- 7 weeks ago
James May's Shed Load of Ideas - Season 1 Episode 3
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Short filmTranscript
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 have.
00:40Great.
00:42And small.
00:44The cereal has gone soggy.
00:46I'll also have to take on other people's problems.
00:48What is wrong with Peter?
00:50He used to make a sound and now he doesn't.
00:52By which I mean the locals at my pub
00:54who are always bringing me stuff to mend.
00:56Is it a train set?
01:00So join us and our excitable crew.
01:04Who will capture our endeavours.
01:06That was epic.
01:08As we create.
01:10Make.
01:12That feels like a terrible thing we've just done.
01:14Repair.
01:16So it's never worked.
01:18And repurpose.
01:20Whoa!
01:22In my shed load of ideas.
01:24What do you think?
01:26This is just brilliant.
01:28Here in Wiltshire I have time to reflect on those issues that concern us all.
01:40Such as how to preserve this beautiful landscape.
01:44The muse of England's poets and artists.
01:48The rustling hedgerow.
01:50The delightful babbling brook and the abject weeping willow.
01:56The heart of the idyll that nestles in the breast of every English man and woman.
02:02Oh and the fly tipping site.
02:04The blight of town and country alike.
02:06These people disgust me.
02:08There are over a million fly tipping incidents reported in the UK each year.
02:14And they cost local authorities hundreds of millions of pounds to tidy up.
02:20It's a huge problem.
02:22But no problem is too huge for me and my two very handy right hand men.
02:27My trusty engineer Sim with his big ideas.
02:30Some kind of pivot from this point.
02:34Anywhere between here and here.
02:36And my ever ready carpenter.
02:38Tony the tool.
02:40Don't worry I'll just do everything over here.
02:42You carry on chatting.
02:44And so to my large and well equipped workshop where the very practical magic happens.
02:52So we've decided that our revenge on fly tippers should be poetic.
02:56It is a fly trap or a fly tipper trap if you like.
03:00Taking our inspiration from good old school fly paper which is this stuff.
03:06It's really like a very big piece of sticky paper.
03:08And you hang it up in your house.
03:10Flies fly into it because they're stupid.
03:12Their brains are absolutely minute.
03:14And they stick to it.
03:15Ha!
03:16And that's the end of them.
03:17So we want to do something similar but that acts on human beings.
03:21Which mean.
03:22Oh God.
03:23Which means we need a sticky substance that will trap them.
03:28We'll leave Simmy to search for something sticky enough to catch our human flies.
03:33As Tony and I move next door to start work on the actual trap.
03:38Now we have to devise the trap itself.
03:41How it will be.
03:42What would the trendy word be delivered.
03:44It's Tony's idea so Tony will explain.
03:49Collapsible cattle grid.
03:51Oh.
03:52So we take a sheet of eight by four.
03:54Yes.
03:55We build a frame around it.
03:58Two supports.
04:00All our sticky stuff in the middle here.
04:03Mm-hmm.
04:04Box section.
04:05Forming a grid.
04:08Holes.
04:10Attach by string.
04:12Go into two pulleys.
04:17And go that way to a single pulley.
04:20With a mechanism that pulls and collapses.
04:23Why is the cattle grid there?
04:24Is there a gate?
04:25To stop cattle.
04:26No I know what it does.
04:27But it's not.
04:28Yeah so it's a gate.
04:30Usually you dump it.
04:32Usually I've heard people who dump things.
04:34Dump it in a field.
04:36So the van pulls up.
04:38People get out with the sofa say.
04:40They walk across the cattle grid.
04:41Which is positioned in front of a gate.
04:43And therefore is perfectly normal.
04:45Because you get cattle grids in front of gates.
04:47They throw the sofa into the fly tipping area.
04:51And it triggers a weighted mechanism.
04:54We haven't quite worked that bit out yet.
04:55Have we?
04:56Which through this pulley system concertinas the cattle grid.
05:01Like a Venetian blind.
05:02Exposing the sticky stuff.
05:04The panicking fly tippers run back to their van through here.
05:08And are stuck like flies on flypaper.
05:11That's basically it isn't it?
05:13Easy.
05:14Right so should we put this on the floor and do a bit of spacing out?
05:18Yeah.
05:21Let's just rough it out.
05:23Tony and I start laying out the steel rods that will eventually become our cattle grid.
05:29How far apart are the rails of a cattle grid?
05:32Does it depend on what sort of animals you've got?
05:34Because cows have got bigger paws than sheep haven't they?
05:38Obviously 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.
05:48I.e. the spacing of the rails on the cattle grid.
