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Short filmTranscript
00:00Hello.
00:07These days I spend more and more time in my Wiltshire home.
00:11And the pub I own.
00:13Thinking about all the big problems in the world.
00:16And some smaller ones that annoy me.
00:21Luckily there's a place I can go to solve them all.
00:24Or at least try.
00:27My shed.
00:30Right.
00:31It's here that I have the tools.
00:33Let's just saw some wood up.
00:35The tea.
00:37And a couple of other highly competent blokes.
00:41Very good. Brace yourself.
00:43Who've agreed to help me rid the world of problems.
00:46Is she getting the ticket out?
00:47Great.
00:48Dirty flight at us.
00:50And small.
00:51The cereal has gone soggy.
00:53I'll also have to take on other people's problems.
00:56What is wrong with Peter?
00:57He used to make a sound and now he doesn't.
01:00By which I mean the locals at my pub are always bringing me stuff to mend.
01:05Is it a train set?
01:07So join us and our excitable crew.
01:13Who will capture our endeavours.
01:15That was epic.
01:17As we create.
01:20Make.
01:21That feels like a terrible thing we've just done.
01:23Repair.
01:24So it's never worked.
01:25Not in my lifetime.
01:26And repurpose.
01:27In my shed load of ideas.
01:28What do you think?
01:29This is just brilliant.
01:30Here in Wiltshire I have time to reflect on those issues that concern us all.
01:48Such as how to preserve this beautiful landscape.
01:52The muse of England's poets and artists.
01:56The rustling hedgerow.
01:58The delightful babbling brook and the abject weeping willow.
02:03The heart of the idyll that nestles in the breast of every English man and woman.
02:08Oh and the fly tipping site.
02:10The blight of town and country alike.
02:13These people disgust me.
02:17There are over a million fly tipping incidents reported in the UK each year.
02:22And they cost local authorities hundreds of millions of pounds to tidy up.
02:28It's a huge problem.
02:30But no problem is too huge for me and my two very handy right hand men.
02:35My trusty engineer Sim with his big ideas.
02:38Some kind of pivot from this point.
02:41Anywhere between here and here.
02:43And my ever ready carpenter Tony the tool.
02:46Don't worry I'll just do everything over here.
02:49You carry on chatting.
02:51And so to my large and well equipped workshop where the very practical magic happens.
02:57So we've decided that our revenge on fly tippers should be poetic.
03:03It is a fly trap or a fly tipper trap if you like.
03:07Taking our inspiration from good old school fly paper which is this stuff.
03:13It's really like a very big piece of sticky paper and you hang it up in your house.
03:17Flies fly into it because they're stupid.
03:19Their brains are absolutely minute.
03:21And they stick to it.
03:22Ha!
03:23And that's the end of them.
03:24So we want to do something similar but that acts on human beings.
03:29Which mean.
03:30God.
03:31Which means we need a sticky substance that will trap them.
03:36We'll leave Simmy to search for something sticky enough to catch our human flies.
03:41As Tony and I move next door to start work on the actual trap.
03:46Now we have to devise the trap itself.
03:49How it will be.
03:50What would the trendy would be delivered.
03:52It's Tony's idea so Tony will explain.
03:57Collapsable cattle grid.
03:59The ore.
04:00So we take a sheet of eight by four.
04:02Yes.
04:03We build a frame around it.
04:06Two supports.
04:08All our sticky stuff in the middle here.
04:10Mm-hmm.
04:12Box section.
04:13Forming a grid.
04:16Holes.
04:18Attached by string.
04:21Going to two pulleys.
04:25And go that way to a single pulley.
04:28With a mechanism that pulls and collapses.
04:31Why is the cattle grid there?
04:32Is there a gate?
04:33To stop cattle.
04:34No I know what it does.
04:36But it's not...
04:37Yes.
04:38So it's a gate.
04:39Usually you dump it.
04:40Usually I've heard people who dump things.
04:42Right.
04:43Dump it in a field.
04:44So the van pulls up.
04:45People get out with the sofa say.
04:47And they walk across the cattle grid.
04:49Which is positioned in front of a gate.
04:51And therefore is perfectly normal.
04:53Because you get cattle grids in front of gates.
04:55They throw the sofa into the fly tipping area.
04:59And it triggers a weighted mechanism.
05:02We haven't quite worked that bit out yet.
05:03Have we?
05:04Which, through this pulley system, concertinas the cattle grid like a Venetian blind.
05:10Exposing the sticky stuff.
05:12The panicking fly tippers run back to their van through here and are stuck like flies on flypaper.
05:19That's basically it isn't it?
05:21Easy.
05:22Right, so should we put this on the floor and do a bit of spacing out?
05:25Yeah.
