17. Call My Bluff S13E15, S13E16, S13E17, S13E18 (1979) G. Drake, J. McKenzie, I. McKellen, P. Egan

5 months ago

S13 E15 Gabrielle Drake, Julia McKenzie, Ian McKellen, Patrick Lichfield.
S13 E16 Gabrielle Drake, Julia McKenzie, Ian McKellen, Patrick Lichfield.
S13 E17 Angela Rippon, Serena Sinclair, Peter Egan, Alan Garner
S13 E18 Angela Rippon, Serena Sinclair, Peter Egan, Alan Garner.
Host/Team captains: Robert Robinson, Frank Muir, Patrick Campbell.

Transcript

00:00:00APPLAUSE

00:00:16Hello.

00:00:18I'd like to welcome you to Call My Bluff.

00:00:21We're peering over the bowtie that looks like the dawn coming up over West Croydon.

00:00:26We have Frank Muir.

00:00:29APPLAUSE

00:00:35My first guest, we welcome back to the programme

00:00:38an actress who arrives hot from the Royal Exchange Theatre,

00:00:43Manchester, Gabrielle Drake.

00:00:45APPLAUSE

00:00:51My next guest is new to the programme and he's a photographer.

00:00:56It's the Earl of Lichfield, Patrick.

00:00:59APPLAUSE

00:01:05And the only eight-foot leprechaun in captivity, Patrick Campbell.

00:01:10APPLAUSE

00:01:16And my guest comes even hotter from the theatre,

00:01:20from Ten Times Table, Julia McKenzie.

00:01:24APPLAUSE

00:01:27And my other guest is the most distinguished actor,

00:01:32who's been Macbething like mad, Ian McKellen.

00:01:36APPLAUSE

00:01:39That's the hard part.

00:01:42Let's get a word now, because that's how the game begins, if I remember it well.

00:01:46Mommer is the first word, and as you may recall,

00:01:50Frank Muir and his team are going to define that first word,

00:01:53in this case, Mommer, three different ways.

00:01:56Two of them are false, one is true.

00:01:58That's the one that Patrick and co. try and pick out.

00:02:01So, Frank, Mommer.

00:02:03You are a New Zealand Maori.

00:02:08Yes, yes, you, imagine, just imagination.

00:02:12A long, long time ago, because a very, very ancient, distinguished race,

00:02:16and you're walking along the track,

00:02:20how are you to know where your territory ends

00:02:24and the next chap, your neighbour's, begins, you see?

00:02:27So what you do, somebody must have said countless years ago,

00:02:31stick a mummy on it, stick a mummy there, and we'll know.

00:02:35So they made a little pyramid out of animal bones or branches of tree.

00:02:40An old boot, they had an old boot there,

00:02:43but anything which was a demarcation between one Maori territory

00:02:47and its neighbour...

00:02:49Mommer.

00:02:51Oh, no, it wasn't. She done told me.

00:02:54One or two old boots here.

00:02:56No names, no pack drill.

00:02:58Patrick Litchfield, your turn.

00:03:00A mom is actually Japanese.

00:03:04And if you wanted to weigh something very precious in Japan,

00:03:08you'd weigh it by the mom.

00:03:10Now...

00:03:13A mom is equivalent to three and three quarter grams in English.

00:03:17And I think you'd be astounded to know that in 1868,

00:03:21the average daily weight of silver mined in Japan was 50,000 moms.

00:03:25How's that?

00:03:27That fits, it fits, it fits.

00:03:30Gabrielle Drake.

00:03:32Mom is a word from Leicestershire, and believe it or not,

00:03:36a mom is no more, no less than a simple breadcrumb.

00:03:40It's the old local word for a breadcrumb.

00:03:43And indeed, if you meet old ladies in Leicestershire today,

00:03:47they will talk about feeding the mommerings, the bread crusts,

00:03:51to the birds.

00:03:53Good Lord.

00:03:55Never know.

00:03:57So, it's a Maori boundary,

00:04:00it's a Japanese measure,

00:04:02and it's breadcrumbs in, I think you said Leicestershire, Gabrielle?

00:04:06That's right, yes.

00:04:08Does Patrick have a choice?

00:04:10We all know perfectly well that once West Norfolk is mentioned,

00:04:15or Persia, or Turkey...

00:04:19..it must be a bluff, or true.

00:04:22LAUGHTER

00:04:24This includes Leicestershire.

00:04:26Well, back to work, then.

00:04:28LAUGHTER

00:04:30It was nice thinking that, though.

00:04:32I don't...

00:04:34See, in the Japanese, I'm...

00:04:37There's no room for mommy in Japanese language, I'm nearly sure.

00:04:41Don't go away.

00:04:43All this drivel about Maoris marking out their boundaries,

00:04:46they know by instinct where their boundaries are,

00:04:49so I'll get rid of all of them, haven't I?

00:04:51That's adroit. Yes.

00:04:53No, I haven't done a crumb, it's a crumb.

00:04:55You can have that. Yeah.

00:04:57Leicestershire, I think you said, Gabrielle.

00:04:59True or bluff, the crumb?

00:05:03No, no.

00:05:05APPLAUSE

00:05:10Neither in Leicestershire nor anywhere else, I suspect.

00:05:13Who gave the true definition? Here it comes.

00:05:17All pretending.

00:05:19They're acting like that.

00:05:21APPLAUSE

00:05:27Japanese measure, Japanese measure.

00:05:29How could you have thought otherwise?

00:05:31Let's have another word.

00:05:33No, it's the next one, and Patrick will define it.

00:05:36A groomer...

00:05:39..is a railway executive...

00:05:42..who's in charge of an American railway marshalling yard.

00:05:48A bit of a responsible task, this,

00:05:50because he's got to be there

00:05:53with millions of trucks coming in and going out,

00:05:56but to get them into the society

00:05:58and not into the railway station itself.

00:06:01Even...

00:06:03..even through the buffet,

00:06:05the groomer... What are you talking about?

00:06:07..has got...

00:06:09The groomer's got to direct the trucks into the right sidings.

00:06:12He's a railway marshalling yard senior executive.

00:06:17As bungful of information as that.

00:06:19Now, Ian McKellen tells you.

00:06:21Groomer, think of haddock,

00:06:24and then think of a very large king-sized haddock,

00:06:27anything weighing over 18 pounds.

00:06:30And you'll have the definition of this Scottish word, groomer.

00:06:35In 1800... 1902,

00:06:38the trawler Princess Augusta

00:06:40left Oban and landed a groomer

00:06:43of 33 pounds 5 ounces.

00:06:46Great. That's so wonderful.

00:06:48That is as true as the fact that the word groomer

00:06:51is a large haddock.

00:06:53Large...

00:06:57Julia McKenzie's turn now.

00:06:59Well, a groomer was a Victorian invention.

00:07:03It actually brought mechanisation into the stable yard.

00:07:07It was a device with rotating brushes

00:07:10that were driven by electricity,

00:07:13which, of course, at that time was a marvel.

00:07:15And it, in fact, helped the groomer to groom.

00:07:24So, it was a mechanical grooming implement.

00:07:27It was a very big haddock,

00:07:29and it was an American Railwoman.

00:07:31Frank, your choice.

00:07:33I don't want a choice.

00:07:38I think...

00:07:40You know I have close connections to Scotland.

00:07:44You're going to get it, then. Yes.

00:07:46Well, I hope so, eventually.

00:07:48Because I think a large haddock in Scotland

00:07:51is called a large haddock.

00:07:53LAUGHTER

00:07:58I didn't understand the gentleman and the American doing this

00:08:04to pass railway trucks into the buffet.

00:08:09No gestures were made.

00:08:11Well, there might be any moment.

00:08:15I think it's this ridiculous thing of the whirring brushes

00:08:19being applied to horses' flanks.

00:08:21Mechanical groom, yes.

00:08:23Or grooming article or thing.

00:08:25That was, Julia, your suggestion.

00:08:28True or bluff?

00:08:33Oh, yes.

00:08:35APPLAUSE

00:08:40Very good.

00:08:42Apparently, they had these electric things

00:08:45for rubbing the horses down with once upon a time.

00:08:48Whistie is our next word.

00:08:50Patrick Litchfield's turn.

00:08:54If you came from Hampshire or Dorset,

00:08:56and I think, Patrick, that immediately makes you worry,

00:09:00and you were weak in substance and character,

00:09:04which, of course, you're not,

00:09:06but generally an insipid person,

00:09:09you could well be described as whistie.

00:09:12It's a Hampshire word

00:09:14for someone who is not particularly strong of character and so on.

00:09:19You can imagine John Arlott saying it about some cricketers, can't you?

00:09:22Yes.

00:09:23And if I come to think of something really whistie,

00:09:26I had a cup of British Railway's tea today on the way here,

00:09:29which I would have said was a whistie cup of tea,

00:09:32if you understand what I mean.

00:09:34Right enough.

00:09:35Gabrielle.

00:09:38Well, if you had to invent a name

00:09:42for someone who was mad about cricket,

00:09:46say John Arlott, you could call him crickety.

00:09:51Or about snooker, you could say snookery.

00:09:56Or ping-pong, ping-pongy.

00:10:00However, for someone who is besotted about whist,

00:10:04there is already a word, and that is whistie.

00:10:12Is there?

00:10:13Well, now, Frank.

00:10:15In Ireland, when they want to propel certain areas,

00:10:21very light rowing boats along,

00:10:24they use a whistie, two whisties, actually,

00:10:27otherwise they go round in circles.

00:10:31It's an Irish oar with a very thin blade.

00:10:38Now, the width of a whistie is only about three inches,

00:10:44and I don't know whether the theory of this narrow blade

00:10:48is to make it easier to work

00:10:51or whether it makes the boat more manoeuvrable,

00:10:54but it's a narrow Irish...

00:10:58..oar.

00:11:00Right.

00:11:01So it's this oar, narrow one, Irish, insipid, general adjective,

00:11:07and it's a sort of whist nut, one mad about whist.

00:11:13Ian McKellen.

00:11:15So, if one knew an insipid person who was mad about whist

00:11:21and had an Irish oar, it would be a whistie, whisties, whistie.

00:11:27That's well said, that's well said.

00:11:30Well, now, didn't Peter Cook have a character called Mr Whistie?

00:11:34Very nearly, Mr Whistie.

00:11:36What was he called? E-J-E-L. E-J-E-L Whistie.

00:11:39Whistie. Where does that get us quite?

00:11:41Well, he was an insipid person, wasn't he? True, true.

00:11:45And therefore that inclines me to think

00:11:47that Patrick might be telling the truth.

00:11:49I would think a thin Irish oar would be called a whispie oar.

00:11:53I think you're trying to mislead us in that way.

00:11:57Anyone mad about whistie would be just called,

00:12:00wouldn't they, mad about whistie?

00:12:02I think a whistie is an insipid person from Hampshire.

00:12:06Dorset or thereabouts, Hampshire, you did mention.

00:12:09That's Patrick Litchfield now, true or bluff?

00:12:14No.

00:12:21Not that, nothing to do with it.

00:12:23Who gave the true definition of whistie?

00:12:25Can you imagine who it'll be?

00:12:27It couldn't be you.

00:12:29You see!

00:12:35How cheeky can you get?

00:12:37A whistie person is one mad about whist...

00:12:40Oh, dear. Well, well.

00:12:423-0. Something will have to be done.

00:12:44Canasta, Ian McKellen.

00:12:46The object of this game isn't to get no points, is it?

00:12:49Unless you're going bizarre.

00:12:51Well, now...

00:12:53No, Robert, not canasta, nasta.

00:12:56You remember opponents to you, the 18th-century couplet,

00:13:01but nasta always, nasta is my song,

00:13:05in studious gloom or mid the assembly's throng.

00:13:09Not too well, no.

00:13:12Well, take my word for it that the 18th-century bard there

00:13:15is singing in praise of a highly flavoured brand

00:13:19of 18th-century tobacco.

00:13:23But nasta always, nasta is my song,

00:13:26in studious gloom or mid the assembly's throng.

00:13:32Good stuff, good stuff.

00:13:34Julia, what about you?

00:13:36Oh, I like to pronounce it canasta.

00:13:39It's a very famous medieval coloured glass.

00:13:43Canasta glass, or canasta glass,

00:13:46whichever part of the country you come from.

