not a disease, chapoux.

01:24:17It's a kind of sheep.

01:24:19Get away!

01:24:21A kind of healthy sheep.

01:24:24Browsy around the tundra of Tibet.

01:24:31But fabled in song and story,

01:24:33because Dr Fu Manchu's directors and producers

01:24:36saw the chapoux sheep

01:24:39and hated the great bear in that one.

01:24:42And stuck it on Dr Fu Manchu's face.

01:24:47It had more class forever.

01:24:50Yes, yes.

01:24:52It's a different sheep.

01:24:54It's a class of a species of a class of a sheep,

01:24:57and it's a hat, and it's an evil spirit.

01:24:59Leslie.

01:25:01Well, I think the...

01:25:04Well, I think the hat is a bit chapoux.

01:25:09It sounds like my French, actually, chapoux.

01:25:12That wasn't the pronunciation.

01:25:14Oh, chapoux.

01:25:16That caps it.

01:25:19No, I don't like that one.

01:25:24I don't know a lot about Tibetan sheep.

01:25:27In fact, I don't know a lot about sheep generally.

01:25:30I don't really...

01:25:32It depends on you, yes.

01:25:34Oh, dear.

01:25:36That's catchy.

01:25:38I think it's a naughty spirit from the Caribbean.

01:25:41Evil spirit. Brian Blessed spoke of that, didn't he?

01:25:44So, Brian, what do you tell us?

01:25:46True or bluff?

01:25:48Nothing.

01:25:53Not an evil spirit. Must be something else.

01:25:56Own up. True definition comes.

01:25:59It's there!

01:26:03All that stuff about the sheep,

01:26:05and I don't doubt all the stuff about Fu Manchu was true.

01:26:09Flatty Ken is our next word.

01:26:12Leslie Thomas defines it.

01:26:15I'll tell you something that the Flatty Ken is not.

01:26:18It's not a bedsitter in Kensington.

01:26:21But it's something like that.

01:26:23It is a place, it's an abode.

01:26:27It's an abode of robbers.

01:26:29You know, you've got to pick a pocketful of poo, that sort of thing.

01:26:32Fagin's Hole.

01:26:34Oh, not again!

01:26:37It's a place where robbers or vagabonds hang out,

01:26:41and then they go off and do robberies and muggings and whatever.

01:26:45And it's somewhere they come back loaded with loot.

01:26:49That is a Flatty Ken.

01:26:52So he says, right?

01:26:54And now it's Gemma, it's your go.

01:26:57Well, Flatty Ken is a very unflattering Yorkshire adjective, really,

01:27:02which means, in the manner of an idiot or a fool,

01:27:06sort of displaying the thought processes of a nincompoop or a dodderhead

01:27:10or something like that.

01:27:12But I certainly hope that you're not going to be so Flatty Ken

01:27:16as to believe that load of rubbish.

01:27:18Oh, now, now, now, saucy, saucy.

01:27:22Frank.

01:27:25A Flatter Ken...

01:27:28..is a north of the border griddle plate.

01:27:33That's a wee griddle for making your scones

01:27:37and your griddle cakes, dear Ken.

01:27:40I'm having difficulty maintaining this accent.

01:27:43With your permission, I'll revert to Surrey.

01:27:48It's, um...

01:27:50It's a thicker, it's a kind of thick griddle.

01:27:53Plate thing, for cooking a griddle plate.

01:27:56And the cottagers, the Bothys and so forth,

01:28:00used to take it up at night and wrap a blanket round it or a plaid or something

01:28:05and use it as a bed warmer.

01:28:07Isn't that a smashing idea?

01:28:09So it means foolish, or it means a thieves' kitchen,

01:28:14or, as Dr Finlay told us, it's a kind of Scots griddle.

01:28:18Brian.

01:28:19Yes, yes, well, with the gamut,

01:28:22I feel, being a Yorkshire idiot,

01:28:24that I've never come across it in Yorkshire before,

01:28:27and I'm sure that I would have been given that title a long time ago.