05:51With the requirements of the mechanism.
05:54Because it's got to pull all these together over here.
05:58It's quite a weight isn't it?
05:59It's a lot of steel.
06:00I think that gap is too big.
06:02But it could be bigger than that one.
06:04Which it will be when they're evenly spaced.
06:06So there's no getting around this Tony.
06:08We're going to have to do a bit of arithmetic.
06:10So for our 1,220 millimetre wide cattle grid.
06:14We're going to need 10 bars.
06:16107.7 millimetres apart.
06:19Yes.
06:20This is an exact science.
06:22Oh well our arithmetic is spot on.
06:26Well.
06:27Nearly.
06:28Nearly.
06:31Okay.
06:32That's our cattle grid.
06:33Correctly spaced out.
06:35Come in with the sofa.
06:39Yes I think that's.
06:41You'd walk across it carefully.
06:43Because there's a cattle grid.
06:44Because you tend to walk carefully across a cattle grid.
06:46I think yes.
06:48I think we'll get away with that.
06:49Let's mark out the board.
06:51With the exact positions.
06:53Of our roofing battens.
06:55We can fix those in place.
06:57Mm-hmm.
06:58And go from there.
07:00Right.
07:02So the concept looks good.
07:04We've just got to make the thing now.
07:06First Tony and I construct the wooden base frame.
07:10Keeping a close eye on our maths.
07:12Then we need a bit of help from Simi to cut the steel rods.
07:17So that Tony and I can drill very precise holes into them.
07:21Which we'll thread rope through to collapse the grid.
07:24As long as we can keep up with Simi's exacting standards.
07:28So put the hole in the middle.
07:30Right.
07:31I mean look at that.
07:32How in the middle is that?
07:33All is proceeding at pace until.
07:38The problem is.
07:40Well there's no easy way of putting this.
07:41It's Tony.
07:44Sim has spotted that the board isn't perfectly square.
07:48It's just I didn't cut the factory edge off.
07:50Because we were rushing.
07:51I'll just recut these.
07:521,790 then.
07:54Or thereabouts.
07:56Thank you Simi.
07:58And once you've squared off our mistakes.
08:00Tony and I thread the poles together with rope.
08:02Which will make this cattle grid collapsible.
08:05Ow.
08:06What have you done to that?
08:08We're going to have to flame it again.
08:10And finally we get to see if our cunning concertina plan actually works.
08:17In three.
08:18Two.
08:19One.
08:21Oh.
08:22That works.
08:23It's beauty.
08:24It doesn't need that much force either.
08:25Collapsible cattle grid success.
08:28But we still need to find some really sticky stuff to fill it with.
08:32We also have to drill all the remaining pieces.
08:34Devise the weighted mechanism that will close this.
08:38And we have to take the whole thing to a secret location in the countryside.
08:42Fill it with our gunk.
08:44And then wait.
08:46For now though, we take a break from our war against fly tippers for a well-earned pint.
08:53And it's now, when I'm at the pub, that people start bringing me their broken stuff that they want me to mend.
08:59In fact, I'm so used to this, I take my toolbox to the pub every time I go.
09:04Hello.
09:05Hello.
09:06Hello.
09:07I'm Kirsty.
09:08Hello Kirsty.
09:09Hi.
09:10What have you got for us?
09:11I have got my teddy bear Peter.
09:13He's 53 years old.
09:14Oh, younger than me.
09:16Definitely younger than me.
09:17And apart from being utterly furless, what is wrong with Peter?
09:24He used to make a sound sort of like a sheep.
09:27And now he doesn't.
09:29He's been in a loft for 35 plus years.
09:33Poor sod.
09:34Yeah.
09:35Is it one of those where you do that?
09:36Yeah.
09:37You can hear it.
09:39Oh, yeah.
09:40Whatever that is.
09:41Something's moving.
09:43What noise did it make?
09:44It was like a sheep, like a bar.
09:46I think, well, I do know somebody who used to run a thing called Teddy Bear Hospital and
09:51these old bears, they've usually got a moving weight and some sort of bellows.
09:54They used to be classified as squeakers and growlers.
09:58Right.
09:59One of them had a reed and the other one had...
10:01Some kind of diaphragm or...
10:03Yeah.
10:04Something like that.
10:05So you want us to try and make the sound work again?
10:07If you could, that would be lovely.
10:09And you've had him since you were how old?
10:12Before I was born, my grandmother gave it to my mother while she was pregnant with me.
10:18So it predates you?
10:19Yeah.
10:20The teddy was waiting for you as you popped out of the womb?
10:22He was.
10:23And are these your initials?
