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This is the Technical Difficulties. We're playing Citation Needed.
I have an almost randomly selected article
from everybody's favorite reliable source of knowledge, Wikipedia,
and these folks can't see it.
Every fact they get right is a point and a ding [DING],
And there's a special prize for particularly good answers, which is:
Oh my!
And today we are talking about... The Arctic Winter Games.
Oh ho ho ho *ho* ho!
What the hell was that?
That's one of the events.
Yeah!
Best chuckle.
In a cold environment.
It's probably gonna be pretty parky out,
so I'd imagine your outdoor events would be pretty quick, really.
You need a hearty chuckle to warm you up.
You would; a hearty, belly chuckle.
Who's he?
He's the Chuckle Brother!
You're right, though, it is very cold.
Do you know where it's being hosted this year?
— Errr... the Arctic. — The Arctic.
GARY: You made this mistake... CHRIS: Twice in as many shows.
It's actually not in the Arctic this year.
Well, that's a load of balls then!
Is it in the Antarctic?
No.
Oh. Are we talking, it's not in the Arctic but on some kind of technicality, the nearest place?
It's just below the Arctic.
GARY: Yeaaah, right.
Is that the old name for the Winter Olympics, and is it in Sochi?
— No, it's not. — Okay.
— No, not at all. — Oh, good shout though. Good shout.
Svalbard!
These are entirely different games.
What could be so different that you can't do...?
I imagine this is crazy stuff like hollowing out your own canoe.
We'll get to games in a minute. First, where is it?
Tromsø? Alaska?
CHRIS: Greenland? TOM: Fairbanks, Alaska. Point to you. [DING]
Oookay.
And you asked who was going to be involved in this...
Well, the catch here is that it's not for the world, it's for...
...Inuit and other indigenous peoples only.
Point. It's for all the cultures around the Arctic. [DING]
Ahh.
Can someone tell me any of the contingents,
rather than countries, that are coming from all around the world...?
So the people that live in Greenland, and all the...
Yeah. Greenland is a contingent, yep. Point. [DING]
And Canada?
Northwest Territories, yep, another point. [DING]
Finland, Lapland?
— The Sami people. — Yes. Finland.
— So the general area up there, yeah. [DING] — Yes.
The Yukon's coming up from Canada...
The Yamalo-Nenets from Russia.
MATT: That is a lovely word. CHRIS: Cool.
It is. I say, it's...
It's like I'm saying, 'Oh yes, the Wiltshire Yamalo-Nenets.'
'I know them... didn't they own most of Cheshire?'
This from the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.
Okr... aw, you can't have 'Yamalo-Nenets' and then tip it off with 'Okrug' on the end.
I've got an ok-rug in my hall.
[Laughter]
So, we may as well get to this, then:
What kind of events are being played at the Arctic Winter Games?
That aren't — I mean, there's the obvious ones, yes.
There's alpine skiing, and there's figure skating,
there's ice hockey and the games to do with that.
What are the ones you wouldn't find at the Olympics?
So is it speed snow structure building? Out of snow bricks?
Speed-gloo!
Ooh. It's a good idea, but no.
Iditarod? Dog sled racing?
Yes! Dog mushing. [DING]
Erm... snowmobile racing.
Ohh!
Ooh. Now that'd be lovely... There is no mechanically assisted ones in here.
There's biathlon, in which you have a gun to mechanically assist...
Is there a Flintstones-style snowmobile? [Laughter]
That's called alpine skiing, and I'm giving you a point for it. [DING]
That'd be great, though. Snowmobile racing would look brilliant.
Well, X Games, they do it, don't they? Winter X Games?
Yeah. There are a couple you wouldn't expect in here,
which are very much more...
Elementary rocketry.
...indoor sport.
Squash.
— Erm... close... — Yes.
— Badminton. — Point! [DING] Thank you.
What! F*** off! I say 'elementary rocketry' — not right.
— He says 'badminton'... — Yup.
At least that's a sport! [Laughter]
CHRIS: True, that's true... GARY: Are you telling me rocketry is not a sport?
It's not in the X Games yet.
Eh, it should be.
I don't know if they have, like, a Double X Games, for the...
— Or Triple X Games, I was just thinking that... — Triple X Games!
Now that I would pay to see.
MATT: You'd probably have to pay. GARY: You probably would have to, yes!
In fact, I'm fairly certain, should any of our viewers Google that,
you will in fact be able to pay to see that.
Now, there's one here which you're never going to get the name of,
which is called 'Dene Games', D-E-N-E.
I may be pronouncing that wrong; it may be Dené. [NB: It is.]
And there is no reference to this anywhere on Wikipedia,
so before we started, I went out and had a look at what these are.
