This is the Technical Difficulties. We're playing Citation Needed.
Joining me today: He reads books, you know — it's Chris Joel!
Hiyo.
Everybody's favourite Gary Brannan — Gary Brannan!
[To the tune of 'Born Free'] 'Porn free... as free as your mam blows...'
And the bounciest man on this stage — Matt Gray!
Hello you... lot!
In front of me I've got an article from 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...
[Audience sings]
ALL: Oh yeah.
GARY: What have we done?
And today, we are talking about the Ice Block Expedition of 1959.
Is this like King Cnut holding back the tide?
Trying to stop it melting by sheer force of will?
MATT: Who's Will?
Well, this is the problem with the expedition.
They couldn't find enough people called Bill, Will and William or Willis to take along,
which is why it's failed, which is why the ice caps are still melting.
MATT: Oh.
Well, that's called, they all have bread-making hands and they're all too warm.
You need them to be pastry hands to do that, they're all cold, don't you.
TOM: What?!
Oh, for the love of f***! Look...
If you've got 'bread-making hands', you've got warm hands,
because you need warm hands to activate the yeast.
If you've got cold hands, you've got 'pastry-making hands',
because that keeps the pastry cold and the butter doesn't melt...
...dickhead.
[Laughter]
So if you've got bread-making hands, you can melt dickheads?
GARY: Yes.
CHRIS: Is it like a superpower? GARY: Go!
Yaargh!
S***test superhero ever.
Bread-Making Hand Man!
Bellend Melter!
Somebody'd pay for that, you know that, don't you?
This was a publicity stunt.
In fact, it was called the biggest publicity stunt the world had ever seen.
MATT: Was this a beverage company trying to serve their drinks with 'Arctic Ice!' or something like that?
TOM: I'm going to give you a point for 'arctic ice'... [DING]
TOM: Because it was starting from —
This is a 'no', isn't it. But I'm getting a point somehow.
That's like a teacher at school...
'Yes...? Has anyone else got any suggestions?'
You're right about arctic ice. But it was not a beverage company.
Was it one of these mad things, where they were going to, like, irrigate the Kalahari or something?
[DING]
Get in!
It wasn't irrigation,
but it was an attempt to get an ice block from the Arctic Circle to the equator.
MATT: For the lolz.
For the publicity.
Just get a cool box!
CHRIS: How big's your cool box? I mean, I know you eat a lot of pies, but...
So what kind of company would want to do a publicity stunt
by moving ice all that distance over land to the equator?
CHRIS: Over land?!
TOM: Over land. MATT: Over land?
GARY: A fridge company.
CHRIS: Haulage company. GARY: To show the beneficiary of...
Or asbestos company, to show how good the asbestos is.
[DING] It's not asbestos, but it's insulation.
You keep giving us points and saying it's not what we said!
It's a Norwegian insulation company.
I'm going to give you a point, because if there wasn't asbestos in that, I'll be very surprised.
And frankly, if there is asbestos in it, *they* will have been very surprised.
[Laughter]
Not until about 25 years later, I'll guess.
It was made from glass wool. Made from fibreglass.
GARY: Glass wool.
This was inspired by a radio station.
In 1958, which radio station would have put up a challenge like that?
[Posh voice] The BBC World Service.
TOM: Very much the opposite.
The ITV World Service.
[Applause]
Brought up in the '80s!
What would the ITV World Service be?
Because that's basically just Keith Lemon.
It's Ant & Dec.
To be fair, that sounds like something ITV and Ant & Dec would do now, wouldn't they.
'We're gonna transport a block of ice to the equator, live!'
Stripped over two weeks' worth and you'd vote off which bit of ice you don't like.
Any ITV commissioners: 25 percent, yeah?
Now, you say it's a radio station...
[Pirate voice] May it have been, yarrr, one that be on a boat?
Well, it was certainly beyond our borders.
It was Radio Luxembourg.
ALL: Ohh.
Who launched a challenge to transport three tons of ice from the Arctic Circle to the equator.
MATT: 'Let's say this, and see if anyone does it!'
[DING]
GARY: And then it's one of those awful things,
GARY: ...where someone turns up on your doorstep with three tons of ice from the Arctic.
[Laughter]
MATT: [American radio voice] 'Wacky Radio Challenge!'
[Idiotic laughter]
TOM: What was the prize they were going to award for this?
[Radio voice] A car!
Someone who works in radio.
A s***load of tonic.
[Laughter]
I mean, you could buy that with this...
GARY: 'Free drinks all round!'
*More* ice.
One million dollars.
Oh.
[DING]
One hundred thousand francs —
GARY: You're doing it again! [Laughter]
No, no, I'm getting there...