05:29Let's just rough it out.
05:31Tony and I start laying out the steel rods that will eventually become our cattle grid.
05:37How far apart are the rails of a cattle grid?
05:40Does it depend on what sort of animals you've got?
05:42Because cows have got bigger paws than sheep, haven't they?
05:46Obviously if you're making one for an elephant you could make them a little bit further apart.
05:53Right, the dilemma is we have to balance authenticity, i.e. the spacing of the rails on the cattle grid
05:59with the requirements of the mechanism because it's got to pull all these together over here.
06:05It's quite a weight isn't it?
06:07Yeah.
06:08It's a lot of steel.
06:09I think that gap is too big but it could be bigger than that one,
06:12which it will be when they're evenly spaced.
06:14So there's no getting around this Tony, we're going to have to do a bit of arithmetic.
06:18So, for our 1,220mm wide cattle grid we're going to need 10 bars, 107.7mm apart.
06:27Yes, this is an exact science.
06:30Oh, our arithmetic is spot on.
06:34Well, nearly.
06:36Nearly.
06:39OK.
06:40That's our cattle grid, correctly spaced out.
06:45Come in with the sofa.
06:47Yes, I think that's, you'd walk across it carefully because there's a cattle grid,
06:52because you tend to walk carefully across a cattle grid.
06:55I think, yes, I think we'll get away with that.
06:58Let's mark out the board with the exact positions of our roofing battens.
07:04We can fix those in place.
07:06Mm-hm.
07:07And go from there.
07:08Right, so the concept looks good. We've just got to make the thing now.
07:15First, Tony and I construct the wooden base frame, keeping a close eye on our maths.
07:23Then we need a bit of help from Simi to cut the steel rods,
07:26so that Tony and I can drill very precise holes into them,
07:30which we'll thread rope through to collapse the grid,
07:32as long as we can keep up with Simi's exacting standards.
07:37So, put the hole in the middle, right?
07:39I mean, look at that. How in the middle is that?
07:42All is proceeding at pace until...
07:46The problem is...
07:48Well, there's no easy way of putting this. It's Tony.
07:52Sim has spotted that the board isn't perfectly square.
07:56It's just I didn't cut the factory edge off because we were rushing.
07:59I'll just re-cut these.
08:001,790, then.
08:03Or thereabouts.
08:05Thank you, Simi.
08:06And once you've squared off our mistakes,
08:08Tony and I thread the poles together with rope,
08:10which will make this cattle grid collapsible.
08:13Ow!
08:14What have you done to that?
08:16There, but we're going to have to flame it again.
08:19And finally, we get to see if our cunning concertina plan actually works.
08:25In three, two, one...
08:27Oh, that works!
08:30It's beauty!
08:31It doesn't need that much force either.
08:33Collapsible cattle grid success,
08:35but we still need to find some really sticky stuff to fill it with.
08:39We also have to drill all the remaining pieces,
08:42devise the weighted mechanism that will close this,
08:45and we have to take the whole thing to a secret location in the countryside,
08:49fill it with our gunk, and then wait.
08:53For now, though, we take a break from our war against fly tippers for a well-earned pint.
09:01And it's now, when I'm at the pub,
09:03that people start bringing me their broken stuff that they want me to mend.
09:07In fact, I'm so used to this, I take my toolbox to the pub every time I go.
09:12Hello.
09:14Hello, I'm Kirsty.
09:15Hello, Kirsty.
09:16Hi.
09:17What have you got for us?
09:18I have got my teddy bear, Peter.
09:20He's 53 years old.
09:22Younger than me.
09:24Definitely younger than me.
09:26And apart from being utterly furless,
09:30what is wrong with Peter?
09:32He used to make a sound sort of like a sheep,
09:35and now he doesn't.
09:36He's been in a loft for 35-plus years.
09:41Poor sod.
09:42Yeah.
09:43Is it one of those where you do that and it...
09:44Yeah.
09:45You can hear it?
09:47Oh, yeah.
09:48Whatever that is.
09:50Something's moving.
09:51What noise did it make?
09:52It was like a sheep, like a bar.
09:54I think...
09:55Well, I do know somebody who used to run a thing called Teddy Bear Hospital,
09:58and these old bears, they've usually got a moving weight and some sort of bellows.
10:02They used to be classified as squeakers and growlers.
10:05Right.
10:06One of them had a reed, and the other one had...
10:09Some kind of diaphragm or...
10:11Yeah.
10:12Something like that.
10:13So you want us to try and make the sound work again?
10:15If you could, that would be lovely.
10:17And you've had him since you were...
10:19How old?
10:20Before I was born, my grandmother gave it to my mother
10:23while she was pregnant with me.
10:25So it predates you?
