Series 81 - Episode 1

We present I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, the Antidote to Panel Games.

At the piano is Colin Sell and your chairman is Jack Dean.

Hello and welcome to I'm sorry I haven't a clue you join us today on a visit to the city of Oxford

known throughout the world as the Cambridge of the South.

A bell located in a tower of Christchurch Cathedral goes by the name of Old Tom.

Old Tom keeps what is known as Oxford Time, a hangover from the 19th century when the country was divided into different time zones and Oxford was five minutes behind Greenwich.

With the advent of the railways, the country's time zones were regularised, though several towns stubbornly refused to comply.

Thus, even today, when it's 12 noon in London, in Swindon, it's 1952.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak attended Lincoln College despite a reportedly indifferent school career.

An early school report said Sunak was an unremarkable boy in short trousers, an opinion shared by many of his cabinet colleagues to this day.

Blackwell's bookshop on Broad Street began trading in 1879 and famously contains three miles of shelving.

A regular visitor was Oxford's favourite son, Roger Bannister, who could browse the entire shop in just under 12 minutes.

In 1263, John Balliol was forced to pay for the building of Balliol College as a punishment for insulting the Bishop of Durham.

And ecclesiastic dissent has remained a constant amongst Balliol's undergraduates, which include former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, one of the most spectacular bishop bashers ever.

Let's meet the teams.

On my right, we've welcome Rachel Parris and the Reverend Richard Coles.

And on my left, Tony Hawks and Alexander Armstrong.

And taking her place at the desk next to me to enjoy an evening of scoring, please welcome the ever-delightful Samantha.

Well, we begin this week with a round called it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that ing.

The smallest change in a title can mean the difference between success and failure, so I'd like the teams to add the letters ing to the end of a well-known book, film, and TV show title in order to completely change the viewers' expectation.

Rachel, you can start.

Pacific Rimming.

Richard.

The right stuffing.

Alexander.

Kindergarten coping.

Tony, Rogering the Rabbit

Gold fingering

The Booking of Genesis

Fasting and Furious

Shafting

Flashing Gordon

A Brief History of

Timing

Despicable Minge

Fathering Ted

Staring wars.

Gone with the winding.

Ironing man.

Dial Ming for murder.

Jurassic parking.

Well, it's time now for a musical round as I ask the teams to sing one song to the tune of another.

Providing piano accompaniment, we have Colin Sall.

Incidentally, Colin was telling us that he was the man behind the Wu-Tang clan.

To this day, still one of the most surprising entrants at the Bremer Highland Games.

Okay, we'll start with you, please, Richard Coles.

I'd like you to sing the words of Firestarter by the Prodigy to the tune of Some Enchanted Evening.

I'm the trouble starter,

pumpkin instigator,

I'm the fear addicted,

a danger illustrated.

I'm a fire starter,

twisted fire starter.

You're a fire starter, twisted fire starter.

I'm a fire starter,

twisted fire starter.

I'm the bitch you hated,

filled with fat you at.

Yeah,

I'm the pain you tasted,

fell intoxicated.

I'm the fire starter,

twisted fire

starter.

Thank you, Richard.

Okay, Alexander Armstrong, I'd like you to sing the words of I Predictor Riot by the Kaiser Chiefs to the tune of a nightingale sang in Barclay Square.

Watching the people

get lairy.

It's not very pretty, I tell thee.

Walking through town is quite scary.

It's not very sensible,

either.

A friend of a friend, he got beaten.

He looked the wrong way at a policeman.

Would never have happened to Smeaton

an old Liodency.

I predict a riot,

I predict a riot,

I predict a riot.

I tried to get to my taxi.

The man in a tracksuit

attacks me.

He said that he saw it

before me

and wants to get things of it gory.

Girls scrabble round with no clothes on

to borrow a pound

for a

Well, don't encourage him, he'll make another album.

Tony Hawkes, I'd like you to sing the words of Gay Bar by

Electric Six to the tune of Clive Dunn's song Grandad.

I want to take you to a

gay bar

I wanna take you to a

gay bar

I wanna take you

to a gay bar

gay bar gay bar let's start a war

start a nuclear war at a gay bar

gay bar, gay bar

at the gay bar

Now tell me, do you

do you have any money?

I want to spend all your money

at the

gay ball, gay bar

I've got something

to put in you

I've got something

to put

in you.

