4x01 The Golden Age of Ballooning

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!

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".

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?