10:27Yeah.
10:28The teddy was waiting for you as you popped out of the womb?
10:30He was.
10:31Are these your initials?
10:32They are my initials, yeah.
10:34My mum stitched them in cos he used to go everywhere with me.
10:37I've got a picture of him, actually.
10:39Oh, that's when he still had his fur.
10:42Yeah.
10:43And his head was on properly.
10:45Yes.
10:46At what point did Peter lose his speech?
10:49Hmm.
10:50I have no idea.
10:51He's travelled with me.
10:52I was in the army, and he came everywhere with me.
10:56And then he ended up in a loft, and I thought I'd lost him.
11:03And then I got him back about three months ago, and he doesn't make any sound.
11:08How would you feel about us opening Peter up?
11:12That's fine.
11:13Are you sure?
11:14Yeah.
11:15We'll have to ask you to sign a consent form.
11:17Absolutely.
11:18And a do not resuscitate.
11:21Oh, look, there is my special superpower magnifying spectacles.
11:25And there is a scalpel.
11:28Has this been opened before?
11:30Not that I know of, no.
11:31How are you feeling about this, Kirsty?
11:33I'm slightly nervous.
11:35Oh, swab.
11:38We found something that has not been exposed to the light since the early 1970s.
11:43Can I put my finger in?
11:44You might want to look away, Kirsty.
11:46I am.
11:47My God, it's huge.
11:49We need a bigger hole.
11:50We need a bigger hole.
11:52I'm actually getting nervous.
11:54Here it comes.
11:56Is that the noise it used to make?
12:07Slightly.
12:08But longer?
12:10Longer, yeah.
12:11I've seen me afford him some dignity.
12:14Oh, God.
12:15We'll put him in the recovery position.
12:18OK, we will take this back to the workshop, Kirsty.
12:21We will mend it, reinsert it in the bowels of Peter.
12:26Simi will stitch him back together.
12:28He will be returned to you, growling as he did in your youth,
12:32and you will never know, and neither will he,
12:34that anything had ever happened.
12:36Excellent.
12:37Either that or it will go wrong and we'll chuck him on the bonfire.
12:42Please don't.
12:43Will we be able to perform this important and life-saving operation?
12:47Will Peter growl again?
12:51Ah, Wiltshire, the beautiful countryside.
12:58But did you know that every 27 seconds somebody ruins it by fly-tipping,
13:03causing damage to farmland and wildlife?
13:07Luckily, Tony, Simi and I have come up with a cunning plan
13:11involving a collapsible cattle grid
13:14that will expose a sticky substance beneath
13:16to stop our fly-tippers in their tracks.
13:19Now we just have to select our gunk.
13:25The options we have arrived at are cornflour,
13:28epoxy resin and this one, which is a mastic,
13:33so it remains plastic and sticky. Is that right?
13:37Yeah.
13:38What should we try? Should we try cornflour?
13:40Cornflour.
13:41I mean, cornflour, isn't it thixotropic?
13:43So if they run across a cornflour mix quickly, they will simply...
13:46Go across it.
13:47Go across it.
13:48But if they amble across it...
13:49Yes, then sink.
13:50How much should we put in?
13:52Let's put it all in.
13:53Do you think?
13:54Yeah.
13:55Cornflour is weird stuff, I think.
14:00I don't like using it in the kitchen.
14:02It's useful, Ron.
14:03It is useful.
14:04I mean, it's a crafty way to thicken up your cheese sauce.
14:07That is quite...
14:08So it is solid.
14:11But if you put gentle pressure, you sink.
14:14Oh, yeah.
14:15Oh!
14:16It's quite nice, actually.
14:18And then it just goes liquid.
14:20The trouble with this is so much fun,
14:22you'd find millions of fly-tipers just frolicking in your cornflour.
14:27This cornflour and water goo is non-Newtonian,
14:31meaning it doesn't follow Newton's laws,
14:33as it can act as both a solid and a liquid.
14:36And handily for us, this ambiguity makes it very sticky.
14:41Shall we put it on the floor and put some shoe covers on?
14:43Who wants to try?
14:45We can try one each.
14:47Off to you.
14:48I'll do this one, then, so.
14:57Make sure you use the right foot.
14:59Yeah, good thinking, Batman.
15:01So you've thrown your sofa away, or your fridge, or whatever.
15:04Fly-tips. Nobody saw that.
15:05I'm off.
15:11It's not very good.
15:13What's the drag on your foot there?
15:14No, it's...
15:16It's pretty grippy.
15:17But I don't know that you'll necessarily get stuck.
15:19The idea is that the fly-tipper is stuck to the fly-tipper trap.
15:23I mean, let's reserve judgement, so we've tried a few other things.