00:13:49You'll probably recognise it.

00:13:51It's that very beautiful blue and red hues, nearly transparent,

00:13:55and it's used a lot in stained-glass windows.

00:13:58Medicine bottles. Yes.

00:14:00Yes, of course, I meant to mention that it's named, of course,

00:14:03after the place of manufacture, which is a suburb in Leipzig.

00:14:07Canasta.

00:14:09OK, now Patrick tells you.

00:14:12In days of yore, no gentleman would be seen...

00:14:16..wearing a nasta.

00:14:18Because it was a pretty silly,

00:14:21kind of pudding-bowl-shaped...

00:14:24..helmet.

00:14:30And the purpose of the helmet...

00:14:33..was to protect the heads...

00:14:35..of serfs and other servants.

00:14:38It didn't bother in those days.

00:14:40Who was doing this, you or me?

00:14:44So therefore...

00:14:47I know what the score is.

00:14:50It's always 3-0.

00:14:52But that's what a nasta is,

00:14:54a medieval pudding-basin helmet,

00:14:57worn by serfs.

00:15:00OK, dim sort of a helmet,

00:15:03tobacco and coloured glass.

00:15:06Patrick Litchfield.

00:15:08I don't think that Patrick could have really got it right,

00:15:11because it couldn't possibly have been called nasta,

00:15:13as that's how you pronounced it.

00:15:15Why?

00:15:16Well, it's too close to nasty.

00:15:18Oh!

00:15:19Isn't it, really? I don't know.

00:15:21And I think that your glass is a bit smoky.

00:15:24I just have a feeling that...

00:15:26At least we all do, I think.

00:15:28Yes, yes, yes.

00:15:29So... In accord.

00:15:31Despite the fact that I never heard of what you were talking about to start with,

00:15:34and you pulled a lot of wool over our eyes there,

00:15:36I think we still might go for the tobacco.

00:15:38The tobacco, now, it was Julia, I think.

00:15:40No.

00:15:41Wasn't it?

00:15:42Got that slightly wrong, then. Ian.

00:15:44Ian and Jay, I'm confused.

00:15:46We haven't...

00:15:47You're not the only one.

00:15:50It does bring the monotony, though, Frank.

00:15:52Always trust me.

00:15:53There you are.

00:15:54APPLAUSE

00:16:01Yeah, I wrote down JM and IM, and I confused them,

00:16:04but it was Ian McKellen, quite right.

00:16:07It's a kind of tobacco.

00:16:09And this is a kind of a disaster.

00:16:114-0, we have to do something again.

00:16:13Well, I don't know about me, but you will.

00:16:15Gabrielle, your turn.

00:16:17A slavin is a short, thick, stubby knife

00:16:23with a sort of turned-up tip, rather like a retrussee nose.

00:16:28And if you're partial to seafood

00:16:31and you happen to be travelling along the north-eastern coast of North America,

00:16:36you'll probably have seen a slavin

00:16:38because it is used in the seafood restaurants to great effect

00:16:42to open clams.

00:16:45It's more than a knife.

00:16:46So, right.

00:16:48And after you comes Frank.

00:16:51Slavin is...

00:16:53Slavin, slavin...

00:16:54..is the east end of Londonese

00:16:59for sort of rubbish or old bits, you know, little bits of nasties.

00:17:04Believed to be a corrupted form of a Jewish word,

00:17:10slalavin, which is a bit they chucked away from kosher meat,

00:17:15the bits of non-kosher food.

00:17:17Slavin, it's old little bits.

00:17:22Well, Patrick Litchfield's go.

00:17:25If you were a pilgrim and you wanted to go outdoors,

00:17:29you would take a stout staff and your slavin,

00:17:34and that's all you really needed because they were a bit sparse in those days.

00:17:38Your slavin, therefore, was a form of garment worn by pilgrims

00:17:43and probably some other people, but worn by pilgrims certainly,

00:17:47when on their horse it would reach down to their ankles

00:17:50and if there was a chill wind blowing,

00:17:52the slavin would keep the wind off the pilgrim.

00:17:55Yes.

00:17:57So, well, it's quite reasonable if it's true.

00:18:00It's a pilgrim's cape.

00:18:02It's sort of a knife and it's sort of rubbish.

00:18:07I think it is sort of rubbish, isn't it?

00:18:10Can we have a little contact?

00:18:12Oh, yes, certainly.

00:18:14I'm up against it here.

00:18:18It's a disease of horses.

00:18:20LAUGHTER

00:18:23I think, like Mr Packer, we should be able to put microphones

00:18:26on the discussions there for the edification.

00:18:31I often wonder what they're saying myself, you know, when I sit here.

00:18:35Well, I've absolutely had no help at all from this side, yes.

00:18:39Gabrielle, you said it was a clam knife.

00:18:42I think that word is spavin.

00:18:44It isn't. Spavins.

00:18:47You could have told me earlier.

00:18:49I've said it now. I'm committed.

00:18:52Frank?

00:18:54Yes, Julia, yes.

00:18:56Non-kosher rubbish.

00:18:59Can I leave that and come back to that one in a minute?

00:19:02Patrick, this long cloak hanging down.

00:19:06Wouldn't it catch your feet in it? Wouldn't it get in the way?

00:19:09I've never worn one. No?

00:19:11I'm not a pilgrim. Not if you jumped to come to me.

00:19:14I feel like one.

00:19:16Oh, it's going to be eeny, meeny, miny, moe.

00:19:19It usually is, my dear. Yes, I know.

00:19:21I...

00:19:25I don't know.

00:19:27I'm going to say...

00:19:30What is it? A pilgrim's cloak.

00:19:32Pilgrim's cloak. Now, did she choose well?

00:19:35It was Patrick Litchfield who said it. True or false?

00:19:38Oh, my God!

00:19:47So she was really working it out all the time.

00:19:50I thought you were just pretending.

00:19:52You put on the evil day of choice.

00:19:54Well done. Broke the duck anyway.

00:19:57Right, Julia, your turn again.

00:19:59My turn, is it? The Cordax.

00:20:01Oh, yes.

00:20:03Well, this is a sort of ancient Greek can-can.

00:20:07It was rather lewd and involved quite a lot of arm-throwing

00:20:11and leg-throwing. I would get up and do it for you,

00:20:14but there's not a lot of room here at the moment, really.

00:20:17And it's... Take my word for it, it's a bit saucy.

00:20:20And I think that, you know, you and I certainly, if not Frank,

00:20:23would avert one's eyes if it was going on in this room at the moment.

00:20:27It's... The Cordax is an ancient Greek can-can.

00:20:35OK, well, let's try Patrick now.

00:20:38The Cordax is a thick muscle at the back of the neck,

00:20:43or at the nape of the neck.

00:20:45And the Cordax, being there...

00:20:49..it enables us to nod.

00:20:54LAUGHTER

00:20:58If we didn't have a Cordax...

00:21:01..we could nod once and we could stop.

00:21:04LAUGHTER

00:21:06That's what it is.

00:21:09HE GROANS

00:21:11Right, Ian McKellen, his go.

00:21:16A Cordax is a metal holder for candles

00:21:20used by the ancient Romans.

00:21:22Not for Roman candles of the firework variety,

00:21:25but of candles for everyday illumination.

00:21:27And it had a little handle by which it was portable,

00:21:31but if you wanted it to illuminate public ways,

00:21:34like indoors, like corridors,

00:21:36you would have fixed, looped this handle

00:21:38to a further fitment on the side of the wall,

00:21:41so that it could be a semi-permanent torchlight affair.

00:21:45A candle holder. What a good idea.

00:21:48Yes, yes.

00:21:50It's the neck muscle that allows actors in films

00:21:54to do that nodding at the end.

00:21:56It's a candle holder, and it's a Greek dance.

00:22:02Gabrielle, your choice.

00:22:04I don't want to. I don't know about bodies.

00:22:07Do I know about bodies, did you say?

00:22:10No, my friend... No, I don't.

00:22:12It's a bit worrying, isn't it?

00:22:14I'd sort of gone in the street.

00:22:16Takes forever. Sure.

00:22:19Any time you're ready, we are.

00:22:22Hang on. Hang on, hang on.

00:22:24Hang about. You're just playing for time, aren't you?

00:22:27Look at the score. I know the score!

00:22:32Oh, dear, I wish we could see this lewd can-can.

00:22:36I'd love to see you doing it, Julia.

00:22:38I'm sure it would be very exciting.

00:22:41Um...

00:22:43And the nodding muscle in the back of the neck,

00:22:47without which all we'd get would be the bald patch

00:22:50on top of the head.

00:22:54Or the metal candle holder.

00:22:57This is extremely difficult.

00:22:59It could be any one of the three.

00:23:01That's good. That's true.

00:23:03And it must be one of the three, mustn't it?

00:23:06Yes. You're very nearly there now.

00:23:11It's...

00:23:13The muscle at the back of the neck.

00:23:15Muscle at the back of Patrick's neck.

00:23:17It was Patrick who did it, said it, did it, performed it.

00:23:20True or bluff?

00:23:22APPLAUSE

00:23:27No, no, no, no.

00:23:29We must see who gave the true definition. Here it is.

00:23:32I told you you should always trust me.

00:23:34True definition, if you please.

00:23:38You see?

00:23:40APPLAUSE

00:23:44It's a Greek dance.

00:23:46It's a Greek dance that Julia quite promptly refused to perform.

00:23:50Bentall is the next one.

00:23:52All standing at 4-2.

00:23:54Frank, your turn.

00:23:56Greek word, Greek word.

00:23:58I'm reminded about the young man who was unwise enough

00:24:01to say to the great Dr Johnson,

00:24:03um, I'm afraid I've lost all my Greek.

00:24:06And Johnson said to him,

00:24:08I've lost all my estates in Yorkshire.

00:24:10How many of you have got Greek?

00:24:12Because this is a Greek word, you know, bental, from bentos.

00:24:16You know bentos?

00:24:18You surely know.

00:24:20Means the depth of the sea.

00:24:22I thought everybody, even the young man, knew that.

00:24:25So a bental, from the Greek bentos, depth of the sea,

00:24:29is an adjective referring to depth of the sea.

00:24:35It means a depth of sea over 1,000 fathoms.

00:24:41And quite a bit of the sea is over 1,000 fathoms,

00:24:44if you go deep enough.

00:24:48So now...

00:24:50Do you happen to know how much a fathom is?

00:24:52Four fathom five, my father lies.

00:24:54Six feet.

00:24:56Don't tell him, he doesn't know.

00:24:58Seven feet.

00:25:00I think I'm not giving anything away, saying it's six feet,

00:25:02I may have got that wrong.

00:25:04We're running out of time, Frank, who's turn next?

00:25:06Patrick, yes, Patrick Litchfield.

00:25:08Well, Patrick, you won't like this, because this is about Dorset.

00:25:11The last one was somewhere else, rarely English.

00:25:14And probably Arthur Negus would be better at describing this than I,

00:25:17because it was a bental, the H is silent,

00:25:22is in fact something used by house builders in the Cotswolds.

00:25:28It's a copper lid which is put into houses, or was,

00:25:33into open smoky chimneys, and it stopped the smoke

00:25:36from actually coming out into the room.

00:25:38It was a sort of guide, and it was named after a gentleman

00:25:41called Bental, who popped one into his own house

00:25:45and thus gave his name to the word.

00:25:47For his word, his name, yes, exactly.

00:25:52Right, and now whose turn is it? Yes, Gabrielle.

00:25:55A bental is a priest of the German Lutheran Church,

00:26:00but he's a priest with a difference.

00:26:02And if you own an old haunted house in Germany,

00:26:07or if you owned one long ago, you might have had need of a bental,

00:26:13because his special qualifications led him to be able

00:26:18to exorcise ghosts and evil spirits.

00:26:23Really, it wasn't, was it?

00:26:25Yeah, so it's very deep sort of ocean depths over a certain depth.

00:26:30Priest of some sort, German priest.

00:26:32Copper sort of hood, canopy lid,

00:26:35kept the smoke going up the chimney.

00:26:37Patrick, your choice.

00:26:39Please leave all this to me, kids, have no fear.

00:26:42LAUGHTER

00:26:44Better not.

00:26:48The only man that was ever born that knew how to build a chimney

00:26:52that would not smoke was called Baron Romford.