I have got something

at the

gate board.

Okay,

and finally, Rachel Parrish, I'd like you to sing the words of the Hokey Cokey to the tune of Creep by Oxford band Radiohead.

You put your left arm in,

put your left arm out

in outing

out,

you shake it all about.

You do the hokey cokey,

and you turn around.

That's what it's all

about.

knees

bent, unstretched, raw, raw,

raw,

okay.

Now,

recent years have seen a new tea time tradition on British tele as viewers gather around daily to enjoy a fantastic innovative game show presided over by a charismatic host who combines wit and lightly worn erudition with sharp suits and a winning twinkle.

We all love Bradley Walsh, don't we?

However, the next round is based on what you would see if you accidentally switched over to BBC One.

Now, I don't know if anyone on the panel watches Pointless.

Yeah, I do.

I'm a big fan, actually.

It's made a household name, hasn't it?

Of Richard Osman.

Yeah.

Yeah, I love Richard Osman.

Yeah, me.

What I like most about Richard Osmond is he just knows when to quit.

It's true, it would be easy to keep on doing the same show year after year,

losing more and more dignity in the process.

I don't know what you're all looking at me for.

Zanda, are you familiar with Pointless?

It rings a vague bell with my accountant.

Well, this is a very similar game to Pointless.

We've just brought it more up to date and relevant to life in Britain today.

It's called Hopeless.

Nice little play-in by my hopeless friend Colin there.

Now, players, we gave 100 people in Britain 60 seconds to name things they feel hopeful about.

What you have to do is give an answer, and none of those people gave.

Rachel, do you want to go first?

Okay.

The long-term existence of the BBC.

Okay, good answer.

Let's see how many of our 100 people feel hopeful about the long-term existence existence of the BBC.

It's a correct answer.

Almost down to the bottom, Rachel.

Lepsian can go any further.

And

ah, yep, three.

Very good.

Three people.

All of them deluded.

One of them the Director General.

Now it's Tony's go.

Tony?

The state of the housing market?

The state of the housing market.

Let's see how many of our hundred people said they feel any hope at all about the state of the housing market.

That's the correct answer.

And it's going down, going down, continuing to go down.

Very slowly it's going down, but it is going down.

Going down.

Ah, it's gone.

Yep, 98.

Quite high, but it turns out that 98 of the people we asked were landlords.

Richard.

Well, I'm going to go for mankind's essential capacity for kindness.

I mean, I'll put it in.

All right, how many people said they feel hopeful about mankind's essential capacity for kindness?

That's correct answer.

It's going down, right down, all the way down.

It's going all the way down.

But how far is it going to go down?

We don't know.

At this point, I wish the music was quicker.

Oh, there you go.

One.

Very good.

Very good.

Yep.

I think that might have been me.

Might.

Well, Sander, you might as well have a go.

Throw in as many as you want.

We'll check them all.

Okay, fine.

Well, I'm going to go for climate change, the advent of artificial intelligence, the continued operation of our universities, the future of the NHS, the rail network, the state of pretty much all public spaces, food banks, special needs provision, and the prospect of anyone at any point, anywhere on this island, actually managing to fill in a sodding pothole.

Okay, let's have a look.

Did any of our 100 people feel any hope about any of these things?

That's the correct answer.

It's going down.

Oh,

this is where it gets exciting.

Congratulations, Xander.

That's an entirely hopeless answer.

Well, I gave it a lot of thought.

Clearly, so tell us, Xander, did that make you feel well and truly at home?

It certainly made me wish I was.

And we can't get more hopeless than that, can we?

Okay, well, teams will now take it in turns to improvise some written correspondence with two players providing one word each at a time.

And the subject of your correspondence today will be an issue of concern to the good people of Oxford.

So, audience, can I have any suggestions, please, of local causes of complaint that have been troubling the local community?

What would you say it would be out here?

LGN.

LGN, did you say?

Low-traffic neighbourhood.

Okay, low-traffic neighbourhood.

Can I ask your name?

Nikki.

Nikki.

Perfect.

Thank you very much.

Okay, Rachel and Richard, I'd like you to start by composing a letter of complaint from Nikki, I suppose, to the Oxford Council, about the low traffic neighbourhood scheme.