15:28Shall we try the mastic?
15:31So it never sets.
15:32No.
15:33It remains plastic, in the true sense, and hopefully quite sticky.
15:37Shall I?
15:38Yes, carry on.
15:39It looks sticky.
15:40It does look sticky.
15:41This particular mastic forms an elastic, watertight sealant that sticks firmly to wood, metal, concrete and, we hope, humans.
15:56It smells fantastic.
15:58So has anybody got any Bob Dylan records?
16:01Right.
16:03Whose turn is it to try?
16:06Are you going to do it, Tony?
16:07Yeah, I'll do it.
16:08Yeah, go on, Tony.
16:11Are you going to put both feet in?
16:12Yeah, I want to get splashes of it on my trainers.
16:19So, remember to method act.
16:22What are you dumping, Tony?
16:23A telly.
16:24A telly, okay.
16:26Whoa, he's done that before.
16:28Whoa!
16:30Hey, that looked like it could be quite good.
16:32Wow.
16:33It's slippy as well.
16:34Really slippy.
16:35That's really sticky.
16:37That's really sticky.
16:38Oh, that's pretty good.
16:40It's very good.
16:42So, the mastic works.
16:44But because Simmy hates to feel left out, we decide to let him test the epoxy resin option.
16:50Also, he's got a bit of a thing about shoe covers.
16:52You ready, Sim?
16:53Right.
16:54With your big fridge and action.
16:55I've got my fridge.
16:56Over the hedge it goes.
16:59Oh, ****.
17:00That's not very good.
17:04It's not very good, is it?
17:05It's also all over the floor.
17:06It is all over the floor.
17:07You can get it off the floor.
17:09It's very slippery.
17:11So, that's not ideal, is it?
17:12No.
17:14It's rubbish.
17:15So, to conclude this scene, men, because we've wanted to do it, you have one.
17:22Are you ready?
17:23In three, two, one.
17:25The mastic is a clear winner.
17:32It's the stickiest that we agreed.
17:35Absolutely.
17:36Right, so that's what we'll do.
17:39Once that sticky mastic is added to our cattle grid flytrap, we may just be able to protect rural idles up and down the country from the blight of flytipping.
17:50But there's another danger threatening the countryside, and that's the worrying demise of pub games.
17:57As a landlord myself, I'm not keen on fruit machines and dreary pub quizzes.
18:03But what about revisiting one of the old standards?
18:07The game of darts, it's essential to the formation of England's character, because without our prowess at darts, we wouldn't have been good at archery and defeated the French at Agincourt, for example.
18:22Now, this is a standard dartboard, probably the one you're familiar with.
18:26It's got doubles on the outside, trebles on the inner ring, and then a bull and a double bull.
18:31But there are other types of dartboard.
18:33For example, there is a Yorkshire dartboard, which only has the doubles.
18:37And then there's a Manchester dartboard, which has the numbers in a different order.
18:41There's also a Bath dartboard, which has some extra scoring areas around the outside and so on and so on.
18:47Wiltshire does not have its own dartboard, so we thought maybe we'd come up with one.
18:54What do you think, Tony?
18:56Er, yeah. What would you do, though?
18:59When I was a kid, me and my brother used to play drop darts, where you put the dartboard on the floor.
19:06We actually used to do it out of the bedroom window, with the dartboard down below in the garden.
19:12Let's try holding it by the... Oh, shot! Is it in?
19:17No, it's 25.
19:19Miles off.
19:21Er...
19:22I mean...
19:24It involves a lot of bending down, though.
19:27What if the dartboard starts rotating?
19:31Imagine how difficult it would be to throw at a rotating darts board.
19:35Yeah! That'd be... Yeah, we could do that. That'd be fun.
19:39Obviously, because we are, in fact, engineers, we need to test out the concept.
19:45OK, so stand on the ocky, but about two feet back from the ocky.
19:51Oh, I don't want to throw a dart at you like that.
19:53No, no.
19:54Oh!
19:55You ready?
19:56You having a laugh?
20:00No.
20:05Yes! Three on the board!
20:07OK, now it's my turn.
20:15Crap rolling.
20:16Crap rolling.
20:17It's supposed to go over there.
20:18You deflected it with your first dart.
20:20What?
20:21So the rotation idea works, but not rolling the board.
20:25Now we need Simi's help to try and make the board rotate in space.
20:30Shall we have a beer?
20:31Good idea.
20:32While Tony and I head off for a pint,
20:35Simi throws himself into creating a mechanism that will rotate our Wiltshire dartboard.
20:41First, he attaches a rotary switch to a wooden frame.
20:45And then he rigs up a variable speed controller.
20:50Before, after a quick swig, soldering together a small motor with a manual switch.