00:27:00Not Professor Bental.

00:27:04If you know what a fathom is...

00:27:08What were you on about?

00:27:11Lutheran... It doesn't...

00:27:15I believe this word mean...

00:27:20..excessive depth of ocean.

00:27:22Excessive depth of ocean is what Frank said it was.

00:27:25Has Patrick chosen well to obluff Frank?

00:27:28You've got two marks, I'm not bothered.

00:27:31We'll have to have time for another.

00:27:33You've got three now.

00:27:35APPLAUSE

00:27:37That's what it is, that's what it is.

00:27:40My goodness me, time's running out.

00:27:42You know, they were treading water, Frank's team were now.

00:27:45We have to do this very quickly. Britska, Patrick.

00:27:48Britska is a four-wheeled carriage.

00:27:51That'll do, I'll stop you there, in your own interests.

00:27:54Ian, your turn.

00:27:56Britska is the pennant at the top end of a lance

00:27:59carried by a Hungarian horseman.

00:28:01Lovely. Julia.

00:28:03Britska is a boar bred for the table,

00:28:06the feminine of Britski, Polish.

00:28:09Lovely. How succinct.

00:28:11It's a female pig.

00:28:13It's a carriage of a certain sort

00:28:15and it's a pennant also of a certain sort.

00:28:18Frank, much depends upon your choice.

00:28:23We're split.

00:28:25I'm in favour of having four marks each.

00:28:28So we're going to choose the carriage.

00:28:31Oh, you are. Now, who gave the carriage?

00:28:34Yes, the carriage was, I think it was Patrick.

00:28:37I stopped him in mid-flow. True or bluff?

00:28:40If I'd been allowed to go on a little bit longer,

00:28:42I might have bluffed you.

00:28:44APPLAUSE

00:28:51There you are. It is a carriage.

00:28:53He didn't say very much. He could say it more now.

00:28:55We've got a few seconds in hand.

00:28:57But let's try and imagine what sort of a carriage it was.

00:28:59Let's not bother about really how it was.

00:29:02But 3-5, oh, yes, quite decisively,

00:29:05Frank Muir's team has won.

00:29:07APPLAUSE

00:29:15We shall be back next time with more plaster gnomes

00:29:19from the Oxford English Dictionary.

00:29:22Goodbye from Patrick Litchfield.

00:29:26Ian Kellogg.

00:29:28Gabrielle Drake.

00:29:30Julia McKenzie.

00:29:32Frank Muir.

00:29:34Patrick Campbell.

00:29:38And goodbye.

00:29:52APPLAUSE

00:30:10Hello.

00:30:12Yes, it's Call My Bluff,

00:30:14and in the sheepskin noseband, Patrick Campbell.

00:30:22Good evening.

00:30:24After a brilliant loss last week,

00:30:26I've asked my brilliant losers back again.

00:30:28Lovely dancer, singer, actress Julia McKenzie.

00:30:37And super loser and Shakespearean actor...

00:30:40LAUGHTER

00:30:42..Ian McKellen.

00:30:45APPLAUSE

00:30:50And in trap too, Frank Muir.

00:30:53APPLAUSE

00:30:58And I am back again here from the World Exchange Theatre,

00:31:02magister actress Gabrielle Drake.

00:31:05APPLAUSE

00:31:08And my other is a photographer back from absolutely everywhere,

00:31:12Patrick Litchfield.

00:31:14APPLAUSE

00:31:20In exhaustible supply of words, we call for but one more.

00:31:24Yes, there it is, good as gold.

00:31:26Muskeggy.

00:31:28Patrick and his team will define muskeggy three different ways.

00:31:31Two of the definitions are no good, one of them's all right,

00:31:34and that's what the other people try and pick out.

00:31:36So off you go with muskeggy, Patrick.

00:31:39Muskeggy...

00:31:43..is rather kind of out of fashion

00:31:45because it comes from the Aran Islands in Galway Bay.

00:31:50And it used to be a kind of blend of cottons and mussels,

00:31:54alive, alive, or whatever, but...

00:31:56But deadio dead.

00:31:58And in order to make...

00:32:00LAUGHTER

00:32:02..dull fish like pollock and whiting edible,

00:32:06they used to throw this into pot.

00:32:09But seeing that the whole of the west of Ireland now

00:32:12is invaded by Japanese, German and Scandinavian businessmen...

00:32:18..they are turning muskeggy into soup de poisson

00:32:22because of all sophisticated Pooch people.

00:32:24However, in the good old days,

00:32:26it was just a fish sauce in the Aran Islands.

00:32:28Oh. Right enough.

00:32:30Thank goodness. Sounds OK.

00:32:32Unlike most of the sauces on this programme,

00:32:34that one sounds really rather edible.

00:32:36Ian McKellen, his turn.

00:32:39Muskeggy is a very nasty-sounding adjective

00:32:43from...describing a very nasty thing.

00:32:47The muskeg, M-U-S-K-E-G,

00:32:50which is a Canadian marshland or bog.

00:32:54And therefore muskeggy means to have the qualities of that kind,

00:32:58of Canadian marshland or bog.

00:33:01Mm-hm. Yep.

00:33:04And now, Julia McKenzie.

00:33:07Well, a muskeggy is a general...

00:33:11..dog's body, I suppose you would call, of a Persian household.

00:33:16He's a sort of...

00:33:18Upstairs, downstairs, between me.

00:33:21He would do anything from laundry to watering, grooming the horses.

00:33:26Lighting a torch in front of his master down dark alleyways.

00:33:30That sort of thing. That is a muskeggy.

00:33:33Oh, I am pleased.

00:33:35A Persian odd-job man at last.

00:33:37We haven't had a Persian this or that for some time,

00:33:40and I miss them. I tell you honestly, I miss them.

00:33:43It's a Persian odd-job man, it's a fish sauce,

00:33:46and it's marshy.

00:33:48It's the adjective marshy.

00:33:50Frank, your choice.

00:33:52Well, we're having a little discussion about it, in fact.

00:33:55As ever. Yes, we weren't totally 100% certain.

00:33:58Never. But we had a little talk and we are less so now.

00:34:04Dog's body in Persian household,

00:34:07cat's body, I could see, but not dog's body.

00:34:11Attributes of a Canadian bog.

00:34:14Are we discussing that word?

00:34:18Yes, muskeggy.

00:34:20Yes, muskeggy.

00:34:22It gives a feeling, doesn't it? Nice, Ian, well done.

00:34:25Excellent.

00:34:27No, it's not there.

00:34:29I think, we think, some of us think,

00:34:32it's Paddy's fish sauce.

00:34:35Well, he was, he did say it was fish sauce,

00:34:37now rather more sophisticated and all that with Germans and Turks.

00:34:40True or bluff, Patrick?

00:34:42Were you teasing or were it the truth?

00:34:45A little touch of it.

00:34:47You cast Lantyne accent, what you'd done at the end of that,

00:34:50betrayed you, because it's...

00:34:52APPLAUSE

00:34:58No, no, he told a fib, who told the truth?

00:35:03It was Ian.

00:35:05Yes, indeed.

00:35:07APPLAUSE

00:35:11Marching is what muskeggy means and it comes from a Canadian word,

00:35:151-0.

00:35:17Then we have Sefton, and Frank Muir will tell you what that means.

00:35:21Fascinating word, this, really.

00:35:24It's fairly recent Australian ease.

00:35:27I don't know how well you know Australian railways,

00:35:30but they used to have separate gauges

00:35:33and the lines in the state of Victoria didn't meet,

00:35:37didn't join with the lines, for instance, in New South Wales,

00:35:40so chaps didn't go much from one to the other all that frequently

00:35:44and so Frank Muir, who was an Australian railway man

00:35:48in the state of Victoria, he instituted...

00:35:52Is that the brother of Mr Sefton?

00:35:54LAUGHTER

00:35:56No, it's the brother-in-law.

00:35:58Half-brother, Mr Sefton.

00:36:00I think you said Sefton, but you didn't mean that.

00:36:03No, no, I shall not accept it.

00:36:06Oh, well, he invented the cheap day excursion tickets.

00:36:10Ha-ha.

00:36:13So he did say... I heard them did.

00:36:16Mr Sefton invented it.

00:36:19Good. Right, Patrick Litchfield.

00:36:21If you lived in the 19th century, the very early 19th century,

00:36:26and you smelt something that smelt of nitrogen,

00:36:31you wouldn't have called it nitrogen then,

00:36:34you would almost certainly have called it Sefton.

00:36:37Now, um...

00:36:39Sefton was, of course, the word for nitrogen

00:36:43and was widely believed at that time to be...

00:36:46This is rather morbid.

00:36:48..to be the main element that was discovered in decomposing corpses.

00:36:52Oh, really?

00:36:54You're going a bit far. Is this your first visit to this programme?

00:36:58Well, yes. This makes me feel so sick that I can't go on.

00:37:02Well, you say it's a sort of...

00:37:04A kind of nitrogen is what you're saying, right?

00:37:07Gabrielle Drake.

00:37:09Sefton is the correct heraldic name for a starfish.

00:37:15Now, if, in fact, you happened to sport a starfish on your coat of arms,

00:37:21it means that your ancestor was around in 1191

00:37:27and took part in the Third Crusade under Richard I.

00:37:33Mm-hm.

00:37:35Uh-huh.

00:37:36Least they could do, put that on the escutcheon.

00:37:39It was a cheap ticket invented in Australia by Mr Sefton.

00:37:44LAUGHTER

00:37:46I know what you mean, Craig. It's catching.

00:37:49It's an old term for nitrogen, especially that coming from corpses,

00:37:53and it's a starfish.

00:37:55Patrick.

00:37:57We've got so many people aboard this train.

00:38:01Sefton.

00:38:02Sefton.

00:38:03Sefton and Sefton.

00:38:05They're all on the same ticket.

00:38:07They're all in the same ticket.

00:38:10But what happens when all these kind of half-brothers,

00:38:13Sefton, Sefton and Sefton,

00:38:15are on a train going through Australia,

00:38:18at a narrow gauge, suddenly they find a huge gauge in front of them.

00:38:21What are they going to do? Walk home?

00:38:23Don't help me. What are they going to do?

00:38:25Answers.

00:38:27I don't believe the nitrogen smells at all, does it?

00:38:30You don't know either.

00:38:32Don't answer supplementary questions without notice.

00:38:35It certainly isn't a starfish.

00:38:37A starfish would have a more glittery name.

00:38:39I believe, quite frankly, that it's the whiff of nitrogen.

00:38:43You're choosing it.

00:38:45That, towards Patrick Mitchfield.

00:38:47True or bluff, that nitrogen of which you spoke.

00:38:50Well done.

00:38:52APPLAUSE

00:38:55Apparently is an early name for nitrogen.

00:38:59It may persist now, I don't know, but there it is.

00:39:02Next word is ziggurat, and Ian McKellen will define it.

00:39:07You know those interminable television travelogues

00:39:11about wild beasts in Africa,

00:39:14and you will have seen on the back of crocodiles

00:39:17little birds so insignificant as to be unnamed by David Attenborough.

00:39:23However, one species of this little bird is a ziggurat,

00:39:28and what it does for the crocodile is to clean its teeth

00:39:32and to nickpick generally, and toothpick.

00:39:35And also it can help another way to a crocodile

00:39:38because it emits a little chattering sound whenever danger is close by.

00:39:43Ziggurat, ziggurat, ziggurat is the nearest I can get to it.

00:39:47Good idea. Right on the button.

00:39:49Well, someone has to be kind to a crocodile, I suppose.

00:39:52Nice to hear about it. Julia.

00:39:54Well, also on one of those interminable travelogues

00:39:57you may well have seen those women in Tibet

00:40:00wear the large voluminous shawls,

00:40:02and a ziggurat is in fact one of those very warm shawls

00:40:06that save them from the icy winds of the Himalayas.

00:40:09I believe that the warmest and the best of these

00:40:12are made from the comings of the hair on the underbelly

00:40:16of a very ferocious and almost untamable species of goat.

00:40:21They comb goat, too. Yes, yes.

00:40:24It's quite dangerous to get, so of course they're very rare,

00:40:27the very, very best ones, you know.

00:40:29Would be, yes.

00:40:30I suppose that's what really made them so ferocious in the first place.

00:40:34Screaming off their tongues. Now, Patrick, it's your go.