10:25They are my initials, yeah.
10:26My mum stitched them in because he used to go everywhere with me.
10:29I've got a picture of him, actually.
10:31Oh, that's when he still had his fur.
10:34Yeah.
10:35And his head was on properly.
10:37Yes.
10:38At what point did Peter lose his speech?
10:42Hmm, I have no idea.
10:44He's travelled with me, I was in the army and he came everywhere with me.
10:48And then he ended up in a loft and I thought I'd lost him and then I got him back about three months ago and he doesn't make any sound.
11:01How would you feel about us opening Peter up?
11:05That's fine.
11:06Are you sure?
11:07Yeah.
11:08I'll have to ask you to sign a consent form.
11:10Absolutely.
11:11And a do not resuscitate.
11:13Oh look, there is my special superpower magnifying spectacles and there is a scalpel.
11:20Has this been opened before?
11:22Not that I know of, no.
11:23How are you feeling about this Kirsty?
11:25I'm slightly nervous.
11:27Whoop.
11:28Oh, swab.
11:30We found something that has not been exposed to the light since the early 1970s.
11:35Can I put my finger in?
11:37You might want to look away.
11:38I am.
11:39My God, it's huge.
11:41We need a bigger hole.
11:43We need a bigger hole.
11:44I'm actually getting nervous.
11:46Here it comes.
11:48Is that the noise it used to make?
11:59Slightly.
12:00But longer?
12:02Longer, yeah.
12:04Simi, afford him some dignity.
12:06Oh, sorry.
12:07Oh.
12:08We'll put him in the recovery position.
12:10Okay, we will take this back to the workshop Kirsty.
12:13We will mend it, reinsert it in the bowels of Peter.
12:18Simi will stitch him back together.
12:20He will be returned to you growling as he did in your youth and you will never know and neither will he that anything had ever happened.
12:28Excellent.
12:29Either that or it will go wrong and we'll check him on the bonfire.
12:34Please don't.
12:35Will we be able to perform this important and life-saving operation?
12:39Will Peter growl again?
12:40Ah, Wiltshire, the beautiful countryside.
12:50But did you know that every 27 seconds somebody ruins it by fly tipping causing damage to farmland and wildlife.
12:59Luckily, Tony, Simi and I have come up with a cunning plan involving a collapsible cattle grid that will expose a sticky substance beneath to stop our fly tippers in their tracks.
13:11Now we just have to select our gunk.
13:18The options we have arrived at are corn flour, epoxy resin and this one which is a mastic so it remains plastic and sticky.
13:29Is that right?
13:30Yeah.
13:31What should we try?
13:32Should we try corn flour?
13:33I mean corn flour isn't it thixotropic so if they run across a corn flour mix quickly they will simply go across it.
13:40But if they amble across it.
13:41Yes.
13:42Then sink.
13:43How much should we put in?
13:44Let's put it all in.
13:45Put it all in.
13:46Do you think?
13:47Yeah.
13:48The corn flour is weird stuff I think.
13:53I don't like using it in the kitchen.
13:55It's useful though.
13:56It is useful.
13:57I mean it's a crafty way to thicken up your cheese sauce.
13:59That is quite, so it's solid but if you put gentle pressure you sink.
14:06Oh yeah.
14:07Oh.
14:08It's quite nice actually.
14:09And then it just goes liquid.
14:12The trouble with this is it's so much fun you'd find millions of fly tiplers just frolicking in your corn flour.
14:18This corn flour and water goo is non-Newtonian meaning it doesn't follow Newton's laws as it can act as both a solid and a liquid.
14:28And handily for us this ambiguity makes it very sticky.
14:33Shall we put it on the floor and put some shoe covers on?
14:35Who wants to try?
14:37We can try one each.
14:38Off to you.
14:39I'll do, I'll do this one then so.
14:49Make sure you use the right foot.
14:51Yeah, good thinking Batman.
14:52So you've thrown your sofa away or your fridge or whatever.
14:56Fly tipped.
14:57Nobody saw that.
14:58I'm off.
15:00It's not very good.
15:01What's the drag on your foot there?
15:06No, it's pretty grippy but I don't know that you'll necessarily get stuck.
15:11The idea is that the fly tipper is stuck to the fly tipper trap.
15:16I mean let's reserve judgement so we've tried a few other things.
15:20Shall we try the mastic?
15:23So it never sets.
15:24No.
15:25It remains plastic in the true sense and hopefully quite sticky.
15:29Shall I?
15:30Yes, carry on.
15:34It looks sticky.
15:36It does look sticky.
