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James May's Shed Load of Ideas - Season 1 Episode 3
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00:00Hello.
00:02These days I spend more and more time in my Wiltshire home.
00:06And the pub I own.
00:08Thinking about all the big problems in the world.
00:12And some smaller ones that annoy me.
00:16Luckily there's a place I can go to solve them all.
00:20Or at least try.
00:22My shed.
00:24Right.
00:26It's here that I have the tools.
00:28Let's just saw some wood up.
00:30The tea.
00:32And a couple of other highly competent blokes.
00:36Very good. Brace yourself.
00:38Who've agreed to help me rid the world of problems.
00:41Is she getting the ticket out?
00:42Great.
00:43Dirty flight at this.
00:45And small.
00:46The cereal has gone soggy.
00:48I'll also have to take on other people's problems.
00:51What is wrong with Peter?
00:52He used to make a sound and now he doesn't.
00:55By which I mean the locals at my pub who are always bringing me stuff to mend.
01:01Is it a train set?
01:03So join us and our excitable crew.
01:07Who will capture our endeavours.
01:10That was epic.
01:11As we create.
01:13Make.
01:15That feels like a terrible thing we've just done.
01:17Repair.
01:18So it's never worked.
01:19Not in my lifetime.
01:20And repurpose.
01:21Whoa!
01:22In my shed load of ideas.
01:23What do you think?
01:24This is just brilliant.
01:25Here in Wiltshire I have time to reflect on those issues that concern us all.
01:30Such as how to preserve this beautiful landscape.
01:31The muse of England's poets and artists.
01:43The rustling hedgerow.
01:45The delightful babbling brook.
01:47landscape, the muse of England's poets and artists.
01:52The rustling hedgerow, the delightful babbling brook and the abject weeping willow, the heart
02:00of the idyll that nestles in the breast of every English man and woman.
02:04Oh, and the fly-tipping site, the blight of town and country alike.
02:09These people disgust me.
02:12There are over a million fly-tipping incidents reported in the UK each year, and they cost
02:18local authorities hundreds of millions of pounds to tidy up.
02:23It's a huge problem, but no problem is too huge for me and my two very handy right-hand
02:30men.
02:31My trusty engineer, Sim, with his big ideas.
02:34Some kind of pivot from this point, anywhere between here and here.
02:39My ever-ready carpenter, Tony the Tool.
02:42Don't worry, I'll just do everything over here.
02:45You carry on chatting.
02:47And so to my large and well-equipped workshop where the very practical magic happens.
02:54So we've decided that our revenge on fly-tippers should be poetic.
02:59It is a fly-trap, or a fly-tipper-trap, if you like.
03:02We're taking our inspiration from good, old-school fly paper, which is this stuff.
03:09It's really like a very big piece of sticky paper, and you hang it up in your house.
03:13Flies fly into it, because they're stupid, their brains are absolutely minute, and they
03:17stick to it.
03:18Ha!
03:19And that's the end of them.
03:20So we want to do something similar, but that acts on human beings, which mean...
03:24Oh, God.
03:25Which means we need a sticky substance that will trap them.
03:32We'll leave Simmy to search for something sticky enough to catch our human flies, as Tony
03:37and I move next door to start work on the actual trap.
03:41Now we have to devise the trap itself, how it will be...
03:45What would the trendy word be delivered?
03:48It's Tony's idea, so Tony will explain.
03:50So we take a sheet of eight by four.
03:56Yes.
03:57We build a frame around it, two supports, all our sticky stuff in the middle here, box section,
04:08forming a grid, holes attached by string, go into two pulleys, and go...
04:19And go that way to a single pulley, with a mechanism that pulls and collapses.
04:26Why is the cattle grid there?
04:27Is there a gate?
04:28To stop cattle.
04:29No, I know what it does.
04:31But it's not...
04:32Yes, so it's a gate, usually you dump it...
04:35Usually I've heard people who dump things, dump it in a field.
04:39So the van pulls up, people get out with the sofa, say, and they walk across the cattle grid, which is positioned in front of a gate,
04:46and therefore is perfectly normal, because you get cattle grids in front of gates.
04:50They throw the sofa into the fly tipping area, and it triggers a weighted mechanism.
04:56We haven't quite worked that bit out yet, have we?
04:58Which, through this pulley system, concertinas the cattle grid like a Venetian blind, exposing the sticky stuff.
05:07The panicking fly tippers run back to their van through here and are stuck like flies on flypaper.
05:14That's basically it, isn't it?
05:16Easy.
05:17Right, so should we put this on the floor and do a bit of spacing out?
05:20Yeah.
05:21Let's just rough it out.