01:28:31Um...

01:28:33With Leslie, it was very, very convincing.

01:28:36Again, Leslie, with the robbers.

01:28:38We had my robbers before, the week before,

01:28:42and I feel robbers are out this time,

01:28:44and I just feel that it's absolutely a tour de force, again, by Frank.

01:28:49Moving from accent to accent, totally over the top.

01:28:53We must get the award, I must take Frank.

01:28:56Yes, there seems no reason why we shouldn't.

01:28:58He said it was a griddle. True or bluff, Frank?

01:29:01There's a bit of a ceiling in my work, over the top.

01:29:06No.

01:29:08APPLAUSE

01:29:14Not a griddle. Something else.

01:29:16Own up.

01:29:18Not me!

01:29:20APPLAUSE

01:29:24A flatty ken is a thief's kitchen.

01:29:27BELL

01:29:29And Bogomil, we have next, and Kate O'Mara.

01:29:32It should not really be necessary for me to remind you

01:29:35that Bogomilism was rampant in Bulgaria from the 11th century.

01:29:39LAUGHTER

01:29:41Good, good lad.

01:29:43Bogomilism was, of course, a free-thinking religious doctrine

01:29:48considered heretical by the Roman Catholic Church,

01:29:51and he who practised it was naturally known as a Bogomil.

01:29:55LAUGHTER

01:29:58Oh, they'll never stamp it out in Middlehampton. Patrick.

01:30:03Well, Bogomil got a harbour defence in the early days.

01:30:07The Baltic War was the Middle Ages.

01:30:10It fell down about 5,000 trees, always trying to get rid of the chains.

01:30:18Apparently in the sea.

01:30:22In order to prevent invaders entering the harbour of Riga.

01:30:29It was called the Bogomil.

01:30:31OK. Brian Blessed now.

01:30:34Bogomil is a dialect of the Russian language with local variations.

01:30:39It was once spoken by racers to the east of the Caspian Sea.

01:30:43Steve racers.

01:30:46And all that I'm able to tell you about Bogomil

01:30:50is it is a very convoluted grammar

01:30:53and was exceptionally rich in verbs,

01:30:56but somewhat poor in adjectives.

01:31:02Well, it's a kind of a wicked sort of free-thinker in Bulgaria,

01:31:06I think you said it was.

01:31:08A Russian dialect and a kind of barrier across the harbour of Riga.

01:31:13Gemma Craven.

01:31:17Well, I think the Russian dialect...

01:31:21..it sounds rather unlikely.

01:31:24Knowing my luck on this programme, it's probably true.

01:31:27But it does sound rather unlikely, so I don't think that could be Bogomil.

01:31:33As for the free-thinker...

01:31:37I'm not so sure.

01:31:39No, no, it's not the free-thinker.

01:31:42I go for the trees and the harbour.

01:31:45Yes, Patrick spoke of them at some length, yes.

01:31:48True or bluff?

01:31:50He's faceless in the picture.

01:31:53Thank you.

01:31:58No, nothing of that.

01:32:00We now have to learn who gave the true definition.

01:32:03Yes, indeed.

01:32:09A kind of a free-thinking sect.

01:32:12Score standing at 2-3, we'll have another word.

01:32:15An ophryon, I suppose, is how you say it.

01:32:17Gemma?

01:32:19Well, the ophryon, actually.

01:32:21There's a small area of the face.

01:32:24And it's above the nose and between the eyes,

01:32:28which is exactly as is terribly important.

01:32:31Right there.

01:32:33Now, any commando will tell you

01:32:35that the ophryon struck with the knuckle,

01:32:39well, it will just knock the owner absolutely unconscious.

01:32:43The owner of what?

01:32:45Of the ophryon.

01:32:47Yes.

01:32:49The owner of the ophryon, when struck by the knuckle, unconscious.

01:32:53Yes, of course you've got to strike him hard enough, I suppose,

01:32:57but they're friends.