00:40:37Well, ziggurat is the kind of word that all semi-literates

00:40:44think they know the meaning of,

00:40:46because when they buy their first dictionary,

00:40:49the thunderstrike to find the first word is A.

00:40:53And they turn to the back of the book to see what the last word is.

00:40:57And the libel, they think, to find ziggurat.

00:41:01And they read what it means and get it all back to front,

00:41:05because it's really just an ancient Babylonian tar

00:41:11into which Babylonians used to gather

00:41:16for wild kind of rave-ups of religious nature.

00:41:21But just because it's the deeper in the dictionary,

00:41:24don't believe you know it.

00:41:27So it's a sort of a nice warm shawl taken off the goats in Tibet.

00:41:31It's a bird that picks the nits off crocodiles,

00:41:34and it's a tar, one of the many, I suppose, round about Babylon.

00:41:38So, Patrick Litchfield.

00:41:42I'm rather surprised that Ian thinks

00:41:45that Attenborough wouldn't mention something so small

00:41:49as your crocodile's dentist.

00:41:53Have you heard him mention it?

00:41:55No, but he mentions very, very small things,

00:41:57terribly small things, where we all came from.

00:41:59So I tend to discount that one.

00:42:01And the large ladies in large shawls seems a bit woolly, really.

00:42:07But since I've been insulted by Patrick, who thinks...

00:42:11Well, he mentioned the word semi-literate,

00:42:13I think, looking in my direction.

00:42:15I'm going to go for that one, I think.

00:42:17You mean the one he said? Yes.

00:42:19He said that it was a sort of a tar.

00:42:21Is that true or bluff, Patrick?

00:42:23You're lucky not to be accused of being a semi-illiterate.

00:42:27You're dead right, though.

00:42:29APPLAUSE

00:42:32Yes, the cigarette means that sort of tar.

00:42:36It does.

00:42:38And then we have the word booter.

00:42:40And, Patrick Litchfield, tell you all about that.

00:42:45When you... If you were a knight in shining armour

00:42:49and suddenly you heard a clarion call,

00:42:53you would know it to be a booter.

00:42:56And this would mean that you would leap onto your horse

00:43:00and prepare for battle.

00:43:02Now, the booter was sounded.

00:43:06It was a very simple clarion call,

00:43:08which made you realise that it was a time for you to go to your groom

00:43:12who had a crane, who winched you up and put you on your horse,

00:43:17as you know, and they were very heavy people then.

00:43:20And when they heard the booter,

00:43:23Yes, that was quite charming.

00:43:25Jumps, yes.

00:43:26Now, Gabrielle, off you go.

00:43:28A booter is a sort of supplementary dining table.

00:43:33Well, to be absolutely accurate, it's a side table.

00:43:37And if you were feeling extraordinarily democratic,

00:43:42you would go to the side table.

00:43:45And if you were feeling extraordinarily democratic,

00:43:49you would allow your henchmen, your maids, your grooms

00:43:55to sit at the booter and eat their meal

00:43:59while you ate your meal at the high table.

00:44:02Yes.

00:44:03It's extraordinarily democratic, is it?

00:44:05Yes.

00:44:07Where will it all end, I ask myself?

00:44:09Frank, your turn.

00:44:11A bouter is a maritime device.

00:44:15Julia, you're a sailor, you see.

00:44:17I am.

00:44:18You're a sailor.

00:44:19And the captain says,

00:44:20Lower the anchor.

00:44:22And the anchor chain goes down the horse hole,

00:44:26what it's called, horse pipe.

00:44:29And then he suddenly says,

00:44:31Snub, snub the cable, snub the anchor.

00:44:35So what you do is you grab a bit of iron

00:44:37and shove it through one of the links of the chain.

00:44:40It can't go any further down the hole.

00:44:42And that bit of rod that you shove through the chain

00:44:45is called the bouter.

00:44:47That's terribly fascinating.

00:44:49Yes, it is.

00:44:51It's quite loose, actually.

00:44:53Fairly fascinating.

00:44:55It's a snub you put at that point in the anchor chain.

00:44:59It's a trumpet call used for that purpose.

00:45:01And it's a dining table also given to that sort of person.

00:45:05Ian, your turn.

00:45:07Well, Julia's the sailor.

00:45:10And what do you think about bouter?

00:45:12Patrick's the sailor too, or at least sometimes he claims to be.

00:45:15We're all sailors here.

00:45:17Any advice on that?

00:45:19You've got no idea.

00:45:21No idea.

00:45:23Well, now, we know that bout means end, doesn't it, in French?

00:45:27And therefore I think it would be an end table

00:45:30rather than a side table.

00:45:32So unless you're deliberately misleading us,

00:45:34you are misleading us, I think.

00:45:36Well, if you look at the other ones,

00:45:38I don't know anything about sailing,

00:45:40so I'm not qualified to say whether that's right or not.

00:45:43At last, someone who doesn't know anything about sailing

00:45:46to find one on this show.

00:45:48However, I know well enough to know

00:45:50that a bouter probably was a medieval hooter.

00:45:53Yes, so you're choosing that.

00:45:55Yes, I am.

00:45:57That was what Patrick Litchfield said.

00:45:59Oh, you're impacting me.

00:46:01APPLAUSE

00:46:08Let's see now.

00:46:10We really must know who gave the true definition.

00:46:12Let's have it.

00:46:14It's Gabrielle. It's been little Gabrielle.

00:46:16Yes, indeed it is.

00:46:18APPLAUSE

00:46:22You disobeyed your captain. Goodness me.

00:46:24Yes, to all, a bouter does mean a side table of that particular sort.

00:46:29Rouerback is the next word.

00:46:31Julia, it's your turn.

00:46:33Rouerback.

00:46:35A rouerback is a thick biscuit cake.

00:46:37I think, well, not unlike Scottish shortbread,

00:46:40sweetened with honey and little chocolate chips.

00:46:43And it's named a rouerback after the Swiss chef who first invented it.

00:46:49I think his name was Marcel Gustavus Rouerback.

00:46:53How about that?

00:46:55And that's why it's called a rouerback.

00:46:57I think you will have seen it if you've ever been to Switzerland.

00:47:00They do sell them in the shops in the glass counters.

00:47:03Really? It sounds lovely.

00:47:05It is, it's beautiful.

00:47:07Well, well. Now Patrick's go.

00:47:10A rouerback was...

00:47:15..because they've got air conditioning there now,

00:47:18a rouerback, as I said previously,

00:47:21was of great comfort to Dutchmen

00:47:25in the sticky, humid heat of the Dutch East Indies,

00:47:29because when they went to bed...

00:47:33..they put the rouerback on,

00:47:35which was not an eiderdown in sticky, humid heat.

00:47:38Oh, no, no.

00:47:40A kind of bamboo cage.

00:47:43It went over the bodies of the Dutchmen,

00:47:46put the sheet over it,

00:47:49a little bit of wind passing...

00:47:52LAUGHTER

00:47:54..air passing through.

00:47:56It kept off the mosquitoes, in part.

00:48:00It was called a rouerback because of the Afrikaans language.

00:48:04It's a marvellous idea, even if it's a little old.

00:48:07I'm going to rush home and see if I can't build one.

00:48:10Ian McKellen's go. Here he does it.

00:48:13Rouerback is an infamous word

00:48:16from the backbiting language of American politics.

00:48:21It is a word to describe a false report

00:48:24or deliberate slander,

00:48:27maliciously designed to put one's opponent off

00:48:30and do him down at an election.

00:48:33And you would hear the innocent politician

00:48:35screaming to the television cameras,

00:48:37it's a lie, it's a slander.

00:48:39It's a rouerback.

00:48:41LAUGHTER

00:48:43Yeah, well, it's this kind of bed frame

00:48:46that you put over, under the bedclothes

00:48:49and wafting breezes,

00:48:51and it's a kind of biscuit

00:48:54and it's a sort of rumour, false report, that kind of thing.

00:48:58Gabrielle, your choice.

00:49:00Yes. Yes, lovely.

00:49:02Yes? Are we...

00:49:04Right behind you, about four paces behind you.

00:49:06Oh, dear, don't.

00:49:08Well, um, I...

00:49:11This biscuit cake, it sounds lovely

00:49:16and...

00:49:18But I don't really think that Monsieur Marcel Rouerback

00:49:23existed. Gustavus. Gustavus.

00:49:25Gustavus Marcel.

00:49:27I don't really think he was around to create this.

00:49:30I don't like the spelling of...

00:49:32The spelling, for a Swiss man, I don't believe in it

00:49:35and neither do I believe

00:49:37in this Dutch East Indies bamboo cage

00:49:41for letting the wind go free.

00:49:44I think it's this terrible American slander.

00:49:48A rouerback. You do.

00:49:50That was what Ian McKellen said.

00:49:53Did he tell us the truth? Let's learn.

00:49:56We must see it now.

00:49:58It's not a rouerback, it's...

00:50:00Oh!

00:50:07Yeah, that's what it is.

00:50:09Unlikely as it may seem, it's a kind of ill report, false report.

00:50:13Next word is Buckham

00:50:15and Gabrielle Drake will tell you about it.

00:50:19Buckham is a Red Indian word

00:50:23and it was the word that they used

00:50:26to describe the sort of trinkets that they were given

00:50:30by the Europeans

00:50:32who wanted in exchange their feathered headdresses

00:50:36and all their lovely things

00:50:39and their land

00:50:41and the Europeans gave to them, of course, as you know,

00:50:46copper kettles, little bits and bobs

00:50:50and the Red Indians called this Buckham.

00:50:54Lute, really, but Buckham in Red Indian language.

00:50:58Yes. Right.

00:51:00Now it's Frank's turn.

00:51:02I don't wish to lead you astray

00:51:06or set you off on a false scent,

00:51:09but Buckham is a red herring.

00:51:13But it's not a false scent

00:51:16or something which leads you astray.

00:51:18It's a red herring.

00:51:20It is much prized and eaten, in fact,

00:51:23by the Dutch in Holland

00:51:26where they eat it with relish

00:51:29and sometimes with tomato sauce.

00:51:34And the next one is Patrick Litchfield.

00:51:37In the old days, you journeyed to Western Europe

00:51:41and in the old days you journeyed to West Africa,

00:51:44particularly Nigeria or the Cameroons.

00:51:46You would possibly find yourself suffering from Buckham.

00:51:56Europeans were prone to this disease

00:51:58and it was so strong and dangerous

00:52:03that they remained prone for several days afterwards too

00:52:06and their livers

00:52:09were the things that suffered most from this particular malady

00:52:14and in fact it caused a very serious form of sort of...

00:52:19Well, it was like jaundice but non-infectious.

00:52:22But the Africans would refer to it as Buckham.

00:52:26Oh, thank God.

00:52:30Surprised we didn't get a laugh out of that.

00:52:32Diseases usually bring the house down here.

00:52:35It's a sort of Dutch herring.

00:52:38Trinkets, as far as red Indians were once concerned,

00:52:41and it's that form of sunstroke.

00:52:43Julia, your choice.

00:52:46Oh, dear me.

00:52:48We've had smoke signals from Gabriel

00:52:51and red herrings there

00:52:54and liver disease from Africa there.

00:52:58You've got your sights lined up, haven't you?

00:53:00Yes, I don't know which one to aim at though.

00:53:03I really don't.

00:53:06Buckham sounds a little like buckling, which is a fish,

00:53:10but maybe in Dutch, I don't know.

00:53:13So it won't be that.

00:53:15No, probably not. I'll put a cross against that one.

00:53:18It might be.

00:53:20What do you think, Patrick?

00:53:22You have a little bash yourself.

00:53:25I have a little bash myself.

00:53:27It's very difficult.

00:53:31I don't know, sometimes when you're really bluffing,

00:53:34Gabriel, you look at me very intently,

00:53:37and you did just then,

00:53:39so I'm just going by woman's intuition.

00:53:42I'm going to say it's the liver disease.

00:53:44The liver disease.

00:53:46That's the one that drew you, was it?

00:53:49Well, that was Patrick Litchfield.

00:53:51Truth or bluff?

00:53:53No, no.

00:53:59Fancy making all that up about that kind of disease with that.

00:54:03Who gave the true definition? We must know it.

00:54:06It's there somewhere.

00:54:08I have it.