05:25Tony and I start laying out the steel rods that will eventually become our cattle grid.
05:31How far apart are the rails of a cattle grid?
05:35Does it depend on what sort of animals you've got?
05:37Because cows have got bigger paws than sheep, haven't they?
05:41Obviously, if you're making one for an elephant, you could make them a little bit further apart.
05:45Right, the dilemma is we have to balance authenticity, i.e. the spacing of the rails on the cattle grid,
05:53with the requirements of the mechanism, because it's got to pull all these together over here.
06:00That's quite a weight, isn't it? It's a lot of steel.
06:03I think that gap is too big, but it could be bigger than that one,
06:06which it will be when they're evenly spaced, so there's no getting around this, Tony.
06:09We're going to have to do a bit of arithmetic.
06:12So, for our 1,220mm wide cattle grid, we're going to need 10 bars, 107.7mm apart.
06:21Yes, this is an exact science.
06:24Oh, our arithmetic is spot on.
06:27Well, nearly.
06:29Nearly.
06:31OK, that's our cattle grid, correctly spaced out.
06:36Come in with the sofa.
06:41Yes, I think that's...
06:43You'd walk across it carefully, cos there's a cattle grid, cos you tend to walk carefully across a cattle grid.
06:48I think, yes, I think we'll get away with that.
06:51Let's mark out the board with the exact positions of our roofing battens.
06:57We can fix those in place.
07:00Mm-hm.
07:01And go from there.
07:04Right, so the concept looks good.
07:06We've just got to make the thing now.
07:08First, Tony and I construct the wooden base frame, keeping a close eye on our maths.
07:14Then we need a bit of help from Simi to cut the steel rods so that Tony and I can drill very precise holes into them,
07:23which we'll thread rope through to collapse the grid, as long as we can keep up with Simi's exacting standards.
07:30I said, put the hole in the middle, right?
07:32I mean, look at that. How in the middle is that?
07:35All is proceeding at pace until...
07:38The problem is, well, there's no easy way of putting this, it's Tony.
07:46Sim has spotted that the board isn't perfectly square.
07:50It's just I didn't cut the factory edge off cos we were rushing.
07:53I'll just recut these.
07:541,790, then.
07:56Or thereabouts.
07:58Thank you, Simi.
08:00And once you've squared off our mistakes, Tony and I thread the poles together with rope,
08:04which will make this cattle grid collapsible.
08:07Ow!
08:08What have you done to that?
08:10I don't know, but we're going to have to flame it again.
08:13And finally we get to see if our cunning concertina plan actually works.
08:19In three, two, one...
08:23Oh!
08:24That works! It's beauty!
08:26It doesn't need that much force either.
08:28Collapsible cattle grid success, but we still need to find some really sticky stuff to fill it with.
08:34We also have to drill all the remaining pieces, devise the weighted mechanism that will close this,
08:40and we have to take the whole thing to a secret location in the countryside, fill it with our gunk, and then wait.
08:48For now, though, we take a break from our war against fly tippers for a well-earned pint.
08:55And it's now, when I'm at the pub, that people start bringing me their broken stuff that they want me to mend.
09:01In fact, I'm so used to this, I take my toolbox to the pub every time I go.
09:07Hello.
09:08Hi, I'm Kirsty.
09:09Hello, Kirsty.
09:10Hi.
09:11What have you got for us?
09:12So I have got my teddy bear, Peter.
09:14He's 53 years old.
09:16Oh, younger than me.
09:18Definitely younger than me.
09:20And apart from being utterly furless, what is wrong with Peter?
09:26He used to make a sound sort of like a sheep, and now he doesn't.
09:31He's been in a loft for 35-plus years.
09:35Poor sod.
09:36Yeah.
09:37Is it one of those where you do that and it...
09:38Yeah.
09:39What?
09:40You can hear it.
09:41Oh, yeah.
09:42Whatever that is.
09:43Something's moving.
09:44Yeah.
09:45What noise did it make?
09:46It was like a sheep, like a bar.
09:48I think, well, I do know somebody who used to run a thing called Teddy Bear Hospital, and
09:53these old bears, they've usually got a moving weight and some sort of bellows.
09:56They used to be classified as squeakers and growlers.
10:00Right.
10:01One of them had a reed, and the other one had...
10:04Some kind of diaphragm or...
10:05Yeah.
10:06Something like that.
10:07So you want us to try and make the sound work again?
10:09If you could, that would be lovely.
10:11And you've had him since you were how old?
10:14Before I was born, my grandmother gave it to my mother while she was pregnant with me.
10:20So it predates you?
10:21Yeah.
