Just A Minute

Some choice cuts there, Dean.

A few moments have tickled me in the few years I have listened to Just a Minute where Clement has regaled us with some brilliant anecdotes or knock-‘em-dead one liners or sets the others up to get the laughs. For example, from the Edinburgh Festival in 2006, on the subject “How to snub someone”…

Clement Freud: You put your arms around them and your tongue into their mouth, leave... 

BUZZ 

Nicholas Parsons: Janey you've challenged. 

Janey Godley: He stopped for a long time. 

NP: No, he paused. 

JG: All right, okay. 

NP: Hesitation yes. 

JG: Yeah. 

NP: Well you get his tongue in your mouth, of course I mean... 

JG: I get frightened. 

CF: I thought that is how to snog someone. 

Paul Merton: Snub! 

NP: Snub! 

JG: He sounds like a snogger! 

CF: Shall we? Shall we get the sound engineer to come back? 

JG: Is it snog or snub? 

NP: It is snub. 

JG: It is snub, yeah. 

NP: It's a snub yes, right. 

JG: I've never had lessons how to snog before, that was wonderful! 

NP: Well um, talk to Clement, he obviously knows all about it. But Janey you did have a correct challenge so you take over the subject and there are 52 seconds on how to snub someone starting now. 

JG: The best way to snub someone is stand in front of them, make funny eyes, and wave at people behind them. And every time they speak just stick your two fingers up under their eyes, laugh, laugh, oh! 

BUZZ 

NP: Oh it's a difficult game isn't it. Right, Ross you challenged first. 

Ross Noble: Repetition of laugh. 

NP: Yes. 

JG: No, surely not! 

NP: Yes, 42 seconds available Ross, how to snub somebody, someone, sorry, someone starting now. 

RN: I always feel sorry for snub-nosed dolphins because it's physically impossible for them to be friendly to anyone. They simply approach them and instantly snub. At any party, should you invent that particular creature along, you will find, one, they will be flapping along on the ground because they need to be under water. And they'll be knocking the vol au vents all over the place. Let alone meeting somebody! And the next thing you know they're rolling around on the floor with Clement Freud while he snogs them... 

BUZZ 

NP: Clement Freud challenged. 

CF: He's had floor before. 

NP: Yes you had two floors. 

RN: Oh yeah, that's, yeah. 

NP: Right yes so Clement you have the subject back, it is snub by the way. 

CF: Aha. 

NP: And 17 seconds on how to snub someone starting now. 

CF: If someone comes up to you, for instance, and says "you are very fat", a very good reply is "it's because every time I go to bed with your wife, she gives me a biscuit!" 

BUZZ 

LOUD LAUGHTER FROM JG AND THE AUDIENCE FOR 18 SECONDS 

NP: Paul you challenged first. Nobody challenged for quite a long time actually! It was very interesting, they were absorbing what went on. But you eventually challenged. 

PM: Yes well it was hesitation. 

NP: Hesitation, it was a complete full stop! But I think he actually retired on his laurels at the volume of laughter he got. So we give him a bonus point because they obviously enjoyed the joke. And Paul you've got in with three seconds to go, how to, and a point of course, how to snub someone starting now. 

PM: Custard creams are my favourite, but indeed, if you really want to snub somebody... 

WHISTLE 

-----Original Message-----
From: just-a-minute@... [mailto: just-a-minute@... ] On Behalf Of Dean Bedford
Sent: 16 April 2009 23:56
To: just-a-minute@...
Subject: [just-a-minute] magic Clement moments

The BBC has asked me to pick some favourite Clement lines. I did this

fairly quickly but thought the group might like to see them.

If you have any to add, please do

1.

this show was on the first JAM cassette - the show's broadcast date was

2 January 1993 http://deanbedford.tripod.com/jam16.html

includes this classic line on the subject of records

"The great thing about Virgin Records is that they have no holes in

them. "

2.

this show was on the Silver Minutes tapes released in 1992 - the

original show was broadcast on 18 April 1981 and came as you can imagine

after a dispute with Nicholas - the subject is "cheek"

http://deanbedford.tripod.com/jam487.html

CF: Cheek is when someone of diminished responsibility goes to the

British Broadcasting Corporation and elects to be chairman of a panel

game. On the basis that he might have some idea of how to control people

whose multi-syllabic words he doesn’t understand, whose meaning he is

unable to comprehend and whose hours and time he is unable to keep. I’ve

now said unable three times, and because nobody’s interrupted me, only...