15:37This particular mastic forms an elastic, watertight sealant
15:41that sticks firmly to wood, metal, concrete and, we hope, humans.
15:48It smells fantastic.
15:51Has anybody got any Bob Dylan records?
15:54Right.
15:56Whose turn is it to try?
15:58Are you going to do it, Tony?
15:59Yeah, I'll do it.
16:00Go on, Tony.
16:03Are you going to put both feet in?
16:04Yeah, I want to get splashes of it on my trainers.
16:11So, remember to method act.
16:14What are you dumping, Tony?
16:15A telly.
16:16A telly, okay.
16:18Whoa, we've done that before.
16:19Whoa!
16:22Hey, that looked like it could be quite good.
16:25Wow.
16:26It's slippy as well.
16:27Really slippy.
16:29That's really sticky.
16:30Oh, that's pretty good.
16:32It's very good.
16:33Very good.
16:35So, the mastic works.
16:36But because Simmy hates to feel left out,
16:38we decide to let him test the epoxy resin option.
16:42Also, he's got a bit of a thing about shoe covers.
16:45You ready, Sim?
16:46Right.
16:47With your big fridge and action.
16:48I've got my fridge.
16:49Over the hedge it goes.
16:51Oh, .
16:52That's not very good.
16:53It's not very good, is it?
16:54It's also all over the floor.
16:55It is all over the floor.
16:56It's very slippery.
16:57So, that's not ideal, is it?
16:58No.
16:59It's rubbish.
17:00So, to conclude this scene, men, because we've wanted to do it, you have one. Are you ready? In three, two, one.
17:18The mastic is a clear winner. It's the stickiest that we agreed.
17:27Absolutely.
17:28Right.
17:29So, that's what we'll do.
17:31Once that sticky mastic is added to our cattle grid flytrap, we may just be able to protect rural iddles up and down the country from the blight of flytipping.
17:43But there's another danger threatening the countryside, and that's the worrying demise of pub games.
17:49As a landlord myself, I'm not keen on fruit machines and dreary pub quizzes, but what about revisiting one of the old standards?
18:01Oh!
18:04The 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.
18:14Now, this is a standard dartboard, probably the one you're familiar with. It's got doubles on the outside, trebles on the inner ring, and then a bull and a double bull.
18:23But there are other types of dartboard. For example, there is a Yorkshire dartboard, which only has the doubles.
18:29And then there's a Manchester dartboard, which has the numbers in a different order.
18:33There's also a Bath dartboard, which has some extra scoring areas around the outside, and so on and so on.
18:40Wiltshire does not have its own dartboard, so we thought maybe we'd come up with one.
18:47What do you think, Tony?
18:49Er, yeah. What would you do, though?
18:52When I was a kid, me and my brother used to play drop darts, where you put the dartboard on the floor.
18:59We actually used to do it out of the bedroom window, with the dartboard down below in the garden.
19:03Let's try holding it by there.
19:07Oh, shot! Is it in?
19:09No, it's 25.
19:11Miles off.
19:13Yeah.
19:14I mean, it involves a lot of bending down, though.
19:19What if the dartboard starts rotating?
19:23Imagine how difficult it would be to throw at a rotating darts board.
19:27Yeah. That'd be, yeah, we could do that. That'd be fun.
19:32Obviously, because we are, in fact, engineers, we need to test out the concept.
19:38OK, so stand on the occhi, but about two feet back from the occhi.
19:43Oh, I don't want to throw darts at you like that.
19:46No, no.
19:48You ready?
19:50You having a laugh?
19:52No.
19:57Yes, three on the board.
19:59OK, now it's my turn.
20:08Crap rolling.
20:09Crap rolling.
20:10It's supposed to go over there.
20:11You deflected it with your first dart.
20:13So, the rotation idea works, but not rolling the board.
20:17Now we need Simi's help to try and make the board rotate in space.
20:22Shall we have a beer?
20:23Good idea.
20:25While Tony and I head off for a pint,
20:27Simi throws himself into creating a mechanism that will rotate our Wiltshire dartboard.
20:33First, he attaches a rotary switch to a wooden frame.
20:37And then he rigs up a variable speed controller
20:40before, after a quick swig,
20:44soldering together a small motor with a manual switch.
20:49Then he attaches a battery,
20:51has another essential beer break,
20:53and finally tests the rotating mechanism
20:56that will eventually attach to the dartboard,
20:59which we'll try out later,
21:01once Simi's joined us in the garden for another pint.
21:03Exciting!
21:15You find me back in my Wiltshire pub,
21:18and for good reason.
21:20There isn't enough entertainment in the pub,
21:22especially since I've banned Morris dancers and minstrels.