20:57Then he attaches a battery, has another essential beer break,
21:01and finally tests the rotating mechanism that will eventually attach to the dartboard,
21:06which we'll try out later, once Simi's joined us in the garden for another pint.
21:12Exciting!
21:23You find me back in my Wiltshire pub, and for good reason.
21:27There isn't enough entertainment in the pub,
21:29especially since I've banned Morris dancers and minstrels.
21:33So we're looking at how to refresh the greatest of all pub games.
21:39With the introduction of the Wiltshire dartboard,
21:42allow me to show it to you.
21:44Here it is, hanging on the wall at the regulation height,
21:47with the 20 at the top, where you'd expect.
21:50My two players, if you'd like to take the occi, gentlemen,
21:54then you will remember where you were when you first saw this,
21:58because the game of darts was changed forever.
22:04There it goes.
22:06The rotating Wiltshire dartboard.
22:10Doesn't look like much, but it makes the game extremely difficult,
22:12and let's be honest, it wasn't easy to start with.
22:15We're playing highest score, three darts, your throw, sir.
22:18It's making me dizzy.
22:19Here's the 20, but it's going round and round, you see,
22:21because it's the Wiltshire dartboard.
22:23Rubbish.
22:24Oh, he's going for the bull.
22:26Oh, it's tricky.
22:2843.
22:3012.
22:3219.
22:34Rubbish.
22:35James, come on.
22:36Do your best.
22:42Oh!
22:43And again.
22:4534.
22:47No.
22:48No.
22:49No, no, no.
22:50Right, I'm speeding it up for round two.
22:56Oh!
22:58Yes!
23:00Shall we reverse?
23:02Oh!
23:06Oh, he's got 60.
23:10I didn't believe I missed the ball, James.
23:13I've only got this one left, and I have to score 29 or more.
23:23That means the winner is Sim.
23:25Ah!
23:27But this invention wasn't meant just to entertain the three of us.
23:31It has to work on the seething, roaring mass that is the general public.
23:36Let's see if any of the locals would like to play Wiltshire darts.
23:43Hmm, no.
23:45It's not looking good.
23:47Well, yes, you're right.
23:48It's not ideal.
23:49It's not good. It's 24.
23:50That's nothing.
23:54At least I tried.
23:58Five.
24:00Six.
24:03Ten.
24:05Congratulations.
24:06That's truly terrible.
24:09Eight.
24:11Oh, dear.
24:13That's 17, sir.
24:15That's very poor.
24:16I hope you don't mind me saying.
24:18Scores may be low, but the game is a huge hit with the regulars, and also, it turns out, with our film crew, with producer Lucy very keen to play.
24:30You've thrown it away.
24:32As everybody rushes to stand in front of the board for their own safety, it's probably time to sum this up.
24:37I'm not entirely sure what to say about Wiltshire darts, apart from that it's excellent.
24:46That's one successful step along the path to revitalise British pub entertainment, and I've got plenty more ideas up my sleeve.
24:53But now, we must return to the pressing matter of Kirsty's bear, who, after years in the loft, has lost his growl, and Simi and I have been entrusted with the weighty task of giving Peter his voice back.
25:07Right, viewers, our mission today is to provide Peter the bear, beloved of Kirsty, with a more impressive one of those.
25:19According to Kirsty, it was originally louder and longer, and we may be able to improve the sound as well.
25:25We've never done this before, oddly.
25:27First, we need to remove Peter's growl box to see how it works.
25:36What if we made that just twice as long, and this twice as long, and then you'd get a longer...
25:48So it is, it's like...
25:49Oh, God!
25:51It's got a very simple reed there, similar to something you would find in a crude musical instrument.
25:59And this seems to be some sort of very, very simple amplifier.
26:04We could remake that...
26:07Bigger.
26:08...much bigger and much longer.
26:10There's a lot of room.
26:11There's tons of room. It could go right down to his...
26:14...and up to his neck.
26:15So we could, you know, we could put an enormous growler in there.
26:18Yes.
26:24Right, that's the plan.
26:26We're going to remake it bigger and better, which in terms of a teddy bear growl means longer.
26:33To 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
26:41by throwing it down the longest tube we can find.
26:45Three metres of cylindrical polyvinyl chloride.
26:49Is everybody ready?
26:50Also known as a drain pipe.
26:52Let her go.
26:55Er...
26:58Erm...
26:59I think it needs to be totally upright.
27:12That was epic!
27:14Nice!
27:16You're trying with the shorter length?
27:17Yes.
27:18The shorter length of the growler needs to be...
27:19Like that?
27:20Yeah.
27:21OK.
27:23Now we've established how big we can make Peter's new growler, we cut it to size.