'No.' Ding! What is this?!
...per kilo that made it to the Arctic.
CHRIS: Whoa. GARY: Ahhh.
So theoretically, that was anything up to...
three hundred million francs, if I've done my maths right...
But if someone actually managed to get the three tons of ice there,
and suddenly, oh, an insulation company's got involved...
They started being very worried.
How did they get the ice out of the Arctic? Did it take a digger or something?
MATT: You know when you've got an ice lolly, and you lick one bit and it goes in?
MATT: They're just licking it into squares.
[Laughter]
GARY: Tons of Norwegian men — hands and knees...
Can you not do that while you're sat next to me?
[Wolf whistle from audience]
Your mam's in!
They actually got it out from a glacier in 200-kilo blocks.
What do you use to remove that much ice?
MATT: Spoon! GARY: Big f***in' hammers!
Um, no... no...
Chainsaw.
[DING]
[Applause]
I knew you'd get that, because you have a chainsaw license, don't you?
Not since October.
ALL: Awww.
And you're all slightly safer in your beds.
[Laughter]
But when we had that absinthe and chainsaw night last week, you told me you were fully qualified!
CHRIS: Once you're drunk, you don't need to be qualified.
It all becomes much more natural.
To be fair, I don't think Leatherface from the horror movies really had a license for that.
It's not a requirement.
You see what happened? You see what happened?!
That's fair. That's fair.
Is that like Al Capone? Is that what they got him on?
So yes. 200-kilo blocks,
melted together to make a single block of ice weighing 3,050 kilos.
Now, I'm setting this up specifically for Gary:
What was the container they constructed for it made from?
GARY: IRON. TOM: Correct! [DING]
There's two little squirrels in my head...
One was saying, 'Say iron!' The other was saying, 'Say anything else!'
'Wool!'
They placed it on top of a truck that would carry it all the way to the equator, accompanied by what?
Two of every animal!
Gin! In a big tanker behind it.
That's fair... A film crew, sadly.
Where did they go? They started —
CHRIS: South. MATT: The equator.
Well, yes, okay.
GARY: Point! Point!
I'm not giving you a point for that.
They started near — well, they started in the Arctic Circle...
MATT: Where? Norway Arctic?
Norway, yes.
Oh. Cheating bastards!
How is that cheating?
I don't know. I had this thing that they'd gone all the way to the North Pole and done it...
No, Arctic Circle to equator.
Oh, of course, right. In my head I had an image of an iron tank with the North Pole sticking out at the top.
CHRIS: I was going to say.
You can just get a budget flight to the Arctic.
Yeah!
Yeah, but can you imagine the carry-on fees for three tons of ice?
Slice it. One in each seat.
Just have refrigerated pockets on a fishing vest and take it bit by bit.
TOM: That's how you get past Ryanair charges, isn't it.
Yeah, yeah. You just wear all the ice.
So the first stop was Oslo, which seems a sensible place.
What would be needed near the equator, at Libreville, where they finished?
Food.
Not quite. Certainly something that was needed for people who lived there.
GARY: Fish. CHRIS: Jam.
MATT: Vaccines and medicines.
TOM: Matt gets the point. Absolutely right. [DING]
300 kilos of medicines.
Obviously, they can keep them cold. They've got ice.
Oh God! I didn't think of using the ice to transport something.
I just thought you meant something else that was along for the ride.
No, medicines go off in the heat, so suddenly, they had a lot of ice...
Within it, was there a horror from beyond time that had yet to be unfrozen as well?
Half a flying saucer.
Not even stopped, just carried on cutting with the chainsaw. 'Ah, ****, there's another one...'
I hate to set the joke up, but your mum's in.
GARY: Heyyy!
Okay, right, no...
Oh, she is in! All right then.
What happened in Belgium?
The customs!
Yep. Absolutely right. [DING] What did they not have?
Ice.
CHRIS: Right. [Laughter]
A license to carry ice.
TOM: Yep. Absolutely right. [DING] GARY: What?!
They didn't have a customs declaration for it.
[Applause]
Concealed carry for an ice cube.
[Old-fashioned bobby voice] 'Sorry, sir, I can see you are dripping, there...'
Yeah. Absolutely right. There was no customs declaration for the ice.
What? The... the...
You can see it!
It's tons of ice!
TOM: How do you solve something like that?
MATT: Melt it!
GARY: Disguise it as a circus.
No, just a moustache and a stick-on nose.
'And this is Steve.'
[Ice creaking noise]
'Hurry up, Steve!'
GARY: 'He don't say much.'
No, a customs official just accompanied them all the way, so officially it never entered Belgium.
