10.Call My Bluff S12E13, S12E14, S12E15 (1978) J. Lumley, D. Jacobi, R. Briers, A. Rees, C. Cazenove

last year

S12 E13 Joanna Lumley, Emily Bolton (as June Bolton), Derek Jacobi, Richard Briers.
S12 E14 Joanna Lumley, Emily Bolton (as June Bolton), Derek Jacobi, Richard Briers.
S12 E15 Angharad Rees, Suzanne Roquette, Christopher Cazenove, Donny MacLeod
Host/Team captains: Robert Robinson, Frank Muir, Patrick Campbell.

Transcript

00:00:00Well, they all said as follows, that it was this kind of dilemma, it was a mythical maiden

00:00:10from the north and it was a day a farmer took off for greasing his hay wain. Dennis Quilley.

00:00:20I don't believe in the dilemma day, somehow. It's never been a problem of mine choosing

00:00:26between the Bugatti and the Rolls, but I don't think it's that. I love the poetic idea of

00:00:32the wain day, that's very attractive, I'd like it to be that, but something tells me

00:00:37there's something kind of vaguely Orcadian, isn't there, Paddy, about that? Well, don't

00:00:42ask me, you're the champion guest of the world. I think it's the Orcadian maiden who wafts

00:00:47the sailors back home. Well, it was Rita Hunter who said it, true or bluff? She tells you

00:00:51now. Here comes the true definition. Today a chap takes off to grease the hay wain, what

00:01:11else could it be? Grufft is the next one and Hannah Gordon will define it. Well, grufft

00:01:18surprisingly is not a disease that sheep get from eating it. Grufft is a rustic name

00:01:26for the mud that sticks... In your wellies. No, not this time. It is a rustic name for

00:01:33the mud that sticks to the blades of grass after there's been a heavy rainstorm and flung

00:01:39it up. It's very agricultural, isn't it? Yes, it is. So let's see what Patrick says. A grufft

00:01:49is an attack of the shivers of the shudders, a kind of icy qualm. Now, oddly enough, in

00:02:00the northeast of England, and I'm kind of goose pimply, you know, but in the northeast

00:02:07of England, it's turned into the equivalent of a nightmare or a nightmarish experience,

00:02:14like if you get your foot perhaps trapped in a rat hole or something, that's a grufft.

00:02:19Throwing your wellingtons. Oh, your wellingtons. Now it's Dennis Quilley's turn. If a cannon is

00:02:30aimed at an angle below the horizontal, which it sometimes needs to be, inevitably the cannonball

00:02:39will roll out at the end. And to save the cannoneer the embarrassment of going up and saying,

00:02:46please can we have our ball? They came up with the grufft, which in its simplest terms is simply

00:02:57a wad of cloth, waste cloth, which is rammed in to keep the ball in place until the cannoneer

00:03:02is ready to shoot it off. So then it's an attack of shivering, that sort of thing. It's mud left

00:03:08on grass after a rainstorm and it's what keeps the cannonball in the cannon. Rita. Well,

00:03:15I don't think it's the mud. I mean, I just call mud slush. It's muck, isn't it? I mean,

00:03:29mud is slush and muck. No, and I don't go for the rammer down the cannon either. I go for Paddy.

00:03:38Paddy's shivers. He did say that, didn't he? Yeah. Patrick, true or bluff? I'm not shivering at all.

00:03:47We must learn. We can't do without the true definition, here in Clapham.

00:03:59Mud on the grass, of course it is. Three, two. Nice and close. And we have Balachong. Rita.

00:04:15Well, a Balachong is richly embroidered material, very light but much more sumptuous than brocade.

00:04:23Genuine Balachong comes from a small region in Madras. It's woven with a woof of silk and a

00:04:33warp of gold thread and it is very much used in the ceremonial dress of the Maharajas, a Balachong.

00:04:42Are there any still left? What, warps, whoops or Maharajas? Frank, your turn. Balachong is a Javanese musical instrument.

00:04:57Like a xylophone, only there's three decks of it and they're little coloured wooden blocks and

00:05:05three chaps play these blocks all together. All at once. Balachong, sort of multi xylophone. Lovely. Now, Leslie's turn.

00:05:15Balachong, I speak Chinese, you see, is a savoury condiment or you might think an unsavoury

00:05:26condiment that the Chinese sprinkle over a bowl of rice to give it zest and flavour. It's made

00:05:32by pounding up the putrefying corpses of long dead shrimps and then allowing the result, the

00:05:42resultant mass to dry into powder. Yuck. Balachong. So it's a sort of Chinese seasoning, sprinkling over

00:05:52things. It's a rich stuff for material, musical instrument also. Hannah, your turn to choose.

00:05:59Oh. Well. What? Yes, I'm looking at you. It's a two to one chance. I know, but it's the decisions.

00:06:21It's the decisions. You would just start. Just start. I think it's that big xylophone with all these three people

00:06:28playing it at once, but I don't think it, I've started the wrong way around, haven't I? I don't think it's the

00:06:32shrimp pepper, sort of. No, I think it's that big xylophone. You might have the rich material, you leave

00:06:39that out. No, I leave, yes, I leave that out too. You're home on the musical instrument of which Frank spoke.

00:06:45True or Blunt, Frank? Do you? Forgotten.

00:06:59Who gave the true definition of balachong? Paddy? No, me.

00:07:05That ground up shrimp that makes everything so delicious in Chinese restaurants. Four to two.

00:07:17Disbrie is the next one, and Patrick has a whack. Disbrie is a word that comes from the impenetrable world of newspapers.

00:07:26The whole interior world of newspapers is a mystery to the outside, well, lay people, I suppose you would call them.

00:07:39A disbrie is a little paragraph, about four lines, perhaps 38 words, which is kept permanently set up in type.

00:07:48Just in case, perhaps, of columnists, it finds he's short of an idea with another four lines to go, he'll shovel in a disbrie.

00:07:59Now the only interesting thing about the disbrie is that nobody knows why it's called a disbrie.

00:08:06It could have been a gooseberry. No, a disbrie.

00:08:11Dennis Priddy, your turn. It's a funny one. It's disbrie, of course.

00:08:17It's a simple verb, formed in the same way as any other negative verb, like disallow, disagree, disbelieve.

00:08:24So when your dog digs up a bone in the garden, he disbries it.

00:08:29Tom!

00:08:38The audience recognises true merit when it hears it.

00:08:41My right. Hannah.

00:08:43A disbrie is an attachment that can be fitted to certain kind of looms.

00:08:48And it's a particular attachment which can fashion a repeating figure around the outside of a carpet, say.

00:08:58I thought you said loo.

00:09:00Loom.

00:09:06It's a gadget you fit on a loom, or perhaps they already come with the gadget.

00:09:11It's a standard paragraph to fill up a bit of space if it's left blank otherwise, and it is to dig something up.

00:09:19Frank.

00:09:23It's a good one, isn't it?

00:09:29Ahem.

00:09:34We speak with triple-forked tongues.

00:09:38No, no, no, we...

00:09:41I'm not sure about the loom, and I don't quite understand it.

00:09:46They wouldn't call it a disbrie, would they?

00:09:48Might do, might do. Hang on. Don't go away. Just loiter a bit.

00:09:53To dig up a disbrie, we keep having those, and they keep being true.

00:09:59It's like a horse.

00:10:01Like an N-hat, you put your hat on. Never forgiven the man for that one.

00:10:06So I think it's that newspaper bit, Paddy, the slug in the newspaper.

00:10:10You think it's a spare paragraph left out.

00:10:12Sort of, think of it.

00:10:14True or bluff, he'll tell you. Half, you think. Well, you have to go with the whole one.

00:10:18It's a kind of sort of a bluff.

00:10:20APPLAUSE

00:10:26Now I wonder which of the other two it is.

00:10:29Could it be dig up? How could it be?

00:10:32Could it be?

00:10:34APPLAUSE

00:10:41We'll have to rehearse that.

00:10:43What on earth do you do when you disbury something but you disbury it?

00:10:47The cheek of it. Anyway, Petrel we have. Scores standing at 4-3.

00:10:51Very close, Petrel. Now, you start.

00:10:54Petrel is a wee Scottish mark

00:10:59put upon things like porridge spoons...

00:11:04LAUGHTER

00:11:06Can I drop the accent?

00:11:08Thank you so much.

00:11:10It's a silver mark put upon silver

00:11:14which tells the Scots which assay office.

00:11:18There are three in Scotland. Assay, assay, assay.

00:11:21I just put that in as a joke.

00:11:24It shows, it's the mark which shows, one mark shows you it's Scotland,

00:11:28another mark shows you the date,

00:11:30and the Petrel shows you which assay office,

00:11:33or the whole thing's a lie.

00:11:36One or the other. Right, Leslie Thomas.

00:11:39Petrel is a small... You've got me in.

00:11:43Petrel. A Petrel is a small bump or blister

00:11:46on the side or neck of a glass vessel

00:11:50that enables its liquid contents to be measured with exactitude

00:11:53on a sort of medicine bottle.

00:11:55I mean, you could say famous last words,

00:11:57I didn't read the Petrel.

00:12:00It's a Petrel, a measurement on a glass bottle.

00:12:03OK. Now, Rita.

00:12:05Well, a Petrel is part of a warhorse's suit of armour.

00:12:10And being metal, it is often adorned

00:12:13with lots of jewels and feathers, a Petrel.

00:12:17So it's part of what the horse wears when going into battle

00:12:20or that sort of thing.

00:12:22It's a blister, a little place on the side of a bottle,

00:12:24and it's a Scots hallmark.

00:12:27And Patrick has to choose one of those.

00:12:30I don't believe that you would have taken the true one,

00:12:33just so you could say assay, assay, assay.

00:12:37I'll have to discount it instead.

00:12:39It's all in there.

00:12:41Cunning old boy.

00:12:45Feathers on horses would drive horses mad.

00:12:51What was your dribble? I've forgotten.

00:12:53He said it was a blister on the side of a bottle.

00:12:56A blob on a bottle.

00:12:58How are you going to measure your Petrel, your medicine,

00:13:00in a blob on a bottle?

00:13:02It's feathers on a horse.

00:13:04Oh, Rita, you said that. Was that true?

00:13:06Yes, I did.

00:13:07Or were you teasing?

00:13:17This is really, as I've often said, what makes it worthwhile.

00:13:20With two minutes to go, just time for a quick one.

00:13:23Four, four.

00:13:25Odum, I'm so excited I can't contain myself.

00:13:28Dennis, very quickly.

00:13:30Yes, all right, you've got it right. Odum.

00:13:32Odum, it's an ancient Hebrew measure for measuring liquids.

00:13:36That's lovely. Hannah, please.

00:13:38Odum is a small round cake in Tibet.

00:13:41It's fried, it's sweet, and it's fried in yak butter.

00:13:44Yak butter. Only yak butter.

00:13:46Patrick, your turn.

00:13:48Odum is a hardwood tree that grows on the Gold Coast of Africa.

00:13:52It's so hard, little ants break their little white teeth on it.

00:13:58Oh, dear. Nearly got sentimental there.

00:14:01It's a hardwood tree, it's a Tibetan cake, and it's a Hebrew measure.

00:14:06Leslie.

00:14:08Is it me?

00:14:11It all hinges on you, Leslie.

00:14:13I think it's the cake.

00:14:15You think it's the Tibetan cake?

00:14:17Yes.

00:14:18Of which Hannah spoke. Is she pleased?

00:14:20What can you...? Yes, she is!

00:14:22APPLAUSE

00:14:25I've lost it quick.

00:14:27We have the real one, and then we can all go home.

