- Announcer: Next week on "The Golden Age of Ballooning", we examine the work of Girlsher and Coxwell, the English balloonists who ascended to a height of seven miles in 1862 without washing. There is also a book called "The Golden Age of Ballooning" published by the BBC to coincide with the series. It's in an attractive hand-tooled binding, is priced £5 and failure to buy it will make you liable to a £50 fine or three months' imprisonment. There's also a record of someone reading the book of "The Golden Age of Ballooning", a crochet-work bedspread with the words "The Golden Age of Ballooning" on it, available from the BBC, price £18 or five months' imprisonment, and there are matching toilet-seat covers and courtesy mats with illustrations of many of the balloons mentioned. Also available is a life-size model frog which croaks the words "The Golden Age of Ballooning" and an attractive bakelite case for storing motorway construction plans in, made in the shape of a balloon. And now, another chance to see a repeat of this morning's re-run of last night's second showing of episode two of the award-winning series "The Golden Age of Ballooning".
- Jacques Montgolfier: This is a great moment for us, Joseph.
- Joseph Montgolfier: It is a great moment for France.
- Jacques Montgolfier: Ah, oui!
- Joseph Montgolfier: The first ascent in a hot-air balloon, by the Montgolfier brothers, 1783. I can see us now, just after Montesquieu and just before Mozart.
- Jacques Montgolfier: I think I'll go and wash.
- Joseph Montgolfier: Good luck.
- Jacques Montgolfier: Oh, it's quite easy, really. I just slap a little water on my face, then...
- Joseph Montgolfier: No, no, no. Good luck for tomorrow.
- Jacques Montgolfier: Oh, I see, yes. You too. Yours has been the work.
- Joseph Montgolfier: Let us hope for a safe ascent... and, uh, don't use my flannel.
- Jacques Montgolfier: You know, when you showed me the plans in Paris, I could not believe that we should be the first men who would fly.
- Joseph Montgolfier: Yes, it's wonderful.
- Jacques Montgolfier: I'm so excited I could hardly wash!
- Antoinette: Oh, Joseph! All you think about is balloons. All you talk about is balloons. Your beautiful house is full of bits and pieces of balloons. Your books are all about balloons, every time you sing a song, it is in some way obliquely connected with balloons... Everything you eat has to have "balloon" incorporated in the title. Your dogs are all called Balloono. You tie balloons to your ankles in the evenings!
- Joseph Montgolfier: I don't do that!
- Antoinette: Well, no, you don't do that. But you do duck down and shout, "Hey! Balloons!" when there are none about. Your whole life is becoming obsessively balloonic, you know... Oh-h-h! Why do I have to hang from this bloody gas bag all day?
- Jacques Montgolfier: I'm so excited I can hardly wash.
- Joseph Montgolfier: Yes, I too have had some difficulty washing these past few days...
- Jacques Montgolfier: Still, what is washing when we are on the verge of a great scientific breakthrough.
- Joseph Montgolfier: Jacques.
- Jacques Montgolfier: Yes Joseph?
- Joseph Montgolfier: I... 've not been washing very thoroughly for many years now.
- Louis XIV: Look here smart ass, when you're king of France you've got better things to do than go around all day remembering your bloody number!
- Jacques Montgolfier: Let me put my tongue in your mouth.
- Antoinette: What do you mean?
- Jacques Montgolfier: We're supposed to be French, aren't we?