10:22The teddy was waiting for you as you popped out of the womb?
10:25He was.
10:26And are these your initials?
10:27They are my initials, yeah.
10:28My mum stitched them in because he used to go everywhere with me.
10:32I've got a picture of him, actually.
10:34Oh, that's when he still had his fur.
10:37Yeah.
10:38And his head was on properly.
10:40Yes.
10:41At what point did Peter lose his speech?
10:44Hmm.
10:45I have no idea.
10:47He's travelled with me.
10:48I was in the army and he came everywhere with me.
10:51And then he ended up in a loft and I thought I'd lost him.
10:58And then I got him back about three months ago and he doesn't make any sound.
11:03How would you feel about us opening Peter up?
11:07That's fine.
11:08Are you sure?
11:09Yeah.
11:10We'll have to ask you to sign a consent form.
11:12Absolutely.
11:13And a do not resuscitate.
11:15Oh, look, there is my special superpower magnifying spectacles.
11:20And there is a scalpel.
11:22Has this been opened before?
11:24Not that I know of, no.
11:26How are you feeling about this, Kirsty?
11:28I'm slightly nervous.
11:29Whoop.
11:30Oh.
11:31Swab.
11:32We found something that has not been exposed to the light since the early 1970s.
11:37Can I put my finger in?
11:38You might want to look away.
11:40I am.
11:41My God, it's huge.
11:43We need a bigger hole.
11:45We need a bigger hole.
11:46I'm actually getting nervous.
11:48Here it comes.
11:50Come on.
11:51Come on.
12:00Is that the noise it used to make?
12:01Slightly.
12:04But longer?
12:05Longer, yeah.
12:06I'm seeing you afford him some dignity.
12:08Oh, God.
12:09Oh, God.
12:10We'll put him in the recovery position.
12:12OK, we will take this back to the workshop, Kirsty.
12:15We will mend it, reinsert it in the bowels of Peter.
12:20Simi will stitch him back together.
12:22He will be returned to you, growling as he did in your youth,
12:26and you will never know, and neither will he, that anything had ever happened.
12:30Excellent.
12:31Either that or it will go wrong and we'll chuck him on the bonfire.
12:35No!
12:36Please don't.
12:37Will we be able to perform this important and life-saving operation?
12:41Will Peter growl again?
12:44Ah, Wiltshire, the beautiful countryside.
12:52But did you know that every 27 seconds somebody ruins it by fly-tipping,
12:57causing damage to farmland and wildlife?
13:01Luckily, Tony, Simi and I have come up with a cunning plan
13:05involving a collapsible cattle grid
13:08that will expose a sticky substance beneath
13:11to stop our fly-tippers in their tracks.
13:14Now we just have to select our gunk.
13:19The options we have arrived at are corn flour,
13:24epoxy resin and this one, which is a mastic,
13:27so it remains plastic and sticky. Is that right?
13:31Yeah.
13:32What should we try? Should we try corn flour?
13:35I mean, corn flour, isn't it thixotropic,
13:37so if they run across a corn flour mix quickly,
13:39they will simply...
13:41Go across it.
13:42Go across it.
13:43But if they amble across it...
13:44Yes, then sink.
13:45How much should we put in?
13:46Let's put it all in.
13:47Put it all in.
13:48Do you think?
13:49Yeah.
13:53Corn flour is weird stuff, I think.
13:55I don't like using it in the kitchen.
13:57It's useful, well.
13:58It is useful.
13:59I mean, it's a crafty way to thicken up your cheese sauce.
14:02That is quite...
14:03So it's solid.
14:05But if you put gentle pressure, you sink.
14:08Oh, yeah.
14:09Oh!
14:10It's quite nice, actually.
14:12And then it just goes liquid.
14:14The trouble with this is so much fun.
14:16You'd find millions of fly tippers just frolicking in your corn flour.
14:21This corn flour and water goo is non-Newtonian,
14:25meaning it doesn't follow Newton's laws,
14:27as it can act as both a solid and a liquid.
14:30And handily for us, this ambiguity makes it very sticky.
14:35Shall we put it on the floor and put some shoe covers on?
14:37Who wants to try?
14:38We can try one each.
14:41Off to you.
14:42I'll do this one then, so.
14:51Make sure you use the right foot.
14:53Yeah, good thinking, Batman.
14:55So you've thrown your sofa away, or your fridge, or whatever.
14:58Fly tips.
14:59Nobody saw that.
15:00I'm off.
15:02It's not very good.
15:07What's the drag on your foot there?
15:09No, it's...
15:10It's pretty grippy.
15:12But I don't know that you'll necessarily get stuck.