To make sure they didn't import illegal ice.
Yes.
Wait, wait, wait.
What if a Belgian ran up and had a lick?
[Laughter]
What is it with me and licking?!
You should see me in the freezer.
You *shouldn't* see me in the freezer. [Laughter]
That's why you're banned from Iceland, isn't it.
Both the country and the supermarket.
Can you imagine the recursive nature if they had a branch of Iceland in Iceland?
TOM: Well, they'd just call it England, and it's just...
The freezers don't work, and everything's twice as expensive as it was a month ago.
GARY: Heyyy! Satire.
They got to Paris...
The crew were invited to dine with...?
[French accent] The president.
TOM: Er, the mayor. I'll give you a point, it's close enough. [DING]
No, it's f***ing not!
Gary...
On the scale of civic dignitaries...
TOM: Do you want the point?
I don't want bulls*** points.
Down at the bottom you have mayor. Up here you have le Président. I was talking the cheese, by the way.
Having dinner with, not of.
Yeah.
The mayor! The president!
God's sake! Never get *you* into international diplomacy.
TOM: I think none of us should ever be in international diplomacy, Gary.
Fair cop. Yeah.
Yes. From Paris they continued to Marseilles, and it was lifted aboard a freighter that sailed to Algiers.
How much water had melted by the point they got to the Sahara?
Er...
CHRIS: None. Ice melts into water.
[Applause]
[DING]
Go for the Biscuit one over there.
You're not having Biscuits for that!
How much ice had melted by the time they got it to the Sahara?
Twenty percent.
An Nth.
Ah, that's a good fraction. You can't lose there.
Can't be wrong now.
Er... well, Gary wins, so...
Well, thing is, no, you were actually closer. It was only four litres.
Out of all of that, less than one thousandth...
I didn't actually say anything. Did nobody notice that?
You said zero, so you're closer.
Yeah, but I said an Nth! That's undefinable.
Have we got any mathematicians in?
Of course we've got some mathematicians in. Who gets the point?
AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Chris.
Chris gets the point!
Bastard.
[Applause]
What were the instructions they got as they went across the Sahara?
'Go west.'
[Sings] Life is peaceful there...
Matt, I know you're not good at directions...
If he was doing directions, he'd have said, 'Go right.'
CHRIS: Or left.
What was the main danger in the Sahara at that point?
Being shot.
Yet again, Chris... [DING] Absolutely right.
GARY: Was there a war on?
There was. There were 'forces hiding in the mountains'.
TOM: Huh? MATT: Did we start it?
CHRIS: We weren't even alive, Matt. I don't think any of us could have started it.
The advice was, 'No stops, drive for your lives, even if you get a flat tire.'
Cool!
You see, they don't have that in the driving test, do they?
Maybe if you go to Saharan Africa they do.
To be fair, there was a wonderful question — because I did my theory test last year,
and one of the questions is,
'What do you do if you are driving through a tunnel,
but your car is on fire...'
[Laughter]
'...but your car is still drivable?'
MATT: Get the f*** out of the tunnel.
TOM: Yes! You're absolutely right.
If your car is drivable, get out, because otherwise you're going to kill other people.
I'm going to be dead honest, and I don't want that to happen to anybody ever...
but s***, that'd look good.
Just gunning out of a tunnel in flames, with you going, 'Ha ha! I'm doing good!'
Yeah, but it's when you're listening to Matt Monro and there's a bulldozer at the far end anyway.
MATT: You're going to have to...
Wow. Five people here have seen The Italian Job. Okay.
So you've driven your burning car out of the tunnel.
Then you've got to somehow get out of it with the most panache you can.
I wouldn't be worried about panache at that point.
As we all know, the driving test is rated on style, control, damage and aggression, so...
[Laughter and applause]
Okay, so just for the reference: Italian Job — no. Robot Wars — yes.
That's fine.
GARY: We've found their level.
MATT: Can I ask a question? TOM: Yes.
What were we talking about?
[Laughter]
Because I can't remember.
TOM: They were crossing the Sahara on the Ice Block Expedition of 1959.
They had taken a block of ice from the Arctic Circle,
They'd made it to the Sahara. They met a tribe that lived there...
TOM: And how did they greet them? What did they give them for, er...
MATT: Hugs. GARY: Water pistol fight.
Bit one-sided, but you know...
TOM: You're close...
Water.
Yes. Absolutely right. [DING] They gave the camels water from the container.
Um, the commentary...
Did a camel get his tongue stuck to the big block of ice while they were doing it?
I believe they had a small spigot on the bottom that could drain the —
Oh, good use of the word 'spigot', Tom.