00:14:30There!

00:14:35I lost it for you, don't I?

00:14:37It's a hardwood, it's a hardwood tree.

00:14:39Very, you know, hard on the teeth of ants, apparently.

00:14:425-4, and so it seems that...

00:14:44Oh, gosh.

00:14:46Yes, Patrick Campbell's team has won.

00:14:48APPLAUSE

00:14:55So, we shall be issuing MOT certificates to more bangers from the OED next time.

00:15:01So, until then, goodbye from Dennis Quilley.

00:15:04APPLAUSE

00:15:06One more.

00:15:08Leslie Connors.

00:15:10Hannah Corbyn.

00:15:13Rita Hunter.

00:15:16Patrick Campbell.

00:15:18Thank you.

00:15:20Goodnight.

00:15:22And goodbye.

00:15:24APPLAUSE

00:15:54APPLAUSE

00:16:01Hello. This is Call My Bluff.

00:16:03We're dealing off the bottom of the pack.

00:16:05We have Frank Muir.

00:16:07APPLAUSE

00:16:13My first guest is what an American might well describe as a mighty pretty girl.

00:16:18From the New Avengers, Joanna Lumley.

00:16:21APPLAUSE

00:16:25If you're asked, you television viewers,

00:16:28who was the most famous Roman of them all,

00:16:31you'd probably say, I, I know, I, Claudius.

00:16:34And here is Claudius, the first time on this programme,

00:16:37on any programme of this nature.

00:16:39How nice to have on Derek Jacoby.

00:16:42APPLAUSE

00:16:49And eight feet of rippling muscle, Patrick Campbell.

00:16:53APPLAUSE

00:16:55Good evening.

00:17:00My first guest was Rudolf Valentino's first love.

00:17:04Fortunately, not in reality, otherwise she'd be in a wheelchair.

00:17:08But she was in the movie of that title.

00:17:11She is June Bolton.

00:17:13APPLAUSE

00:17:16Good evening.

00:17:21And my other guests are kind of better than Rudolf Valentino all over.

00:17:25It's only Richard Bryars, though.

00:17:27APPLAUSE

00:17:33Let's try and get a word.

00:17:36Low, where it comes.

00:17:38Balductum, or the scope for pronunciation of all sorts.

00:17:42We'll define this word three different ways.

00:17:45Two of them are false, one is true.

00:17:47The true one is the one that Patrick and co. try to pick out.

00:17:50So, you're on your own with this one, Frank.

00:17:55LAUGHTER

00:17:57Prithee, my brow is fevered.

00:18:01Prithee indicates it's Tudor period, you see.

00:18:04And the dialogue indicated that I have a feverish chill.

00:18:08What to do, the steward says.

00:18:11Mix him a balductum.

00:18:14They take hot milk, into which they drip wine,

00:18:18until it congeals.

00:18:20Pour it down me lord's throat.

00:18:22And...

00:18:24Thank you, my good and faithful sheriff.

00:18:28And it's a Tudor posset for cooling down little fevers.

00:18:36Or big fevers if you've got enough of it.

00:18:39Have you finished?

00:18:41Or tiny fevers if it's just a little chill.

00:18:44And that goes on.

00:18:46Or you could have...

00:18:48Yes, more costume drama, please, Frank.

00:18:50No, no, you won't do it.

00:18:52Derek Jacoby, your turn.

00:18:54Well, a little before the Tudors, in days of old,

00:18:57when the Gauls were revolting,

00:18:59the Emperor Charlemagne had in his armoury

00:19:02an incredible weapon called a balductum.

00:19:05It was rather like a huge catapult.

00:19:08It was a vast horizontal bow with leather thongs

00:19:12which stretched across it.

00:19:14And on this was loaded the ammunition,

00:19:16huge boulders and stones.

00:19:18The thongs were then pulled back and released.

00:19:20And then this threw the boulders and the stones

00:19:22into the front ranks of the approaching, revolting Gauls.

00:19:28OK, so now, Joanna Lumley.

00:19:31Yes, dear?

00:19:33A balductum is a painting of low life,

00:19:37an artistic portrayal of the real beastliness, squalor,

00:19:41an absolute horror of life as it really is.

00:19:44And probably the most famous in the English series of Balductar,

00:19:48I don't have to tell you if that's the plural,

00:19:51is The Rake's Progress by Hogarth.

00:19:54Ah, um, ah.

00:19:58Fifth declension, I think.

00:20:00I think so.

00:20:02Please, Joanna.

00:20:03So that's what it is, it's a painting of low life?

00:20:05Oh, yes.

00:20:06Well, it's a painting of low life, she says.

00:20:08It's a sort of bow which chucks sort of rocks, I think I got,

00:20:13and kind of a medicine or nightcap if you're rather chill.

00:20:18More of a posset.

00:20:19More of a posset, Frank.

00:20:21Yes.

00:20:22More of a posset, Patrick.

00:20:24When you said you were sending for the steward,

00:20:27I thought you were at sea.

00:20:29Oh, Pat, oh, Pat.

00:20:31You wanted a bucket or something.

00:20:35That turned right off, whatever you're talking about,

00:20:38I couldn't listen after that.

00:20:40All this...

00:20:44That would be leading a ball out of a catapult,

00:20:48not throwing it.

00:20:50I think whatever you were talking about is filthy pictures.

00:20:57Is it?

00:20:58Ah, you're going to choose that, are you?

00:21:00Yes.

00:21:01The genre paintings of low life.

00:21:03Joanna, you said it, true or bluff?

00:21:08No, no.

00:21:15She was only teasing.

00:21:16Who gave the true definition?

00:21:18Here it comes.

00:21:20Oh, I...

00:21:21Oh, no.

00:21:22APPLAUSE

00:21:29So that's really what it is.

00:21:31It's a sort of a posset nightcap or warming drink

00:21:34for those who feel ill.

00:21:36Cob key is the next one, and Patrick will define it for you.

00:21:41A cob key is a very fine, almost see-through lawn.

00:21:46Not the kind of thing you mow,

00:21:49but a lawn handkerchief, a handkerchief made of lawn.

00:21:53A see-through lawn.

00:21:56Which duchesses used to blow their noses, of course, in privacy.

00:22:01But was it not Edmund Burke who said,

00:22:05after chilly reception at an Italian bus stop in London,

00:22:10I receive compliments as thin as a cob key?

00:22:16No, it wasn't.

00:22:17What are you laughing at?

00:22:21Richard Briers, he speaks.

00:22:24Yes, now, a cob key...

00:22:26Well, usually on board a ship in the old days,

00:22:28if a sailor was in subordinate or drunk in charge of a folksong or something,

00:22:32they'd give him a mild punishment.

00:22:34They wouldn't keelhaul him, they'd give him a milder punishment.

00:22:37This was done with a piece of wood called a cobbing board,

00:22:41and they'd lay him over the thing near the deck, the rail,

00:22:44and bash him on the backside with it.

00:22:47And that was called a cob key, or cobbing board.

00:22:51Right. June Bolton, next.

00:22:55Cob key.

00:22:57Cob key is the Caribbean equivalent of French bouillabaisse,

00:23:03and that's a rich, fishy stew.

00:23:06However, in the French bouillabaisse,

00:23:09there's one ingredient which one does not normally find,

00:23:13and that is clams which have been separately smoked

00:23:19and very lightly dusted with red pepper.

00:23:22And that's cob key. It's very tasty.

00:23:25Better than most of the things we get on this programme, I must say.

00:23:29Fish stew, then, of that sort.

00:23:32It's whacking a sailor with a bit of wood,

00:23:35and it's lawn of a very fine sort.

00:23:37Frank.

00:23:39We are in one voice on this.

00:23:42It is fatal, I know, but possibly.

00:23:45Now, hitting a lad with a piece of wood.

00:23:50Oh, Breers.

00:23:52It's true, I swear. Great Breers.

00:23:55Now, if you have a thin hanky that you can see through,

00:23:59the ladies would blow through it, wouldn't they?

00:24:02It wouldn't perform its function.

00:24:05Duchess says, don't blow that hard.

00:24:07Of retention. It wouldn't retain. It wouldn't retain.

00:24:12The clam stew, possibly.

00:24:15No, we think it's Breers and his block of wood.

00:24:19Whacking the sailor. He said it, didn't he? Yes.

00:24:22True or bluff, Richard? What shall we whack?

00:24:25Oh, dear.

00:24:35Somehow it's always true when it's to do with sailors on this programme.

00:24:38Do you remember Abel Whacketts?

00:24:40Ah, she'll never forget it. Jolly good word, that.

00:24:43Cemet is another. Derek, your turn.

00:24:46A cemet is a variety of eel trap

00:24:50traditionally used on the River Severn.

00:24:54It's composed of a long cylinder made of thin wire

00:24:59and closed at one end,

00:25:01and this is suspended in the water, facing upstream,

00:25:04and it's suspended between two buoys

00:25:07spelt B-U-O-Y-S,

00:25:10and the unsuspecting eel swims into it,

00:25:13finds that it can't reverse and is trapped. It's an eel trap.

00:25:16What a clever idea. Isn't it, Professor?

00:25:19Could easily work. Joanna Lumley.

00:25:22A cemet, I blush to tell you, is an article of underclothing.

00:25:27I think even Patrick might have one on at this moment.

00:25:32It's a sort of unisex undervest.

00:25:36That's Patrick.

00:25:38And for ladies it would be made out of fine cotton,

00:25:42and for gentlemen something a little sturdier,

00:25:44perhaps a sort of hairy Welsh flannel.

00:25:51Right, Frank, your turn.

00:25:53It's a hairless Irish flannel, I would suggest.

00:25:57Cemet, you are a simple sapper.

00:26:00Medieval times mayhap.

00:26:02And you're faced with a castle wall.

00:26:05Now, what do you do about it?

00:26:07What you do is you advance, you see, under cover,

00:26:10and you knock a little hole in the wall,

00:26:12and you bung in some gunpowder.

00:26:14You've got plenty of time. It's probably the Hundred Years' War.

00:26:17You bung in some gunpowder, and you plug it up,

00:26:19and you shove a fuse in, and you light the fuse,

00:26:22and you retire smartly in a soldier-like fashion.

00:26:25And...

00:26:28It's a kind of petard, petard.

00:26:31It's a cemet, it says.

00:26:37OK, so it's a vest, it's an eel trap,

00:26:41and it's a whole sapper's dig,

00:26:43and filled with explosive for their purposes.

00:26:46So Richard Briers gets to choose now.

00:26:48Yes. Well, yes.

00:26:50I don't think it's... Yes, I thought...

00:26:52Yes, yes, I don't like this vest business.

00:26:54And that detonator, medieval detonator or whatever it is,

00:26:57a charge.

00:26:59Derek Jacobi's my favourite actor, so I'll...

00:27:02I'll go for the eel trap.

00:27:04Eel trap is what Derek Jacobi said, yes.

00:27:06Go on. Here it comes.

00:27:08Here it comes.

00:27:10I thought I'd got you that time.

00:27:13APPLAUSE

00:27:19Nothing to do with eel traps, that was all teasing.

00:27:23All right, you get the true definition now.

00:27:26There it is.

00:27:28APPLAUSE

00:27:30I'm sorry, I'm going a little...

00:27:35It's a sort of vest that people wear on and off.

00:27:38Bracker is the next one.

00:27:40Richard Briers to define it.

00:27:42Now, in the 18th century...

00:27:44You're not going to believe this, but it's absolutely true.

00:27:47In the 18th century, when they imported goods from this country,

00:27:50from the Baltic states to this country,

00:27:52quite often the goods were a bit off, you see.

