Joining me today, he reads books y'know, it's Chris Joel.

More of a value pack with each passing year.

Everybody's favourite Gary Brannan, Gary Brannan.

♪ I kissed a gull, and I liked it ♪

Did you just say gull?

Yes, that was the joke.

-Okay, just... just clarifying that. -Enunciate, then!

And the bounciest man on the internet, Matt Gray.

♪ I... didn't come up with anything to say here. ♪

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.

And there's a special prize for particularly good answers which is...

-That was pretty good. -Yeah.

And today we are talking about the Norwegian butter crisis.

Awrgh!

Of all the crises, up there with Cuban missile, I always find.

I can't believe that it's not a margarine crisis.

Well, that actually clarifies what I was going to ask which is...

-Clarifies! -Clarifies!

I'd like to say it was on purpose - no.

Just slid into that one.

The Norwegian butter crisis.

Was it a crisis involving butter?

In Norway.

You can both technically have a point for that, but I'd like a bit more.

Is that a bit like an essay question where you're just repeating the title

basically to get you out of deep water?

Now the question I have to try and think of the answer of is,

did they have too much or too little?

-Because... -"Aargh! There's so much butter!"

-I'm going for too much butter. -Butterlanche!

-Butterlanche? -Butterlanche.

The question was too much or too little?

-Well, too much. -Too little.

Exactly the right amount, which freaked everybody out.

Gary gets the point.

Too little butter.

So if there's a butter crisis does that mean there's a milk crisis going on as well?

-Oh! -Ooh. Yes.

Because doesn't butter come from milk?

Yes, it does.

Yay! Do I get a point for that?

Yeah. You don't get a point for butter coming from milk,

but you do get the point for…

But, yes, heavy rains during the summer affected the grazing of cows and reduced milk production.

So what happens if there is a shortage of butter?

You buy butter from somewhere else.

Toast is awful, it's just dry with a topping.

We're talking basic supply and demand here, there is less butter therefore…

Butter is more costly and only available to the crown heads of Europe.

I'm... I'm giving you a point for the first half of that answer.

Norway was gripped by smørpanikk which translates as...?

Some more panic.

Some more...

-Butter panic. -Yes.

I can think of like a Norwegian panic scale

which is "nor-panic, smør-panik, lots of panic".

So, yes, it got to the point where a single pack of imported Lurpak butter…

Oh, Lurpak, oh...

Cost, oh, you know what, we get to do Price is Right rules here.

Here is a pack of butter.

-A pack this big? -Import...

-Here is a pack of butter. -Here is a pack of butter.

Mid-December 2011,

-so this is recent. -Salted or unsalted?

-It does not specify. -Because it does depend on the use,

because if it's unsalted that's more your bakers who are going to be throwing money at it.

Oh, no, this is... this is very much dietary butter.

-Dietary... -Dietary butter?

Dietary butter, there's a butter diet now?

I quote.

Slice it like cheese and put it on toast.

-Place your bids? -1,000 krone.

-1,000 krone. -Oh, s***, we're doing it in krone?

No, we're not doing it in krone, I don't have a calculator here.

I'm doing it in krone.

1,000 krone is about 100 quid, I think.

Yeah, that's more or less 100 quid, so…

1,000 krone!

I'm going to say the equivalent of 25 quid.

I was going to say 100 quid, but he's already got that, so let's say £150 or 1,500 krone.

Gary is correct, £32 for a small pack of butter.

Hang on, 32 quid for a pack of butter?

Yeah. It's about the same as you pay in Saino's now for Lurpak.

So why did this not get resolved by... by the free hand of capitalism?

Because the free hand of capitalism had too much butter on it,

it was all slippy and couldn't grip it.

They could pass the butter but they couldn't pick up the corners.

Just sliding out of their hands.

I think the butterfingers of capitalism

has just summed up everything that's wrong with the world, Gary.

I'm giving, yeah, you know what...

Mystery Biscuits.

Hey!

Actual satire.

Why did they not just import more butter?

-Tariffs. -Yes.

'Cos… 'cos not in EU.

-Yes. -Topical.

Hold on everybody, Radio 4, Radio 4, get the...

get the big reel to reel recorders running, we're coming.

Yes, tariffs on butter, there was a deficit of 500 to 1,000 tons of butter in the country.

Just one shipping container.

That they can see over the border in...

...Sweden? Norway?

-Yeah. -Yeah.

That is a land border.

Yes.

(Thank you.)

I'm all a bit hazy around that region, I don't know who's next to what.

Surely that affected Sweden as well because the weather should be similar around there, right?

You say that, what did some Swedes do?

Did they taunt them on the border by eating really thickly buttered toast?

-I'd do that. -I would actually, yeah.

To Lancashire!

Post butter over the border?

-Try and make... -Smuggle, butter smugglers!

Yes.

What's in the van? "Nøt bütter."

A number of individuals were apprehended by the authorities

for attempting to smuggle butter across the border,

whilst Swedes posted online adverts offering to drive butter to Norwegians.

