This is the Technical Difficulties. We're playing Citation Needed.
Joining me in the studio today: He reads books, you know — it's Chris Joel!
[Lapses into gibberish]
Good start. Everybody's favourite Gary Brannan — Gary Brannan!
Coherency!
And the bounciest man on the internet — Matt Gray!
Hello YouTube.
In front of me I have an article from Wikipedia, and these folks can't see it.
Every fact they get right gets a point and a ding [DING],
and the special prize for particularly good answers, which is...
Today's article is: the flitch of bacon custom.
...on the train. [Laughter]
Oh yeah! Good luck with this one, guys.
Tell me that's not a person.
Tell me that's not a ceremonial position in the House — in Parliament.
The Black Rod! The Flitch of Bacon Custom!
Oh, excuse me a second... got a flitch of bacon.
The flitch of bacon...
Is it the custom of the flitch of bacon?
TOM: Yes it is.
Yeah. Is a flitch an amount, or cut, or volume of bacon?
Yes! Have a point. [DING]
A unit of bacon measure.
It's a fairly thick slab.
Right...
It's basically what you cut up to make thin rashers of bacon.
CHRIS: Right!
Okay. So we're actually talking proper bacon, and a size of.
TOM: Yes.
Is this something like Fish Slapping Dance?
ALL: Ohh!
With a side o' bacon...
Bacon beating!
Brannan, if you'd care to mime with me...
GARY: Go on.
Comme ça?
Entire pig. Boom! Into the Thames.
Well actually, an entire pig would go, 'OEEEK!' as it comes through there.
'Rodents of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist —'
BOOM!
Pigs do fly!
They do if you stick a jet engine on the top of 'em.
Science! [Laughter]
'An experiment was carried out, attaching a small jet engine to —'
I think that oversteps the boundaries from technical mirthery to animal cruelty.
CHRIS: Pig murder.
Where is the boundary there?
I think it's the bit where you strapped a jet engine to a pig.
To be fair, we could use a dead pig.
Just to test the concept.
Wait, wait, wait.
Heat off jet engine — delicious, delicious bacon!
I'm thinking, yeah, we wrap the outside of the pig
in some fuel that isn't as noxious as jet fuel,
so that when it inevitably crashes...
Boomf! Instant bacon.
Wait, crackling as well?
CHRIS: Instant barbecue, yeah.
GARY: The heat you get round the edge of that'll sort the skin out!
GARY and MATT: Ohhh.
We just need to sneak onto a runway at Heathrow,
with, I assume, like, a garden fork with a pig on the end,
and we need a military jet with an afterburner.
I don't think we really need an afterburner...
We just need any kind of burner.
A jet engine probably produces enough heat without an afterburner.
Eh, I'm going for spectacle, to be honest.
The flitch of bacon custom, gentlemen.
Okay, we're talking Ye Olde, aren't we.
Um... how Ye Olde?
Medieval?
14th, 15th century?
Yeah, I'll give you that. [DING]
It can be traced back to at least the 14th century, survived until about the 18th. Have a point.
Is it in this country?
TOM: Yes. Very much so.
I'm going to say it's one of the wackier parts of this fine nation, am I right?
Yes.
Are we talking southern, the kind of place where they throw cheese down a hill and chase it,
when, to be honest, you can go to any old shop and find still cheese?
It's not quite that violent.
The thrill of the hunt, old man! [Laughter]
It's f***ing cheese!
Who wants an Edam that doesn't fight back?
I mean, there's someone out there, bless you in Gloucestershire...
It is in Gloucestershire, isn't it?
It is in Gloucestershire, the cheese-rolling.
The cheese-rolling. Someone out there has f***ed their ankle and goes into hospital,
and years later: 'How did you break your ankle, Daddy?'
'Well, I was chasing a giant Edam...' or whatever it is.
The Gloucestershire cheese-rolling, for anyone who doesn't know,
is an event every spring in Gloucestershire
where they get a lot of people at the top of a hill, chuck a roll of cheese down,
and then everyone just kind of rag-dolls after it.
They say you're meant to run down the hill, after about ten seconds...
It's less of a run... it's more of a windmill-cum-flailing, isn't it.
TOM: Yeah.
Who... who wants a placid, tasteless cheese,
when you can have one that's run wild and free and developed true taste?
Do you do that all the time then? Do you just go to a supermarket,
get a Müller Crunch Corner and whang it down a hill because it tastes better?
It's how you mature them.
CHRIS: Absolutely! [Laughter]
By the way, the cheese-rolling thing, for the last few years...
can you tell me why it's not quite been as safe as it might have been?
Er... the land mines.
Yeah, just rolling land mines down.
GARY: There was a mix-up.
CHRIS: Due to cheese shortages.