00:27:55So we got a bit fed up with that after a bit,

00:27:59so we employed brackers, that is, yes,

00:28:02brackers as inspectors, kind of food traffic wardens,

00:28:05and they checked it all there.

00:28:07I don't know what happened to them.

00:28:09They obviously weren't very successful because they were dissolved

00:28:12shortly in the latter half of the 18th century.

00:28:14Brackers were inspectors, actually, inspectors of the grub.

00:28:17I can't say fairer than that.

00:28:19You can't now, June. It's your turn.

00:28:22Bracker.

00:28:24The word bracker, one would find in the workshop of a blacksmith.

00:28:30It's an iron or a wooden frame,

00:28:35and it looks a bit like an upended three-legged stool

00:28:40in which one would put the foot of a horse, a very fiery horse,

00:28:44in order that it may be shodded with safety.

00:28:47Which foot?

00:28:50Which foot?

00:28:52What a silly question.

00:28:56The fifth foot.

00:28:58I think they probably put three in at once

00:29:00and not the one that they were actually doing,

00:29:03but it's no part of it, more than my position's worth.

00:29:06Whose turn is it next? Goodness me. Patrick.

00:29:09A bracker is named after T. M. Brack, M.A.,

00:29:13a senior wrangler at Cambridge in the early 1880s.

00:29:21Good.

00:29:22T. M. Brack, M.A., invented a kind of mathematical joke,

00:29:28apparently flawless logic,

00:29:31by which he could prove that 2 and 2 does not equal 4 or even 5,

00:29:38but 6!

00:29:40He's teaching now in our school.

00:29:42Even worse news, please, if you'll allow me to speak.

00:29:46He could prove that 0 was 1.

00:29:50That's what a bracker was called.

00:29:53He's still teaching.

00:29:55Made you laugh, did it, that sort of thing?

00:29:57I roll on the floor.

00:30:00I notice you held back from telling us one.

00:30:03Don't spoil us, Patrick. It's a mathematical joke.

00:30:06A frame which a smith put to use with horses and their hooves and that,

00:30:11and it's an inspector of goods to make sure that they were all right.

00:30:15Derek Jacobi.

00:30:17Well...

00:30:19I've played Shakespeare with Dickie, you see,

00:30:22and I know that look.

00:30:24I don't know what you mean.

00:30:26And I didn't go for the off fish.

00:30:29It's up to you, Derek.

00:30:31No, the blacksmith stool thing,

00:30:34I thought they shod horses by putting the horses' hooves between their legs and doing it.

00:30:39That's the old-fashioned way.

00:30:41That's the old-fashioned way.

00:30:43But I do like the sound of the gentleman who can make 2 and 2 make 6,

00:30:47so I will say...

00:30:49That one. Patrick, now tell us, true or bluff?

00:31:00No such joke, no such joke.

00:31:02Who gave the true definition? Here it is.

00:31:04Hair.

00:31:14It's a sort of inspector who had a look at the goods before they were shipped.

00:31:18Did a very good job, no doubt.

00:31:20Theridian is the next one. Joanna Lumley.

00:31:22Theridian is an ornamental trellis

00:31:24and it's held upright by sculpted stone buttresses at the bottom

00:31:29so that it doesn't wobble or fall over or have to be nailed into the turf.

00:31:32There was a very beautiful one in St James' Park in the 18th century.

00:31:37It's the sort of place where you might have found somebody like Joseph Addison

00:31:42writing his contributions to The Spectator.

00:31:47He wrote contributions to The Spectator.

00:31:50He might have been sitting there.

00:31:52Sorry, what was it?

00:31:54It's a trellis.

00:31:56Got to do them somewhere. Frank, your turn.

00:31:59A Theridian is an inhabitant, or was an inhabitant, of the Greek island of Theridios.

00:32:09Beyond that, information is a bit scarce.

00:32:12It was in the couple of centuries BC

00:32:16and they were musical

00:32:19and were believed...

00:32:22believed that they ate lupins.

00:32:26Not to the exclusion of everything else, but they did eat lupins.

00:32:32Next, please. Quickly.

00:32:35Derek Jacobi.

00:32:37The Theridian is a non-conformist variety of Corsican spider.

00:32:45Whereas your average spider spins a web of almost perfect symmetry,

00:32:51the Theridian's web is very noticeably lopsided.

00:32:55Now, nobody knows quite why this is.

00:32:58Including you.

00:33:00No, well, it may be that the Theridian doesn't understand geometry,

00:33:04or maybe, much more likely, in the balmy heat of our hot Mediterranean climate,

00:33:09it just couldn't care less.

00:33:12So, it's a member of a sect from that part of the world Frank spoke of.

00:33:16It's a Corsican spider and it's an ornamental trellis.

00:33:20June Bolton is choosing.

00:33:22A very difficult choice, I must say.

00:33:25Stands out.

00:33:27I don't quite believe Joanna's definition of the trellis.

00:33:32And...

00:33:34Now we come to Frank.

00:33:36Yes.

00:33:37I'm not quite sure about the inhabitant either.

00:33:40Because the word does not look anything like it.

00:33:43But I think I'll go for Derek's definition.

00:33:47The Corsican spider.

00:33:49That's right.

00:33:50That's what he spoke. He now tells you whether it's true or bluff.

00:33:56Oh!

00:33:57APPLAUSE

00:34:06I don't think Patrick thought you got it right there, but you had.

00:34:08Lovely bullseye.

00:34:10It is that spider.

00:34:123-2, and we have Dacre and June.

00:34:14It's your turn again.

00:34:16Dacre. It's a very old word.

00:34:18It's a bundle of animal hides which are about to be made into gloves.

00:34:23And one dacre is the equivalent to, I should say,

00:34:27a bundle of ten of such hides.

00:34:30And around about 1753,

00:34:32the selling price of dacres in Edinburgh,

00:34:35would you believe it or not,

00:34:37was about eight pence each.

00:34:40Around about 1753.

00:34:42That's as good a date as any.

00:34:44Patrick, speak on.

00:34:46Dacre is a kind of West Country word, really.

00:34:52Not in current use too much.

00:34:54Because if you...

00:34:56I'm going to dip your dacres.

00:34:58I can't do a kind of West Country accent at all, really.

00:35:01Have a try. Everyone else does. Come on.

00:35:04Do a little bit of Dublin if you want.

00:35:06Oh, I love it.

00:35:08If you're going to dip your dacre,

00:35:11if you're an Irishman in a West Country accent,

00:35:14it means I'm going to give you a belt over the gob.

00:35:17That's Irish.

00:35:19Or, on the other hand,

00:35:21if you wish to say,

00:35:23a tip of your dacre,

00:35:25it means shake hands.

00:35:29It does need an Irishman in a West Country accent,

00:35:32to make this...

00:35:34well, sound convincing.

00:35:36So it's something to do with the hands, yes, yes.

00:35:38So, now, Richard Bryce.

00:35:40Well, now, a dacre, the correct pronunciation,

00:35:43is, in fact, in Eastern Malaysia in the old days,

00:35:46was actually a robber,

00:35:48who was usually violent,

00:35:50and carried sometimes a horse-hair noose,

00:35:53which he often hung his victims.

00:35:56Get a laugh out of that.

00:35:58That's a dacre.

00:36:00We've had them rolling in the Isles with diseases of sheep.

00:36:03Don't worry.

00:36:05Well, anyway, it's sort of a fist,

00:36:07it's a sort of footpad,

00:36:09and it's a measure of height, Joanna.

00:36:14Um...

00:36:16I'm a bit suspicious, June,

00:36:18of the exact dating of the eight-per-eight packet of dacres,

00:36:22the animal bundles.

00:36:25I'm also a bit suspicious...

00:36:27I don't know why. Why?

00:36:29..of the Malayan robber,

00:36:31who, just for fun, brought his own string with him.

00:36:33I wouldn't have thought he'd have bothered to murder him as well.

00:36:36I mean, the same...

00:36:38It's difficult to understand.

00:36:40Admittedly.

00:36:43But I think it's Patrick's hand.

00:36:46You think it was the Dubliner taking a holiday in Shropshire, was it?

00:36:50No, West Country. True or bluff?

00:36:53No, it's dreadful.

00:36:55APPLAUSE

00:37:02I blinded you with science there, all right.

00:37:05Who gave the true definition of dacre?

00:37:08Quick, quick!

00:37:10June. You have it. Yes!

00:37:12Oh, no.

00:37:14Beautifully done.

00:37:18Very old-fashioned measure of height.

00:37:21Riyal.

00:37:23A very close game indeed.

00:37:25Glomeral. And Frank Muir defines glomeral.

00:37:28Isn't she in King Lear?

00:37:32No, no, no, she can't be, because it's actually a kind of...

00:37:36..glutinous jelly...

00:37:38..found in fish flesh,

00:37:41notably fish of the salmon family.

00:37:45When warmed, this transparent jelly becomes opaque,

00:37:51i.e. visible.

00:37:53You can't see it until you warm it up.

00:37:56It's a bit like that greasy wax you see hanging around the scales of salmon.

00:38:01Glomeral.

00:38:05Derek, your turn.

00:38:07It's actually pronounced glomeral.

00:38:10It's a very onomatopoeic word,

00:38:12because it is exactly what it sounds like, glomeral.

00:38:15It's a very beautiful word.

00:38:17It's a folksy poetic name for twilight,

00:38:21particularly evening twilight after sunset.

00:38:25It occurs in a very reasonably unknown poem

00:38:30by a Jacobean poet called Richard Coverdale.

00:38:35Soon now doth glomeral spread her frowning shade,

00:38:39wherein the yearning Mavis sounds her lay.

00:38:43No, it's her mother-in-law.

00:38:46It's a very beautiful word for twilight.

00:38:49Reasonably unknown, I think, is the phrase for that.

00:38:54Joanna.

00:38:56Once upon a time, the undergraduates of Cambridge University

00:39:00were divided into two categories,

00:39:02scholars and glomerals.

00:39:05Now, the only difference, or the main difference between them,

00:39:08is that scholars came from public schools

00:39:12and glomerals came from grammar schools.

00:39:16Scholars and glomerals.

00:39:19So, it's a kind of Cambridge undergraduate,

00:39:25a grammar school undergraduate at Cambridge,

00:39:28fish jelly and twilight.

00:39:31Patrick.

00:39:32You could search a thousand salmon for a touch of greasy wax,

00:39:37I promise you.

00:39:38May I quote you on that?

00:39:43Folksy poetic, it kind of turns the stomach.

00:39:48But...

00:39:50There are...

00:39:54It's a...

00:39:58It's a fishy wax.

00:39:59The fishy wax, which you seem so scornful to begin with,

00:40:02that, Frank, you spoke of it.

00:40:04Now he tells you true or bluff.

00:40:06Well done, Frank.

00:40:14You're quite right, Patrick, that it wasn't there.

00:40:16You shouldn't have chosen it, because who's got the true one?

00:40:19Of course, yes.

00:40:20I have.

00:40:21You have!

00:40:22Thank you.

00:40:28It's a poor undergraduate at Cambridge coming from a grammar school.

00:40:32So, we have escrod next.

00:40:34And Patrick.

00:40:36Escrod was the curved shield

00:40:40that went around the front of a Roman chariot.

00:40:46In order to prevent the charioteer getting run over by Ben Hur,

00:40:52or pierced by a barbarian spear.

00:40:55Escrod.

00:40:57OK.

00:40:58Who comes next? Yes, Richard Bryars.

00:41:00Ah, escrod, yes.

