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Farewell Bear Facts Limerick

I think this one is my favourite of the three bottle episodes, partly because its the purest of them. We only hear the four main characterss voices - theres not even an ATC line;  it all takes place not just on the plane, but in the flightdeck; and its also, though people dont seem to notice this, all one long scene, taking place in real time. The idea was that this episode would be exactly what you would hear if you listened to twenty eight minutes of the flight deck voice recorder. Its also a rare episode where everybodys Want is the same - to stave off boredom - and so theres little or no conflict, bar some very mild teasing about Martins watch. Normally, Id say an episode cant work without conflict- both the other bottle episodes have plenty -  but I think here, partly because of the secret-telling and partly because there are so many games and other threads going on simultaneously, it somehow works. The effect of which is that this episode seems to me to be the heart of the show - theyre not battling a crazy passenger or other antagonist, or even each other; theyre just getting on with their job, somewhere over Russia, passing the time, teasing each other, playing games, telling secrets, and very very slowly heating up a pie.

Speaking of which, heres a deleted scene:


CAROLYN:     Admirals Pie.

ARTHUR:     Ok. Is that the same as the Fishermans Pie?

CAROLYN:     No, its not. The Admiral and the Fisherman favour entirely different pies.

ARTHUR:   Right. Theyve both got fish in though, right?

CAROLYN:   Yes.

ARTHUR:   Thought so. Because I was thinking, its funny, when you think about it, that the Admirals pie has got fish in it. I can see why the Fishermans pie has. But youd think the Admiral would be sick of fish. I mean, he must have had to eat loads of fish when he was just a sailor. And now hes an Admiral he can have whatever he likes. Id have thought hed want something he couldnt have at sea. Like lamb pie. With turnip.

CAROLYN:   Arthur. Dear heart. Could we have a little less philosophising about the pie, and a little more cooking of the pie?


Also, of course, this episode has Arthur learning the phonetic alphabet, which might have been the single most fun thing for me as an actor in the whole show. Especially Boo! / Bye-bye! / Boncore!

Available link for download

Farewell Martin Gardner a guest blog

By Nicolas (Paris, France) - a friend and puzzle-solver.

Martin Gardner just passed away. If anybody influenced me into science and math, that should be him.

Martin Gardner was a journalist who wrote columns in Scientific American, short witty pages on fun math topics. He is the one who introduced things like Conways game of life to the general public, raising overall interest in mathematics as a fun thing to do.

Gardner entered our family life in the 70s when my father brought back the latest issue of Scientific American. I remember folding my first hexaflexagon when I was maybe 6 or 7 and bringing it to school to wow the teacher. I did not understand the concept of Moebius stips then but I certainly got the fun part of it. My parents subscribed to the French
edition (Pour la Science) later on and we would get Gardners columns every month with great impatience. From there on we bought all of his books, did his problems, read the solutions and discovered we had sometimes invented better ones. We played the game of life with pen and paper until we got our first programmable pocket calculators and later our own kid computer (a Sinclair ZX81). His columns were always bringing something new, teaching us tricks in algebra, geometry, paradoxes and logic, you name it.

I recently discovered that Gardner has also helped MC. Escher achieving the incredible fame he has today among scientists, and probably inspired Douglas Hofstadter into writing "Goedel, Escher and Bach", another inspirational book to which I probably owe my scientific-oriented career.

30 years later, I still own a copy of Martin Gardners "Aha!" (dated 1980) and read it to my kids every now and then, enjoying the mathematical seeds he planted into my mind as a kid and propagating them one generation further.

Some of the gems found in Aha:

• The Loch Ness monsters length is 20 meters plus half of its length. What is his total length? Click to submit or read the solution.


• Try to guess my phone number. You can ask me 20 questions and I will answer by Yes or No. How can you do that? Click to submit or read the solution.


• These two miners come out from a coal mine at the end of their working day. One of them has his face covered in soot and the other one still has a perfectly clean face. They both glance at each other in the elevator bringing them back to the surface. When they get home, the one with the clean face cleanses himself thoroughly and the other one does not. Why? Click to submit or read the solution.

[This latter story is much more profound than it looks. It took me years to actually see its relevance in the way we perceive our own selves compared to other people.]

Farewell Martin. Your achievements will live on forever.