Chutney explosions.
[Explosion sounds]
Was it still in the cow?
The answer is that it was official until about 2010.
Then it got banned on grounds for health and safety, so people just turn up and do it anyway.
CHRIS: Wahey!
...only without as much medical support.
Oh s***!
Good on ya, Gloucestershians!
A long time ago, you asked whether it was down south.
And... well, sort of.
Is it bottom left? Bottom right?
There's references to it in Essex...
But there's also references to it in Staffordshire, up near Burton-on-Trent.
So it's all in the South.
Thank you, Yorkshireman. Okay, yes. By Yorkshire standards, it's in the South.
The South... where they drink beer wrong and the tea tastes funny.
Is it that certain local yeomen of certain standing
must donate X much to the local lord
from the first cut of bacon of the year or...
That's what I was going to go with.
No, it's bacon that is given to someone.
And to be honest, there's only one person at this table who would be eligible for it right now.
Married man?
Married man and his partner, yes.
Hello!
TOM: Have a point. [DING]
He did say you've got to be virtuous as well, mate.
...on the train. [Laughter]
Hey, hey, hey, now...
It's given a year and a day after the wedding...
GARY: Cool.
To a man and his wife, because this is ancient times and it was a man and *his* wife...
GARY: Indeed, yes, yes...
...who can attest to something, after a year and a day.
That they've not 'done it'.
That they've done it every day!
That's grounds for annulment, not a celebration, Gary.
TOM: You're closer...
Without going over.
MATT: They will produce children.
It's something to do with the marriage. It's not to do with anything else.
It's something they feel about the marriage.
Divorce?
No, quite the opposite.
You get your marriage upgraded to a supermarriage.
That's all I can think of!
It kind of already is, at this point.
You would do it again. You would recommend it to a friend.
You redo your vows!
I'm going to give Gary the point. [DING]
That you don't regret it. That you have never regretted it in that year and a day.
If you can testify that you — I'm not going to ask you that question, Gary...
but if you can testify that you have never —
Well, put it this way: I am due me some bacon!
And the other thing is, it's going to get to day 364:
'Yeah, it's been pretty poor, but we want this bacon, don't we love?' 'Yeah.'
'But there is a bit of bacon on the way, so how about we just...'
I think we can land the second year on the back of the bacon.
GARY: Yeah.
The flitch of bacon was actually referred to in a very famous book.
Chaucer.
Yeah, absolutely right. Referred to in Chaucer. [DING]
'...in a way that makes clear the reference would already be well known to the reader.'
CHRIS: Ah, okay. TOM: So this is pretty widespread.
Did he do a look down the camera and go, 'Y'know what I mean?'
It's in the Wife of Bath's prologue.
GARY: Is that the one where the nun farts on them?
Oh blimey, right. So he probably did look down the camera and go,
'If you know what I mean!'
'The bacon was nat fet for hem, I trowe, That som men han in Essex at Dunmowe.'
Which is the place that...
TOM: I'm mispronouncing that, obviously, because Chaucer.
Good effort, old boy. Good effort.
You probably did better than we did.
I'd like to point out that I know nothing about Chaucer.
I just know, that's an old book, and whenever I say 'Chaucer' I get it right.
...on the train. [Laughter]
Yeah. Point, by the way.
CHRIS: Chaucer — point!
'And thannen he gaven to him a pointe!'
'And thereof pronounced a ding.'
Ding!
'A ding from table woode!'
'And Biscuits of Mysterie, for foode.'
We got that.
Right. Flitch trials, as they were called —
'Welcome to the 7 O'Clock News. I'm Flitch Trials.'
Is that like a witch trial?
'I accuse you of being bacon and I'm going to have to burn you.'
The best thing is, he's pointing at a pig when he says that.
CHRIS: [Oinks]
CHRIS: That was the worst pig... GARY: [Oinks more realistically]
Thank you. My pig impression was terrible.
TOM: Hold on! Gary Brannan impressions: Pig. GARY: [Oinks]
TOM: Goose. GARY: [Honks]
TOM: Train. GARY: [Two-tone horn]
Goose on a train?
[Horn and roaring engine]
Thank you.
That's not getting old, for some reason.
I love the way that the goose is never just sat on the train, it always ends up...
...on the train. [Laughter]
Well, you said 'on'. You didn't say in what state.
There's a lovely old thing in linguistics,
about mass and count nouns, the difference between them.
'There was A goose on the train' versus 'There was goose on the train'.
Yes.
The worst thing is, he's talking about the copilot from Top Gun.
What are you required to bring along to a flitch trial to prove that —
Applesauce.
Fair point.
Better question: *Who* are you required to produce?
Vicar.
TOM: Not quite.
Your mum.
