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  • This is the Technical Difficulties, we're playing Citation Needed.

  • Joining me today, he reads books you know, it's Chris Joel!

  • Hello!

  • Everybody's favourite Gary Brannan, Gary Brannan!

  • Yes, I did order a Crunch Corner, but not that crunchy.

  • And the bounciest man on the internet, Matt Gray!

  • Izzy. Whizzy. Let's get... busy!

  • In front of me I've got an article from Wikipedia, and these folks can't see it.

  • Every fact they get right is a point and a ding [DING]

  • and there's a special prize for particularly good answers, which is...

  • And today we are talking about Camp Bonifas.

  • Is that like a smiley Guantanamo?

  • -- Camp Bonny-face! -- Bonny-face. I mean...

  • I mean, I'm giving you a vague point,

  • because it's a United Nations Command military post. [DING]

  • So it's not the US, but it is 'camp' in the sense of military post,

  • so I will give you the point.

  • Camp in what other sense?! Ooh!

  • In the sense of a place you go to camp with a tent!

  • -- What, you mean... -- "Look at his camp bonny face!"

  • -- Actually, given that 'bona' is actually Polari... -- Oh, it is!

  • That's not actually all that wrong.

  • Yeah. Polari being the language of gay men in the 1950s and 60s,

  • descended from carnival speak. So, if you hear Kenneth Williams --

  • Julian and Sandy -- you know, "vada your eek" means "he's got quite a nice face".

  • Stuff like that. It's how gay men would talk to each other,

  • so that the police and other people couldn't hear them,

  • 'cos obviously homosexuality was entirely illegal.

  • Oh! And it's a star as well, isn't it?

  • Polari... that's Polaris. That's something else. That's not quite...

  • Actually, loads of Polari has made it into regular English.

  • Looking through... barney, having a barney, having a fight with someone, is in there.

  • What else have we got in there?

  • To zhoozh up, a zhoozhing bag, is to do your hair and have a handbag, or something like that.

  • -- And naff. -- Naff! As terrible.

  • Basically, as with so many things, the rest of Britain just went:

  • "we'll have some of that".

  • Bringing this all back: Camp Bonny-face...

  • Derailed that one!

  • ...does not... and it's Bonifas! ... does not mean just someone with a nice face, sadly.

  • Why is it, when you say "United Nations Command Centre",

  • I immediately think "damn, that's exciting!"

  • It'd just be lots of...

  • That's because you grew up on Gerry Anderson and Thunderbirds!

  • Anything! United Nations Command Centre! Nah, it's lots of dull men looking at laptops.

  • -- It's four men with laptops in a hotel room. -- Yeah.

  • We're not in a hotel room here. Definitely not in a hotel room.

  • -- It's an actual camp. -- Is it an actual camp?

  • It's an actual camp, in the sense of military encampment.

  • -- Europe? -- Oh, definitely not.

  • -- America? -- Also no.

  • -- Middle East! -- No, you're all wrong...

  • -- Something Spanish-y! -- United Nations.

  • -- Arctic! Antarctic! -- No...

  • So not something Spanish-ish?

  • No. You've listed most of the regions of the world,

  • I think you've missed three continents so far...

  • -- Africa! -- Two continents remaining.

  • -- Australia! -- One continent remaining.

  • -- Asia! -- There we go! [DING]

  • Literally the last continent to be named.

  • It's not 'cos we didn't like you, we're just saving you for last.

  • That's a terrible chat-up line, Gary.

  • Worked for me(!)

  • Do you want that on the cutting room floor or not?

  • It reflects worse on me than...

  • So where is there going to be a United Nations Command Post in Asia?

  • -- Is it Korea? -- Yes! [DING] You're absolutely right.

  • And I'm going to ask a loaded question here, so have a point,

  • Which one?

  • The bottom one!

  • Can I say neither?

  • Gary gets the point there. [DING]

  • Is it the one that's on the border?