21:25So we're looking at how to refresh the greatest of all pub games.
21:32With the introduction of the Wiltshire dartboard,
21:35allow me to show it to you.
21:37Here it is, hanging on the wall at the regulation height,
21:40with the 20 at the top,
21:42where you'd expect.
21:44My two players, if you'd like to take the occy,
21:46gentlemen,
21:48then you will remember where you were when you first saw this,
21:50because the game of darts was changed forever.
21:56There it goes.
21:58The rotating Wiltshire dartboard.
22:02Doesn't look like much, but it makes the game extremely difficult,
22:05and let's be honest, it wasn't easy to start with.
22:08We're playing highest score, three darts.
22:10Your throw, sir.
22:11It's making me dizzy.
22:12Here's the 20, but it's going round and round, you see,
22:14because it's the Wiltshire dartboard.
22:16Rubbish.
22:17Oh, he's going for the bull.
22:18Oh, it's tricky.
22:2043.
22:2212.
22:2419.
22:27Rubbish.
22:28James, come on.
22:29Do your best.
22:35Oh, that again.
22:3834.
22:40No.
22:41No, no, no.
22:43Right, I'm speeding it up for round two.
22:44Two.
22:48Oh.
22:50Oh, yes.
22:52Wow.
22:53Shall we reverse?
22:55Oh.
22:58Oh, he's got 60.
23:02I didn't believe I missed the ball, James.
23:04I've only got this one left, and I have to score 29 or more.
23:15That means the winner is Sim.
23:19But this invention wasn't meant just to entertain the three of us.
23:23It has to work on the seething, roaring mass that is the general public.
23:27Let's see if any of the locals would like to play Wiltshire darts.
23:35Hmm, no.
23:37It's not looking good.
23:39Well, yes, you're right.
23:40It's not ideal.
23:41It's not good.
23:42It's 24.
23:45But that's nothing.
23:46At least I tried.
23:51Five.
23:53Six.
23:55Ten.
23:57Congratulations.
23:58That's truly terrible.
24:02Eight.
24:04Oh, dear.
24:05That's 17, sir.
24:07That's very poor.
24:08Hope you don't mind me saying.
24:10Scores may be low, but the game is a huge hit with the regulars,
24:14and also, it turns out, with our film crew,
24:17with producer Lucy very keen to play.
24:22You've thrown it away.
24:24As everybody rushes to stand in front of the board for their own safety,
24:28it's probably time to sum this up.
24:30I'm not entirely sure what to say about Wiltshire darts,
24:33apart from that it's excellent.
24:38That's one successful step along the path to revitalise British pub entertainment,
24:44and I've got plenty more ideas up my sleeve.
24:46But now, we must return to the pressing matter of Kirsty's Bear,
24:51who, after years in the loft,
24:53has lost his growl,
24:55and Simi and I have been entrusted with the weighty task
24:58of giving Peter his voice back.
25:00Right, viewers, our mission today is to provide Peter the Bear, beloved of Kirsty,
25:06with a more impressive...
25:09..one of those.
25:11According to Kirsty, it was originally louder and longer,
25:14and we may be able to improve the sound as well.
25:17We've never done this before.
25:19Oddly.
25:20First, we need to remove Peter's growl box to see how it works.
25:28What if we made that just twice as long, and this twice as long,
25:33and then you'd get a longer...
25:36So it is, it's like...
25:41Oh, God!
25:45It's got a very simple reed there,
25:48similar to something you would find in a crude musical instrument.
25:51And this seems to be some sort of very, very simple amplifier.
25:56We could remake that...
25:59Bigger.
26:00...much bigger and much longer.
26:02There's a lot of room.
26:03There's tons of room.
26:04It could go right down to his...
26:06..and up to his neck.
26:08So we could, you know, we could put an enormous growler in there.
26:15Yes.
26:17Right, that's the plan.
26:19We're going to remake it bigger and better,
26:23which in terms of a teddy bear growl means longer.
26:26To see if we can give Peter a larger, longer growl,
26:30Sim and I want to see what happens when we elongate the sandbox's journey
26:35by throwing it down the longest tube we can find.
26:38Three metres of cylindrical polyvinyl chloride.
26:41Is everybody ready?
26:43Also known as a drain pipe.
26:44Let her go.
26:47Uh...
26:50Um...
26:54I think it needs to be totally upright.
27:04That was epic!
27:06Nice!
27:07You're trying with a shorter length?
27:08Yes.
27:09So Peter's growler needs to be...
27:11Oh, that?
27:12Yeah.
27:13OK.