00:54:15See, it is the Dutch herring.

00:54:17I think you were on the right tracks, Julia,

00:54:19before you were on the wrong ones.

00:54:21Sarut is the next one,

00:54:23and Patrick Campbell is going to tell us about that.

00:54:26A sarut is a species of gadfly

00:54:29that infests the...

00:54:32..the upper reaches of the Nile.

00:54:35It attacks the exposed portions of persons

00:54:39who happen to be in the upper Nile at the time.

00:54:42And many a subspecies of sarut,

00:54:45but the most malevolent of all,

00:54:48is the gazuma guma.

00:54:51To be watched.

00:54:54G, how do you spell it?

00:54:56Doesn't matter. No, forget it.

00:54:59Right. After that, we have Ian McKellen. Here he comes.

00:55:02On the west coast of Africa,

00:55:04in places like Sierra Leone and Liberia,

00:55:07you will find, twining its way around the cocoa plant,

00:55:11the sarut,

00:55:13much in the way that mistletoe grows around plants and trees in England.

00:55:17It too shares with mistletoe magic qualities,

00:55:21but of a more certain nature than our mistletoe,

00:55:24in that if you chew the berry of the sarut,

00:55:27it will temporarily numb the toothache.

00:55:31And as such, it is, of course, valued and encouraged indeed.

00:55:36Hence the root bit.

00:55:38Sarut.

00:55:40Yes. Right. Julia Mackenzie tells you.

00:55:43Well, a sarut is a sort of bosun,

00:55:48chief petty officer.

00:55:50Don't laugh, Ian.

00:55:53Bosun, petty officer,

00:55:55of a ship's crew consisting of Lascar seamen.

00:56:00And you may, if you've ever seen films of the days of the Raj,

00:56:04they used to strut around the decks holding a rattan cane,

00:56:08and that was his sort of badge of office,

00:56:10and he used to belabour his subordinates with this rattan cane.

00:56:14So a sarut is a bosun.

00:56:18Dear me, dear me.

00:56:20What they say is it's a plant parasite,

00:56:22it winds around a tree,

00:56:24it's a bosun, a Lascar bosun,

00:56:26and it's a kind of very nasty gadfly.

00:56:30Frank Muir has his choice.

00:56:34D'accord.

00:56:36Yes, right.

00:56:38Wicked gadfly on the Nile,

00:56:40who only stings people who are there.

00:56:42I thought that was a very good point you made.

00:56:46They have to go somewhere else.

00:56:48It was illuminating, was it not?

00:56:50If they're going to sting somebody somewhere else.

00:56:52Very logical, that.

00:56:54The West African toothache cure,

00:56:58which grows like mistletoe,

00:57:00can you kiss under it?

00:57:02No, probably not.

00:57:04Or this Lascar with the rattan cane,

00:57:06a rattan cane who dashes about the decks in films.

00:57:09Quite clearly...

00:57:11No, not all that clearly.

00:57:14We think we would tentatively like...

00:57:16We'll come to a second guess,

00:57:18but to begin with, we'd like to see Julia's card.

00:57:21Julia, because she said that it was the Lascar bosun.

00:57:25Julia, was that a true one?

00:57:27I'm sorry. No, no.

00:57:33Let's very quickly have the true one.

00:57:35We may squeeze another word in.

00:57:37Yes, indeed.

00:57:40Very slowly.

00:57:42There was a gadfly. We rush on, we have seconds,

00:57:45but for topinambu, good enough word.

00:57:48Frank, speed it up.

00:57:50Topinambu is a senior member of the Sultan of Zanzibar's household.

00:57:54Lovely, lovely, lovely.

00:57:56Patrick, your turn.

00:57:58It's a tropical plant,

00:58:00the roots of which can be eaten by people who live in Brazil.

00:58:03And no-one else. Gabrielle.

00:58:06It's a thick Moroccan beaded curtain.

00:58:08Lovely. It's a thick Moroccan curtain,

00:58:11it's a plant edible by people in Brazil,

00:58:14and it's a sultan's butler, that kind of thing, I think.

00:58:17Yes, Patrick, have a choice.

00:58:20You'd better choose.

00:58:22It's a sattler's bulton.

00:58:28A butler's sultan.

00:58:30Not a sultan's butler, I mean.

00:58:32It's a bulton's sattler.

00:58:34That was Frank, I think.

00:58:37Was it? Yes, true or bluff?

00:58:39It's a bluff, isn't it?

00:58:41It is!

00:58:45We have to hear him, we have to quickly find the true one,

00:58:48as quick as you like.

00:58:51There it is.

00:58:56Edible plant, you only eat it in Brazil.

00:58:59There you are, 3-5, pipped on the post again.

00:59:02I was going to say it was Patrick.

00:59:04I got tangled up with sattler's butlers.

00:59:07Suttler's, yes.

00:59:09Anyway, only tears were the outcome.

00:59:12Frank Muir and his team have won.

00:59:22We'll be back next time with another bunch of no-hopers

00:59:25from the Oxford English Dictionary.

00:59:27Until then, goodbye from Ian McKellen.

00:59:31Patrick McShield.

00:59:34Julia McKenzie.

00:59:36Gabrielle Drake.

00:59:39Patrick Campbell.

00:59:41Frank Muir.

00:59:43And goodbye.

01:00:00APPLAUSE

01:00:16Hello. Hello again.

01:00:18This is called My Bluff, featuring the Liberace of the panel game,

01:00:21Frank Muir.

01:00:23APPLAUSE

01:00:26Hello.

01:00:29Good evening. My first guest is back for the third time on this game,

01:00:33but she's done a bit of telly in between, I hasten to add.

01:00:36It's Angela Rippon.

01:00:38APPLAUSE

01:00:45My second guest is new to the game.

01:00:48He's a writer, he's a poet, he's a novelist, he's a playwright,

01:00:51and he is Alan Garner.

01:00:53APPLAUSE

01:01:00And the man who actually carved the Blarney Stone,

01:01:03Patrick Campbell.

01:01:07Good evening.

01:01:11My first guest comes back for the first time.

01:01:13She's never been on the show before.

01:01:15She's...

01:01:19She's a fashion editor.

01:01:21She is called Serena Sinclair.

01:01:23APPLAUSE

01:01:27And my other guest is an actor, fortunately,

01:01:30because he comes fresh from playing the part of a young Oscar Wilde,

01:01:35Peter Egan.

01:01:37APPLAUSE

01:01:44Now, we should be able to obtain a word, and a very good one it is.

01:01:49Catchpillar, or they, I have no doubt,

01:01:51will pronounce it umpteen different ways.

01:01:53What happens is that Frank Bione's team will define catchpillar

01:01:56three different ways, two of them are false, one is true.

01:01:59That's the one that Patrick and his team tried to pick out.

01:02:02So, off you go then, Frank, with this word.

01:02:05In the prairies of North America,

01:02:08the tobacconist shops are few and far between,

01:02:12particularly on old Indian territories.

01:02:15So the Indians had to knock up their own smoking mixture.

01:02:19Comes time for a pipe of peace, or a pipe of war,

01:02:22so they used to shove in catchpillar,

01:02:25which was, um...

01:02:27You probably want to know how it's made.

01:02:30Yep. How, you say?

01:02:32LAUGHTER

01:02:34It's made very simply from bits of dried inner bark of the dogwood tree,

01:02:39a few dried leaves from wild vines,

01:02:43mix it all together, shove it in, oompa, oompa.

01:02:46LAUGHTER

01:02:48The score on the Potomac is equal to the sum of the scores on the other two.

01:02:51Oh, dear, oh, dear. I didn't understand that.

01:02:54Yes, that was very good, it's very good.

01:02:56I've written it down here, I'll tell you after.

01:02:58Alan Gardner's turn.

01:03:00I shall be clear. There are three problems with this word.

01:03:03One is that it's Celtic.

01:03:05The other is that it's a Vogue word, a nunce word.

01:03:10And the other is that it's real as opposed to unreal.

01:03:14And it is a word used in real tennis.

01:03:20And it was used especially in Scotland,

01:03:23at the time of Mary, Queen of Scots,

01:03:26and therefore is not a very commonly used word at all.

01:03:30It is a term from real tennis.

01:03:33Mm-hm. Right.

01:03:35Angela Rippon.

01:03:37A Ketchipilla is a sort of Punjabi tribesman.

01:03:43Very nomadic.

01:03:45And I suppose they are the Punjabi equivalent of the Gurkha,

01:03:49because during the Afghanistan war,

01:03:52the British found that they were so incredibly agile

01:03:55in the Afghanistan mountains

01:03:57that they decided to recruit them as scouts.

01:04:00Scouts?

01:04:02Scouts.

01:04:04Scouts.

01:04:06Well, this is what they said.

01:04:08It's that kind of smoking mixture that Indians have manufactured.

01:04:12It's a term in real tennis,

01:04:15and it's that sort of nomad.

01:04:18Patrick.

01:04:20Oh, perfectly simple.

01:04:24I wish I knew more about real tennis,

01:04:28because there's real real tennis and there's real tennis.

01:04:32I differentiate it for yourself.

01:04:34Who's doing this, you or me?

01:04:36LAUGHTER

01:04:38Thank you.

01:04:40The Indian pipe of peace made out of old straw and stuff and...

01:04:45Oh, dear.

01:04:47If only we could get a simple word like cat or rat.

01:04:51We believe this without consultation to be...

01:04:55Indian tobacco. Red Indian tobacco.

01:04:58You think it's that? It was Frank who started off telling you that.

01:05:01Yes, I've settled that. Yes, you will. You won't take it back.

01:05:04You can have it. Frank, true or bluff?

01:05:06He's got a horrible smile on his face.

01:05:10Oh, dear.

01:05:12APPLAUSE

01:05:16No, no, no, no, nothing to do with that. That was all made up.

01:05:19Who gave the true definition? Here it is.

01:05:22There it is!

01:05:24APPLAUSE

01:05:27Oh, dear.

01:05:29I think it's a term in real tennis.

01:05:31I'm not sure whether it isn't the tennis player himself,

01:05:34but it's certainly a term in real tennis.

01:05:37Janken is the next word, and Patrick has to define it for you.

01:05:43A janken is, and used to be,

01:05:46a leather overshoe that was worn by pit ponies.

01:05:50They don't work as hard nowadays,

01:05:53but when the pit ponies were really working...

01:05:58..you couldn't put any iron shoes on them

01:06:01because their little feet might cause infirmity,

01:06:06sparks to...

01:06:08..and the whole thing would come down.

01:06:10So, in order to prevent sparks coming out of their little feet,

01:06:13they pulled on their little...

01:06:15They didn't pull on their own jankens,

01:06:17but they had them put on for them.

01:06:20That's what they were called, when pit ponies were working.

01:06:23The canaries had them as well.

01:06:26Let's try Peter Egan now, shall we?

01:06:29A janken would not be approved of by strict vegetarians

01:06:32since it's a butcher's carcass hanger.

01:06:35It's a bit like a coat hanger with two hooks on each extremity,

01:06:39on which the carcasses are hung

01:06:41and stored in a butcher's cold room to mature.

01:06:45Right-o, all to the point, all to the point.

01:06:48Now it's Rena Sinclair's turn.

01:06:50Janken, or to give it its full name, Jankenpon,

01:06:54is in fact a Japanese children's game.

01:06:56I think we've probably all played it at one time or another.

01:06:59In Europe, we call it zobbing.

01:07:01Now, with this Japanese children's game,

01:07:03which is something all children play,

01:07:05you take your fist and you try to make your fist or your fingers

01:07:09pretend that they are in fact a piece of paper

01:07:12or a stone or a pair of scissors.

01:07:15We've all done it.

01:07:17Right, right.

01:07:18So it's that quite well-known hand game, Serena alleges.

01:07:22It's a butcher's hanger and it's a shoe put on a pit pony

01:07:26to stop the sparks flying or something of the sort.

01:07:29Frank, your choice.

01:07:30I approach this with fear in my heart, this decision,

01:07:35because we are unanimous.

01:07:37Are you real?

01:07:38We are unanimous.

01:07:39We've never been unanimous here on this side, ever.

01:07:42Unanimity obtains here.

01:07:44Who is it, then?

01:07:46Oh, he's got to guess.

01:07:51Well, carcass, double carcass hooks.