00:41:01Well, it's something rather nasty, in a way, rather nasty.

00:41:03It's a disciplinary tribunal

00:41:05comprising the Knights of the Most Honourable Order of St John of Jerusalem.

00:41:09If you've gotten the wrong side of them, it could be very nasty.

00:41:13That's all right, you don't care to adorn it, no?

00:41:15Why should you? Straight from the shoulder.

00:41:17June, your turn.

00:41:18Escrod.

00:41:19Escrod.

00:41:20Escrod is very tasty, actually.

00:41:22It's a fishy dish.

00:41:24Another?

00:41:25Another fishy dish.

00:41:27It's very easily digested.

00:41:30It contains of one small cod,

00:41:34which has been freshly caught

00:41:36and very gently steamed.

00:41:38And it's really delicious.

00:41:41OK, well.

00:41:42It's a single, deliciously steamed cod.

00:41:45It's a shield in front of a chariot.

00:41:48It's a tribunal of the Knights of St John.

00:41:51Frank?

00:41:52Don't ask me.

00:42:00A majority vote, this one.

00:42:05Fish, hmm.

00:42:06Disciplinary committee, escrod.

00:42:08It sounds like it, doesn't it?

00:42:09There's another word, isn't there?

00:42:10It's similar.

00:42:11Yes, that's right, yes.

00:42:13Not that that helps or hinders, I hate to say.

00:42:15I'm being rused into thinking that it's that,

00:42:18because it's so like escrod.

00:42:20Chariot shield, noted bluff,

00:42:23but is it true this time?

00:42:28Oh, you what?

00:42:29No, we think it's the fish.

00:42:30We think it's the fish.

00:42:31You think it was the steamed cod

00:42:33of which June Bolton said,

00:42:34true or bluff, here she comes.

00:42:36She tells you nothing.

00:42:40Oh!

00:42:45That's a very bad unit of utility.

00:42:48My goodness, we can have another one

00:42:50if we're very, very quick.

00:42:52So the next one is congee.

00:42:54And Derek, very quickly.

00:42:55Congee is the water that rice has been boiled in.

00:42:58You can use it as starch or as a medicine.

00:43:01Lovely. Joanna?

00:43:02A congee is a Malayan engagement party

00:43:05where the bride and groom of an arranged marriage

00:43:07meet for the first time.

00:43:08Great.

00:43:09Frank?

00:43:10Eastern ladies' cosmetic.

00:43:13Just what one might have supposed.

00:43:15It's an Eastern ladies' cosmetic.

00:43:17It's a Malayan engagement party

00:43:19and it's water in which rice has been boiled.

00:43:22Yes, Richard, you have to make a choice.

00:43:24Oh, dear.

00:43:26Yes, have a little chat.

00:43:28You have a chat and I'll just stay here embarrassed.

00:43:31I rather fancy the congee.

00:43:32I'm not going to choose it.

00:43:34But congee is sort of Chinese, isn't it,

00:43:35with the rice and all that.

00:43:36Congee, congee, congee.

00:43:40You like that?

00:43:41You're the governor, I mean.

00:43:42No, you're in charge, yes.

00:43:44I'll have a go at the rice, sir.

00:43:45You'll have the rice, will you, with the rice water?

00:43:47Already.

00:43:49That was Derek Jacoby.

00:43:51Were you telling the truth?

00:43:52Couldn't be.

00:44:03But in a way that makes it worse

00:44:04because you've only lost by one.

00:44:07I mean, losing by two

00:44:08is kind of distinctive about that.

00:44:10Anyway, 5-4.

00:44:13It's quite clear that Frank's team has won.

00:44:24So we propose to recondition a few more words

00:44:26from the Oxford English Dictionary next week,

00:44:28if we are spared.

00:44:29Until then, goodbye from Derek Jacoby,

00:44:34Richard Browse,

00:44:37Joanna Lumley,

00:44:40June Bolton,

00:44:43Frank Bure,

00:44:45Patrick Campbell,

00:44:48and goodbye.

00:45:10APPLAUSE

00:45:25Good evening again.

00:45:26Call my bluff.

00:45:27We're the highest point for miles around.

00:45:29It's Patrick Campbell.

00:45:31APPLAUSE

00:45:34Good evening.

00:45:36My first guest, despite her name,

00:45:40well, she's born in South America.

00:45:43She's lovely June Bolton.

00:45:45APPLAUSE

00:45:52My other lovely guest, despite his name,

00:45:54he's born within 100 yards of Wimbledon railway station

00:45:57or Underground station, Richard Browse.

00:45:59APPLAUSE

00:46:06And peeping over the top of his bow tie, Frank Bure.

00:46:10APPLAUSE

00:46:17My team, as you may remember from last week,

00:46:20I have two actors.

00:46:21On my right, actress Joanna Lumley.

00:46:24APPLAUSE

00:46:30And the rest of the winning team is actor Derek Jacoby.

00:46:35APPLAUSE

00:46:40Let's put all those fine words to the test

00:46:42by ringing our little bell and getting colinderies.

00:46:46That's our first word.

00:46:47Patrick and co. define colinderies three different ways.

00:46:50Two of the definitions are false.

00:46:52One is true.

00:46:53That's the one that Frank and co. tried to pick out.

00:46:55So what about this word, Patrick?

00:46:57Well, colinderies was a...

00:47:00..kind of pet name or a kind of nonsense word.

00:47:05Invented in Fleet Street.

00:47:08And not for the first time either,

00:47:10as we lovely denizens of Street in Shame well know.

00:47:14But colinderies really was...

00:47:18If you recall the Colonial and Indian Exhibition,

00:47:22vaguely, 1887...

00:47:25LAUGHTER

00:47:27..the colinderies, an adroit kind of joining together

00:47:32of colonial and Indian.

00:47:35If you add on E-R-I-E-S at the end of it,

00:47:39like in magpieseries, you've got colinderies.

00:47:42LAUGHTER

00:47:44I bet that took a whole afternoon in Fleet Street to think out, didn't it?

00:47:48Oh, Lord, sloggy.

00:47:49Didn't seem to be about that long. Richard, your turn.

00:47:52A colinderie, in fact, was an old-time court

00:47:55that investigated things to do with shipwreck

00:47:58and strandings of vessels.

00:48:00And I don't believe they were altogether successful, actually,

00:48:03because they were dissolved in 1447.

00:48:05There you are, you see, learning something new every day.

00:48:08Scottish, really? Scottish.

00:48:10Scottish, yes.

00:48:12I'm making notes, you see. Scottish court.

00:48:14Right. You got them down, Frank? Good.

00:48:16Dissolved April the 4th.

00:48:18Colinderies, well, originally it was colinderie,

00:48:20which was a French word, so it's the word without an S,

00:48:23and it was anglicised by the English.

00:48:25But in both languages, the word is...

00:48:30..small items of personal and sentimental value,

00:48:33such as rings and locks of hair and lockets

00:48:36and lucky three-penny bits, etc.

00:48:39Colinderies.

00:48:41Well, I'm glad it was anglicised by the English,

00:48:43because it wouldn't have worked any other way.

00:48:46It's little, small, nice trinkets and things.

00:48:49It's a kind of a court, not very good court, not successful.

00:48:52And the Colonial and Indian Exhibition,

00:48:55a kind of little short word for it.

00:48:57Frank?

00:49:02Just... I didn't really hear the others.

00:49:05I was working out Paddy's.

00:49:07Colonial, Indian, then we get England,

00:49:11Romania, Ireland, England again and Scotland.

00:49:15D-E-R-I-E-S.

00:49:17Which game are you playing?

00:49:19It's fascinating, Frank.

00:49:21I've forgotten. It is, isn't it? It is.

00:49:23The Scottish courts dissolved in the 15th century.

00:49:26Small items, colinderies.

00:49:29I think it's Paddy's rubbish.

00:49:32The stuff about the Colonial and Indian...

00:49:35Yes, well, Patrick certainly said it.

00:49:38True or bluff?

00:49:43Can I have a little?

00:49:45APPLAUSE

00:49:48Thank you.

00:49:53It's just so unbelievable, I suppose it had to be true.

00:49:56It says 0-0, but shortly it'll say 1-0, I should think.

00:50:00Wake up, lads behind there. Anyway, it doesn't really matter.

00:50:03Scotch-a-neal. Oh, you've done it, good.

00:50:06Scotch-a-neal is the way I pronounce it,

00:50:09but what do you say, Frank?

00:50:11I've never said it before, actually.

00:50:14I should think Scotch-a-neal.

00:50:16Scotch-a-neal is...

00:50:19..is one of those vague serpents

00:50:23that early writers wrote about without actually identifying them.

00:50:27So, nowadays, one doesn't know quite what they are.

00:50:30But Scotch-a-neal was really quite fancied

00:50:33and Andrew Gilpin,

00:50:36the 17th century...

00:50:38I'm losing confidence in this. Do you want the rest of it?

00:50:41LAUGHTER

00:50:43He thought that the amazing coat of the Scotch-a-neal

00:50:47was so that people were so transfixed at looking at it

00:50:50that she could then sting them.

00:50:52Oh.

00:50:54What does it mean?

00:50:56I couldn't make out what you're saying.

00:50:58Silence, please.

00:51:00Silence so palpable you can feel it. Derek?

00:51:03Well, a Scotch-a-neal is the ornamental surround

00:51:09that goes round a keyhole or a doorknob.

00:51:13It's a fancy doorknob plate or keyhole plate,

00:51:16particularly a doorplate

00:51:19that incorporates within its design

00:51:22some heraldic motif or design or symbol,

00:51:26something related to a coat of arms.

00:51:28It's only found in very posh houses.

00:51:31OK, so now Joanna tells you what she says.

00:51:35Scotch-a-neal is a verb.

00:51:37I Scotch-a-neal.

00:51:39Thou Scotch-a-nealist.

00:51:41He Scotch-a-neals.

00:51:43Oh, would that she had not Scotch-a-nealed!

00:51:46The action of Scotch-a-nealing is to do with cooking.

00:51:49A cook Scotch-a-neals,

00:51:51and it means to colour a sauce or a junket or a custard

00:51:54with Cotch-a-neal.

00:51:56Oh, Lord!

00:51:58LAUGHTER

00:52:00It's a sort of fingerplate, that little round bit

00:52:03at the back of a doorknob.

00:52:05It's to colour a junket,

00:52:07and it's a sort of serpent, Patrick.

00:52:10Once we begin with a sort of vague serpent...

00:52:14Yes. I'm sorry.

00:52:16..those are things of vague serpent.

00:52:18Don't make me look a fool.

00:52:20LAUGHTER

00:52:24We're kind of partially full agreement here.

00:52:27We believe that if you've got a keyhole...

00:52:31LAUGHTER

00:52:34We believe it to be Derek's keyhole covering.

00:52:37You do think it is that.

00:52:39He did say it's something like that.

00:52:41Fingerplate, that kind of thing.

00:52:43You're looking far too happy.

00:52:45Doesn't look displeased, does he?

00:52:47Ah! APPLAUSE

00:52:54Nothing to do with anything he said.

00:52:56Something else entirely.

00:52:58Now it comes.

00:53:01No, it isn't!

00:53:03APPLAUSE

00:53:07That's so silly, isn't it?

00:53:09It's to colour stuff. Junket.

00:53:11Anything you like with cochineal.

00:53:13Poma is the next word.

00:53:15Richard Bryars to define.

00:53:17Yes, poma.

00:53:19It's actually the larvae of an American fruit moth.

00:53:23It's quite a large moth, it's got quite a lot of larvae.