15:14The idea is that the fly tipper is stuck to the fly tipper trap.
15:18I mean, let's reserve judgement until we've tried a few other things.
15:22Shall we try the mass stick?
15:25So it never sets.
15:26No.
15:27It remains plastic, in the true sense, and hopefully quite sticky.
15:31Shall I?
15:32Yes.
15:33Carry on.
15:37It looks sticky.
15:38It does look sticky.
15:40This particular mass stick forms an elastic, watertight sealant
15:44that sticks firmly to wood, metal, concrete, and, we hope, humans.
15:51It smells fantastic.
15:53Has anybody got any Bob Dylan records?
15:55Yes.
15:57Right.
15:58Whose turn is it to try?
16:00You're going to do it, Tony.
16:01Yeah, I can't.
16:02Yeah, go on, Tony.
16:05Are you going to put both feet in?
16:06Yeah, I want to get splashes on my trainers.
16:14So, remember to method act.
16:16What are you dumping, Tony?
16:18A telly.
16:19A telly, okay.
16:20Whoa, he's done that before.
16:22Whoa!
16:23Whoa!
16:24Whoa!
16:25Hey, that looked like it could be quite good.
16:27Wow.
16:28It's slippy as well.
16:29Really slippy.
16:31That's really sticky.
16:32Oh, that's pretty good.
16:34It's very good.
16:37So, the mastic works.
16:38But because Simmy hates to feel left out, we decide to let him test the epoxy resin option.
16:44Also, he's got a bit of a thing about shoe covers.
16:47You ready, Sim?
16:48Right.
16:49With your big fridge, and action.
16:50I've got my fridge.
16:51Over the hedge it goes.
16:53Oh, .
16:58That's not very good.
16:59It's not very good, is it?
17:00It's also all over the floor.
17:01It is all over the floor.
17:02You can go off the floor.
17:03It's very slippery.
17:04So, that's not ideal, is it?
17:06No.
17:08It's rubbish.
17:10So, to conclude this scene, men, because we've wanted to do it, you have one.
17:16Are you ready?
17:18In three, two, one.
17:25The mastic is a clear winner.
17:27It's the stickiest that we agreed.
17:29Absolutely.
17:30Right.
17:31So, that's what we'll do.
17:34Once that sticky mastic is added to our cattle grid flytrap, we may just be able to protect
17:40rural littles up and down the country from the blight of flytipping.
17:44But there's another danger threatening the countryside, and that's the worrying demise of pub games.
17:52As a landlord myself, I'm not keen on fruit machines and dreary pub quizzes.
17:58But what about revisiting one of the old standards?
18:03Oh!
18:06The game of darts, it's essential to the formation of England's character,
18:10because without our prowess at darts, we wouldn't have been good at archery and defeated the French at Agincourt, for example.
18:17Now, this is a standard dartboard, probably the one you're familiar with.
18:20It's got doubles on the outside, trebles on the inner ring, and then a bull and a double bull.
18:25But there are other types of dartboard.
18:27For example, there is a Yorkshire dartboard, which only has the doubles.
18:31And then there's a Manchester dartboard, which has the numbers in a different order.
18:35There's also a Bath dartboard, which has some extra scoring areas around the outside, and so on and so on.
18:42Wiltshire does not have its own dartboard, so we thought maybe we'd come up with one.
18:49What do you think, Tony?
18:50Er, yeah.
18:51What would you do, though?
18:54When I was a kid, me and my brother used to play drop darts, where you put the dartboard on the floor.
19:01We actually used to do it out of the bedroom window, with the dartboard down below in the garden.
19:07Let's try holding it by the...
19:09Oh, shot! Is it in?
19:11No, it's 25.
19:13Miles off.
19:14Yeah.
19:16I mean...
19:18It involves a lot of bending down, though.
19:21What if the dartboard starts rotating?
19:25Imagine how difficult it would be to throw at a rotating darts board.
19:30Yeah. That'd be... Yeah, we could do that.
19:33That'd be fun.
19:35Obviously, because we are, in fact, engineers, we need to test out the concept.
19:39OK, so stand on the okey, but about two feet back from the okey.
19:45Oh, I don't want to throw a dart at you like that.
19:47No, no.
19:49Oh!
19:51You ready?
19:53You having a laugh?
19:55No.
19:59Yes, three on the board.
20:02OK, now it's my turn.
20:10Crap rolling.
20:11Crap rolling.
20:12It's supposed to go over there.
20:13You deflected it with your first dart.
20:15So the rotation idea works, but not rolling the board.
20:20Now we need Simi's help to try and make the board rotate in space.