  • Yes it is! Well, it was. It's now become various other things,

  • but yes, this was the United Nations Command military post

  • 400 metres south of the southern boundary of the Korean DMZ.

  • Right. 'Cos that's the one where you have North Korean soldiers on one side of the room

  • staring at South Korean soldiers on the other side of the room

  • -- and they never communicate. -- And never the twain shall meet.

  • Are they being that person in the fight going "ey! ey!"

  • and holding the other two back?

  • Essentially, yes. That was part of their job.

  • It was returned to being Korean territory in 2006,

  • but yes, this was for many, many years the home to the batallion

  • who oversaw the armistice agreement.

  • So what can you find there? What could you find there?

  • Portakabins, wasn't it? It was just like school classrooms that were effectively --

  • that was the channel you would go through for whatever immigration was.

  • Yeah, I'll give you a point. [DING] Small collection of buildings,

  • surrounded by triple coils of razor wire.

  • Oh, that's not good.

  • "It would look like a big Boy Scout camp if it wasn't for..."

  • -- Goofball surgeons! -- The guns!

  • -- All the Korean men with guns! -- The bibimbap!

  • -- All the land mines. -- Point! [DING]

  • If it wasn't for the land mines that surrounded it, yes.

  • Can I just point out: must've not been on a Yorkshire Scout camp.

  • Were you a Scout?

  • Yes I was a Scout! I was a Beaver, I was a Cub, I was a Scout.

  • And I was in the St John's Ambulance as well. Yeah.

  • I did most of the full thing, apart from becoming a Venture Scout.

  • Did you hurt yourself? Is that how you got in the Ambulance?

  • No, no! My Scout troop had so few Scouts in it

  • after spending weeks where we built an Airfix kit, shelled a crab...

  • What, artillery shelled a crab?

  • Yeah, there's just one crab in the middle of...

  • "Bollocks to that!"

  • It was a lad called John Crabbe, actually.

  • We built a small balloon as well one night out of tissue paper,

  • with a little basket underneath with paraffin,

  • that raced to the roof and then it set on fire.

  • And that's how I learned how to use a CO2 fire extinguisher!

  • You see, that's a useful skill!

  • I think I learned more off that than tying f***ing knots,

  • I'm going to be honest with you!

  • And then one night we tried cooking on a cooker,

  • one of those little paraffin cookers,

  • and it just leaked everywhere and set the place on fire.

  • -- Again! -- There's a pattern here.

  • Shut down shortly afterwards, what can I say?

  • And you were a Scout, weren't you?

  • I was a Scout, your Scouts were s***.

  • -- You were a proper Scout. -- I was, yeah.

  • We used to go and build zip lines in the woods

  • and go off camping on our own.

  • Yeah, maybe so, but did you ever win the Scout Eurovision?

  • No, thank god, we never entered!

  • Basically, adorable kids singing adorable songs in adorable costumes. I did...

  • You had a very different Scouting experience!

  • Well, we went Scouting instead!

  • Yeah, we didn't. See, you did things with wood and axes...

  • Wood and mountains and axes and fires!

  • I sang the solo in "My Mummy Is One In A Million".

  • Actually, to be fair, by the time I actually got to Scouts

  • the first two years were spent fighting. Literally,

  • two hours a week, go down, have a rumble, then eventually we changed leaders!

  • We did so some... we did do that one where you fill a boxing glove with sand,

  • tie it to a rope, and spin it round, you've got to jump over it.

  • "That one"!

  • D'you ever play Barrels?

  • I don't... which one's Barrels?

  • Barrels is three water barrels in the middle of a room...

  • Oh f***.

  • Full, if you're feeling particularly vindictive,

  • then the whole troop joins together in a circle. Give us your arm.

  • -- This one or that one? -- Like that.

  • -- Like that. -- Yeah.

  • -- And then you run in a circle... -- Oh god.

  • And if you let go, or if you hit the barrels, you're out.

  • Naturally, this eventually leads to some of the 11-year-olds

  • being put between two 16-year-olds and smashed into the barrels!