00:53:26And the Cherokee Indians,

00:53:28this thing secretes this thing behind the barks of trees, you see.

00:53:33And the Indians are very shrewd people, no fools.

00:53:36They find this stuff, dig it out and they boil it in its own liquid.

00:53:41Whoa! Yes.

00:53:43And it looks a bit like rice pudding,

00:53:46and it tastes absolutely foul.

00:53:49LAUGHTER

00:53:51Is it for eating? Oh, yes.

00:53:53Eating purposes, yes, I believe so.

00:53:55June Bolton.

00:53:57I think it's poma.

00:53:59And what a poma is, it's a ritual dance

00:54:02danced in the Caribbean on a very beautiful island called Guadalupe.

00:54:07And what's unusual about the dance floor

00:54:10is that it's divided into go and no-go areas

00:54:13by patterns of seashells.

00:54:16And if you've ever danced barefoot on seashells,

00:54:19you would know why there are no-go areas.

00:54:22They probably get it from the Seashells Island.

00:54:25LAUGHTER

00:54:27I shall hurry on, Frank.

00:54:29To Patrick, please.

00:54:31The poma is the non-moving part of a monkey's brain.

00:54:36LAUGHTER

00:54:43It's the membrane that comes between

00:54:46the two of the lobes of the rear lobes of a monkey's brain.

00:54:53It doesn't quiver about.

00:54:56It's known to monkey brain surgeons as the occipital ophectomy.

00:55:02The non-moving part of a monkey's brain is called a poma.

00:55:06Thank you.

00:55:08LAUGHTER

00:55:10You mean the rest of it's moving all the time?

00:55:12Yes, yes.

00:55:14Doing all that thinking and everything.

00:55:16Well, it's that part of a monkey's brain,

00:55:18kind of a dance,

00:55:20and it's larvae out of which a peculiar Indian dish is prepared.

00:55:25Derek, your turn.

00:55:27Oh, dear.

00:55:30The dance sounds very attractive.

00:55:36Now, I don't think it's Richard. I don't think it's Richard.

00:55:39And you did it so well, Patrick.

00:55:43Well?

00:55:45Fairly well, I thought.

00:55:47No, I think... Yes, I think it's Patrick.

00:55:50You do, because I said it was the non-moving part of a monkey's brain.

00:55:54Well, OK, it could be. Show him love.

00:55:57The non-moving part of monkey's brains are not confined to your team.

00:56:02LAUGHTER

00:56:04APPLAUSE

00:56:07You threw it away, now.

00:56:09No, no, no.

00:56:11He threw it away.

00:56:13Don't give up yet, the game is young.

00:56:15Three-nil, however, but here comes another one.

00:56:18Securgeon, I suppose. Derek Jacoby.

00:56:21Well, Securgeon is the name given to a very old and very inferior variety of wheat,

00:56:28which was long ago supplanted by other heavier cropping varieties of wheat,

00:56:34such as Hobbit, Freedom, Champlain.

00:56:38It was always very hardy.

00:56:42I didn't know any things like that.

00:56:45It was always very hardy, but it was bound to be superseded,

00:56:48because even when it grew in the hottest and sunniest of summers,

00:56:52it grew very lean, very wrinkled and very scrawny.

00:56:57It's old wheat.

00:56:59Scrawny old wheat.

00:57:01Anybody we know.

00:57:03I thought we were going to carve a slide next.

00:57:06Joanna.

00:57:08A securgeon can be seen through a telescope at the front of a comet.

00:57:12Rather like headlights stretching out in front of a car in the dark,

00:57:15it's a sort of fan-shaped emanation which goes in front of the comet.

00:57:20In fact, if we were all to hang around until, I think it's 1986,

00:57:24when Halley's Comet's coming back again, we could all observe a securgeon.

00:57:29LAUGHTER

00:57:32It was getting in the morning.

00:57:34Now, Frank, you're on television.

00:57:37I have earache, and I'm 180 years old.

00:57:41That's true.

00:57:43LAUGHTER

00:57:45I didn't say I look 180 years old.

00:57:47In other words, it's pre-national health.

00:57:50So what do you do with an earache?

00:57:52You use a securgeon, which is a bit of lint, a bit of cotton wool,

00:57:58dipped in a mixture of laudanum camphor oil, warmed slightly,

00:58:04shoved in the lug hole, and retained, if necessary, with a bandage.

00:58:09That's what it is.

00:58:11It's a kind of ear plug, a medicament for the ear.

00:58:16Part of a comet, fan-shaped, evidently, and not very good wheat.

00:58:21Richard Bryars.

00:58:23Oh, must I?

00:58:25Oh, dear. Well, old wheat, the back end of a comet, and a medicated swab, I suppose.

00:58:32Yes, well, I mean, it's ridiculous, isn't it?

00:58:35Securgeon. I think I'll have a bash at the old wheat.

00:58:38The wheat? Now, it was Derek Jacobi who spoke of the wheat.

00:58:42True or bluff was that?

00:58:44Stunning.

00:58:46A winner.

00:58:48It is!

00:58:50APPLAUSE

00:58:56You two have acted together. Was that what put you on the...

00:58:59We have these signals, you see.

00:59:01Well, they are.

00:59:033-1, broke your duck.

00:59:05Eupyrium is the next word. June, your turn.

00:59:09Eupyrium is this pre-safety match fire-making device which was invented round about 1820.

00:59:16And what they had was a bottle filled with asbestos and sulphuric acid.

00:59:21And you took a piece of wood with, on one end, a bit of sulphur,

00:59:25and you put it in the bottle, and what you really got was a puff of flame.

00:59:28And if you weren't careful enough, you'd burn your eyebrows as well.

00:59:32Yep, yep, yep, yep.

00:59:34So it's that, and then Patrick tells us something now.

00:59:38Eupyrium is one of the... of the 12 houses.

00:59:42Do you know anything about astrology?

00:59:44Nothing at all.

00:59:46Well, just listen to me for a while, then you'll learn something.

00:59:50It's one of the 12 houses in which the astrologer divides the night sky.

00:59:56It's a good sign.

00:59:59It means the house of the good angel.

01:00:03If you're stuck into the Eupyrium bit,

01:00:07you're going to get some good news about a dark stranger,

01:00:13get a couple of blondes thrown in,

01:00:16and some money as well.

01:00:18It's a good sign in the night sky.

01:00:22Next.

01:00:24Richard, your turn.

01:00:26Yes, Eupyrium is an ill wind that blows across the north-east of Levant.

01:00:33A sort of dry, rather nasty wind, and it's quoted in the Old Testament.

01:00:37May I quote? It's rather nice.

01:00:38Do, do.

01:00:39It doesn't take long. I never hang about.

01:00:41And it says in the Bible,

01:00:43And he shall be as a hiding place from the wind that is called Eupyrium.

01:00:48Isaiah 18, verse 21.

01:00:54So it's an astrological division.

01:00:57It's a kind of a wind, and it's an early form of match.

01:01:01Joanna Lumley to choose.

01:01:03Well, Patrick, I'm quite keen on astrology,

01:01:09as you were talking about Halley's Comets, things like this.

01:01:12I mean, I just know these sort of things.

01:01:14I don't remember hearing of the House of the Good Angel.

01:01:17That sounds like the Chinese year of the yin dog or something.

01:01:20I don't know. Wrong.

01:01:21I don't believe that.

01:01:22I don't believe that Isaiah talked about a wind called Eupyrium.

01:01:27Why not?

01:01:28I don't know. I don't remember it.

01:01:31It's very difficult to believe.

01:01:33But I believe June, with her asbestos wadding and burning her eyebrows off.

01:01:38You think that that was right?

01:01:39Yes.

01:01:40It's a kind of a match. June, true or bluff?

01:01:43Oh, dear, I've made a mistake here. Oh, dear.

01:01:46No, you haven't.

01:01:47Oh!

01:01:48Well done.

01:01:49APPLAUSE

01:01:56An early form of match, that's what it was.

01:01:59Fitcher is our next word.

01:02:01Joanna Lumley.

01:02:02A Fitcher is Port of London slang for a supernumerary customs officer.

01:02:08In fact, somebody they drag in when it's a bit crowded at the docks

01:02:12and they need somebody else to help.

01:02:14It's not a very... It's not a popular word

01:02:16because it comes from not a very popular verb.

01:02:19It comes from... Fitcher comes from the verb to fitch,

01:02:22which means to purloin or take, in Cockney,

01:02:27or to knock off.

01:02:32Right, so, Frank Bjorn now.

01:02:35A Fitcher is to animals what a police pound is to motorcars.

01:02:43In other words, it's an enclosure in which animals

01:02:47which are loose or badly parked...

01:02:51LAUGHTER

01:02:53..were rounded up by the authorities

01:02:55and held within an enclosure until the owners claim them.

01:03:03Pardon?

01:03:04Badly parked animals.

01:03:06Well, so, after Frank, Derek Jacoby.

01:03:09Speak.

01:03:10A Fitcher was a verb occasionally used

01:03:14by a frustrated Cornish tin miner.

01:03:18It meant to be, when digging, to be balked or blocked

01:03:23by a lump of granite or stone.

01:03:26And when a frustrated Cornish tin miner was so impeded,

01:03:31it would often be heard to utter the words,

01:03:34Well, I'm Fitchered!

01:03:37LAUGHTER

01:03:39That's a better accent than that.

01:03:42That certainly rings true.

01:03:45An impediment to digging, it's a pound for animals

01:03:49and it's a junior custom, a supernumerary customs officer.

01:03:53Ju, you pick.

01:03:55Well, Derek was so happy that I don't believe that's the true meaning at all.

01:04:00Pardon, Paul Dark, that's what he was.

01:04:02LAUGHTER

01:04:06As for Joanna, the slang, no, I don't believe that either.

01:04:10But I'll go for Frank's definition. That's the true one.

01:04:14He said it was a pound, didn't he, for animals.

01:04:17It were done again. Not a pound, it's not a ten-pee-pee.

01:04:20APPLAUSE

01:04:22I thought you were turning on me now.

01:04:25No, it's not that. Let us have the true definition.

01:04:29Please tell us.

01:04:34APPLAUSE

01:04:40Bit of stone stuck in the ground stops you digging.

01:04:43Then, now, 5-1, my goodness.

01:04:46Rudget is the next one. Patrick.

01:04:50It's an awful bit of a building, is a rudget.

01:04:54It's a boring bit of a building.

01:04:57I mean, windows aren't too bad, kind of up-and-down windows,

01:05:00you can see through them, but what about dormer windows?

01:05:03Ah.

01:05:05You could bash your head in the roof and all that, go missing out.

01:05:08You've got to cover the top of the dorm window, don't you?

01:05:11You want a rudget.

01:05:13But not just one, but two.

01:05:17And not rectangular rudgets, but triangular rudgets in order to cover.

01:05:22A dormer window.

01:05:26Hmm.

01:05:28Anyway, well, Richard, your turn.

01:05:30A rudget is, in fact, a shrimping net,

01:05:34but of a certain type.

01:05:36You used to use them quite a lot in Cardigan Bay.

01:05:38And they're not...

01:05:40Fishing for cardigans.

01:05:42It isn't a round, it's an oval one.

01:05:45It is so designed that you can use it fishing

01:05:48in a sort of scything movement through the water.

01:05:50Do you see anybody...

01:05:52LAUGHTER

01:05:53..anybody catching shrimps in a shrimping net in Cardigan Bay

01:05:56and they're going,

01:05:57that, they are actually, they are actually rudging.

01:05:59A rudget.

01:06:00LAUGHTER

01:06:04So, I think it's June Bolton's turn.

01:06:07A rudget.