BUZZ

NP: Peter Jones has challenged.

PJ: Well, I’m not interrupting because I’m enjoying it!

3.

In the same year, this is a classic example of Clement going the whole

60 seconds (he does it three times in this show) - but this shows him

timing the payoff for the last second - 14 March 1981, subject is the

best putdown I ever heard http://deanbedford.tripod.com/jam479.html

CF: The best putdown I ever heard was exceedingly short, as are all good

putdowns. And in a game in which you have to waffle for 60 seconds, and

best being not a word that one can conditionalise in any way, I will

have to give you the build-up to this putdown, in order that the short

sentence with which I will end my speech may not be outside the rules of

Just A Minute. It was a summer evening in Aberdeen . It was raining

slightly and the mist was coming down from the hills. And at the

banqueting hall in the Royal Station Hotel, the head waiter nudged the

main speaker and said “functions are about to begin, it is up to you to

open your mouth”. And Mister Gladstone, who was there on this occasion,

was introduced at such very great length by so boring a man that when he

was finally told “and now we come to the Prime Minister to give his

address”, the aforementioned gentleman said “ Ten Downing Street ...”

WHISTLE

4.

This is one of his better lines which he used a few times - for example

on 1 March 2004 http://deanbedford.tripod.com/jam542.html

NP: Yes! Right Clement, you listened well, 28 seconds, dressing for

dinner starting now.

CF: My favourite proposition used to be people saying to me “will you

come upstairs and make love to me?” And now I have to reply “one or the

other”!

5.

this is a good line from 9 January 1993

http://deanbedford.tripod.com/jam32

CF: I’d like to tell rather a nice story about Gascoigne who is known as

Gazza, a footballer who plays for Lazio and was asked by a coach

whether...

WHISTLE

NP: And we’ll never know! Was it worth finishing or not Clement?

CF: I think it probably is yes. When Gazza played his first game for

Lazio, the coach said to him "do your best and we’ll pull you off at

halftime". And Gazza said "oh that’ll be a change, at Tottenham they

gave us oranges".

6.

This is from 12 January 2004 on "poetic licence"

http://deanbedford.tripod.com/jam526.html

There was an old man from Japan ,

Whose poetry never could scan,

When asked reasons why,

He replied with a sigh,

“Well you see it’s like this, I always try to get as many words into the

last line as I possibly can.

7.

This is a good quicky from 14 March 2005 - it was on the 40th

anniversary clips programme last year

http://www.geocities.com/deanbedford/jam582.html

NP: And we begin the show with Clement Freud. Clement, the subject is

answering back. Sixty seconds as usual starting now.

CLEMENT FREUD: Shan't!

8.

Another quick clever remark, subject is queuing at the supermarket

http://deanbedford.tripod.com/jam517.html 31 July 1982

CF: I don’t mind queues to get into a supermarket so much, but resent

deeply that once you are in there, they make you stand in a queue to get

out.

9.

I like this too - from 11 March 2002

http://deanbedford.tripod.com/jam458.html

NP: Paul the subject now is the best way to win a bonus point. That is

the subject, it’s your turn to begin so you start now.

PM: The best way to win a bonus point is to flatter Nicholas! Let me

show you how it works. Mister Parsons, you are a wonderful chairman! I

can’t imagine how this programme would survive without you!

BUZZ

PM: Still, let’s give it a go!

NP: (laughs) Clement Freud challenged.

CF: I can!

10.

This is from last year at Edinburgh -18 August 2008

http://www.geocities.com/deanbedford/jam730.html

NP: Clement you challenged first, 33 seconds, you tell us something

about the highlight of my day starting now.

CF: The highlight of my day this morning was when I walked into my hotel

lift and inadvertently hit a woman quite hard into the front. And I

apologised to her, explaining that if her bosom, if her heart... I made

a mess of that...

BUZZ

NP: Paul challenged you.

PM: Well if that's the highlight of your day, I... hesitation.

NP: Yes and deviation too.

CF: Can I finish that story?

PM: Yeah you can finish the story.

NP: You can finish the story.

CF: Okay, I banged against this woman with my elbow, and we were both

startled, and I said "if your heart is as soft as your bosom, you will

forgive me," and she said "if your willy is as hard as your elbow, I'm

in Room 264."

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