  • Although, I've said the boxing glove one, I've just remembered now,

  • one week we did replace the boxing glove with an axe.

  • Nice! That's more the level we're at!

  • That's more your level of Scouting.

  • I will make the point: South Yorkshire Scouts, West Yorkshire Scouts.

  • Whereas I had a Commodore 64.

  • Yeah, I did not do any...

  • I thought you were going to say you were in the Navy!

  • "Whereas I was in the Navy!"

  • "Where I had a Commodore!"

  • -- So yes. -- What were we talking about?

  • Camp Bonifas! Which would look like a big Boy Scout camp...

  • Would look like a South Yorkshire Boy Scout camp...

  • Actually, yeah, we did use to have a load of old ammunition tins.

  • Some of 'em still with ammunition in, but...

  • So there was one other thing you'd find there.

  • The kind of thing you would find if you had, say, some bored commanders

  • who were all used to doing a certain thing with each other.

  • Pornography.

  • No.

  • A steam room!

  • Oh, definitely not.

  • Battleships! The board game.

  • It's certainly a game.

  • Actual battleships!

  • Not in the DMZ? It's a little bit to the side there.

  • Golf!

  • Point. [DING]

  • What was called "the most dangerous hole in golf",

  • a 3-par, one-hole golf course.

  • It's got an astroturf green...

  • ...and land mines!

  • And surrounded on three sides by minefields, yes!

  • "Mulligan!" "No mulligans in this game, go out and get it!"

  • "There's the map, good luck!"

  • Allegedly one tee shot did actually set off a land mine.

  • Oh, brilliant!

  • "It's in the rough!"

  • Yeah, you would actually enjoy that, wouldn't you?

  • That'd be such a great stress relief.

  • Well, it's a tee shot, it's got a bit of distance on it, it's fine!

  • If you're, like, what, three par? So there's a good walk there for a start.

  • That land mine going off in the distance'll look f***ing brilliant!

  • You just get a low golf clap from the distance.

  • Oh, now that's definitely not what happened at one point.

  • Because the name of Camp Bonifas, it was originally Camp Kitty Hawk.

  • What happened... I mean, the name of it kind of gives it away,

  • this is the Axe Murder incident. Now obviously...

  • What happened?

  • I'm not giving you a point for successfully guessing that there was an axe murder.

  • But what happened in the DMZ?

  • Did someone wander into the DMZ by accident?

  • -- Not by accident. -- On purpose?

  • You wouldn't need the axes, would you, 'cos you've got land mines for that business.

  • Did the person that was wandering have the axe?

  • They had an axe. Why would you go into the DMZ with an axe?

  • -- Cut a tree down! -- Point! [DING] Absolutely right.

  • -- Some of the southern side... -- This is starting to ring a bell now.

  • Can't think why, but it is.

  • Some folks from the southern side went in to cut down a poplar tree

  • that was blocking the UN observers.

  • The North Koreans promptly arrived with axes of their own

  • and the tree was not being chopped down any more, and...

  • One of the people killed was called Bonifas,

  • that's where the name of the camp came from.

  • Three days later, American - South Korean forces,

  • they launched an operation to cut down the tree with a show of force.

  • What did they call that operation? Name...

  • Thor!

  • Legendary American who cut down trees.

  • Washing...ton...?

  • No... oh, that's chopping down cherry trees.

  • Is it the person with the stupid hat?

  • -- Davy Crockett? -- No, he planted trees!

  • That was Johnny Appleseed!

  • We've named every tree-related American here and we haven't quite worked....

  • Americans in the comments will be screaming at you at this point!

  • We don't know! We're not from there!

  • Famous giant lumberjack, American folklore...

  • Paul Bunyan.

  • -- Never heard that. -- Never heard of it!

  • -- Never heard those words before. -- Wow, okay!

  • I've heard the word Paul, and I've heard the word "bunion", but I've never used...

  • -- Only in the sense of something on your foot! -- Yeah!

  • Americans, we don't know about Paul Bunyan,

  • in the same way that you don't know about Michael Barrymore. All right?