01:06:08Those who know about horses would know what a rudget means.

01:06:11A rudget, in fact, is a leather strap

01:06:14that rests on the animal's spine,

01:06:17and the front end of the rudget

01:06:20is fastened to its collar,

01:06:23and the rear end is fastened to the loop that goes round the tail.

01:06:28Yeah, OK, there's not much more to say about that, if it's true.

01:06:31It's part of a horse's harness.

01:06:33A shrimping net, much in use in Cardigan Bay,

01:06:35and a species of extremely complicated roving.

01:06:38For very sincere people, I think,

01:06:40it would go to a lot of trouble.

01:06:42Frank, your turn.

01:06:44Not very horsey, myself.

01:06:46If it had been a strap going across a cat,

01:06:48or an Afghan hound, I would have known.

01:06:51We all know that.

01:06:53Um...

01:06:57Blears.

01:06:59You can't scythe with a shrimping net.

01:07:03Have you ever tried to push a shrimping net?

01:07:05A child's one, it takes all your energy.

01:07:07You couldn't possibly scythe...

01:07:08No, you need the rhythm, you've got the rhythm, you're all right.

01:07:11We think it's Paddy's door on the windows.

01:07:13I couldn't understand it.

01:07:15No, it was pretty complicated.

01:07:17Very complicated.

01:07:18Now we'll know whether he was just pulling our legs.

01:07:21And he was.

01:07:23Well done.

01:07:29Now we have the two-definition of rudget.

01:07:32What was it, but there you see.

01:07:37Most reliable member of our team.

01:07:39Part of a horse's harness is a rudget.

01:07:41And our next word is skig.

01:07:44Skig.

01:07:46Frank.

01:07:47Now, normally, if one takes snuff,

01:07:52one sticks great quantities up the snitch,

01:07:56if I may use a technical expression.

01:07:58Oh, you're doing it.

01:08:00But if you just go...

01:08:05That is a skig.

01:08:07We've had this before, haven't we?

01:08:09No, no, no, no.

01:08:11Skig is a soup sort.

01:08:13It's just a little of anything.

01:08:15It could be...

01:08:16James Bridey mentioned that he stifled the skig of a sneeze.

01:08:24A tiny little morsel of anything.

01:08:26I don't need it.

01:08:28You didn't use the handkerchief, Frank, that time.

01:08:30Still, a skig...

01:08:32I've lost it.

01:08:34Oh, I didn't mean to draw attention to that.

01:08:36Look, Derek, you'd better get on very quickly.

01:08:38A skig is a small, low stool,

01:08:42usually with three legs.

01:08:45And at milking time, in the Isle of Wight,

01:08:49its function is to bear the buttocks of a very dainty milkmaid.

01:08:54It is a local name in the Isle of Wight

01:08:56for a very ordinary milking stool.

01:08:58Filthy.

01:09:01So, now, Joanna, it's your turn.

01:09:04Skig, an adjective,

01:09:06means squeamish or over-easily nauseated.

01:09:11A certain rather precious celebrity...

01:09:14This is a story. Sorry, Breas, I've got to tell it.

01:09:17A rather precious celebrity...

01:09:19..was once described as turning his head away...

01:09:24..sick with disgust every time he saw an egg being boiled.

01:09:29Now, I think he could have been described as skig.

01:09:33Really?

01:09:35Yes.

01:09:36Well, it's a milking stool in the Isle of Wight,

01:09:38which makes a change from Norfolk.

01:09:40It's a trace or a little hint or that kind of thing.

01:09:44And it means squeamish.

01:09:46And Patrick's choice.

01:09:49There are no large...

01:09:52..large-buttocked dairy maids left in the Isle of Wight.

01:09:58They're all working in Birmingham.

01:10:02So that's out.

01:10:06For the squeamish nonsense, it's a little thing like a pinch of snuff.

01:10:10It has to be after all that agonising acting.

01:10:14You think you're due a reward for all that.

01:10:16I think so. You're suffering a lot.

01:10:18I know what you mean, Patrick.

01:10:20Now, so, Frank, you said it. Tour bluff.

01:10:25It's a bluff.

01:10:27APPLAUSE

01:10:32No, he was just doing that acting for free.

01:10:34There was nothing at the end of it.

01:10:36Who gave the true definition of skigg?

01:10:38Yes, yes!

01:10:40Yes, indeed.

01:10:42APPLAUSE

01:10:46Indeed, skigg means squeamish.

01:10:51Now, we have axical.

01:10:53That's quite a nice word, and Richard Bryers defines it.

01:10:56Axical, quite simply...

01:10:58Yeah, rather surprising.

01:11:01If you go up to your...

01:11:03If you have a top room and you have leaks, water coming through,

01:11:07you are a little light on the axicals.

01:11:10LAUGHTER

01:11:12I don't know how I tuned you.

01:11:14But it's true.

01:11:16So you have to go out and get... An axical, in fact, is a roof tile.

01:11:19That's what you need, three or four axicals.

01:11:21Right, enough. Special sort of roof tiles.

01:11:23Now, June, your turn.

01:11:25Axical is a long garment.

01:11:28It's made of very heavy linen,

01:11:31and it's worn by novice priests of the Greek Orthodox Church.

01:11:36It's as simple as that. That's axical.

01:11:38As simple as that, eh?

01:11:40Well, well, Patrick's turn now. He tells us.

01:11:43You know where a kangaroo carries a little baby around in?

01:11:48You know about that?

01:11:50The little pouch...

01:11:52An axical...

01:11:54This occurs in a mummy iceberg.

01:11:58LAUGHTER

01:12:01It jumps in and out.

01:12:03Wait a minute. Who's doing this? You and me as usual.

01:12:06You get a huge iceberg with a little kind of pimple off the side of it,

01:12:09underwater.

01:12:11This is called an axical.

01:12:13A little baby iceberg.

01:12:15LAUGHTER

01:12:18An axical about to happen.

01:12:21Well, it's a cassock.

01:12:23It's a sort of... A special sort of roof tile, I think.

01:12:26And a special sort of iceberg, a kind of baby iceberg

01:12:29that's somehow attached to a larger iceberg.

01:12:32Derek Jacobi, to choose.

01:12:34Um...

01:12:36Well, I don't think it's a roof tile.

01:12:39No, I'm rather short on the axicals and all that.

01:12:42LAUGHTER

01:12:44And I don't think it's a Greek Orthodox garment.

01:12:47I think it's a baby iceberg.

01:12:49Small iceberg, you think. Well, Patrick was rather convincing.

01:12:52True or bluff, Patrick?

01:12:54A little bit of a muddle here, I'm sorry.

01:12:57APPLAUSE

01:13:04It came out all right.

01:13:06It's not a little tiny weenie baby thingy.

01:13:09It's an axical.

01:13:11Now we have to learn, we really have to learn,

01:13:13who gave the true definition.

01:13:15If you don't know who it is by this time...

01:13:18LAUGHTER

01:13:20Oh, well done.

01:13:22APPLAUSE

01:13:27An axical is exactly what...

01:13:29It's about round, moving monkeys' minds.

01:13:32It is one of those slates, a special sort of slate.

01:13:36So, the score's standing at 3-6, you know, quite a distinct win.

01:13:40On this occasion, to Frank Burenco.

01:13:43APPLAUSE

01:13:52Hysterical relief, it's all over on the other side.

01:13:55Anyway, we'll recycle a few more oldies next week.

01:13:59Until then, goodbye from Richard Bryars.

01:14:02APPLAUSE

01:14:05Derek Jacoby.

01:14:09June Bolton.

01:14:13Joanna Lumley.

01:14:17Patrick Campbell.

01:14:20Thank you.

01:14:25And goodbye.

01:14:27APPLAUSE

01:14:50APPLAUSE

01:14:57Hello, it's Call My Bluff,

01:14:59starring the rector of St Andrew's University,

01:15:02though, of course, we call him College Harry.

01:15:05It's Frank Muir.

01:15:07APPLAUSE

01:15:10Good evening.

01:15:12Good evening, both my guests are new to the programme, which is nice,

01:15:16and my first is an actress,

01:15:18whom, as you would guess from her name,

01:15:21comes from Germany.

01:15:23It's Suzanne Roquette.

01:15:25APPLAUSE

01:15:32My second comes from Scotland.

01:15:34It's a journalist in print and on the screen,

01:15:37from Pebble Mill at One, Donny MacLeod.

01:15:40APPLAUSE

01:15:44And the original racing pigeon,

01:15:46Patrick Campbell.

01:15:48APPLAUSE

01:15:51Good evening.

01:15:53APPLAUSE

01:15:55All my guests are always so well-known and so beautiful,

01:15:59they need no word from me.

01:16:01LAUGHTER

01:16:03The first one is beautiful little Angela Rees.

01:16:07APPLAUSE

01:16:10And the other one is long, lovely, tall Christopher Cazenot.

01:16:14APPLAUSE

01:16:20Now, time-honoured method of obtaining a word,

01:16:23ring this old bell.

01:16:25And you get two for the price of one there.

01:16:27Oh, no.

01:16:29Highty-tighty is the way I propose to pronounce it.

01:16:33And Frank Muir and his team will define

01:16:36Highty-tighty three different ways.

01:16:38Two of them are false, one's true.

01:16:40That's the one, of course, the opposition try and guess,

01:16:43or rather deduce.

01:16:44So, highty-tighty, Frank.

01:16:46I'll keep to your pronunciation, Robert.

01:16:49Highty-tighty is a Victorian nursery game

01:16:54to amuse a small child.

01:16:57A grown-up, like you and me, or me,

01:17:02would hide in a cupboard.

01:17:04It's got a peek-a-boo game, you hide in a cupboard,

01:17:07and when the Moppet walks unsuspectingly past,

01:17:11you spring out going,

01:17:13HIGHTY-TIGHTY!

01:17:15LAUGHTER

01:17:17Thus planting in the child the seeds of nervous disorder.

01:17:20LAUGHTER

01:17:22Why?

01:17:23But that is...

01:17:25Next bit.

01:17:27Well, it would upset them.

01:17:29Well, it would upset them, you see, that was the point.

01:17:32Donny MacLeod, your turn.

01:17:34Well, picture the scene. Out on a lone prairie,

01:17:36a cowboy at the end of his long day of riding herd on doggies

01:17:40starts to think about the girl he left behind him,

01:17:43or even, perhaps, such being the scarcity of women in the Wild West,

01:17:46he'll begin to think of the poster he saw in Judge Roy Bean's saloon

01:17:50of Lily Langtry,

01:17:52and the shape that would spring into his mind would be a shape like that.

01:17:55And the reason Lily Langtry and many ladies of her time

01:17:58were that shape was because of this, a HIGHTY-TIGHTY.

01:18:02Now, HIGHTY-TIGHTY later became known as a cincher,

01:18:05and it was a type of broad belt worn around the waist

01:18:08to give the ladies that very desirable hourglass figure.

01:18:11HIGHTY-TIGHTY.

01:18:13Good lord, of course it is.

01:18:15So, now, Suzanne Rockett.

01:18:18There's a difference between HIGHTY-TIGHTY and HIGHTY-TOIGHTY.

01:18:23HIGHTY-TOIGHTY is a sort of sniffy haughtiness,

01:18:27and HIGHTY-TOIGHTY means sort of aloof, withdrawn.

01:18:34Withdrawn?

01:18:36Withdrawn.

01:18:38So, then, it's a broad belt.

01:18:41It's something that means aloof or distant,

01:18:45and it's a child's game.

01:18:47And Patrick chooses.

01:18:50Well, I don't believe there's such a scarcity of women in the West.