Oh yeah. Your best man, or something like that.
MATT: Your wife. CHRIS: Witnesses of some species.
Yup.
GARY: Neighbours.
Point. [DING] Two of your neighbours to prove that the oath is true.
Yeah, prove that they haven't had any rows. Yeah.
That't probably work quite well, actually.
Well, in a lot of these kind of cases,
working as I do with these kind of things to do with —
Gonna say, can we get an archivist shout here?
Yeah, in a lot of these kind of non-consummation cases or adultery,
a lot of the evidence comes from neighbours,
who have obviously been peeping out the back window and going, 'Ooh, that's not the missus.'
So assuming you win the flitch of bacon...
What happens? You get the bacon, and then...?
Feast for friends and family!
A grand ceremony. [DING]
With 'trompets, tabourets, and other manoir of mynstralcie'.
That's what you'd expect, I'd imagine, for that kind of size of thing?
But you'd be doing that a lot.
I was going to say, there's a lot of weddings we're talking about here.
Have we just got pigs and pigs and pigs, and minstrels knackered from playing every day?
Well, this is the thing. It doesn't seem to have been claimed all that often.
Oh, it's one of these things that's on the books but you've got to ask for it, right?
TOM: Yup. CHRIS: Yeah.
How many times is the famous flitch at Dunmow known to have been claimed?
I'm going to say really low, like four or five or something like that.
MATT: Fifteen.
I'm going to split the difference and say nine.
I'm going to give Gary the point. Six.
Really.
Six that we know about. [DING]
When was it repealed?
Um, it sort of fell apart in the 15th, 16th century dissolution of the monasteries around then.
GARY: Okay, yeah.
But it was revived in Victorian times, of course.
Natch. In their quest for anything Ye Olde to legitimize everything.
TOM and CHRIS: Yup.
Can you still do it now?
I'm going to say...
Probably.
I don't know, maybe if you pay for the bacon or something like that, I can see.
I could just go to the butcher's and pay for bacon.
No, but you know what I mean.
You can have the ceremony, but you must purchase a flitch of bacon.
GARY: Natch. CHRIS: Yeah.
You can actually go every four years.
Once every four years, every leap year in Dunmow,
there is the Dunmow Flitch Trials Committee...
Like it.
TOM: Complete with jury.
Next one's in 2016.
If it was me, I would be trying to plan my wedding then, so I could claim the bacon.
To land it on...
I've now looked up the official one here...
The next one will be on the 9th of July, 2016,
because there is a website, of course, for the Dunmow Flitch Trials.
GARY: Natch. CHRIS: Yeah.
There is a list of the successful claimants going all the way back to 1445...
Good work.
And they've also awarded flitches to a couple of couples. Who might that be?
Charles and Diana.
Point. [DING] In fact...
Charles and Diana got the flitch...
Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson just got a copy of the Flitch Oath.
What's the Flitch Oath?
'I pledge allegiance to this bacon what you have given me. Ta.'
'In a twelve months time and a day / Repented not in thought in any way'.
Ohhh.
Which is actually a fairly strong oath to take.
GARY: Yeah, that is, yeah.
You've never, ever wandered at any point during that year and a day.
Don't forget the medieval fear of Hell and Church and damnation and everything else there, yeah.
Yes. That's actually a serious oath to take.
So you can still do it, if any one of us got married at some point in 2015...
And that is about all there is to it.
So it does continue. They have patrons who are providing the bacon,
and making sure it continues, and is one of these ridiculous —
Bacon patrons!
We salute you, butchers!
...ridiculous British traditions that continues on to this day.
Good!
At the end of the show, congratulations Gary, you win...
YES!
You win a gift certificate for the shop owned by a Treasure Hunt skyrunner,
which sells small rodents, pests that live in hair, and adult magazines.
It's Mice, Lice and Vice by Anneka Rice.
So enjoy that gift certificate.
I'm starting to run out of these jokes, do suggest some more...
That one was good! It just built and built and built.
So no, no. Respect.
TOM: In the meantime, thank you to Chris Joel...
TOM: To Gary Brannan...
TOM: To Matt Gray... MATT: Bye!
I've been Tom Scott. We'll see you next time.
Today's show is sponsored by the new STI board game...
Hungry Hungry Herpes.
...It's the tune that Blur did that landed on Mars with Beagle 2.
It didn't land — well, it did land!
It landed!
It landed at high velocity! Downwards.
I know there's a thin line between 'landing' and 'impact', but...
I tell that to the wife all the time.
The one thing I do know about Wolverhampton, they've got battered chips.
Oooh.
Eh?
Two very different reactions there.
I went, [Disappointed] 'Ohh.'
Matt went, 'Yep, yep, I'll have that.'
Yeah. I'm with Matt on this.