27:29Let's just see how long a growl we get.
27:34It's got to be a bit safer than that.
27:37To slow the movement of the growler and thus lengthen the growl, we need some sort of fabric cap with holes punched through.
27:45That's a bit on the wonk, isn't it?
27:48I mean, it doesn't matter.
27:49I mean, no one's ever going to see it because it's going to be deep in...
27:52Deep in Peter's bowel, apart from all the people watching it on the television, obviously.
27:57I think to get the result, we need to tape this on to the end.
28:01To seal that one end.
28:03The noise goes in that way.
28:04Yeah.
28:07Why, how could that...
28:18Is there a plan B at this point?
28:20No.
28:24OK.
28:25Anyway, we're not going to give up.
28:28Luckily, Simi, Everett the Optimist, has an idea that might help create the sound.
28:32And it involves a pair of black rubber gloves.
28:36We're making a replacement bellow.
28:39The old one is rather elaborate.
28:43We're not sure what material it is.
28:45It's almost like a waxed paper.
28:49But it has been ironed so that it has effectively a helix in it.
28:55So it's ironed in two directions.
28:58So it's got ridges on the outside and the inside.
29:00But that seems unnecessarily complicated in a world of modern materials such as rubber gloves.
29:05So we're making it out of the rubber glove.
29:08The theory here is that the rubber glove should fill with air and force it past the reed, which makes the sound.
29:15OK.
29:17Are we ready?
29:18I'm slightly...
29:19How can that not work?
29:32The addition of the bellows has made...
29:36Let's have a look.
29:37The growlers stick in the tube.
29:39Oh, is that what it's saying?
29:40What are you saying?
29:45That's so feeble.
29:48Situation update on Peter the teddy bear.
29:51Situation update is that since Peter the bear was admitted to our bear growler hospital,
29:58his condition has deteriorated quite significantly.
30:02Some of his stuffing has come out.
30:05He's got a massive wound in his spine and his voice doesn't work anymore.
30:08But apart from that...
30:09It's not easy, is it?
30:11I hate this bear.
30:14So our attempts at repairing Peter's existing growl box have run adrift.
30:20But we can't let Kirsty and her precious bear down.
30:23And so, after some deliberation, Sim and I decide that desperate times call for desperate measures.
30:30Are you sitting comfortably, children?
30:33Kirsty had a very special bear called Peter.
30:36And Peter could growl like a proper grown-up bear.
30:40But one day, Peter's growl failed and Kirsty sent poor Peter to Simeon James to be repaired.
30:48It's proved rather difficult because Peter's reed is bent and worn out, his bellows have perished.
30:55But of course you know all that, children, because you've been on this incredible adventure with us.
31:00But now, Simi and James have had to do something they've never done before on this show.
31:07Which is, order a spare part and fit that instead.
31:10Here it is, commercially available growler from a bear specialist.
31:13Peter can growl again.
31:14And now, Mr Oakley the surgeon is going to sew it into Peter.
31:28And nobody need ever know.
31:30It's our secret.
31:31Here you go, Sim.
31:34Thank you very much.
31:35Once Simi has sewn up the patient, we'll send him to convalesce.
31:39The bear, I mean.
31:40Before returning him to Kirsty.
31:42As good as new.
31:44Well, almost.
31:45You rejoin us in Wiltshire, where I'm coming up with ideas to solve problems big and small that bother us all.
31:56Whether that's fly tippers ruining the glorious countryside, or that your lunch is just lacking that certain something.
32:04We 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.
32:13What if you could take the garnish with you, and then you could garnish whatever it was you were eating, wherever.
32:20So we thought, why not incorporate them into an item of clothing, to wit, a hat.
32:26You see, this rests very conveniently on your head.
32:30If the brim were full of soil and herbs, you could merely pluck one and add it to your cheesy pasta.
32:36So, join me as we make the world's first herb hat.
32:47This is harder than it looks.
32:50The problem I'm experiencing is that the brim of the hat is not as deep as the typical English garden herb bed.
32:58So maybe we need to get rid of some bigger?
33:02And maybe make the soil a bit wetter.
33:04But don't I have to retain the root?
33:07Yes, but if you just...so if we get rid of those boys, and keep that one in its root...
33:13What, and discard those?
33:14I think snip that off.
33:15I always have my comedy carrot-shaped Japanese scissors in my pocket, fortunately.
33:20I snip those off.
33:23We're now getting somewhere with the herb hat, compacted soil, and a sprig of basil.
33:30I've been in television quite a long time now, I think it's about 25 years.
33:34And 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.
33:41And here I am.
33:47Afternoon.
33:48Afternoon.
33:49Hamming and chips.
33:50Yes.
33:51Epic.