01:18:57There are two or three there, really.

01:19:00In large lumps of blubber.

01:19:03Is Victorian...

01:19:07She said what?

01:19:09She said aloof or withdrawn or distant, or, you know, like that.

01:19:13I think, to my incredulous amazement,

01:19:17it's aloof or withdrawn.

01:19:20Now, that was Suzanne who said that.

01:19:23Is that true or bluff?

01:19:25It's a bluff, isn't it?

01:19:27Oh!

01:19:33Need to know what the real meaning of HIGHTY-TIGHTY is.

01:19:37It's in your corset.

01:19:39HIGHTY-TOIGHTY!

01:19:46It really is a child's game, and you leap out like that,

01:19:50and never caught on, I think.

01:19:52Anyway, STREAKER.

01:19:54No, it's... Well, who knows? I mustn't say no, because...

01:19:58I just announced the word STREAKER is enough for me to say,

01:20:01and then to say, Patrick, define it.

01:20:04It is not an occasion for vulgar laughter.

01:20:07A STREAKER is a hand or a kind of facsimile

01:20:12of a human hand, either male or female,

01:20:16but it's made of wood.

01:20:18A STREAKER is used when you've...

01:20:22You've made a glove, kind of rough...

01:20:24Well, kind of glove, really, with fingers on it,

01:20:27and found it in the back.

01:20:29When you pull it over the STREAKER,

01:20:31after you've dyed it so it dries in the right shape,

01:20:34it's called a STREAKER.

01:20:36Right, now it's Christopher Casanova's go.

01:20:40Well, in 1764, there was patented in London

01:20:44a pendulum clock with a STREAKER REMONTOIR,

01:20:50or compensating mechanism.

01:20:52A STREAKER is an eccentric wheel,

01:20:55which was, of course, invented by a gentleman called STREAKER,

01:20:58and it equalised the varying forces

01:21:01exerted by the swing of the pendulum.

01:21:06Yes, and now it's Angharad, your turn.

01:21:11Well, there was a time, and not so very long ago,

01:21:15when every English village had its resident STREAKER.

01:21:18And, indeed...

01:21:20Indeed, it was not unknown for the Vicar's wife

01:21:24to pop out of the vicarage

01:21:26and indulge herself in a little bit of streaking.

01:21:29Therefore, a STREAKER is someone who STREAKS,

01:21:33i.e., who lays out a dead body.

01:21:38Ah!

01:21:43Mention a dead body, and the audience bursts into hysterical applause.

01:21:47Anyway, it's a glove block for shaping a glove on.

01:21:51It's one who lays out corpses,

01:21:54and it's a sort of compensating mechanism,

01:21:57an eccentric wheel in a clock.

01:22:00Frank, your turn.

01:22:02Fascinating, thank you so much.

01:22:04It isn't often I compliment you, but they were fairly well done,

01:22:07all three of them.

01:22:09The... I don't think you have eccentric wheels

01:22:13to counterbalance pendulae in clocks.

01:22:16The effects of the pendulae.

01:22:18Yes, no, I don't think you do that.

01:22:20You have things that go up and down to counterbalance stretching,

01:22:24but I don't think you have...

01:22:26So, that's not it. No, right, off.

01:22:28That's that one out.

01:22:30Stretching a glove or stretching a dead body?

01:22:33LAUGHTER

01:22:36I think we'd rather that it be the dead body.

01:22:40Cos Angharad's so pretty.

01:22:42Well, yes. That was Angharad, you said that.

01:22:45True or bluff now?

01:22:47He's prettier than Paddy. Much, much prettier.

01:22:50Got it.

01:22:52APPLAUSE

01:22:59Stryker is an old-fashioned name for one who lays out a corpse.

01:23:042-0, we have trispast.

01:23:07And it's Donny MacLeod, your turn.

01:23:09Trispast is the word.

01:23:11And whenever I see or hear this word, I think of the sound of battle,

01:23:15the grunting and groaning and the heave-ho

01:23:18and even up she rises a little bit,

01:23:20because this word was used to define the apparatus

01:23:24which was used to hoist particularly fat old knights,

01:23:28dressed in full armour, onto the back of their horses

01:23:31before they galloped off against the enemy.

01:23:33It was a system of pulleys, three in all,

01:23:35and people would heave and grunt and lift the knight onto the back of the horse

01:23:38using a trispast.

01:23:41So, now, Suzanne.

01:23:44Trispast is a species of water beetle.

01:23:47It has sort of a greyish hue and a turned-up nose.

01:23:52And you find it...

01:23:54Yes, yes, you find it in brackish waters.

01:23:58It has a strange habit, too.

01:24:00It swims on the back, one believes.

01:24:04It tries to avoid the enemies, which are the birds,

01:24:11to catch him so it can see them better.

01:24:14Swimming with a turned-up nose on his back, he's going to get drowned, isn't he?

01:24:19He won't paddle along with a beetle doing a backstroke.

01:24:23It's interesting. Frank, your turn.

01:24:25The turned-up nose.

01:24:28We're in ancient Greece, on the beach,

01:24:31and there are your ancient Grecian fishermen,

01:24:34cross-legged, with their nets.

01:24:36THEY SING

01:24:42Yes, yes.

01:24:44It's a singing...

01:24:46Singing rather long, three-part harmony song.

01:24:50They divide themselves up into basses, tenors and countertenors,

01:24:54and this song they sang as they mended their ancient Greek nets

01:24:59was called...

01:25:01Trispest.

01:25:05Well, they say this.

01:25:07They say that it's a hoist for lifting things,

01:25:09and knights in particular, onto their horses.

01:25:12It's a Greek song, and it's a water beetle that swims on its back.

01:25:16So Christopher Cazeneau has the choice.

01:25:20Well...

01:25:22Start dismissing Suzanne.

01:25:24This beetle obviously had its upturned nose because of the brackish water,

01:25:28but not trying to avoid the stench.

01:25:31I told you that was a silly one to do.

01:25:33Not convincing, we don't think.

01:25:36And a Greek fisherman's song was so involved

01:25:39that it could be one of those double bluffs,

01:25:42but we'd rather go for the hoisting of the knight, really, Donny.

01:25:46It was Donny MacLeod who said that, wasn't it?

01:25:49Don't tell us what he has to do, true or bluffs.

01:25:51Here he comes now.

01:25:53It's another baff, isn't it?

01:25:55Got it!

01:26:04Trispast, or tricepast, is what he said it was.

01:26:07Hoists things up, and knights in particular.

01:26:10Gibby is the next word, and Christopher, it's your turn.

01:26:15A gibby was Australian vernacular

01:26:18for the now-extinct Threepenny piece.

01:26:22The derivation of the word gibby is a little obscure,

01:26:26but it's said that the koala bear on one side of the coin

01:26:31bore a very strong resemblance to a Mr Gibbins,

01:26:35who was a former Australian finance minister.

01:26:38Interesting theory.

01:26:40Yes, who comes next?

01:26:42Yes, it's some anger at your go.

01:26:44Rubbish, but interesting.

01:26:46Well, a gibby is a straight branch of a tree

01:26:50which is just the right length and thickness

01:26:53to make a walking stick out of.

01:26:55And incidentally, those barley sugar walking stick-shaped rocks

01:27:00are often called gibby sticks.

01:27:04Yes, yes. Nice and straightforward.

01:27:07Patrick, your turn.

01:27:09A gibby is old pugilistic slang for a boxer's attendant,

01:27:14or as they are now known, a boxer's second.

01:27:20The first female gibby and the first female woman's libber.

01:27:25They're getting rarer and rarer.

01:27:28Was she not the wife, Marie, of Jim Belcher,

01:27:32that well-known bare-fisted fighter?

01:27:36And she was Jim's gibby for the whole of his career

01:27:40and she could take him over five rounds

01:27:44after he finishes his night's work.

01:27:53It's a boxer's second.

01:27:56It's a stick on a tree that can be made easily into a walking stick

01:28:00and it's a thrifty bit from Australia.

01:28:03Donny, your pick.

01:28:05Well, Patrick Campbell's pugilistic lady,

01:28:09I dismiss out of hand.

01:28:11Sorry, Patrick, but I quite believe

01:28:13that she couldn't have taken Mr Belcher over five rounds.

01:28:16The walking stick has an attractiveness about it

01:28:19and I'm a bit worried about the word gibby and gibber

01:28:23and gibber used by...

01:28:25But I think I'm going to plump for the Antipodean Threepenny piece.

01:28:30He's plumped, he's plumped, I'm delighted,

01:28:32we haven't had a plump for a long time.

01:28:34What we need is to know whether Christopher Casano was telling the truth

01:28:37or was it a bit blunt.

01:28:39You missed it, there's no...

01:28:46No, it wasn't Ant.

01:28:48Here comes the true definition, one of them's got it,

01:28:50they must have unless they've lost it.

01:28:52Yes, of course it's dead.

01:28:54Thank you.

01:28:58It's a bit of twig that you cut off

01:29:00and it can easily be moulded into a walking stick.

01:29:03Drawley is the next word, Suzanne, your turn.

01:29:06Drawley is a Scottish funeral feast.

01:29:10Unlike the Irish funeral feast of rakes,

01:29:13where they have the baths open all the way through,

01:29:16the Scottish one has a sort of sober collation of cold meats

01:29:23and piper's lament and recital of the old Handel's psalm,

01:29:29psalm, you call it.

01:29:32That fits in, yes, it certainly does.

01:29:34Frank, your turn.

01:29:36In the reign of Queen Elizabeth I,

01:29:41there was an Act of Parliament or an Ordinance or something

01:29:45which proclaimed that any piece of cloth

01:29:49which was found to be persy, drawley, bandy, cockley or ruey...

01:29:58Spell it.

01:30:00IT.

01:30:02..was confiscate.

01:30:05I don't know what the others mean, but drawley means cloth liable to fray.

01:30:10Right, Donny MacLeod's go.

01:30:13Very straightforward word, this, drawley.

01:30:15It has two connotations, one is physical,

01:30:18and that is that you speak through the nose in a drawling manner.

01:30:22The second is, I suppose, more metaphysical

01:30:25and that it's used usually in a derogatory frame

01:30:28for members of the upper class who, being rather thick,

01:30:33not all of them, obviously, but some of them being rather thick,

01:30:36to give themselves a chance to think of what they're next going to say,

01:30:40adopt this drawley way of speech.

01:30:44Well, it's a Scots funeral feast, they say.

01:30:47It used to be fraying cloth

01:30:50and it is a drawling manner of speech, of utterance.

01:30:54Anger at your go.

01:30:56Can I confer with you, please?

01:30:58Go ahead.

01:31:00I need advice.

01:31:02Blue heaven and you...

01:31:05LAUGHTER

01:31:07..stars kissing in the moon...

01:31:10Well, I'll start from backwards, sort of.

01:31:14I don't think it's Donny's, because a drawl means something else.

01:31:18I think that's a bluff.

01:31:21It's sort of a different kind of speech. Aren't I right, Tim?

01:31:24Yes.

01:31:28The fraying cloth was very, very good,

01:31:33but I'm not sure about that.

01:31:35I'm going to plumb, if that's the word,

01:31:38for... Choose, rather than plumb.

01:31:40Choose. Plumb.

01:31:42The Scottish feast.

01:31:44Well, that's the second plumb in one programme I'm keeping score.

01:31:47That was Susan. True or bluff?

01:31:49Oh!

01:31:55What possibly could drawley mean?

01:31:58Let us hear the true definition.

01:32:00I'm awfully sorry.

01:32:03Oh!