What would be in the water, given what it's insulated in?
Oh, fibreglass...
Yes. [DING]
But in the entire trip across the Arctic, they lost... how much water?
GARY: Eight litres.
MATT: Ten.
A camel's worth.
Chris gets it. 96 litres. [DING]
It's about a camel's worth. That feels about right.
And who did they meet? We're looking for a very famous physician.
MATT: Doctor Jones? Doctor Jones?
Aqua?
Aqua!
What I like is that you could hear the ripple of people getting that as it spread about.
No... Albert Schweitzer.
I have never heard that phrase.
That rings a bell for some reason, but I don't know why.
TOM: 'A French-German theologian, organist, philosopher, and physician.'
Is 'organist' a subcategory of physician?
TOM: What did Norway send to Schweitzer's hospital?
[Arnold Schwarzenegger voice] Supplies.
TOM: I mean... okay, I'll need you to narrow that down a bit.
Because the water melted... some fish to swim in it?
TOM: Oh. You're... [DING]
No, piss off!
Gary, you keep accidentally saying something that's close enough.
What would Norway send? Half a ton of fish.
But what kind? What kind of...?
Pickled herring.
[Click] CHRIS: That didn't go off.
TOM: [DING] There we go.
TOM: Close enough. Klippfisk.
Oh no, that's —
TOM: That actually got an 'Urrgh!' from someone who has clearly eaten that, in the audience.
Dried and salted cod.
GARY: He's in the middle of the Sahara. TOM: Yup.
He's got a doctor's surgery in the middle of the Sahara.
And Norway thinks it's —
TOM: Er, no, it's Gabon. So they're already a bit south of there.
But Norway thinks it's cool to send a load of very salty fish to a very dry part of the world.
Yep.
What utter bellends.
[Laughter]
I bet that'd smell nice in 50-degree heat.
'But what's in the box? We've been waiting for months for this!'
Clunk... 'JESUS CHRIST!'
'What is wrong with them?!'
First of all, they made it. That's the important thing. They got there...
It was called 'the greatest publicity stunt of all time'.
They delivered 90 percent of that ice, without melting, to Libreville.
A representative of the insulation company met them in Libreville.
MATT: Didn't he go with them?
No, having taken the short route.
GARY: Coward.
He was a friend of someone. And we talked about him earlier,
and you got a point despite the fact you shouldn't have.
The mayor of Paris?
[Laughter and applause]
TOM: That was...
GARY: Squirrel One: 'Say answer!' Squirrel Two...
That was a half-court shot, and it sailed through the air, and it sailed through the air...
and then it just bounced off the rim.
Tom, never use the phrase 'off the rim' in my presence.
TOM: Anyone else want to get the point for that?
MATT: Ze president.
[DING] Absolutely right. President Charles de Gaulle was a friend of that representative.
Ahh, mais oui.
Did he fly there?
What...?
CHRIS: Airport, mate. TOM: De Gaulle, oh my God...
Just let it run.
[Applause]
TOM: Yes.
He came with an offer.
What did the representative of that company say to the expedition
that had got all the way there, got that ice, got it there almost entirely intact?
'What time d'you call this?'
'Could you just pop it back up to Paris for us?'
[DING]
He said that if the crew were willing to drive it back to Paris,
the president himself would receive them under the Arc de Triomphe.
'Receive' is not a euphemism in that particular case.
Or so you think!
What did they say to that offer?
GARY: Nah.
[DING] Absolutely right.
They were exhausted. They said no. They said, that is it.
They flew home, they left the ice there with the citizens.
And it was called 'the greatest publicity stunt of all time'.
Did they then go around Radio Luxembourg's front door, and rap on the door with a bill?
TOM: Radio Luxembourg withdrew the offer.
What?! Utter f***ers!
Before the expedition set off.
What utter f***ers! Imagine that!
You've got there, 'Radio Luxembourg? I believe I'm rich?'
To be fair, they did withdraw it before the expedition set off, when it was being planned.
They said they were just joking, that wasn't what they had in mind.
A radio show has never done that before!
And on that note... everyone here gets free Mystery Biscuits!
[Cheering]
Good luck.
On that... congratulations Gary, you win this show!
[Applause]
GARY: Okay. I'm bracing... bracing. Go on.
You win a tour round a giant underground laboratory,
designed to accelerate flatulence close to the speed of light.
GARY: No, no, no. No no no no no...
TOM: It's a farticle accelerator.
With that, we say thank you to Chris Joel!
To Gary Brannan!
To Matt Gray!
I've been Tom Scott,
and we will see you after we walk off, pretend it's the end of the show and walk back on again!
[Applause]