27:15Now we've established how big we can make Peter's new growler,
27:17we cut it to size.
27:21Let's just see how long a growl we get.
27:26It's got to be a bit safer than that.
27:28To slow the movement of the growler and thus lengthen the growl,
27:33we need some sort of fabric cap with holes punched through.
27:37That's a bit on the wonk, isn't it?
27:39I mean, it doesn't matter.
27:41I mean, no-one's ever going to see it,
27:43because it's going to be deep in Peter's bowel,
27:46apart from all the people watching it on television, obviously.
27:49I think to get the result, we need to tape this on to the end
27:53to seal that one end.
27:54The noise goes in that way.
27:56Yeah.
28:00Why, how could that...?
28:10Is there a plan B at this point?
28:12No.
28:16OK.
28:17Anyway, we're not going to give up.
28:19Luckily, Simi, ever the optimist,
28:21has an idea that might help create the sound,
28:25and it involves a pair of black rubber gloves.
28:28We're making a replacement bellow.
28:31The old one is rather elaborate.
28:35We're not sure what material it is.
28:38It's almost like a waxed paper,
28:40but it has been ironed so that it has effectively a helix in it.
28:45So it's ironed in two directions.
28:49So it's got ridges on the outside and the inside,
28:52but that seems unnecessarily complicated in a world of modern materials,
28:56such as rubber gloves.
28:58So we're making it out of the rubber glove.
29:00The theory here is that the rubber glove should fill with air
29:03and force it past the reed, which makes the sound.
29:06OK.
29:09Are we ready?
29:10I'm slightly...
29:23How can that not work?
29:25The addition of the bellows has made...
29:28Let's have a look.
29:30...the growlers stick in the tube.
29:32Oh, is that what it's doing?
29:33That's so feeble.
29:39Situation update on Peter the teddy bear.
29:43Situation update is that since Peter the bear
29:47was admitted to our bear growler hospital,
29:50his condition has deteriorated quite significantly.
29:54Some of his stuffing's come out,
29:57he's got a massive wound in his spine
29:59and his voice doesn't work anymore.
30:01But apart from that...
30:02It's not easy, is it?
30:04I hate this bear.
30:06So, our attempts at repairing Peter's existing growl box have run adrift.
30:12But we can't let Kirsty and her precious bear down.
30:16And so, after some deliberation,
30:18Sim and I decide that desperate times call for desperate measures.
30:22Are you sitting comfortably, children?
30:25Kirsty had a very special bear called Peter, and Peter could growl like a proper grown-up bear.
30:32But one day, Peter's growl failed, and Kirsty sent poor Peter to Simeon James to be repaired.
30:39It's proved rather difficult because Peter's reed is bent and worn out, his bellows have perished.
30:47But of course you know all that, children, because you've been on this incredible adventure with us.
30:52But now, Simeon James have had to do something they've never done before on this show.
30:59Which is, order a spare part and fit that instead.
31:02Here it is, commercially available growler from a bear specialist.
31:05Peter can growl again.
31:11And now, Mr Oakley, the surgeon, is going to sew it into Peter, and nobody need ever know.
31:22It's our secret.
31:24Here you go, Sim.
31:26Thank you very much.
31:28Once Simmy has sewn up, the patient will send him to convalesce, the bear, I mean.
31:32Before returning him to Kirsty, as good as new.
31:36Well, almost.
31:41You rejoin us in Wiltshire, where I'm coming up with ideas to solve problems big and small that bother us all.
31:48Whether that's flytippers ruining the glorious countryside, or that your lunch is just lacking that certain something.
31:55We 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.
32:06What if you could take the garnish with you, and then you could garnish whatever it was you were eating, wherever?
32:11So we thought, why not incorporate them into an item of clothing, to wit, a hat?
32:18You see, this rests very conveniently on your head.
32:22If the brim were full of soil and herbs, you could merely pluck one and add it to your cheesy pasta.
32:28So, join me as we make the world's first herb hat.
32:39This is harder than it looks.
32:42The problem I'm experiencing is that the brim of the hat is not as deep as the typical English garden herb bed.
32:50So maybe we need to get rid of some bigger...
32:55And maybe make the soil a bit wetter.
32:57But don't I have to retain the root?
32:59Yes, but if you just...
33:01So if we get rid of those boys, and keep that one in its root...
33:05What, and discard those?
33:06I think snip that off.
33:08I always have my comedy carrot-shaped Japanese scissors in my pocket, fortunately.
33:13I snip those off.
33:15We're now getting somewhere with the herb hat, compacted soil, and a sprig of basil.
33:22I've been in television quite a long time now, I think it's about 25 years.