01:07:55Junkan just doesn't seem to be a name

01:07:57unless they're made in Germany or something,

01:07:59which they wouldn't have been.

01:08:00Japanese children's game, that we are worried about.

01:08:03We do think that's a storm contender.

01:08:06But we think it's the leather shoe coverings

01:08:10for canaries down the pits.

01:08:13That was the one that Patrick said.

01:08:16Patrick, draw a bluff.

01:08:19Agony, isn't it?

01:08:29We won't be seeing much more unanimity, will we, Frank?

01:08:32Not if you know anything about it.

01:08:34I've tried that.

01:08:35Let's see who had the true definition.

01:08:38Here it is. One of them's got it.

01:08:42Well done, my darling.

01:08:47It's the hand game, which I always thought was called

01:08:49ching-chang-chollop, but I dare say it's called all sorts of...

01:08:52Ying-yang-yang.

01:08:54One all interesting stage of the game.

01:08:57So is the next one. Alan Garner.

01:09:00This is another very difficult word

01:09:03because it's not standard English.

01:09:06It's a dialect word.

01:09:08It's the word used in the south-west Midlands

01:09:12for the large wooden tub with ears that sticks up

01:09:16in which you can wash almost anything.

01:09:19They're not used nowadays.

01:09:22In my own area in the north, it's called a jowl mug.

01:09:25But in Worcestershire, they call it a sow.

01:09:29You can also call it a borson or a pension.

01:09:32But the wooden one is called a sow.

01:09:35OK, now, whose turn is it next? Yes, Angela, your go.

01:09:39The word is saw.

01:09:41And it is the name that's given to a highly stylised form

01:09:45of Japanese decoration, the sort of thing that you would find

01:09:48on rather lovely rugs, on screens, on table mats, anything like that.

01:09:54And it takes its design from stylised landscapes

01:09:58which usually use Mount Fujiyama.

01:10:01Saw.

01:10:03Anybody?

01:10:05Frank, your turn.

01:10:07I'm so upset about that last question.

01:10:12Sir, as this is pronounced, is Norwegian fish paste.

01:10:19They sort of grind up herrings and similar of the like roe,

01:10:25and grind it up and eat it raw.

01:10:28There's a pestle and mortar in the museum at Sandwich in Kent,

01:10:33which is believed to be a Viking one.

01:10:36Dr Owen Pegwell Bay, presumably.

01:10:39Sir, it's very well known.

01:10:42That's what they say it is.

01:10:44It's sort of a form of Japanese decoration,

01:10:46fish paste ground up in just the way Frank described,

01:10:49and a wash tub.

01:10:51Peter Egan has the choice.

01:10:55We two are unanimous.

01:10:57Yes, indeed.

01:10:59Well, those two are, anyway.

01:11:01I think roe and sow is a little too close.

01:11:05I trust everything Japanese,

01:11:08so I'll go for the Midlands dialect from Alan.

01:11:13Yeah, the wash tub you mean.

01:11:16Alan Garner said it, didn't you?

01:11:18I'm afraid to do.

01:11:20Two or bluff.

01:11:22Oh!

01:11:24APPLAUSE

01:11:26Is that too much for you?

01:11:29Well, young Egan didn't say much, but what he said was choice.

01:11:33Thank you.

01:11:34Yes, now here goes another word.

01:11:36Catogan.

01:11:37Catogan, I suppose that's how you pronounce it.

01:11:39Peter, your turn.

01:11:41Catogan, so pronounced, is the corpse of a once-living creature

01:11:46which, through some freak of circumstance, is naturally preserved.

01:11:50Fly in amber is a catogan.

01:11:53The mammoth found in Finland in 1902

01:11:57refrigerated in ice.

01:11:59Catogan.

01:12:01Yep.

01:12:03Serena Sixpence.

01:12:05A catogan is a very pretty hairstyle

01:12:07that New York women, very chic women,

01:12:09adopted in the mid-1880s.

01:12:11It's quite easy to do.

01:12:13You take your hair back like this,

01:12:15swoop it to the nape of your neck

01:12:17and then turn it under in a very pretty little loop.

01:12:20Very fashionable it was. It may come back.

01:12:22It's rather nice.

01:12:23Thank you.

01:12:24Rather nice.

01:12:25And now, Patrick, it's your go.

01:12:27Catogan is a cheap kind of pig iron.

01:12:30Oh!

01:12:31LAUGHTER

01:12:32Which is mined in Catogan,

01:12:35which is one of the industrial suburbs of Vladivostok.

01:12:40LAUGHTER

01:12:42Now, it's such a mean, miserable kind of pig iron

01:12:45that you can only turn it into stoves,

01:12:48some kind of drainpipe, I suppose,

01:12:51even door knockers.

01:12:53But that's what it is.

01:12:55LAUGHTER

01:12:57Didn't seem to cheer you up at all.

01:12:59No.

01:13:01Well, it's this rather gloomy sort of pig iron.

01:13:03It's that delightful hairdo

01:13:05and it's a corpse in a state of preservation.

01:13:07Alan, your turn.

01:13:09Well, I happen to know that it isn't a corpse

01:13:11in a state of preservation

01:13:13because the peculiar area of my education

01:13:16took me into flies in amber

01:13:18and mammoths in ice,

01:13:20so it's not that at all.

01:13:22LAUGHTER

01:13:24Hairstyles.

01:13:25I know nothing about hairstyles,

01:13:28but I don't think that that is a hair...

01:13:31If you said a hairnet...

01:13:32No, no, no.

01:13:33No, a hairstyle.

01:13:35Unfortunately, Paddy can't speak Russian,

01:13:39so it's pig iron.

01:13:41It's pig iron.

01:13:42You seem fairly confident.

01:13:44True or bluff, Patrick?

01:13:46Not looking quite so gloomy now, I think.

01:13:48It's misery, actually.

01:13:49APPLAUSE

01:13:57You didn't say whether you spoke Russian.

01:14:00I did not say that.

01:14:01No, I know.

01:14:02So, let's have the true definition.

01:14:04Let's see which of the other two

01:14:06that he sneered at turned out to be the right one.

01:14:09APPLAUSE

01:14:13It's a hairdo. It's a hairdo. That's what it is.

01:14:16I think we'll give up this...

01:14:183-1.

01:14:19Micen is the next word.

01:14:21Angela, your turn.

01:14:22Well, if you'd ever had the opportunity

01:14:24of travelling in northern Libya,

01:14:26you would have come across quite a few micen.

01:14:28It's the name given to a rather delicate small mushroom

01:14:33which grows in the rather arid deserts of northern Libya.

01:14:37According to the Nature Notebook of Pliny the Elder,

01:14:40who was a sort of Roman David Attenborough,

01:14:42the taste of micen is, and I quote,

01:14:45passing sweet and pleasant.

01:14:48Is it?

01:14:49Could easily be.

01:14:51Right, now, Frank, your turn.

01:14:53I don't want to rush this, and...

01:14:55Oh.

01:14:56..you may take notes.

01:15:00Micen is a term used in integral calculus.

01:15:06It's a line drawn on a perfect sphere

01:15:10which intercepts all meridians at a constant angle.

01:15:15The line can be expressed mathematically

01:15:19as X equals one third of pi times the radius.

01:15:24Could anything be simpler?

01:15:29I must say, it may be true, it may be a bluff,

01:15:32but that was splendid, Frank. You get top marks.

01:15:34Alan, your turn.

01:15:35I shall make it easy for the team this time.

01:15:39Micen.

01:15:41Tigon.

01:15:43The cross between a lion and a tiger.

01:15:47Not usually achieved in nature, but frequently achieved in zoos.

01:15:51That being so, the Canadian government,

01:15:54round about the middle of the 1920s,

01:15:56decided to carry out an experiment to cross the moose with the bison.

01:16:02LAUGHTER

01:16:07Fortunately or unfortunately, Mother Nature thought she knew better,

01:16:11and the whole scheme came to naught.

01:16:14But the word had been coined optimistically.

01:16:17LAUGHTER

01:16:21Silly of them, really, wasn't it?

01:16:23Well, it's a kind of a mushroom.

01:16:25It's a cross between a moose and a bison didn't work,

01:16:29and it's a term in mathematics beautifully spoken by Frank Muir.

01:16:33Serena, it's your choice.

01:16:35Well, I'm worried about Angela's mushrooms,

01:16:38because I thought mushrooms, I can be wrong, needed moisture,

01:16:41and these mushrooms growing out in the Libyan desert worry me.

01:16:44I think they're not going to live very long.

01:16:47Frank totally baffles me,

01:16:49because anything more than 2 plus 2 equals 4 in any form of mathematics

01:16:52makes me feel that he's got to be right.

01:16:54On the other hand, Alan...

01:16:56I don't know.

01:16:58That's obvious.

01:17:00It's so cute, it's so cute that it can't be true.

01:17:03I'm going to vote for this amazing pi plus one third of something else

01:17:06equals an apple pie with cinnamon.

01:17:08I'm voting for you.

01:17:10Yes, it was Frank who beautifully spoke it.

01:17:12True or bluff?

01:17:14It's a bluff, isn't it?

01:17:16APPLAUSE

01:17:24All that must be true of something, I would have thought, Frank.

01:17:27Well, these days it'll turn out to be true.

01:17:29Who gave the real definition of this word?

01:17:31I did.

01:17:33APPLAUSE

01:17:38It's a mushroom and it grows exactly where Angela says it grows

01:17:41and nowhere else there.

01:17:43Oh, I don't know about nowhere else, it might.

01:17:45Gollar is the next one.

01:17:47Serena, your turn.

01:17:49A gollar is an N-word among pawnbrokers.

01:17:52They all know it means their assistant

01:17:54when they whistle in the shop in the morning

01:17:56and say, gollar, come here.

01:17:58They mean the guy who is, unfortunately, polishing the brass balls

01:18:01because nobody, hardly ever, will let him sell anything or buy anything.

01:18:05But he's very good at polishing.

01:18:07That's a gollar. Right, right.

01:18:09Patrick's turn now.

01:18:11Gollar was a crude kind of...

01:18:16..well, all that stuff, really, O-R-E.

01:18:19It used to be imported into Great Britain from the Ukraine.

01:18:22Oh, boy.

01:18:25Its import was limited

01:18:27by a scandalous rumour they went round, fairly suddenly.

01:18:33They said...

01:18:35..it's mostly composed of human bones.

01:18:40And so the import of gollar stopped almost overnight.

01:18:45Thank you.

01:18:47Which is a pity, because if you mix it up,

01:18:49it makes some interesting stuff for building with.

01:18:52Or...

01:18:54Like the pigger from...

01:18:56Yeah, from Vladivostok or the Ukraine.

01:18:59Peter Egan.

01:19:01A gollar may be described as the sound made

01:19:04by someone wearing an overtight collar.

01:19:07Oh!

01:19:09It's a sort of hoarse, half-strangled, half-articulated cry.

01:19:15Someone might make the sound suffering from severe laryngitis

01:19:20or salt tonsils.

01:19:26Right, that's what they say.

01:19:28Once again, I'll tell you, it is sort of stuff for China.

01:19:32I mean, you know, porcelain.

01:19:34It's a junior pawnbroker and it's a strangled cry.

01:19:38Angela, your choice.

01:19:40I can't think why anybody would bother to give a strangled cry a name.

01:19:44I mean, they'd be too busy going...

01:19:46..to worry about it, wouldn't they?

01:19:49Kruidorf from Bones.

01:19:51I don't really see that the two go together.

01:19:54Ore and bones...

01:19:56No, one is metal and one is animal.

01:19:59No.

01:20:01I don't know very much about the Yiddish language,

01:20:04but, I mean, it's so ridiculous

01:20:06and it makes such a lovely picture of somebody on stepladders

01:20:09polishing up the balls. Yes, I think it's that. Serena.

01:20:12You think it's that? Do you think it's that?

01:20:14Serena did say it. True or bluff?

01:20:17Oh, dear, dear, dear, what have we done?

01:20:27She invented all that.

01:20:29Who gave the true definition?

01:20:31You flashed it.

01:20:33It's there.

01:20:40Don't worry about it. A golla is a strangled cry.

01:20:44Four-two, I say.

01:20:46I thought I caught such a thing.

01:20:49Ockery, or... Well, I suppose Ockery, I don't know.

01:20:52Frank is the next one.