01:32:07Drawley means drawley.

01:32:09That's what it means.

01:32:11And lamington, or possibly lamington, is the next one.

01:32:15And it's Anger at Recy's turn to define.

01:32:18If you were a young lady about to go for a ride on Rodden Road

01:32:22for the first time, it's quite likely that your groom

01:32:25would have fixed onto your horse a lamington.

01:32:29A lamington is a restrictive bridle

01:32:32that stops the horse from tossing

01:32:36and trying to throw you off and that sort of thing.

01:32:39OK. Yeah.

01:32:41Well, they'd have to have something like that sooner or later.

01:32:44Patrick Campbell's go now.

01:32:47A lamington is a small, shallow dish

01:32:50named after Joseph, Joseph Lamington,

01:32:54who was a glassmaker.

01:32:57The interesting thing about lamingtons, and about Joseph Lamington,

01:33:01is that...

01:33:03Well, he probably used them for kind of butter dishes,

01:33:06or people that bought them used them for butter dishes,

01:33:09even jam dishes,

01:33:11but it's quite possible that Sir Alexander,

01:33:14who invented penicillin...

01:33:16Who invented penicillin? Pardon me.

01:33:18LAUGHTER

01:33:20Whom invented...

01:33:23Whom invented penicillin,

01:33:25also used a little dish called a lamington.

01:33:29Very interesting. Johnny Good.

01:33:31Lamington spa.

01:33:33How's it go?

01:33:35Well, a lamington is a tea-time delicacy

01:33:39normally eaten with little finger...

01:33:42I can't really do it extended, anyway.

01:33:44..by the higher echelons,

01:33:46the ladies in the higher echelons of Australian society.

01:33:49It's in fact a little square of sponge cake

01:33:52dipped in hot chocolate sauce

01:33:54and liberally coated with desiccated coconut.

01:34:00Bleurgh!

01:34:02Sounds fairly Australian, I must say.

01:34:04It's a chocolate-covered sponge cake with coconut and everything else on it.

01:34:08It's a shallow little dish

01:34:10and it's a special sort of bridle to keep the horse in check

01:34:13if you want a quiet ride.

01:34:15Suzanne, your turn to pick.

01:34:18I don't think that funny sort of food...

01:34:25..is my sort of taste, and it can't be right.

01:34:28It doesn't sound like it.

01:34:30The horse thing, I'm not sure.

01:34:33Where on the horse would that be?

01:34:35The bridle. The bridle.

01:34:39No, I think there are other parts.

01:34:42LAUGHTER

01:34:45I'd go for the... Is it out of glass, the little dish?

01:34:48The little dish of which Patrick gave us some.

01:34:50Yes, that's what I'd go for.

01:34:52I'm sure there's more to tell us about that dish,

01:34:54but true or bluff, Patrick?

01:34:56I have said enough.

01:34:58APPLAUSE

01:35:04So, a lamington really is this.

01:35:07Now, own up time.

01:35:09It's there.

01:35:11Yes!

01:35:13APPLAUSE

01:35:17A special Australian cake, that's what it is.

01:35:20Three all, how exciting.

01:35:22Squoil is the next one.

01:35:24Frank, define it, if you will.

01:35:26If you're in Norfolk...

01:35:29..and you see a chap with a bald patch...

01:35:33..amidst his hair, they say,

01:35:36see what he's got on his head?

01:35:38He's got a bald patch.

01:35:40But if you go into a vegetable patch which is growing

01:35:44and there's a patch which isn't growing,

01:35:47it's a bit of bad land or something,

01:35:49that'd be a squoil.

01:35:51LAUGHTER

01:35:55Nothing to do with the bloke's head, after all.

01:35:59You were offering us a...

01:36:01A sort of literary allusion.

01:36:03You could stand on your head in the bald patch.

01:36:06Yes, I should have spoken.

01:36:08Are you finished?

01:36:10Yes, fill me in now.

01:36:12Donny, it's your turn now.

01:36:14This is one of these words which has a very strongly

01:36:17onomatopoeic flavour,

01:36:19because you can almost hear the sound of this.

01:36:22To squoil is to make a paste

01:36:25using a powder and a liquid.

01:36:27It can be flour and milk,

01:36:29or it can be in pharmacy for making ointment.

01:36:32It's not necessary to use a pestle and mortar.

01:36:35In fact, in cooking, there's a very charming couplet

01:36:38from a 17th-century cookbook which says,

01:36:40to mustard seed put sop of wine,

01:36:42then squoil it sound to ointment fine.

01:36:46Ha-ha-ha!

01:36:48LAUGHTER

01:36:52Now, Suzanne.

01:36:54A squoil is a short stick

01:36:57on which one end is lead.

01:37:03And you forest wildfowl,

01:37:05I use it as a sort of non-returnable boomerang.

01:37:10And he sees...

01:37:12LAUGHTER

01:37:14He sees a flying duck and swings his squoil

01:37:18to try to stun the bird in mid-air

01:37:22and bring it down with a crash to the ground.

01:37:26Well, it's an astonishingly useful weapon

01:37:29for throwing at low-flying ducks, it seems.

01:37:31It also means to mix things up into a paste

01:37:34and it means a bare patch in a vegetable plot.

01:37:37Patrick, your choice.

01:37:40Well, in full agreement here...

01:37:42I haven't consulted her, she goes, all right.

01:37:45You've got one right.

01:37:47Absurd patch, Steve,

01:37:49you can stand on your head in your bald patch or dig up a patch.

01:37:53Hopeless, miserable confusion there, Frank.

01:37:56All this...

01:37:58What am I doing? Just a minute.

01:38:00What did I mean?

01:38:04It's just paste.

01:38:06You don't call it a squoil, but on the other hand,

01:38:09if you've got a stick, or ein stick,

01:38:12there's some lead on the end of it,

01:38:14and you throw it at birds,

01:38:16it's a non-returnable boomerang, that's it.

01:38:20You're choosing that, are you, that deadly stick?

01:38:23Two up, Suzanne.

01:38:25Looking far too happy.

01:38:27You all right?

01:38:29Well, we're better.

01:38:35It'd be awfully skilful to hit anything with such a stick,

01:38:39but there, such it is.

01:38:41Durgan is our next one, and it's Patrick's go.

01:38:44In the animal kingdom...

01:38:46I mean, kingdom, not kingdom.

01:38:48The kingdom, I said it!

01:38:50Longitudinally speaking...

01:38:52That's that word?

01:38:54No.

01:38:56Either way.

01:38:58Longitudinally...

01:39:00Anyway, you would be longitudinally, and I too,

01:39:05a little bit different to a durgan.

01:39:09Because a durgan is a very small, kind of undersized animal.

01:39:14Like, perhaps, a chihuahua.

01:39:17Perhaps a Shetland pony.

01:39:19Or Ronnie Corbett.

01:39:22That's a durgan.

01:39:25Right, Christopher Cazeneau has a turn.

01:39:28In Scottish law, durgan is the term for any flotsam or jetsam

01:39:35of a dutiable nature,

01:39:38which means that if it's found,

01:39:40it should be immediately surrendered to the customs and excise,

01:39:43as, no doubt, your average Scotsman

01:39:45on finding a case of whisky on the seashore would hasten to do.

01:39:49Yep, right.

01:39:51Angharad, your turn.

01:39:53Well, a durgan is a Middle Eastern musical instrument.

01:39:58And it has a bulbous end to it,

01:40:01which produces a rather doleful sound.

01:40:05And it is traditionally used by the snake charmers.

01:40:10You know, that by playing the instrument,

01:40:13they make cobras come out of laundry baskets, that sort of thing.

01:40:18You could also throw it at it.

01:40:21Better out than in, that's what I say.

01:40:23Dutiable flotsam and jetsam thrown off on a beach, say.

01:40:27A kind of Middle Eastern musical instrument, does that to snakes.

01:40:30And someone or some animal rather on the small side.

01:40:34Frank?

01:40:37We're all in agreement here in the sense that we all differ.

01:40:43Let's say we have something in common.

01:40:45Now, I think we're pretty certain that it's not...

01:40:49..a Scottish term for flotsam and jetsam,

01:40:52which would really be too dreary, Christopher, if it's right.

01:40:56Might be right, but if so, very, very dreary.

01:40:59We don't like dreary things, so it can't be that.

01:41:01It's either the small... It can't be a small mammal, can it?

01:41:05Yes, it can. We say... I say it's a small mammal.

01:41:09You say it's a small mammal, yes.

01:41:11Or thing or man. Patrick, true or bluff?

01:41:13It's ridiculous.

01:41:15Without help for the first time, you are correct.

01:41:18APPLAUSE

01:41:24Now, we've got just nice time and we need it for all goodness' me

01:41:28on the edge of your seats, as I am.

01:41:30Donny MacLeod is now going to define fierce fairly briskly.

01:41:35Well, in Athenian times, in ancient Greece,

01:41:38when people didn't go down to the local wine shop to buy their wine,

01:41:42but made wine from the grapes they grew at home,

01:41:45a tax was levied upon them for that privilege, and that was a fierce.

01:41:50And now, Suzanne.

01:41:52Fierce was the name called by the medieval chess players,

01:41:57which is called nowadays the queen.

01:42:00Ah, the piece on the board that's called the queen. Right.

01:42:03Frank, your turn.

01:42:05Fierce, quite simply, is a nest, gathering, collection of caterpillars.

01:42:11LAUGHTER

01:42:15No, it's a little furry nest of caterpillars.

01:42:18It's what they used to call the queen on a chessboard many a long year ago,

01:42:22and it's a tax on if you make your own booze at home in certain circumstances.

01:42:27So, Christopher, your choice.

01:42:29£50,000 on it.

01:42:31I thought it was me.

01:42:33I didn't.

01:42:43You're out on your own.

01:42:45Flip a coin, my dear.

01:42:48Yes, well, tax on homemade wine, a Greek word...

01:42:54I'll reserve judgment on that one.

01:42:56Caterpillars doesn't really, Frank, sound...

01:42:59It's sweet, it's lovely, it's cuddly, but it's not real, I don't think.

01:43:03And again, the queen on the chessboard...

01:43:05I don't know, I'm going to...

01:43:09Barely time for it, lads, barely time.

01:43:12Has anyone got a three-sided coin?

01:43:17Contrary to what I said just now, I shall try the chess.

01:43:20The chess you choose, that was Suzanne to a bluff.

01:43:24Have they won? They have!

01:43:28APPLAUSE

01:43:34Lovely.

01:43:36Atheist is what they used to call, in those circumstances,

01:43:39which I've just for the moment forgotten,

01:43:41they used to call the queen on the chessboard.

01:43:43So, the score's standing at 5-4.

01:43:45Wasn't it an exciting finish?

01:43:47Oh, I've quite forgotten who... Ah, yes.

01:43:49Patrick Campbell, oh, so excited.

01:43:51Patrick Campbell's team has won!

01:43:53APPLAUSE

01:43:56Dear, my lovely queen.

01:43:59So, we shall have another gathering, another batch of seconds

01:44:03from the Oxford English Dictionary next week.

01:44:05Till then, goodbye from Donny MacLeod...

01:44:08APPLAUSE

01:44:10..Christopher Cazeneau...

01:44:12..Suzanne Laquette...

01:44:14..Anna-Louise...

01:44:16Thank you.

01:44:18Goodbye.

01:44:20..Patrick Campbell...

01:44:22..and goodbye.

01:44:26APPLAUSE

10.Call My Bluff S12E13, S12E14, S12E15 (1978) J. Lumley, D. Jacobi, R. Briers, A. Rees, C. Cazenove

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