33:26And 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.
33:36And here I am.
33:39Afternoon.
33:40Afternoon.
33:41I'm making chips.
33:42Yes.
33:43It's epic.
33:45Nice hat, James.
33:47Yeah, you're rocking that.
33:52Sorry.
33:54It's a bit of a breeze.
33:57Would you like some Garni?
34:00Have you got any coriander?
34:01I have.
34:02I believe it's there, isn't it?
34:04Yes.
34:05May I?
34:06Yes, of course.
34:07Here are the exquisite Japanese scissors.
34:12What's packing?
34:13Sim, anything you'd like with your...
34:14A little basil would be nice.
34:16Basil is...
34:17Ooh.
34:18Can Tony reach that?
34:19Ooh, ooh.
34:20Is that enough?
34:21Yeah.
34:22That's...
34:23I think, ham, egg and chips, I would like...
34:25I'd like a few chives on my eggs and my chips.
34:28Allow me.
34:32Here you go.
34:33Thanks awfully.
34:35What do you think of my hat?
34:36I mean, be honest.
34:37No.
34:38Well, honest.
34:39Yeah, yeah.
34:41I mean, you look like words of gummage, but...
34:43It's a bit Morrie style, I see, isn't it?
34:44It is.
34:45It's actually very useful.
34:47It's a top hat.
34:49See what I did there?
34:52I'd say this works.
34:55It's a little uncomfortable, but it's very achievable at home.
34:57All you need is a hat, some nutrient-rich soil, some herbs,
35:05a low sense of self-esteem.
35:08Robert's your mother's brother.
35:11Next, spice shoes.
35:14No, that's ridiculous.
35:16Shoes covered in spices would just look stupid.
35:20Meanwhile, here are some lovely shots of the Wiltshire countryside,
35:24and we're hoping to keep it that way with our cunning invention
35:27to stop the curse of fly-tipping.
35:33We return to the fly-tipper, fly-trap.
35:36Fly-tipping is becoming a blight.
35:38In the countryside, we have devised a way of catching people in the act.
35:42It is essentially a fly-trap.
35:44It's based on the idea of a retracting cattle grid
35:47that exposes a very sticky substance that traps the miscreants
35:51so that they can be apprehended and then they can pay their debt to society.
35:57Now, in a previous instalment,
35:58we proved the principle of the retracting cattle grid,
36:01and now we've set it up in this fly-tipping area.
36:04It's already full of junk.
36:05It's a very popular location.
36:07You know, saw horses, old records, players, speakers, badminton bats and so on,
36:12and amongst it is a fairly typical old bicycle.
36:15Or is it?
36:16No, it isn't.
36:17It is actually the trigger mechanism for the whole thing.
36:20Let me explain to you how it works.
36:21When our fly-tippers approach, they walk over the cattle grid,
36:24which is closed and it's outside a gate, they suspect nothing.
36:27And they lob whatever it is, their bread-maker, whatever, over here,
36:32and it hits this trigger string.
36:35This trigger string, via this pulley here,
36:39pulls on this hinged piece of wood,
36:42which releases the front brake of the bicycle.
36:46The front wheel, now free to rotate,
36:48begins to rotate under the tension of this bungee cord
36:52until the sledgehammer, which is attached to the wheel,
36:55passes top dead centre and then gravity does its work.
37:00The rotation of the wheel and the extra torque provided by the sledgehammer
37:04operates this pulley system, which retracts the cattle grid.
37:08They think we got away with that, run away, stuck,
37:11we turn up with clubs and beat them to death.
37:13Now, we're going to test this out with some fictitious fly-tippers.
37:16This is not real, this is a set-up.
37:17But me, Tony and Simi, to see if it works,
37:20are going to watch from over there behind the wall.
37:23If you didn't understand the explanation,
37:25don't worry, we're filming it all with little cameras
37:27and we'll do a slow-motion action replay
37:30and you can see it all working in graphic detail.
37:33Right, are we ready? Let's prime the trap.
37:38So, a few redesigned and repurposed bits of junk could,
37:43if we got our calculations correct, trigger our trap
37:46and catch some fly-tippers in the world's first ever fly-tipping fly-trap.
37:52It's quite sticky.
37:53Patent pending.
37:55Right, I think we can go and hide.
38:09So, the trap is set.
38:12And, as if by magic, a mysterious van pulls up.
38:16Oh, he's stopping.
38:17He is, he is.
38:19He's got to be one.
38:21That's a really tatty van, that's always a sign.
38:24He's getting out.
38:25Oh, they've got hoodies on.
38:27Oh, look at them. Dirty fly-tippers.