01:20:54It's anybody's game, but ours.

01:20:56It's a very simple word, this.

01:20:58It's a nonce word, again,

01:21:00and it's used by people who don't like Scotsman very much

01:21:05to describe the sort of conversation which starts,

01:21:08Oh, what have we been?

01:21:10Oh, this is MacTavish.

01:21:13Oh, you should not have done it.

01:21:16Speaking like that is referred to as Ockery.

01:21:25Now let's find out what Alan Gardner says.

01:21:28I seem to be stuck with the job of linguist tonight.

01:21:31This is Cornish.

01:21:33You were misled. There was a Celtic element, as you heard,

01:21:36but it's actually Cornish, which is allied to Breton,

01:21:39and it's a collection of lobster pots,

01:21:43because in the rough Atlantic weather,

01:21:46they need to keep them all tied together in a tight circle

01:21:49against the breakers,

01:21:51and I can't pronounce it properly

01:21:53because of not having the Cornish myself,

01:21:55but Ockery is lobster pots.

01:21:59Is lobster pots.

01:22:01A collection of lobster pots.

01:22:03You needn't go any further.

01:22:06The lobster pot story is James Bond.

01:22:08Angela.

01:22:10I don't know why they've been all so confusing about this,

01:22:12because it's quite simple.

01:22:14Ockery is the adjective of the word.

01:22:16In fact, it's not Ockery, it's Ochery,

01:22:18the adjective of the word ochre, quite simply.

01:22:21Toffee, digestive biscuits and 1978 National Health Cards

01:22:25are all Ochery.

01:22:28She's right.

01:22:30Well, it's this kind of Scotch vocative

01:22:36it's of ochre,

01:22:38and it's a collection of lobster pots.

01:22:40Patrick.

01:22:42I don't think I know what ochre is.

01:22:46What is it?

01:22:47It's a kind of colour.

01:22:49Brownish.

01:22:50Yes, of course.

01:22:51I think.

01:22:52Or is it yellow?

01:22:54Yellow.

01:22:55Oh, I don't know.

01:22:57Can you help from everyone?

01:22:59Can you help from Sweeney?

01:23:01It certainly isn't a collection of lobster pots.

01:23:03They're just a lot of lobster pots.

01:23:05It isn't an ochery.

01:23:07It's quick, isn't it?

01:23:08Very quick.

01:23:09Whatever a vocative Edinburgh,

01:23:12if that was an Edinburgh accent that you were at just now.

01:23:15I didn't say Edinburgh.

01:23:16I didn't say Edinburgh, Pad.

01:23:17But it's still you, though, isn't it?

01:23:19It's a word.

01:23:20It's your word.

01:23:21You've got the true one in front of you.

01:23:23You're making the choice, Patrick.

01:23:24Yes.

01:23:25It's Frank who said all that about ochre and so forth.

01:23:28True or bluff?

01:23:29Och, no.

01:23:32APPLAUSE

01:23:39No, no, that wasn't anything at all.

01:23:41Let's have the true definition of ochery.

01:23:43And lo where it comes.

01:23:45See, if you paid your own attention...

01:23:47There it is.

01:23:48APPLAUSE

01:23:53It is not ochery.

01:23:54I should have said ochery, quite as in ochreous, I suppose.

01:23:58Four, three.

01:23:59Ochery is the next one.

01:24:00Patrick.

01:24:02I can't attempt to reproduce this in the local dialect,

01:24:06but, comma,

01:24:09it's a condition...

01:24:13..that pertains to young Scottish boys

01:24:19and deeply embarrasses them

01:24:21if they're trying to chat up young Scottish girls.

01:24:26A kilt too big.

01:24:27Because...

01:24:30Because if you're pooky,

01:24:33it means you're covered with acne.

01:24:37So if you've got a lot of pooks...

01:24:41..all over your face,

01:24:42you'll never get anywhere with a Scottish teenage girl.

01:24:48Pooks or plooks, I suppose.

01:24:50Yeah, plooks.

01:24:51Yeah, Peter, Igo, your turn.

01:24:53A plookie is an Australian nickname for...

01:24:57..part derisive and part affectionate

01:24:59for an Aboriginal who chooses to live in a town or city.

01:25:02And plookies are reputed to be not very bright

01:25:06and there are lots of jokes about him

01:25:08on a par with the English's jokes about the Irish.

01:25:12Mm-hm.

01:25:13A chap who lives...

01:25:15No.

01:25:16It's all this book work.

01:25:17It's Serena Sinclair's turn now.

01:25:19A plookie is an East Anglian name for a child's bib.

01:25:23No child worth its salt in East Anglia

01:25:26would sit down to its gruel, bang its spoon

01:25:28and yell for more, more, more,

01:25:30unless it had its plookie on.

01:25:32They're very fussy about it.

01:25:38No, it's this bib.

01:25:39This bib a child wears in East Anglia.

01:25:41It's an Amber original

01:25:43and it's in a state of being pimply in Scotland.

01:25:45Frank, choose if you will.

01:25:50A sort of East Anglian Oliver Twist

01:25:54with his plookie sitting at his gruel.

01:25:57Perhaps, perhaps...

01:25:59Just examining now, going through it.

01:26:01A chap who chooses to live in an Aussie city, a bit thick.

01:26:07All this...

01:26:08Might get another one if you get a move on, Frank.

01:26:11This wee Scot with terminal acne.

01:26:15I think...

01:26:17Oh, I think it can only be the wee Scot.

01:26:19The wee Scot of whom, Patrick spoke.

01:26:22Two of love?

01:26:24Well done.

01:26:25He got it.

01:26:33Plookie certainly means pimply in Scotland

01:26:36and we've got just sort of brightish time

01:26:39to get this last one in and we need it, don't we?

01:26:41It's Alan Garner to define it.

01:26:43Fairly swiftly.

01:26:44Assay, swift as the hawk it represents.

01:26:48Oh, swift as the hawk it represents.

01:26:50I see what you mean.

01:26:53It is a fulcrum term for a type of hawk.

01:26:56It is a raptor which uses its beak and not its claws.

01:26:59I see.

01:27:00Angela.

01:27:01An assay was a silver Genoese coin

01:27:04which is worth about one quarter of a real,

01:27:07that is to say about fourpence in 17th century money.

01:27:10And Frank?

01:27:12It's a slang adjective meaning asinine.

01:27:14Stupid.

01:27:15Oh, yes, right.

01:27:16Well, it means asinine.

01:27:18It's a certain sort of raptor

01:27:20that kills the prey with its beak

01:27:23rather than its paws, I should say claws,

01:27:26and it's a Roman coin.

01:27:28Now you have a choice to make.

01:27:30Peter Egan.

01:27:31Well done.

01:27:32Don't know anything about birds, so...

01:27:34Fairly swiftly now.

01:27:35Won't go for the hawk.

01:27:36Don't know anything about money,

01:27:37so I'll go for Frank's asinine.

01:27:40Drawbluff, Frank.

01:27:41Own up.

01:27:42It's true!

01:27:52Well, that was a great game all through,

01:27:54and for all it was,

01:27:56and then on the edge of our seats,

01:27:58and then just by one, 5-4.

01:28:00Patrick's team has won.

01:28:10We'll take the dust sheets off a few more words next week.

01:28:13Until then, goodbye from Alan Garner...

01:28:18..Peter Egan...

01:28:21..Angela Rippon...

01:28:24..Serena Sinclair...

01:28:27..Frank Lloyd...

01:28:30..Patrick Campbell...

01:28:33..and goodbye.

01:28:39APPLAUSE

01:29:10All my bluffs with the ancient mariner

01:29:12who picketh one of three,

01:29:14Patrick Campbell.

01:29:21What a joy it is

01:29:23to welcome back the same team

01:29:25that had that tremendous victory last week,

01:29:27by one point,

01:29:28for the first time for six months.

01:29:32My first guest is Serena Sinclair.

01:29:34APPLAUSE

01:29:38And my other guest is, of course, Peter Egan.

01:29:48And old lofty, Frank Muir.

01:29:56Back, of course, come the gallant losers,

01:29:59headed up by, as our American cousins say,

01:30:02Angela Rippon.

01:30:04APPLAUSE

01:30:10And considerably held up by...

01:30:13..writer, poet, all sorts of things,

01:30:16Alan Garner.

01:30:23Let's have a word.

01:30:25We get a word by ringing that bell,

01:30:27and that word is kumbang.

01:30:29And this word, kumbang, will be defined by Patrick Campbell

01:30:32and his team three different ways.

01:30:34Two are false.

01:30:35Two are the definitions.

01:30:36One is true.

01:30:37That's the one that Frank Muir and co.

01:30:39tried to pick out.

01:30:40So off you canter, Patrick, with this one.

01:30:43A kumbang, taken called kumbang,

01:30:45kumbang is a wind

01:30:48that howls over Java,

01:30:52which you might know as an island in the East Indies.

01:30:55This terrible wind...

01:30:59..it does fearful damage

01:31:01to the tobacco crops

01:31:04on the plain of Cherrybaum.

01:31:10Awful lot of light on that one.

01:31:13Right, after you comes Peter Egan.

01:31:17Kumbang is a shoreside punch-up

01:31:20between Alaskan whalers.

01:31:23There apparently has been strong conflict

01:31:26between Alaskan whalers as to their private fishing areas,

01:31:29and very often ends in fisticuffs.

01:31:33Private punch-up, village punch-up, a kumbang.

01:31:36Right.

01:31:38That and Serena Sinclair.

01:31:40Well, you know, there are a great many kinds of Persian rugs,

01:31:43but there's a very special Persian rug called the kumbang.

01:31:46And why it's special is that it is a prayer rug.

01:31:49And how you know it's a prayer rug

01:31:51is that it has this lovely little red stripe

01:31:53just woven in around the border.

01:31:55It rather undulates the stripe.

01:31:57It's charming.

01:31:58What country was it?

01:31:59Persian rugs.

01:32:00Persia, always Persia on this programme.

01:32:05Lots of Persian rugs.

01:32:07But this is a Persian rug, special one.

01:32:09It's an Alaskan fight,

01:32:11and it's a Javanese wind ruins the tobacco.

01:32:15Frank, to choose.

01:32:21I wonder, I wonder.

01:32:24We have four opinions between three of us.

01:32:28I think it might be a record,

01:32:30but nevertheless, it's encouraging.

01:32:32If I may deal with them one by one,

01:32:34in descending order, like Miss...

01:32:39Java wind, rubbish.

01:32:42Alaskan punch-up, rubbish.

01:32:45Prayer rug, rubbish.

01:32:49I think, on the evidence of the feel of the word,

01:32:55it's Javanese wind.

01:32:58The Javanese wind of which Patrick spoke.

01:33:01Was Patrick telling the truth, or was he teasing?

01:33:04Telling the truth.

01:33:13Javanese wind ruins the tobacco.

01:33:15What a terrible thing.

01:33:17Hambo is the next word.

01:33:19Hambo, Frank?

01:33:21Very nice for a change, this.

01:33:23Hambo is a Swiss cheese.

01:33:26Not large, because it comes from a smallish canton,

01:33:29Appenzell, near Lake Constance.

01:33:31The hambo cheese is about round,

01:33:34about the same size as your average fish cake,

01:33:37and it's soft and creamy,

01:33:39and covered with ground-up chestnuts.

01:33:41Isn't that nice? Hambo.

01:33:43Sounds pretty good.

01:33:45Avant-garde.

01:33:47Another difficult one.

01:33:49The thing itself is quite easy to comprehend,

01:33:52but difficult to execute, in that it is a dance.

01:33:55It's a dance similar to the Charleston black-bottom type of dance

01:34:00of that period, indeed.

01:34:02But what makes it a difficult word for us to establish

01:34:05is because it is Scandinavian in origin,

01:34:09and I always help you out on linguistics.

01:34:13It's a Scandinavian modern dance

01:34:16based on a hotted-up folk dance.

01:34:20You need to be hotted up for Scandinavia.

01:34:22I think that's really all we need to know just the moment.

01:34:25Angela, your turn.

01:34:27If you're ever unfortunate enough to break

01:34:30a very priceless porcelain figurine,

01:34:32you would need hambo,

01:34:34because it's something that's used by porcelain restorers.

01:34:37It's a resin, glue and whitening mixture,

01:34:40which they use to remould that part of a figurine

01:34:44that has been smashed.