33:53Nice hat, James.
33:55Yeah, you're rocking that.
34:00Sorry.
34:02It was a bit of a breeze.
34:05Would you like some Garni?
34:08Have you got any coriander?
34:09I have.
34:10I believe it's there, isn't it?
34:11Yeah.
34:12May I?
34:13Yes, of course.
34:14Here are the exquisite Japanese scissors.
34:21Sim, anything you'd like with your...
34:22A little basil would be nice.
34:24Basil is...
34:25Ooh.
34:26Can Tony reach that?
34:27Ooh, ooh.
34:28Is that enough?
34:29Yeah.
34:30I think ham, egg and chips, I would like...
34:33I'd like a few chives on my eggs and my chips.
34:36Allow me.
34:37Here you go.
34:38Thanks awfully.
34:39What do you think of my hat?
34:40I mean, be honest.
34:41I like it.
34:42Well, honest.
34:43Yeah, yeah.
34:44I mean, you look like words of gummage, but...
34:45It's a bit Morrie style, you see, isn't it?
34:46It's actually very useful.
34:47It's a top hat.
34:48See what I did there?
34:49I'd say this works.
34:50Mmm.
34:51It's a little uncomfortable, but it's very achievable at home.
34:53All you need is a hat, some nutrient rich soil, some herbs, a low sense of self esteem.
34:58Robert's your mother's brother.
34:59Robert's your mother's brother.
35:00Next, spice shoes.
35:01No, that's ridiculous.
35:02Shoes covered in spices would just look stupid.
35:05I'd say this works.
35:06Mmm.
35:07It's a little uncomfortable, but it's very achievable at home.
35:09All you need is a hat, some nutrient rich soil, some herbs, a low sense of self esteem.
35:15Robert's your mother's brother.
35:18Next, spice shoes.
35:21No, that's ridiculous. Shoes covered in spices would just look stupid.
35:28Meanwhile, here are some lovely shots of the Wiltshire countryside.
35:32And we're hoping to keep it that way, with our cunning invention to stop the curse of fly tipping.
35:40We return to the fly tipper, fly trap.
35:44Fly tipping is becoming a blight.
35:46In the countryside, we have devised a way of catching people in the act.
35:50It is essentially a fly trap.
35:52It's based on the idea of a retracting cattle grid that exposes a very sticky substance that traps the miscreants,
35:59so that they can be apprehended, and then they can pay their debt to society.
36:04Now, in a previous instalment, we proved the principle of the retracting cattle grid,
36:09and now we've set it up in this fly tipping area.
36:12It's already full of junk.
36:13It's a very popular location.
36:15You know, saw horses, old record players, speakers, badminton bats, and so on.
36:20And amongst is a fairly typical old bicycle.
36:23Or is it?
36:24No, it isn't.
36:25It is actually the trigger mechanism for the whole thing.
36:28Let me explain to you how it works.
36:29When our fly tippers approach, they walk over the cattle grid, which is closed and it's outside a gate,
36:34they suspect nothing, and they lob whatever it is, their bread maker, whatever, over here,
36:40and it hits this trigger string.
36:43This trigger string, via this pulley here, pulls on this hinged piece of wood,
36:50which releases the front brake of the bicycle.
36:54The front wheel, now free to rotate, begins to rotate under the tension of this bungee cord,
37:00until the sledgehammer, which is attached to the wheel, passes top dead centre,
37:05and then gravity does its work.
37:08The rotation of the wheel, and the extra torque provided by the sledgehammer,
37:12operates this pulley system, which retracts the cattle grid.
37:16They think we got away with that, run away, stuck, we turn up with clubs and beat them to death.
37:21Now, we're going to test this out with some fictitious fly tippers.
37:24This is not real, this is a set up, but me, Tony and Simi, to see if it works,
37:28are going to watch from over there, behind the wall.
37:31If you didn't understand the explanation, don't worry, we're filming it all with little cameras,
37:35and we'll do a slow motion action replay, and you can see it all working in graphic detail.
37:41Right, are we ready?
37:43Let's prime the trap.
37:45So, a few redesigned and repurposed bits of junk could, if we've got our calculations correct,
37:53trigger our trap and catch some fly tippers in the world's first ever fly tipping fly trap.
38:00It's quite sticky.
38:01Patent pending.
38:03Right, I think we can go and hide.
38:05So, the trap is set, and as if by magic, a mysterious van pulls up.
38:11Oh, he's stopping.
38:12He is, he is.
38:13Oh, he's got to be one.
38:14That's a really tatty van, that's always a sign.
38:16He's getting out.
38:17Oh, they've got hoodies on.
38:18Oh, look at them.
38:19Dirty fly tippers.