20:24Shall we have a beer?
20:26Good idea.
20:28While Tony and I head off for a pint, Simi throws himself into creating a mechanism that will rotate our Wiltshire dartboard.
20:35First, he attaches a rotary switch to a wooden frame, and then he rigs up a variable speed controller before, after a quick swig, soldering together a small motor with a manual switch.
20:51Then he attaches a battery, has another essential beer break, and finally tests the rotating mechanism that will eventually attach to the dartboard, which we'll try out later, once Simi's joined us in the garden for another pint.
21:07Exciting!
21:08You find me back in my Wiltshire pub, and for good reason.
21:21There isn't enough entertainment in the pub, especially since I've banned Morris dancers and minstrels, so we're looking at how to refresh the greatest of all pub games.
21:33With the introduction of the Wiltshire dartboard, allow me to show it to you.
21:38Here it is, hanging on the wall at the regulation height, with the 20 at the top, where you'd expect.
21:45My two players, if you'd like to take the Occy, gentlemen, then you will remember where you were when you first saw this, because the game of darts was changed forever.
21:57There it goes. The rotating Wiltshire dartboard. Doesn't look like much, but it makes the game extremely difficult, and let's be honest, it wasn't easy to start with.
22:10We're playing highest score, three darts. Your throw, sir.
22:13It's making me dizzy.
22:14Here's the 20, but it's going round and round, you see, because it's the Wiltshire dartboard. Rubbish.
22:18Oh, he's going for the bull. Oh, it's tricky.
22:2143.
22:2412.
22:2619.
22:28Rubbish.
22:30James, come on. Do your best.
22:36Oh!
22:38Hang on again.
22:4034.
22:42No, no, no, no.
22:44Right, I'm speeding it up for round two.
22:46Two.
22:50Oh!
22:52Oh!
22:53Yes!
22:54Wow!
22:55Should we reverse?
22:57Oh!
23:00Oh, he's got 60.
23:04I didn't believe I missed the ball, James.
23:07I've only got this one left, and I have to score 29 or more.
23:11That means the winner is Sim.
23:19But this invention wasn't meant just to entertain the three of us.
23:25It has to work on the seething, roaring mass that is the general public.
23:30Let's see if any of the locals would like to play Wiltshire darts.
23:37Hmm, no.
23:38It's not looking good.
23:41Well, yes, you're right.
23:42It's not ideal.
23:43It's not good.
23:44It's 24.
23:47But that's nothing.
23:49At least I tried.
23:53Five.
23:55Six.
23:57Ten.
23:59Congratulations.
24:00That's truly terrible.
24:04Eight.
24:06Oh, dear.
24:07That's 17, sir.
24:09That's very poor.
24:10Hope you don't mind me saying.
24:12Scores may be low, but the game is a huge hit with the regulars.
24:16And also, it turns out, with our film crew.
24:19With producer Lucy very keen to play.
24:24You've thrown it away.
24:25As everybody rushes to stand in front of the board for their own safety, it's probably time to sum this up.
24:32I'm not entirely sure what to say about Wiltshire darts, apart from that it's excellent.
24:38That's one successful step along the path to revitalise British pub entertainment.
24:45And I've got plenty more ideas up my sleeve.
24:48But now, we must return to the pressing matter of Kirsty's Bear, who, after years in the loft, has lost his growl.
24:57And Simi and I have been entrusted with the weighty task of giving Peter his voice back.
25:02Right, viewers, our mission today is to provide Peter the Bear, beloved of Kirsty, with a more impressive...
25:11..one of those.
25:13According to Kirsty, it was originally louder and longer, and we may be able to improve the sound as well.
25:19We've never done this before, oddly.
25:26First, we need to remove Peter's growl box to see how it works.
25:30What if we made that just twice as long, and this twice as long, and then...
25:36..you'd get a longer...
25:42So it is, it's like...
25:44Oh, God!
25:47It's got a very simple reed there, similar to something you would find in a crude musical instrument.
25:53And this seems to be some sort of very, very simple amplifier.
25:59We could remake that bigger, much bigger, and much longer.
26:04There's a lot of room.
26:05There's tons of room. It could go right down to his...
26:08..and up to his neck.
26:10So we could, you know, we could put an enormous growler in there.
26:12LAUGHTER
26:16Yes!
26:18Right, that's the plan.
26:20We're going to remake it bigger and better, which in terms of a teddy bear growl means longer.
26:26To see if we can give Peter a larger, longer growl, Sim and I want to see what happens when we elongate the sandbox's journey by throwing it down the longest tube we can find.
26:40Three metres of cylindrical polyvinyl chloride.