And these are traditional forms of competition of the Northern cultures.
Okay.
Do you want to guess what they are?
Because they are interesting, to say the least.
Are they sports?
Is this where you end up with weird things like toe-wrestling and...
Oh! You know, you're pretty damn close.
— Yeah. — Yeah.
— It's that kind of thing.
Thumb wars, that kind of thing.
So I'm going to give you the names,
if you can tell me what this involves...
Stick Pull.
Is that where you try...
Oh... two guys holding a greased stick, isn't it?
Something like that, pulling against each other?
It's not greased, but yeah. It's the one who ends up with the stick wins,
Or the one who drags the other person's hand past them.
Oh, all right, okay...
Yeah, because I've seen that. I think they do that up on one of the northern Scottish isles as well.
Oh, right.
Because that culture feeds in from Nordic and things as well.
— Yes, it will, yeah... — So I think I've seen that one.
How about Finger Pull?
Pull my finger!
Well, you could — I mean...
You know what? Point. [DING]
Is it who pulls the finger and farts loudest? Seriously, tell me.
— No. No it's not. — Oh, come on...
Is it like a game of peanuts?
Have you each got hold of the other person's one finger and...
— Yep. — First one to scream out loses?
It's not first one to scream out. I'm giving you the point... [DING]
It's the first one to — well, they take turns defensive and offensive.
It's the first person to straighten the other person's finger.
— Ohhh! — Ohhh!
And according to the thing I'm looking at, they have buckets of ice water on hand...
There is a judge who's making sure you're not doing jerking motions
that will dislocate something, but other than that...
CHRIS: It's a smooth sort of... TOM: Yeah.
Woooh.
That sounds quite painful, actually.
It almost... well, right, I'll, er... I'll happily try...
— Everybody... it's live Finger Pull. — Do you want to make sure we're in shot here?
Hang on, we need to commentate.
Hold on. Right, let me see how this goes.
I can't even see because of...!
I think... I wrap my finger round like that...
— Tom Scott, wrapping his... — (There we go. And now I have to try...)
— Tom Scott is going for an offensive... — (Ugh!)
— Who's offensive, who's defensive? — I'm offensive!
GARY: Tom Scott is offensive. We all knew this anyway. CHRIS: I do find him offensive.
Erm, he's pulling very hard on Matt Gray's finger...
That's actually surprisingly difficult.
— Let's try it the other way. — Okay, yeah. Go.
Okay, and Matt Gray now offensive...
— Aagh! — Ah! Well, that lasted.
Okay! Matt is better at this game than I am. [Laughter]
Quite easy, really.
Does anyone want to make a comment about the strength of Matt Gray's right hand?
Anyone?
Not me, at the moment... [Laughter]
...sit here and be a little bit disappointed in myself...
Well, everybody... Matt, we've found where you're going next.
It's the Ice Games for you.
As Britain's representative in the Finger Pull.
[Laughter]
Can you imagine, you're the country's champion finger-puller?
How many fetes and stuff are you ever gonna open?
Pull my finger? [Laughter]
Oh, that's a sponsorship, if ever there was one.
Erm... Pole Push.
— Do you push a pole? — Is it where you push a pole?
You do, but I'm going to need more than that...
Have you got two teams trying to hold it up or something?
— I'm going to give you the point there, Gary. — Oh, wow, okay.
It's basically reverse tug-of-war. [DING]
— In that, rather than trying to pull the team past... — Okay yeah, you're trying to drive the other team...
You're trying to drive the other team past...
A back marker rather than a centre marker.
I like the idea of people who play these games
going to see a tug-of-war contest and yelling that 'You're doing it wrong!'
'Wrong way, you fools!'
There are two more in this category.
One is Hand Games.
And this is the simplest damn thing,
and I can play it right now if there is, er, something around here... here we go.
We can literally play Hand Games right now...
Tom's opened his wallet. Bloody hell.
TOM: Which hand? MATT: Right hand. GARY: Left.
Therefore, one of us wins.
Matt Gray wins! Point. [DING]
Seriously? [Laughter]
That is the Hand Games.
And there are all sorts of regulations on what you can and cannot do as a distraction.
Like have a live fish in your hand when you open it.
— Yeah. — Magic.
I want to see that in a stadium of eighty thousand people.
Yeah!
All I'm seeing is a slightly more interesting version of watching Derren Brown.
Aw, he'd be banned outright, wouldn't he, the wizard. The sorcerer.
He'd have in one hand, no coin, and in the other hand,
a coin that then disappears and reappears in the other.
Magicians.
The last one is the wonderfully titled Snow Snake.
Heh heh, right.
That's not a cock joke, Gary.
Oh, I think you'll find it is. [Laughter]
Please tell me it's a spitting cobra covered in snow.