38:20Yes, dirty fly tippers.
38:21Yes, dirty fly tippers that do look remarkably like members of our crew.
38:22What is it?
38:23What is it?
38:24What is it?
38:25What is it?
38:26What is it?
38:27What is it?
38:28What is it?
38:29Washing machine?
38:30Mattress.
38:31Oh, God.
38:32Oh, my God.
38:33I got to go.
38:34Oh my God.
38:35Oh, look at them.
38:37Dirty fly tippers.
38:38Yes, dirty fly tippers that do look remarkably like members of our crew.
38:43What is it?
38:44What is it?
38:45Washing machine?
38:46That's bloody not.
38:47Mattress.
38:48Oh, God.
38:49Are we going to get them?
38:50Go on.
38:51There you go.
38:52Yes, yes, yes, oh.
38:55Got you!
39:09That's so good!
39:13It actually works.
39:15Oi, fly tippers.
39:17You're in a fly trap and you're going down.
39:22Oh, well done, men.
39:23That is fantastic.
39:25That's a good job.
39:25That's an absurd idea, but it works.
39:29And as promised, here it is in glorious slow motion.
39:33It may be a prototype, but the principle is sound.
39:36Fly tippers can be caught like flies in a trap.
39:39And that is engineering and poetic success.
39:47So, we've solved fly tipping, pub entertainment, garnishing on the move.
39:52But we've really struggled trying to fix Peter the bear, whose growler was no longer fit for purpose.
39:59I never imagined I would end up being involved in the repair of a teddy bear.
40:04I was expecting clocks or lawn mowers, you know.
40:08Not teddies.
40:09Not a teddy bear.
40:11What a pain.
40:12I'll be quite glad to see the back of him.
40:14Aw, miss Peter.
40:16I can see the back of him now.
40:18I don't know how she's going to react when we admit that we haven't really mended him as such.
40:22What happens if she throws one?
40:25I don't think she will.
40:26You think so?
40:27No.
40:27What we've actually done here is a transplant.
40:30We have, yes.
40:30And a successful one.
40:31And that's really the cutting edge of teddy bear medicine.
40:41Hello.
40:41Hello.
40:42Hello.
40:43Have a seat.
40:43Nice to see you again.
40:45Hi.
40:47Here is Roger.
40:48Peter.
40:51Have you missed him?
40:52I've missed him a lot.
40:53Have you?
40:54I have.
40:54Well, it's strange.
40:55We've become very familiar with Peter.
40:58He's been a constant lurking presence in our lives.
41:01And looked after very carefully, of course.
41:04I'm glad.
41:04I'm glad you did.
41:05Well, do you want to know what we've done?
41:07Yes, please.
41:08Well, the Simi began the quite difficult operation with a long incision down his spine.
41:13Yeah.
41:14And then we successfully removed his growler.
41:17Yes.
41:17And that's where things became a bit difficult.
41:20It had sort of disintegrated a bit.
41:22And his growler wasn't very strong anymore.
41:25No.
41:25And we looked at making a longer tube and a bigger bellows.
41:29We tried various fabrics.
41:31We tried a rubber glove.
41:32Sounds a bit complicated.
41:33It was complicated.
41:34He was on the table for hours.
41:36And at one point, we thought we might lose him.
41:38That's him.
41:38Eventually, we consulted, well, a consultant teddy bear surgeon, who said, I'm afraid he had to have a new growler.
41:50So he's had a transplant.
41:54Okay.
41:54But if you'd like to tip him on his back.
42:05Oh, it's the same.
42:07It sounds exactly the same.
42:13Oh, it does.
42:15It sounds exactly the same.
42:16If you tip him right back and wait for a bit for sort of the growler to extend.
42:23And then...
42:24It sounds just like a telephone.
42:29So you're pleased.
42:31Very pleased.
42:31Thank you so much.
42:35So good.
42:36Well, I'm delighted that you're pleased.
42:38I'm very pleased.
42:39Because I thought I'd lost him for a long, long time.
42:42And now he sounds exactly like he did when I was a child.
42:45So, yeah, he's quite emotional.
42:50Well, you can take him back to your home and enjoy the rest of your lives together.
42:55I will.
42:56Thank you so much.
42:57It's really appreciated.
42:58That's okay.
42:58It's a pleasure.
43:00Thank you very much.
43:02Bye.
43:02Bye.
43:03Bring him back when his head falls off.
43:06Can you see her?
43:09She's properly delighted.
43:11That bear is loved.
43:13And if we as humanity could love each other the way Kirsty loves that bear,
43:18everything would be okay.
43:20Apart from for me.
43:36I'll see you next time.
43:37Bye.
43:38Bye.
43:39Bye.
43:39Bye.
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