  • That's not really the same way, I'll be honest.

  • Different order of magnitude there.

  • Different order of magnitude.

  • -- More Finn McCool. -- Oh, yes!

  • Yes, we've talked about that before.

  • More Finn McCool. Yeah, okay.

  • Actually, that's a really good... Michael Barrymore is not...

  • I think you'll find he was a giant of light entertainment, though.

  • What, Finn McCool?!

  • Yeah! Saturday nights.

  • "Appearing up on the rocks tonight!"

  • So what is at the DMZ now?

  • A tree with a hole in the bottom of it!

  • The tree is gone. The tree is gone.

  • At least they won their cause(!)

  • Yeah, they did! And North Korea accepted that, yes,

  • "yes, okay, we probably shouldn't have done that,

  • "yes, you've just sent in a lot of soldiers to chop down that tree,

  • "haven't you? Okay, yes."

  • "Have the tree! Have several!"

  • I don't... a plaque or something like that?

  • Tourists!

  • Point. [DING]

  • That's the bit you can go and visit, isn't it?

  • You can actually go in a bit further now,

  • if you actually get permission to go in,

  • you can get to the crossing point,

  • you can technically enter North Korea briefly.

  • There are even tour companies that do things,

  • but you have to pay a naughty government some money.

  • Yes, it is possible to get to the DMZ if you're a tourist

  • with a lot of permissions and a lot of papers signed now.

  • Which is closer than Camp Bonifas ever was.

  • The camp itself has been handed back to Korea.

  • But they have the Korean version of Buckingham Palace guards!

  • -- Yes they do. -- They're just two men standing there,

  • one of whom's fine with you being there,

  • the other who deletes the photos off your camera.

  • -- One tells the truth, and one always lies. -- I was going to say!

  • And one shoots people who ask awkward questions.

  • Why don't more borders work like that?

  • In the "one tells the truth, the other only lies" fashion?

  • Because everybody's seen Labyrinth!

  • It'd be pointless! Everybody knows the answer!

  • But that's fine! That's a lovely system to filter who comes in and out of your country!

  • If you've seen David Bowie's bulge you're allowed in.

  • I knew it! I knew we were headed for David Bowie's bulge.

  • It had to happen, didn't it?

  • I'm going to say this: you deserve it, if you've sat through that.

  • Like the time I discovered the zoom function on my DVD player

  • while my wife was out of the room.

  • And the loop feature as well.

  • So when she came back in, there was a zoomed-in, looped version

  • of David B-- the late David Bowie's-- cock and balls

  • dancing all over the telly.

  • Not the cock and balls! Just the crotch!

  • -- Different video! -- Well, no, this is the scene

  • where he's not got the cup on.

  • There's a point where they got him the codpiece

  • and there are scenes they shot beforehand where they went

  • "oh boy, you can see the whole lot there".

  • "You know, it's like a party down there."

  • "It's like several puppies in a paper bag."

  • It's during the Magic Dance sequence,

  • where he's dancing from side to side,

  • going 'Dance, magic dance', that bit.

  • That's the bit he doesn't have the Crotchulator on...

  • The Crotchulator!

  • Worst gym machine ever.

  • "Crotch you now... crotch you later!"

  • It's like a helicopter sideways on.

  • That's a plane, Gary.

  • At the end of the show, congratulations Gary, you win this one!

  • Congraulations, you win a circular muscle with the head of man and the body of a lion.

  • Oh no...

  • It's this sphinxter.

  • Urgh! Urgh!

  • -- Worst superhero ever. -- Where's...

  • So with that we say thank you to Chris Joel!

  • Where does the muscle go between the other parts?

  • To Gary Brannan!

  • To Matt Gray!

  • Clenching.

  • I've been Tom Scott, we'll see you next time.

  • It's just going to go...

  • "Why is the lion walking like that?!"

  • [Translating these subtitles? Add your name here!]

This is the Technical Difficulties, we're playing Citation Needed.

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