38:30Yes, dirty fly-tippers that do look remarkably like members of our crew.
38:35What is it? What is it? Washing machine?
38:37It's a bloody mattress.
38:39Mattress.
38:40Oh!
38:41God.
38:42Over the kettle grid, go on.
38:44There you go.
38:45Yes, yes, yes, oh.
38:47Yes!
38:48Ha ha ha ha!
38:52Ah!
38:53Gotcha!
38:54That's so good!
38:55Yeah, I can't help it works.
38:57Oi, fly-tippers.
38:58You're in a fly-trap and you're going down.
39:00Ha ha ha!
39:02Oh, well done, men.
39:03That is fantastic.
39:05And I can't help it work.
39:07Oi, fly-tippers.
39:08You're in a fly-trap and you're going down.
39:11Ha ha ha ha ha!
39:13Oh, well done, men.
39:14That is fantastic.
39:15Well done, then. That is fantastic.
39:17That was a good job.
39:17That's an absurd idea, but it works.
39:21And, as promised, here it is in glorious slow motion.
39:25It may be a prototype, but the principle is sound.
39:28Fly tippers can be caught like flies in a trap.
39:31And that is engineering and poetic success.
39:39So, we've solved fly tipping, pub entertainment,
39:42garnishing on the move, but we've really struggled
39:46trying to fix Peter the bear,
39:49whose growler was no longer fit for purpose.
39:52I never imagined I would end up being involved
39:54in the repair of a teddy bear.
39:56I was expecting clocks or lawnmowers, you know.
40:00Not teddies.
40:01Not a teddy bear. What a pain.
40:04I'll be quite glad to see the back of him.
40:07Aw, I'll miss Peter.
40:08I can see the back of him now.
40:09I don't know how she's going to react
40:11when we admit that we haven't really mended him as such.
40:15What happens if she throws one?
40:17I don't think she will.
40:18You think so?
40:19No.
40:20What we've actually done here is a transplant.
40:22We have, yes.
40:22And a successful one.
40:23And that's really the cutting edge of teddy bear medicine.
40:33Hello. Hello.
40:34Hello. Have a seat.
40:35Nice to see you again.
40:37Hi.
40:39Here is Roger.
40:40Peter.
40:43Have you missed him?
40:44I've missed him a lot.
40:45Have you?
40:46I have.
40:46Well, it's strange.
40:47We've become very familiar with Peter.
40:50He's been a constant lurking presence in our lives.
40:53And looked after very carefully, of course.
40:56I'm glad. I'm glad you did.
40:58Well, do you want to know what we've done?
40:59Yes, please.
41:00Well, Simi began the quite difficult operation
41:02with a long incision down his spine.
41:05Yeah.
41:06And then we successfully removed his growler.
41:09Yes.
41:10And that's where things became a bit difficult.
41:12It had sort of disintegrated a bit.
41:14Yeah.
41:15And his growler wasn't very strong anymore.
41:17No.
41:17And we looked at making a longer tube and a bigger bellows.
41:21We tried various fabrics.
41:23We tried a rubber glove.
41:24Sounds a bit complicated.
41:26It was complicated.
41:26He was on the table for hours.
41:28And at one point, we thought we might lose him.
41:30That's him.
41:32Eventually, we consulted, well, a consultant teddy bear surgeon.
41:38Yeah.
41:39Who said, I'm afraid he had to have a new growler.
41:42So he's had a transplant.
41:44But if you'd like to tip him on his back.
41:56Oh, it's the same.
41:59It sounds exactly the same.
42:05Oh, it does.
42:07It sounds exactly the same.
42:09If you tip him right back and wait for a bit,
42:12for sort of the growler to extend.
42:15And then it sounds just like a telephone.
42:21So you're pleased.
42:23Very pleased.
42:24Thank you so much.
42:27So good.
42:29Well, I'm delighted that you're pleased.
42:31I'm very pleased.
42:31Because I thought I'd lost him for a long, long time.
42:34And now he sounds exactly like he did when I was a child.
42:37So, yeah, he's quite emotional.
42:42Well, you can take him back to your home and enjoy the rest of your lives together.
42:47I will.
42:48Thank you so much.
42:49It's really appreciated.
42:50That's OK.
42:50It's a pleasure.
42:52Thank you very much.
42:54Bye.
42:54Bye.
42:55Bring him back when his head falls off.
42:56Can you see her?
43:01She's properly delighted.
43:03That bear is loved.
43:05And if we as humanity could love each other the way Kirstie loves that bear,
43:10everything would be OK.
43:12Apart from for me.
43:14Thank you very much.
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