01:33:00The ophryon, I would say,

01:33:03wafts us back to those hot, still days of Athens,

01:33:09the time of the ancient Greeks,

01:33:12when it was a city-state of some eminence and some respectability

01:33:17and of some richness.

01:33:19And the citizens who didn't want to drink wine and water

01:33:22would take a mug of ophryon,

01:33:25which was a concoction of barley

01:33:29and almonds

01:33:32and...

01:33:34Lemons.

01:33:36Orange flower water.

01:33:38Orange flower water?

01:33:42Oh, it wasn't.

01:33:45Leslie, your go.

01:33:47Oh, this is a good one.

01:33:49An ophryon is an organ stop.

01:33:52And it's used to imitate the sound of a storm or a tempest.

01:33:58Only the very largest organs...

01:34:04..have this.

01:34:06And, in fact, Wagner, he had an instrument like this in mind

01:34:11when he wrote the storm music for Gotterdammerung.

01:34:15I got a dammerung, I knew I would.

01:34:17Gotterdammerung.

01:34:20Anyway, that's an ophryon.

01:34:23Don't say it again.

01:34:29Yeah, that's an ophryon.

01:34:31You give a high burnish to Frank's puns, I must say.

01:34:36It's a Greek drink.

01:34:38It's the place between the eyes

01:34:40and it's a kind of organ stop that makes all that kind of tempest noise.

01:34:45Kate.

01:34:48Well, you see, the word has a sort of Greek flavour about it, I think.

01:34:52So I'm not entirely convinced by Leslie's German nonsense.

01:34:56I take it it was German you were trying to pronounce there.

01:35:00Welsh.

01:35:02So I don't think it's that one.

01:35:06The drink Frank mentioned,

01:35:10it sounds lovely.

01:35:12I'd love to have some.

01:35:15I'm quite sure the Greeks did have something of that nature,

01:35:19but I don't think it was that.

01:35:21I think that because of the OPH, as he sounds like, to do with the eyes,

01:35:26I think it's Gemma's.

01:35:28Ah, well, that's deductive thought there.

01:35:31Gemma, you said it, true or bluff?

01:35:33She's keeping us in suspense.

01:35:36But it's true!

01:35:38APPLAUSE

01:35:44The Ophryon is absolutely right.

01:35:46That's right, it's the place just above your nose and between the eyes.

01:35:50Chauvie is the next. All three, all. Jolly good.

01:35:52Chauvie is the next one.

01:35:54And Patrick, tell us.

01:35:59A strange word called Jauvie.

01:36:02It's described...

01:36:04It describes a kind of coffee.

01:36:08A coffee, yes.

01:36:10It was a good coffee.

01:36:13It could be kind of semi-jauvie.

01:36:18But bad coffee is kind of not really jauvie at all.

01:36:21But really jauvie coffee.

01:36:24You've got a faint blue tinge of the...

01:36:28..of the coffee...

01:36:30..of the coffee beans.

01:36:32And if it's jauvie, brother, it's jauvie.

01:36:37So that's when it's all very good.

01:36:40Brian, bless it.

01:36:42Should you be planning a picnic party next June,

01:36:45or on the sands of Clacton,

01:36:48you may have to contend with the clouds of the Chauvies.

01:36:53Chauvie is a regional name.

01:36:56It's fairly common in Norfolk for the June bug.

01:37:02A pinhead-sized beetle.

01:37:04Did you know it is a distant relation of the common cockchafer?

01:37:13That seems to cast a pall over things.

01:37:16Kate O'Mara.

01:37:18If I may quote the Oxford Dictionary verbatim on this word,

01:37:21chauvie, a verb, means to grumble or mutter

01:37:24like a fluid or fractious child.

01:37:26Fortunately, it's a fact, as every understanding mum, including me, knows,

01:37:30that a child who chooses to chauvie can be charmed or chippied into cheerfulness.

01:37:37Just so. Well, it means to grumble.