26:43Is everybody ready?
26:44Also known as a drain pipe.
26:46Let her go.
26:50Uh...
26:52Um...
26:56I think it needs to be totally upright.
27:06That was epic!
27:08Nice!
27:09You're trying with the shorter length?
27:11Yes.
27:12Peter's growler needs to be...
27:13Like that?
27:14Yeah.
27:15OK.
27:17Now we've established how big we can make Peter's new growler, we cut it to size.
27:23Let's just see how long a growl we get.
27:28It's got to be a bit safer than that.
27:31To slow the movement of the growler and thus lengthen the growl, we need some sort of fabric cap with holes punched through.
27:39That's a bit on the wonk, isn't it?
27:42I mean, it doesn't matter.
27:43I mean, no-one's ever going to see it because it's going to be deep in Peter's bowel.
27:48Apart from all the people watching it on the television, obviously.
27:51I think to get the result, we need to tape this on to the end.
27:55To seal that one end.
27:57The noise goes in that way?
27:58Yeah.
27:59Why, how could that...
28:12Is there a plan B at this point?
28:14No.
28:18OK.
28:19Anyway, we're not going to give up.
28:22Luckily, Simi, Ever the Optimist, has an idea that might help create the sound.
28:27And it involves a pair of black rubber gloves.
28:31We're making a replacement bellow.
28:34The old one is rather elaborate.
28:37We're not sure what material it is.
28:40It's almost like a waxed paper.
28:43But it has been ironed so that it has effectively a helix in it.
28:49So it's ironed in two directions.
28:52So it's got ridges on the outside and the inside.
28:54But that seems unnecessarily complicated in a world of modern materials, such as rubber gloves.
28:59So we're making it out of the rubber glove.
29:02The theory here is that the rubber glove should fill with air and force it past the reed, which makes the sound.
29:10OK.
29:11Are we ready?
29:12I'm slightly...
29:24How can that not work?
29:26The addition of the bellows has made...
29:30Let's have a look.
29:31..the growler stick in the tube.
29:33Oh, is that what it's doing?
29:39That's so feeble.
29:42Situation update on Peter the teddy bear.
29:45Situation update is that since Peter the bear was admitted to our bear-growler hospital,
29:51his condition has deteriorated quite significantly.
29:56Some of his stuffing has come out.
29:59He's got a massive wound in his spine and his voice doesn't work anymore.
30:03But apart from that...
30:04It's not easy, is it?
30:06I hate this bear.
30:08So, our attempts at repairing Peter's existing growl box have run adrift.
30:14But we can't let Kirsty and her precious bear down.
30:18And so, after some deliberation, Sim and I decide that desperate times call for desperate measures.
30:25Are you sitting comfortably, children?
30:27Kirsty had a very special bear called Peter.
30:31And Peter could growl like a proper grown-up bear.
30:35But one day, Peter's growl failed.
30:38And Kirsty sent poor Peter to Simeon James to be repaired.
30:42It's proved rather difficult because Peter's reed is bent and worn out, his bellows have perished.
30:49But, of course, you know all that, children, because you've been on this incredible adventure with us.
30:56But now, Simeon James have had to do something they've never done before on this show.
31:02Which is, order a spare part and fit that instead.
31:05Here it is, commercially available growler from a bear specialist.
31:08Peter can growl again.
31:16And now, Mr Oakley, the surgeon, is going to sew it into Peter.
31:22And nobody need ever know.
31:25It's our secret.
31:27Here you go, Sim.
31:29Thank you very much.
31:31Once Simmy has sewn up, the patient will send him to convalesce.
31:34The bear, I mean.
31:35Returning him to Kirsty.
31:36As good as new.
31:38Well, almost.
31:43You rejoin us in Wiltshire, where I'm coming up with ideas to solve problems, big and small, that bother us all.
31:50Whether that's flytippers ruining the glorious countryside, or that your lunch is just lacking that certain something.
31:58We have identified a problem, which is that you go out to a pub or a restaurant and you have some food, and it's all jolly nice, but you think, I'd like a little bit of garnish on that.
32:08What if you could take the garnish with you, and then you could garnish whatever it was you were eating, wherever?
32:13So we thought, why not incorporate them into an item of clothing, to wit, a hat?
32:20You see, this rests very conveniently on your head.
32:24If the brim were full of soil and herbs, you could merely pluck one and add it to your cheesy pasta.
32:30So, join me as we make the world's first herb hat.
32:42This is harder than it looks.
32:44The problem I'm experiencing is that the brim of the hat is not as deep as the typical English garden herb bed.
32:54So maybe we need to get rid of some bigger?