01:34:46It's putty for a putty.

01:34:50Sorry, it's putty for a putto,

01:34:54and it's cheese, and it's a dance.

01:34:57That's what it is, Patrick.

01:34:59I've asked her, but not you.

01:35:01You don't know either?

01:35:03Good.

01:35:05Well, it's absurd to talk about...

01:35:10..jazzed-up Scandinavian folk dancing,

01:35:14because it might happen.

01:35:17Porcelain is mended with plaster of Paris

01:35:20and varnished, polished, I think.

01:35:24It doesn't sound like a Swiss word, so I've run out...

01:35:28It is a Swiss cheese.

01:35:30Swiss cheese, Frank, you said it was.

01:35:33True or bluff?

01:35:35It's always my pleasure...

01:35:37..to give a bluff.

01:35:39APPLAUSE

01:35:43Lovely bluff.

01:35:45No, no, no.

01:35:47Not a Swiss cheese, must be something else.

01:35:49Here comes the definition, the true one.

01:35:52There it is.

01:35:59Hambo, a dance.

01:36:01Two-nil.

01:36:03We go on to tonga.

01:36:05And it's Peter Egan's turn.

01:36:07A tonga was Victorian slang for a shop doorbell

01:36:10attached to a spring,

01:36:12the kind you find in old drapery shops.

01:36:14It's rather a good name for it,

01:36:16since the bell didn't go ding-dong,

01:36:19but ting-a-ting-a-tong.

01:36:21LAUGHTER

01:36:25Yes, yes, yes.

01:36:27Serena Sinclair.

01:36:29In America, they get their oysters in a very easy way

01:36:32by employing a man to get them from the seabed.

01:36:35And what does he do?

01:36:37He doesn't dive down like these Japanese lady pearlfishers.

01:36:40He has a pair of long, long tongs,

01:36:42and he uses those tongs.

01:36:44He's a tonger.

01:36:48Now, it's Patrick's turn.

01:36:51A tonja.

01:36:53As it's pronounced, it can also be spelt T-O-N-J-A.

01:36:58It's an apprentice elephant.

01:37:00LAUGHTER

01:37:04If you're in the deep forests of Burma

01:37:07and you want a lot of trees shifting,

01:37:10you've got the mummy and daddy elephant there,

01:37:13working away.

01:37:15But if you tie the son or the daughter

01:37:17up beside the mummy or the daddy,

01:37:19it's going to learn how to tug,

01:37:21teak forests around.

01:37:23They call it a tonja.

01:37:25Uh-huh.

01:37:27So, they say it's a doorbell,

01:37:29and the noise a doorbell makes,

01:37:31it's one who goes round with a pair of tongs catching oysters,

01:37:34and it's a junior elephant,

01:37:36an elephant in training, Alan Garner, to choose.

01:37:39Well, Tonga sounds...

01:37:41Excuse me.

01:37:44Pass it on. Pull it.

01:37:46LAUGHTER

01:37:48I've just been totally spoiled.

01:37:52By slang, you mean Kent.

01:37:54Slang, I mean.

01:37:56Kent. So, it's Kent Spring.

01:38:00A New York oyster catcher.

01:38:02An oyster catcher from New York.

01:38:04The trouble with this lady

01:38:06is that she's always got me down.

01:38:10Unfortunately,

01:38:13it looks too much like Malay.

01:38:15Again, it's the elephant.

01:38:17You think it's the elephant

01:38:19with that impeccable accent Patrick spoke?

01:38:21Tonja.

01:38:23Oh, no, it isn't.

01:38:25APPLAUSE

01:38:28Alan Garner.

01:38:32I should give up the linguistics

01:38:34and just guess like the rest of them, if I were you.

01:38:37Who gave the true definition?

01:38:42There it is.

01:38:48What else could a Tonga be

01:38:50but a man with a pair of tongs tonging?

01:38:52Right.

01:38:54That is the next word,

01:38:56and Alan Garner defines it for you.

01:38:58Oh, all right.

01:39:00I shan't do any teaching.

01:39:02First World War.

01:39:05Voluntary women's service.

01:39:08Ambulances.

01:39:10Two types.

01:39:12The mobile ambulance lady

01:39:14who could drive and was experienced.

01:39:17And the willing but less skilled lady

01:39:20who was the immobile ambulance lady

01:39:24who quickly became, of course, the IMMI.

01:39:28The First World War voluntary ambulance lady

01:39:30who could not move.

01:39:32We got there.

01:39:34Yes, that's right.

01:39:36Made a note of that now. Angela.

01:39:39Well, the IMMI, I suppose, really,

01:39:42is the schoolboy's Rolls-Royce

01:39:44of marbles or alleys.

01:39:46It's a glass marble

01:39:48that's especially toughened

01:39:50by adding lime to the glass

01:39:52so that it gives it a rather sort of shatterproof quality

01:39:55when the going gets really tough

01:39:57in a game of marbles or alleys.

01:39:59Mm-hm.

01:40:01Now, Frank.

01:40:03The IMMI...

01:40:05It's kind of nude canary.

01:40:07LAUGHTER

01:40:09When the canaries molt,

01:40:11they start at the age of about ten months,

01:40:14and then the little thing loses its feathers

01:40:17and it lasts about a month,

01:40:19this fight for molt.

01:40:21It's not naked, of course.

01:40:23I mean, there's little bits of...

01:40:25But it's a vase of unhappy,

01:40:27unattractive little bird.

01:40:29Mm-hm.

01:40:31And during that period when it's molting,

01:40:33it's called, among bird fanciers,

01:40:35the IMMI.

01:40:37Is this... Oh, right.

01:40:39It's a special kind of well-toughened marble.

01:40:43It's an immobile nurse

01:40:45and a rather threadbare canary.

01:40:47Peter Egan, your choice.

01:40:52Unanimous again.

01:40:54Unanimous, yes. Oh!

01:40:56I can never understand a word Alan says,

01:40:58so I'll discard that one.

01:41:00LAUGHTER

01:41:02And I loved Frank's one.

01:41:04It's very persuasive.

01:41:06But as I trust Angela, I'll go for hers.

01:41:08That was swiftly done straight.

01:41:10Angela, you said it was this marble.

01:41:13My goodness, what a compliment.

01:41:15APPLAUSE

01:41:22So, that's exactly what it is.

01:41:24It's a very special, glamorous sort of marble.

01:41:28To all.

01:41:30And the word now is Saracel.

01:41:32Serena.

01:41:34The Saracel is a magic boat.

01:41:36All people who know Arabian folklore

01:41:38know about the Saracel.

01:41:40It's such an amazing magic boat

01:41:42that it has no sails at all.

01:41:44But somehow, the man sailing it,

01:41:46who is looking for the harbour of immortal souls,

01:41:49manages to keep it moving all the time.

01:41:52That's right.

01:41:54Very pretty.

01:41:56Very nice.

01:41:58Let us now see how sweetly Patrick follows on.

01:42:01It is rather sweet.

01:42:03The Saracel was in the 17th century

01:42:06much used for haute couture.

01:42:09It was a kind of silk material

01:42:12with the texture of twill,

01:42:14kind of ribbed a bit.

01:42:16Lovely. And was it not?

01:42:19Samuel Pepys, who said...

01:42:24What to say?

01:42:28And so to bluff.

01:42:30Clear day in April...

01:42:32No, not in 1962.

01:42:341662.

01:42:36It comes Mrs Knapp

01:42:39at noon

01:42:41and her pale features

01:42:44are marvellously agreeable

01:42:46about the Saracel.

01:42:50Have you ever heard between their names?

01:42:54Very nice, very nice.

01:42:56Pretty, pretty.

01:42:58A Saracel is a small back room in a glassworks.

01:43:02To be more precise, it's a heated back room

01:43:05into which drinking glasses are brought in on a tray

01:43:08in order to cool down very, very slowly

01:43:11in order that they shouldn't crack.

01:43:14Yep, you'd have to have such a place, I suppose.

01:43:17Well, it's a magic boat.

01:43:19It's a room in a glassworks

01:43:21and it's silk stuff.

01:43:23Angela to choose.

01:43:26I'm getting all sorts of messages up the line.

01:43:28No conditions.

01:43:34I don't know Samuel Pepys well enough

01:43:37to know whether he really did say that or not.

01:43:40And I doubt if you did either, Patrick.

01:43:45The glassworks, a Saracel,

01:43:47yes, I suppose they would have a name for it,

01:43:49rather like a kiln.

01:43:51I always thought those things without sails

01:43:53that the Arabians went around in were called flying carpets.

01:44:00Oh, I mean, she's had some lovely ones, hasn't she?

01:44:02No, I think it's Peter.

01:44:04You think it's the room in the glassworks

01:44:06which Peter Egan spoke through?

01:44:08He's got it now, he's got it there.

01:44:10He has to own up.

01:44:12Yes!

01:44:21Saracel is a room in a glassworks.

01:44:23You've often wondered what it was called.

01:44:25Well, it's called that, Saracel.

01:44:27Follice is our next word.

01:44:29Angela Rippon's turn.

01:44:32If you're someone who is interested in gardening,

01:44:35this is probably a term that you'll have come across

01:44:37as a sort of horticultural term for a blister.

01:44:40It's the sort of blister that appears

01:44:42usually on the underside of leaves,

01:44:44most particularly on willow leaves,

01:44:46and it's nature's way of storing water in times of drought.

01:44:50A small blister on the underside of a leaf.

01:44:55And now, Frank Muir.

01:44:57Follice is a traditional old Kentish loaf of bread.

01:45:04Pretty well all there is to say about it.

01:45:06It's wholemeal and malt, the usual things.

01:45:10The thing about Follice was that it was...

01:45:12The idea was that you baked it in the Oast House

01:45:15and it had a sort of faintly hoppy thing to it.

01:45:18Doesn't sound very nice, does it?

01:45:20Or interesting.

01:45:23Let's try Alan Gardner. Your go.

01:45:26I'm sorry about this, it's very dull.

01:45:28Like the ass, Follice is a Roman coin.

01:45:32Of the period of the Emperor Diocletian.

01:45:36And the only other thing I need to say about it

01:45:38is that it is masculine, unlike most Latin words

01:45:41ending in "-is", which are feminine.

01:45:48Remember it now. Kentish bread.

01:45:51Bump on a leaf, moisture in it.

01:45:53Roman coin. Masculine, not feminine.

01:45:56Serena. Your choice.

01:45:58Well, I'm worried about the taste of this bread of Frank's.

01:46:01I think maybe all the children of Kent

01:46:03are weaving about drunkenly from eating this stuff.

01:46:06I don't think they're going to be allowed to make it still.

01:46:08I think perhaps not.

01:46:10Angela, this seems very possible,

01:46:12this little blisterful of water.

01:46:14But since I know nothing about trees at all,

01:46:17I have a funny feeling Alan could be right

01:46:19and we're on to a coin.

01:46:21You're choosing the coin.

01:46:23It was indeed Alan, true or bluff?

01:46:25It was indeed Alan, true or bluff?

01:46:27You're right!

01:46:36Police, a coin.

01:46:38Three all, another exciting match.

01:46:40Tras is the next one. Patrick.

01:46:42Tras is a kind of pumice-like stone

01:46:47that's found on the banks of the River Rhine

01:46:51between Mainz and Cologne.

01:46:55Or Cologne to you, probably.

01:46:58Now...

01:47:00Tras used to be imported into England

01:47:07because it made...

01:47:09If you powdered it up a bit and put some water on it,

01:47:12it made it into a lovely hydraulic cement.

01:47:18But people ceased to find any use for hydraulic cement

01:47:22and so they didn't import it any longer.

01:47:25I don't know what hydraulic cement is.

01:47:28You mean cement mixed with water?

01:47:31Hydraulic cement, yes.

01:47:33Well, it's obviously a very vivacious thing, whatever it is.

01:47:36Peter, your turn.

01:47:38Tras is a Caribbean word

01:47:41for the stalks of sugar cane

01:47:43after the sugar has been squeezed out.

01:47:45Tras is usually stored to dry out in buildings

01:47:48known, not surprisingly, as...

17. Call My Bluff S13E15, S13E16, S13E17, S13E18 (1979) G. Drake, J. McKenzie, I. McKellen, P. Egan

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