01:37:39It means a June bug in Norfolk. I'm glad we got Norfolk in.

01:37:42And it's a kind of high-quality coffee, I think I grabbed you as saying.

01:37:46Yes, Frank.

01:37:49Pinheaded-sized beetle, the June bug.

01:37:53The only ones I've ever seen are about the size of a golf ball.

01:37:57A fur-bearing golf ball.

01:37:59They go...

01:38:01Zonk into the wall.

01:38:03So that can't be it, can it?

01:38:06There's chauvie coffee rubbish.

01:38:11Patrick, really.

01:38:13Child grumbler.

01:38:15Now, that has a nice, nice ring to it.

01:38:18So, therefore, it must be the most unlikely, which is Patrick.

01:38:21He said it was good, high-quality coffee or coffee beans, Patrick, didn't you?

01:38:25True or bluff, was it, lad?

01:38:29Oh, true.

01:38:36Chauvie isn't the coffee bean, it's something else.

01:38:39Here they go, they'll tell you now.

01:38:41Yes, indeed.

01:38:47I think, no trouble, I think he got the right one.

01:38:51It was a baby June bug, you were saying.

01:38:55In fact, and in actual fact even,

01:38:58chauvie means a June bug, you know, one of those things flying about.

01:39:03So we have fying at 4-3, fying, and Frank defines it.

01:39:08Fying, I won't bore you, I don't know, I might as well.

01:39:15If you think of the basis of Bleak House, for instance,

01:39:18it is legal actions which beggar those

01:39:22who are employing the lawyers and enrichen the lawyers.

01:39:25And a fying in Scots law is just that sort of thing

01:39:29which enrichens the lawyers and beggars the litigants.

01:39:32It's a phrase or a statement or a codicil in a will

01:39:36which they can argue about interminably.

01:39:39OK, so, Leslie Thomas, your turn.

01:39:42Fying.

01:39:44Fying tonight.

01:39:46You're doing it again.

01:39:48I don't know where I'll get them.

01:39:51Now, fying was a word which was current about the time of Robin Hood

01:39:57and it was a word for an artefact,

01:40:02something made by the hand of man.

01:40:05Perhaps the arrow of a fletcher or a knife

01:40:09or anything that was fashioned by the hand of man.

01:40:15Westminster Abbey, I suppose.

01:40:17That is fying.

01:40:19OK.

01:40:20It's all that, isn't it?

01:40:22It could easily be. You never know.

01:40:24Gemma, it's your turn.

01:40:26Well, quite honestly, fying has gone out of fashion.

01:40:29I mean, anybody fancy fying these days

01:40:31would be thought to be terribly square.

01:40:34What it is, it's the action or the saying of,

01:40:38fie!

01:40:40See, if you're shocked or indignant,

01:40:44if you're shocked or indignant, reproach, you see.

01:40:49But you mustn't, however, mix it up with pishing.

01:40:55With pishing?

01:40:59So it seems that it's a kind of a debatable point in legal circles.

01:41:04It's an artefact and it's to say fie, it seems.

01:41:08Patrick.

01:41:11I think after 2,000 years of legal dealing,

01:41:17I think you couldn't find a word to describe

01:41:22the kind of malpractice on the part of your legal adviser.

01:41:27Malpractice?

01:41:29If we move along fairly swiftly, we'll get another word.

01:41:32You've been fying?

01:41:34Oh, no, perhaps he doesn't. Not that swiftly.

01:41:37It's a...

01:41:41Oh, I'll put you on.

01:41:46It's a thing made by hand.

01:41:48That was what Leslie Thomas said, wasn't it?

01:41:51As best he could.

01:41:54I don't think he knows.

01:41:56It's all good both of them.

01:41:59APPLAUSE

01:42:04Who gave the true definition of that word, that interesting word, fying?

01:42:09Who indeed did?

01:42:11Smart little jimmy.

01:42:13APPLAUSE

01:42:17So, look, could this be for all?

01:42:19You've got about no time at all. Ring, ring, thrall.