32:57And maybe make the soil a bit wetter.
32:59But don't I have to retain the root?
33:01Yes, but if you just, so if we get rid of those boys, and keep that one in its root...
33:07What, and discard those?
33:08I think snip that off.
33:10I always have my comedy carrot-shaped Japanese scissors in my pocket, fortunately.
33:15Snip those off.
33:17We're now getting somewhere with the herb hat, compacted soil, and a sprig of basil.
33:24I've been on television quite a long time now, I think it's about 25 years.
33:28And because I understand the basics of television, I know that we're going to skip forward to a comedy shot of me approaching my own pub with a hat full of herbs on my head.
33:38And here I am.
33:41Afternoon.
33:42Afternoon.
33:43Hamming and chips.
33:44Yes.
33:45Epic.
33:47Nice hat, James.
33:49Yeah, you're rocking that.
33:54Sorry.
33:56It was a bit of a breeze.
33:59Would you like some Garni?
34:02Have you got any coriander?
34:03I have.
34:04I believe it's there, isn't it?
34:06Yes.
34:07May I?
34:08Yes, of course.
34:09Here are the exquisite Japanese scissors.
34:15Sim, anything you'd like with your...
34:16A little basil would be nice.
34:18Basil is...
34:19Ooh.
34:20Can Tony reach that?
34:21Ooh, ooh.
34:22Is that enough?
34:23Yeah.
34:24I think, ham, egg and chips, I would like...
34:27I'd like a few chives on my eggs and my chips.
34:30Allow me.
34:34Here you go.
34:35Thanks awfully.
34:37What do you think of my hat?
34:38I mean, be honest.
34:39No.
34:40Well, honest.
34:41Yeah, yeah.
34:43I mean, you look like words of gummage, but...
34:45It's a bit Morrie style, I see, isn't it?
34:46It is.
34:47It's actually very useful.
34:49It's a top hat.
34:51See what I did there?
34:54I'd say this works.
34:57It's a little uncomfortable, but it's very achievable at home.
34:59All you need is a hat, some nutrient-rich soil, some herbs, a low sense of self-esteem.
35:10Robert's your mother's brother.
35:13Next, spice shoes.
35:17No, that's ridiculous.
35:18Shoes covered in spices would just look stupid.
35:22Meanwhile, here are some lovely shots of the Wiltshire countryside.
35:26And we're hoping to keep it that way with our cunning invention to stop the curse of fly-tipping.
35:35We return to the fly-tipper, fly-trap.
35:38Fly-tipping is becoming a blight.
35:40In the countryside, we have devised a way of catching people in the act.
35:44It is essentially a fly-trap.
35:46It's based on the idea of a retracting cattle grid that exposes a very sticky substance that traps the miscreants
35:53so that they can be apprehended and then they can pay their debt to society.
35:59Now, in a previous instalment, we proved the principle of the retracting cattle grid.
36:03And now we've set it up in this fly-tipping area.
36:06It's already full of junk.
36:07It's a very popular location.
36:09You know, saw horses, old record players, speakers, badminton bats and so on.
36:14And amongst it is a fairly typical old bicycle.
36:17Or is it?
36:18No, it isn't.
36:19It is actually the trigger mechanism for the whole thing.
36:22Let me explain to you how it works.
36:23When our fly-tippers approach, they walk over the cattle grid, which is closed and it's outside a gate,
36:28they suspect nothing.
36:29And they lob whatever it is, their bread maker, whatever, over here, and it hits this trigger string.
36:37This trigger string, via this pulley here, pulls on this hinged piece of wood,
36:44which releases the front brake of the bicycle.
36:48The front wheel, now free to rotate, begins to rotate under the tension of this bungee cord
36:54until the sledgehammer, which is attached to the wheel, passes top dead centre and then gravity does its work.
37:02The rotation of the wheel and the extra torque provided by the sledgehammer operates this pulley system,
37:08which retracts the cattle grid.
37:11They think we got away with that, run away, stuck, we turn up with clubs and beat them to death.
37:15Now, we're going to test this out with some fictitious fly-tippers.
37:18This is not real, this is a set-up, but me, Tony and Simi, to see if it works,
37:22are going to watch from over there, behind the wall.
37:25If you didn't understand the explanation, don't worry, we're filming it all with little cameras
37:29and we'll do a slow-motion action replay and you can see it all working in graphic detail.
37:35Right, are we ready? Let's prime the trap.
37:40So, a few redesigned and repurposed bits of junk could, if we've got our calculations correct,
37:48trigger our trap and catch some fly-tippers in the world's first ever fly-tipping fly-trap.
37:55It's quite sticky.