No.
Crawl as far as you can in the snow, on your belly.
You're not crawling, yourself.
— No, I'm not. I'm sat in a chair. — Your wife.
Drag someone through the snow, make it look like they're crawling.
No, you're definitely... You're getting an object to move through the snow.
A snake.
— No. — A rock.
Stick?
Cocktail stick.
I'm going to let you have 'stick'. Spear. [DING].
Oh, all right. Okay, yeah.
Er, so you've got...
Do you glide it along the ground?
Underhand spear slide sort of affair.
And a point for underhand. [DING]
— You've won the Freedom of the City. — Ah!
— Exactly right. That is Snow Snake.
GARY: Well, it couldn't be overarm, could it. MATT: It's like long curling.
That's spearing.
Thunk! 'Oh, no.'
You have an icy surface, and you see how far you can send your spear.
Cool!
There is another set of games...
So you have the Arctic Winter Games, you have the Winter Olympics,
and then you also have the World Eskimo Indian Olympics, WEIO...
which is held in July or August.
Ah?
Which is 'games rooted in ancestral hunting and survival techniques'.
Does anyone want to take a guess on a couple of the events that are...
Laugh at Bear Grylls.
Real Life Canoe Battleship.
— Wait, what? — 'F-3!'
Yeah! Lob a rock.
Just a big tarpaulin hung over the middle, with a little, I dunno...
a little ice pool or something, and bunging rocks over the side, yeah.
— Are either of us right? — No!
Not even close.
There is a game called Drop The Bomb.
Is that where you go s*** in someone's front yard?
Because on ice, you would need the grip and everything
to be able to get away with that, wouldn't you. [Laughter]
Not leaving footprints and stuff that can be traced.
Er, Drop the Bomb. No, it's, erm...
A person kind of lying face down, arms outstretched as a cross...
— Right... — Three spotters position them,
Participant tightens all their muscles, the spotters lift the body...
and have to carry them as far as possible before their arms sag
and they can't hold themselves in that position any more.
MATT: Ah... I think we did that at school. GARY: We are trying this *now*.
We also have the Ear Pull.
Does anyone want to take a guess how that works?
Er, that's...!
Is it something a bit like that?
It is, isn't it?
...point. [DING]
Not strictly. There are two people sitting down facing each other,
with twine looped around each other's ears.
GARY: Ooo. CHRIS: Oh yeah, I've seen this one as well, actually.
MATT: Yes, I've seen that. CHRIS: Yeah and you pull away like that.
TOM: Yeah. CHRIS: Yeah, I've seen this one on the telly as well.
How's it work then? So...
It's just a loop of string that hooks round the back of your ears,
and you just pull away.
And it says here, it is 'stamina to pain'.
That is all it is. It's an endurance competition rather than speed or agility.
You see, and they all laughed when you got that dodgy Sky subscription
to the Indigenous Peoples' Satellite Network.
I don't know how I've seen all these things! But several of them I've seen, yeah.
You just — at one point, have you got a 'lost week' or something?
More than one. [Laughter]
Now the photograph's going to come up of you competing in the events.
I don't remember any of this! I've got all these medals, though...
'He is from the South. He is known as Joel of the Sun.'
Put this on late at night, around about half eleven, post-pub.
Just after the pubs have...
We would all enjoy watching men trying to pull each other's ears off.
See, that's what they could do on BBC Three.
Yeah! Just toe wrestling and gut barging
and stuff like that as well, give it a proper international...
Cheese rolling once a year...
I don't get that.
What, cheese rolling?
It's just running downhill, innit?
It just — well, it's downhill...
With a cheese that can kill you.
It's more so rag-dolling down a hill...
...with a cheese that can kill you.
As long as there's an already dubbed-on 'boing!' for every time someone hits the floor.
I've got 'Too Much Cheese Can Kill You' going round my head.
CHRIS: Too much...! [Laughs]
GARY: [singing] '...cheese can kill you!'
'If you can't make up your mind...'
[Laughter]
'Torn between the Edam and the Gouda you left behind...'
— Ohhh. — Yes!
— Heyyy!
'You're heading for disaster 'cos you didn't see the rind...'
'Too much cheese will kill you...'
ALL: '...every time.'
On that note... You know, I keep doing this, but...
Gary, congratulations, you win the show! [Laughter and applause]
No, sorry, you've won the Free Dom of the City. So do enjoy him.
Ohh.
Yes, sir.
— Until then, that's been Matt Gray... — Bye-bye!
That's been Gary Brannan...
That's been Chris Joel...
I've been Tom Scott, and we'll see you next time!
That was our season finale. Thanks for watching!
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We should be back some time in early autumn with another run of shows
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