References:
Interesting video about Martin Gardner
Martin Gardners page on Wikipedia
Conways game of life
Sinclair ZX81
Goedel, Escher and Bach: an eternal golden braid
" target="_blank">Aha! Insight

You can find some of the Martin Gardners books on our Math Resources for Adults page.

Available link for download

Farewell Bear Facts Molokai

Get dressed ye merry gentlemen! For it is both Christmas, and the half-way point of the whole show. I like this one. I like Christmas specials to be Christmassy, which this one is (but Zurich alas will not be, because I had no idea it was a Christmas special when I was writing it). I like how the various plots (Arthurs Christmas / secret santa; getting Alyhakins business and the Petrus 05) affect each other, and merge together into a three part ending. And I like how everyone, with the possible exception of Martin, is back to doing their core thing - Arthurs enthusing and being unhelpfully helpful; Carolyns doing battle with a passenger with one hand and trying to keep a lid on the mayhem in the flightdeck with the other; and Douglas is scheming up a scheme.

- If you try to keep track of who has whose name in the Secret Santa over the course of the episode, you will fail. Thats because a long scene in which Douglas orchestrates a baroque sequence of swaps in order to get the one he wants got cut even before the recording on the grounds that it was a lot of hard-to-follow plot, for not many jokes. (Some tough love there, quite correctly, from Producer David.) But lets say that scene still took place, it just happened while we werent listening…

- Mr Alyhakins Massive Yachts are a reference to this sketch  and indeed this sketch, which I wrote for That Mitchell and Webb Look.

- The reason that Nigel is the first name that comes into Carolyns head when shes making up pilots is that the captain at MJN before Martin arrived was called Nigel. (Also, Nigels is an industry nickname for British Airways pilots. Presumably because a lot of them were either called Nigel, or looked like they ought to be. )

- I love Rogers delivery of …and you mulled it? Though it was scary to be on the receiving end of it. Is this the only time we see Douglas lose his cool, if only for a moment?

- Deleted scene:

Available link for download

Farewell Bear Facts Timbuktu Im Sorry I Havent A Clue

Just a short one this time, because this is the third one of these Ive written today. But more, including cut scene and notebook pictures, can as usual be found here. 

- This is the first time Carolyns had much to do in a Birling Day episode, and it makes me wish Id used her more in the others - Stephanie and Geoffrey play off each other particularly well. Ive always loved the line I thought perhaps youd died in Paris, but the early discussion between them here about the whereabouts of Timbuktu is another of my favourite Birling scenes.

- I like it that the effect on Martin of bending the rules is more or less the same as the effect on Arthur of trying to lie. Though, dammit, its just occurred to me for the first time now that when Martin says in Yverdon that he cannot think of any time hes bent the rules, hes forgetting this trip. Although on the other hand, he doesnt bend any aviation rules, so maybe its ok.

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In other news, Im very proud to say that Ive somehow managed to con my way onto Im Sorry I Havent A Clue for the second time. We recorded two episodes in Canterbury, the first of which went out on Monday, and the other of which will go out next week. So, if youve always wondered what Marvin Gayes Sexual Healing would sound like if sung, by me, to the tune of Morning Has Broken - and who hasnt? - you can satisfy your very natural curiosity here. 

Available link for download

Farewell Bear Facts Johannesburg

This episode is very much about me, a series and a half in, experimenting with splitting the foursome up in a different way from the usual flighdeck / cabin crew division. Interestingly (to me, anyway) the effect of that is that it becomes an episode all about Douglas. The Martin / Arthur story is all about the absence of Douglasn- what happens to Martin  when, on the one hand, he doesnt have to worry about being constantly put down; but on the other hand, he cant rely on Douglas to find the clever solution and sort out any problem. And the answer the episode seems to provide is that he grows in confidence, and finds those solutions for himself - and after all, as early as Boston we saw him pull a Douglas in the authoritative and creative way he persuades the paramedics to take Leeman away.

Available link for download

Farewell Bear Facts Uskerty

…As previously discussed here, complete with entire deleted final scene. Which reminds me, that deleted scene will be one of several, such as  the bit from St. Petersburg in which Martin and Douglas talk about their fathers, included as a bonus track on the complete CDs, which will be released on January 15th, but which is available for pre-order here.