37:56Patent pending.
37:58Right, I think we can go and hide.
38:00So, the trap is set.
38:14And, as if by magic, a mysterious van pulls up.
38:18Oh, he's stopping. He is, he is.
38:21He's got to be one.
38:23That's a really tatty van, that's always a sign.
38:26He's getting out.
38:27Oh, they've got hoodies on.
38:29Oh, look at them. Dirty fly-tippers.
38:32Yes, dirty fly-tippers that do look remarkably like members of our crew.
38:37What is it? What is it? Washing machine?
38:40It's a bloody mattress.
38:42Oh!
38:43God.
38:44Over the kettle grid, go on.
38:46There you go.
38:47Yes, yes, yes, oh.
38:49Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!
39:02Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha.
39:03Got you!
39:04Man saying it.
39:07Yeah, I can't tell you it works.
39:10Oi, fly tippers, you're in a fly trap and you're going down.
39:17Oh, well done then, that is fantastic.
39:20That was a good job.
39:20That's an absurd idea, but it works.
39:24And as promised, here it is in glorious slow motion.
39:28It may be a prototype, but the principle is sound.
39:31Fly tippers can be caught like flies in a trap,
39:34and that is engineering and poetic success.
39:42So, we've solved fly tipping, pub entertainment,
39:46garnishing on the move,
39:48but we've really struggled trying to fix Peter the bear,
39:51whose growler was no longer fit for purpose.
39:55I never imagined I would end up being involved
39:57in the repair of a teddy bear.
39:59I was expecting clocks or lawnmowers, you know.
40:03Not teddies.
40:04Not a teddy bear.
40:06What a pain.
40:07I'll be quite glad to see the back of him.
40:10Aw, I'll miss Peter.
40:11I can see the back of him now.
40:13I don't know how she's going to react
40:14when we admit that we haven't really mended him as such.
40:18What happens if she throws one?
40:20I don't think she will.
40:21You don't think so?
40:22No.
40:23What we've actually done here is a transplant.
40:25We have.
40:25And a successful one.
40:26And that's really the cutting edge of teddy bear medicine.
40:36Hello.
40:37Hello.
40:37Hello.
40:38Have a seat.
40:38Nice to see you again.
40:40Hi.
40:41Here is Roger.
40:43Peter.
40:46Have you missed him?
40:47I've missed him a lot.
40:48Have you?
40:49I have.
40:49Well, it's strange.
40:50We've become very familiar with Peter.
40:53He's been a constant lurking presence in our lives.
40:56And we've looked after very carefully, of course.
40:59I'm glad.
40:59I'm glad you did.
41:01Well, do you want to know what we've done?
41:02Yes, please.
41:03Well, Simi began the quite difficult operation with a long incision down his spine.
41:08Yeah.
41:09And then we successfully removed his growler.
41:12Yes.
41:13And that's where things became a bit difficult.
41:15It had sort of disintegrated a bit.
41:17And his growler wasn't very strong anymore.
41:20No.
41:20And we looked at making a longer tube and a bigger bellows.
41:24We tried various fabrics.
41:26We tried a rubber glove.
41:27Sounds a bit complicated.
41:29It was complicated.
41:29He was on the table for hours, and at one point we thought we might lose him.
41:33Same.
41:35Eventually, we consulted, well, a consultant teddy bear surgeon.
41:41Yeah.
41:42Who said, I'm afraid he had to have a new growler.
41:45So he's had a transplant.
41:49Okay.
41:50But if you'd like to tip him on his back.
41:52Oh, it's the same.
42:02It sounds exactly the same.
42:08Oh.
42:09Oh, it does.
42:10It sounds exactly the same.
42:12If you tip him right back and wait for a bit for sort of the growler to extend, and then...
42:19It sounds just like a telephone.
42:24So you're pleased.
42:26Very pleased.
42:27Thank you so much.
42:30So good.
42:32Well, I'm delighted that you're pleased.
42:33I'm very pleased.
42:34Because I thought I'd lost him for a long, long time, and now he sounds exactly like he did when I was a child.
42:40So, yeah, he's quite emotional.
42:45Well, you can take him back to your home and enjoy the rest of your lives together.
42:50I will.
42:51Thank you so much.
42:52It's really appreciated.
42:53That's okay.
42:53It's a pleasure.
42:55Thank you very much.
42:57Bye.
42:57Bye.
42:58Bring him back when his head falls off.
42:59Can you see her?
43:04She's properly delighted.
43:06That bear is loved.
43:08And if we as humanity could love each other the way Kirsty loves that bear, everything would be okay.
43:15Apart from for me.
43:17Thank you very much.
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