Dear sir, I am utterly bewildered and appalled by the policy which you have ruthlessly enacted upon my community.

Traffic

is my livelihood.

Low traffic is bad.

Neighbourhoods need traffic in

abundance.

So stop buggering around

with my traffic

great

car

depends upon free flowing traffic,

and now

I have no sense

that my car is valued at

the

auction

which

takes place every Monday at your bloody office

yours angrily, Nikki.

Dear Nikki,

we don't usually reply to you,

however, on this occasion, we will

new paragraph

Thank you for your interesting approach

to traffic.

We don't like you.

Whether

you are Oxfordshire-based or not.

You

stink.

Why did you think I would be remotely interested in your petty opinion?

However, traffic is not helpful to us.

We hereby stop all traffic in the future.

All

hail

Caesar.

Yours sincerely, the council.

Well,

hope we've helped you solve that problem, Nikki, and the rest of us with that matter.

But the next round is called specialist greeting cards.

There's always a dilemma in our house on special occasions: Moonpig or Funky Pigeon.

I tend to go with Moon Pig, but then my wife insists it's more appropriate for me to address her mother as Sandra.

There's definitely a gap in the UK greetings card market team, so I'd like you please to suggest niche greetings cards for a specific occasion not currently catered for by greetings cards manufacturers, together with the rhymes or messages inside.

So Tony, you could start this, please.

Congratulations on getting a place at university.

Hooray, you're off to uni.

It's finally time for fun.

Three years for you to learn and grow before the course is done.

Then into the world with head held high, you really are all set.

Apart, of course, from 40 years of crushing unpayable debt.

Sandon,

congratulations on a successful organ transplant.

You've had a successful organ transplant.

Be proud of your new kidney.

Your doctor doctor didn't hold out much hope.

He thought you'd snuff it, didn't he?

But now it seems you're feeling fine.

You can even dance a jig.

Although, according to these doctor's notes, they got it from a pig.

Commiserations on your trousers not fitting.

My deepest sympathies, you can't do up your jeans from Bowdoin, but try not to dwell on what's behind because you're behind the size of Snowden.

Thank you for sexting me.

I lost my specs, and so your text left me with quite a teaser.

At first, I thought the picture was the leaning tower of Pisa.

Sorry to hear your house has been repossessed.

I know you'll take this in your stride.

You're not the sort to cause a fuss.

Your home's now owned by nationwide, so suck it up and blameless truss.

Commiserations on not winning the boat race.

What a disappointing ending to this famous boating race.

Dark and light blues gave their all, but both were off the pace.

Even though you're super fit, of that there is no doubt.

You've caught E.

coli from the Thames and shat your insides out.

Sorry about your botched Brazilian.

We're sorry that our therapist made such a painful slip.

Please be assured that in response we'll tear her off a strip.

Well, it's very nearly the end of the show.

There is just time to fit in a quick round of Vickers Film Club.

Samantha tells us that she's no stranger to religion, having once spent several months in the thrall of a three-loving millennial cult after becoming attracted to its charismatic elderly guru.

She says she eventually became disenchanted after a thoroughly unsatisfactory evening spent waiting in vain for the second coming.

And I'm grateful to Mary Beard for sending that in.

In this round, teams, I'd like you to suggest the titles of films likely to be enjoyed by vicars.

And I'd like you to start this one, Reverend Richard Coles.

A street car named Messiah.

Rachel.

Ten Things I Hate About Pews.

Alexander.

Oppen hymn book.

Honey.

One flew over the curate's vest.

Taken.

From Matthew chapter 2, beginning at verse 5.

Flock, frock, and two smoking carols.

The nuns of Navarro.

101 Galatians.

Field of dreams.

Or in the parish hall, if wet.

Honey, I shrank the congregation.

Straight out of Compline.

Well be does Dallas.

Lost in transubstantiation.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, as the tender toenail of time is torn from the fickle foot of fate by the deep cleaning Dyson of destiny,

I notice it's the end of the show.

So, from the teams, Samantha, myself, and our audience here in Oxford, it's goodbye.

Goodbye.

Rachel Parris, Tony Hawks, Alexander Armstrong, and Richard Coles were being given silly things to do by Jack D, with Colin Sell setting some of them to music.

The programme consultants were Fraser Steele and Stephen Dick.

The producer was John Naismith.