01:42:22I just want a few words, Brian.

01:42:24Well, unless my eyes deceive me,

01:42:26this has been furnished by Mother Nature with not one but two thralls.

01:42:29A thrall is a breathing hole.

01:42:31Right, that'll do. Breathing. Nostril. Excellent. Kate?

01:42:34Yes, it's a gadget used by dairy maids for separating cream from milk.

01:42:37It's a sort of a trough which had a plug in the bottom.

01:42:40Oh, lovely, lovely. Patrick?

01:42:42It's an old gust of wind.

01:42:44LAUGHTER

01:42:46Wind, wind.

01:42:48So it's a kind of a gust of wind. It's something you breathe through, nostril,

01:42:51and it's a kind of a milk tub with, as you said, a hole in the bottom.

01:42:54Leslie, you have a choice.

01:42:56Um...

01:42:58It doesn't matter. I think it was the middle one.

01:43:00You think it's the middle one?

01:43:02Do you mean the middle person or the middle definition?

01:43:04Yes, the, um... The Patrick one.

01:43:06Yes, the milk. Oh, that was Kate.

01:43:08Oh, yes, sorry. Two or bluff, Kate.

01:43:12Ah!

01:43:14APPLAUSE

01:43:16And the full definition.

01:43:18APPLAUSE

01:43:24So, yet again, by just that whisker, Patrick's team has won!

01:43:29APPLAUSE

01:43:34More words.

01:43:36More words to clear from the OED next week.

01:43:39Until then, goodbye from Brian Blessed...

01:43:42APPLAUSE

01:43:44..Leslie Thomas...

01:43:46..Kate O'Mara...

01:43:48..Jemma Craven...

01:43:50..Patrick Campbell...

01:43:53..thank you all...

01:43:55..and goodbye.

01:43:57APPLAUSE

01:44:23APPLAUSE

01:44:30Good evening.

01:44:32Let me welcome you to Call My Bluff,

01:44:34where the Baron Munchausen role is, as ever, played by Frank Muir.

01:44:38Thank you. Good evening.

01:44:40APPLAUSE

01:44:44My first guest is an actress who has delighted us many times,

01:44:47in many parts, perhaps never more so than in the recent series

01:44:51The Duchess of Duke Street.

01:44:53I'm glad to say we'll soon be seeing a new series,

01:44:56and here's the Duchess herself, Jemma Jones.

01:44:59APPLAUSE

01:45:05My number two is a columnist on The Guardian.

01:45:10He's a novelist, and he introduces television programmes.

01:45:13It's Barry Norman.

01:45:15APPLAUSE

01:45:21And the only Bob note himself, Patrick Campbell.

01:45:24APPLAUSE

01:45:29Good evening.

01:45:31And my first guest will almost blind you.

01:45:35When you see her, you can be blinded.

01:45:38She's a lovely actress, but she's also got the extraordinary profession

01:45:42of running a hotel.

01:45:45She's called Anoushka Hampel.

01:45:48APPLAUSE

01:45:52And the other one is instrumental in resurrecting the works

01:45:59of a 92-year-old playwright called Ben Travers,

01:46:03in Plunder, Dinsdale, London.

01:46:05APPLAUSE

01:46:11Now we have to begin.

01:46:13Ring the bell and we get the first word.

01:46:15Kamanchaka. Yes, I think so.

01:46:17Well, Frank Muir and his team are going to define this word,

01:46:20Kamanchaka, three different ways.

01:46:22Two of the definitions are false, one is true.

01:46:24That's the one that Patrick and Co are going to try and pick out.

01:46:27So what of this word, Frank?

01:46:30Kamanchaka.

01:46:32Kamanchaka is a heavy sea mist

01:46:37which rolls in round the coasts of Peru.

01:46:42And at certain times of the year, so heavy and thick is it

01:46:48that you hear harsh cries of,

01:46:51''Olé! Whoops!''

01:46:53''Ooh!''

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