The Day Today quotes

The headlines tonight: Bottomley refreshed after three days on cross. Branson's clockwork dog crosses Atlantic floor. And sacked chimney-sweep pumps boss full of mayonnaise.

Welcome! On The Day Today tonight: David Owen emerges shattered from Oliver Reed...

I don't think I've ever seen anything quite such... so totally wanton and ghastly... mess, terrible...

And Portillo's wife defends crack habit.

It's cheap, very cheap.

Hello, you.

To get all the celebrities to contribute their jam has really been quite a... quite an operation.

How much of your time did you put into it?

Oh, I would say at least about six months.

Six months? To raise money for a jam festival? Isn't that rather stupid?

[taken aback] No, I don't think so. I mean, it's all in a good cause.

Good cause, yeah, but how much are you gonna raise?

Well, we hope to raise, um, at least £1500.

£1500?! That's a pathetic amount of money. You could raise more money by auctioning dogs!

Well, I don't think so. I-I-I think it's all in a good cause and very worthwhile...

You persuaded these celebrities to waste their time donating to it?

Yes!

Well, who?

Uh, er, Glenys Kinnock we've got, and Sebastian Coe...

I hate Sebastian Coe!

Well... I feel he's made a very worthwhile contribution!

What, to the paltry sum of £1500?

Yes!

Is that worth six months of your time?

Well, I think it is quite--

I don't think it is at all! I think the only reason you've done it is to make yourself look important! [Janet is appalled] How dare you come on this programme and say, "Hey look at me, I'm raising £1500 for the homeless"? You could raise more money by sitting outside a tube station with your hat on the ground, even if you were twice as ugly as you are, which is very ugly indeed!

Let's see if we can nail this down. In terms of this elastic band here... [twangs an elastic band] Would you like to see the law tightened up to this tightness, tightness number one... tightness number two... or tightness number three?

I think tightness number three.

Tightness number three, like this?

I think we've really got to hammer these guys.

So that tightness being... an average Post Office band, extended over about eight inches.

Yeah, I think so.

Alan Partridge

I don't know what this man is playing at! There's no way... surely the judges must come down like a ton of bricks on that. Carrying bikes on the top of a car is not a sportsmanlike way to run this race.

Alan Partridge

Thank goodness, actually, they're wearing gloves, because I've witnessed bare-knuckle boxing... in a barn in Somerset, about three years ago. And it was a sorry sight to see men goading them on in such a barbaric fashion. And I'm rather ashamed to say I was party to that goading. And, er, two men fighting as I saw in that barn that night, naked as the day they were born, and fighting the way God intended. Wrestling, at points, I don't know if you've seen Women in Love, that marvelous scene by the fire. It, er, kind of resembled that.

Sylvester Stewart

A strong and highly long-lasting day tomorrow, with hail aimed vertically downward from above, and there'll be a thirty percent chance.

Rosy May

Scientists in Alaska have found a gap between the horizon and the Earth. The gap, which is nine miles across, is believed to have been caused by recent storms which tore the horizon from its moorings. A team of civil engineers has now set off to lash the horizon back down with steel.

...and since we've recorded that report, everybody featured in it has lost their hair.

The Day Today: slamming the wasps from the pure apple of truth.

Well, here we are at the hanging. It's a very sombre atmosphere. The condemned man has just arrived with executioner Mr. Albert Marsh, who's highly respected...

[narrating] The evening begins with a chance to savour again Great Britain's last televised hanging.

...he's using a nylon-hemp mix rope tonight for the first time ever. That's what he wanted, that's what he's got. It's to guarantee extra strength.

Arright Madge, what can I do yer for?

[narrating] The '60s saw television breaking taboos again and again, with Frampton Row the first popular weekly serial to use swear words.

...I'm not made of money, 'specially not since Eddie Copsie and 'is bloomin' lids.

Oh, aye.

Go on, then, I'll 'ave the Express. [hands over money] There y'are, yer big hairy cock.

Ta.

Tarah, Stan. [walks off]

Tarah, yer shitter.

These days it's very fashionable among young people to do what I'm doing now. I'm being fellated by a young girl known as a groupie. It's an interesting feeling, and, er, certainly quite relaxing...

Well, it's half an hour later. My initial reaction was one of intense joy, but that's now been replaced by a vague feeling of inadequacy and gloom. It's not an experience that I can see catching on, but, er, neither is it one which I regret.

Time now for business with Collately Sisters.

Thanks, Chris.

[offscreen] Take her off the monitor. I don't want to see her face.

There was better news for Edge-Ledge-Wedge-Barge, who mustered 2.41, up 88 very slightly, but OxyMacGee flew back a ninth, despite a creeping bid from Connected Breathdumps, at four. On now the currency markets, how did the Pound fare? A quick glance at the currency cat... not too well, I'm afraid. There's a disconcerting 47° slope against the Dollar, Yen and Deutschmark, and if we project in four months the Pound leg is effectively amputated, leading to a rogue leg with no hip constituency at all.

Physical complaints like the hardened lump on this woman's foot are treated as symptoms of spiritual disorder.

I'm going to make an incision here. And make the incision all the way round here, round the other side. And then cut through and then remove this. This foot. Remove that and take it away and bury it with some gooseberries.

Dr. Philip Johanssson is Europe's leading practitioner of bile chanting. He was one of the four doctors and ten patients killed in this morning's blaze. Firemen say the chance of finding anyone else alive is minimal.

Photo-factuality now, and Mrs. Mandy Hell captured these snaps while out walking her brother on Wandsworth Common. The unnamed woman had been pierced by a shaft of frozen urine, which had fallen from the toilet facility of an overhead plane.

[about farmer Chester Johnson] What he didn't know was that he and Lindsey were about to make a flight neither of them would ever forget, even if their brains were erased with mind rubbers.