Did they get around the customs by greasing their palms?

Hey!

No.

A Danish television show also broadcast something.

Television.

I need to learn to be more specific with my questions.

Did they just have some slow TV, Norway style,

but of just butter melting in a kitchen somewhere?

Someone's just watching going, "What a waste."

Sad chefs with empty pans go looking with big puppy dog eyes.

And going, "If only I had some butter."

Do you know what, yes, they broadcast a satirical emergency appeal to send butter.

This isn't a joke, there are people without butter in this country.

They gathered 4,000 packs to be distributed to butter starved Norwegians.

-Bloody hell. -Really.

There's a lot of very dark stuff in here, but there is also the Ark of Taste.

What?

Is that like the Ark of the Covenant but with… with tasty treats?

"Don't look at it! It's full of...!"

The butter just comes flying out, fried foods.

"I'm melting!" But it's butter, it's all just butter.

Is it an institution kind of thing that is a... a catalogue of national tastes?

So would it have the fermented fishy canny thing in it?

Almost, there's one word you're missing in there,

which is, yes, it's a catalogue of international foodstuffs and tastes and things like that.

Extinct.

Nearly.

You're not longer culturally dying out like Welsh died out, that sort of thing...

That'll do, endangered heritage foods.

So is it all stuff that people either can't be arsed to make any more,

they've decided it's not good for you and it's gone out of fashion kind of stuff

and then everyone's forgotten about it?

Yeah, pretty much, it may not be forgotten about, but it could be.

Or rules have presented it being done like unpasteurised milk, that kind of thing.

Does anyone want to name some of the things that are in the United Kingdom section of the articles,

just in terms of categories, if not exact things, what are we famous for historically?

Cornish pasties?

No, they're fine, aren't they?

There's loads of those, there was one on York Station this morning.

Just lying there abandoned, sad music playing over the top of it.

Some kind of cheese?

Yeah, it's mostly cheeses and grains, that's… that's the history of Britain right there.

What a great duo they were: cheese and grains.

-And potatoes. -Potatoes, really?

-Potatoes. -Any specific famous potatoes you might know?

King Edward?

Maris Piper?

You're just naming potatoes now.

That's what you asked us to do.

-What we're looking for here… -What, an individually famous potato?

What we're looking for here is the pointless answer.

The Koh-i-Noor potato that sat in the royal crown up until 1640,

until the English Civil War the middle of the English crown had a f***ing spud in it.

Jersey Royal, apparently...

How are they endangered?

It is listed here as being this… this endangered thing.

I smell bulls***.

Not in there.

Not in there, not in there sadly, there is old Gloucester beef.

Old Gloucester beef is just an argument in old Gloucester.

Well, you enjoyed it.

Not to be confused with a double Gloucester beef when there's only one piece of cheese left,

And you can't decide who wants it.

Come on Radio 4, come on, this is good.

We also have under food politics, the British Restaurant.

That from World War…

I saw, sorry, I saw your face go there.

-Ding! -That was the face of Gary going,

"I have remembered an archive fact."

Can I just say, readers, there's a... one of my things I'd like to get out on this…

-Did you just call them readers? -Yes.

They may be reading.

They're that bored they've all got a book out.

Not every fact comes from intelligent things, this is from Dad's Army.

The British Restaurant was a national restaurant in the Second World War,

that sold cheap and… cheap and good food to people.

-Yes, -Not just soldiers.

Absolutely right. It was a government... it was originally a community feeding centre.

-then Winston Churchill came along and… -Why did they change the name?

Yeah, Winston Churchill came along and decided that British Restaurant was a better name.

"The British Restaurant."

"We're serving brandy and you can have a large plate of brandy."

"And some cheese."

We also have the category here in Wikipedia of butter.

There is an entire article on Lurpak,

there is also an entire article on someone called Norma Lyon - L-Y-O-N.

She's an American farmer and an artist.

Who painted in butter or carved into butter.

-Yes. -Like the Lurpak advert,

remember it, this was in the 90s.

Yes, born in Nashville, Tennessee, what kind of things did she carve out of butter?

-President's faces. -Busts.

Cubes. Bricks.

Cathedrals.

They're made of bricks, just made of bricks.

Well, this was a specific thing at the Iowa state fair, and has been every year.

-Corn. -It's... oh, it's very apt

that you would carve this out of butter, it's almost…

-A cow. -A cow.

Yes.

The Iowa state fair butter cow.

That's taking the piss a little bit, isn't it?

Well, taking the milk, but you know.

If you're taking the piss, something's gone very wrong with your butter, mate.

Do they carve a specific cow or just the generic concept of cow?

Eh?

Oh, wow, Plato's World of the Buttery Cave.

Eh, how does that work?

Did they carve a cow or did they carve Daisy?

Oh, right, so a specific cow or just like an outline of, you know, cows. Yeah

So Daisy can look at butter Daisy made from Daisy's butter.

No, it was a generic cow,

but there were also some other topical things that were carved alongside it.