Have I Got News for You to Ian and Kevin Maxwell, in case programme-makers appear biased in their treatment of these two heartless, scheming bastards." However, the Maxwell brothers were about to go on trial, and on 26 July 1996, the BBC and Hat Trick Productions were fined £10,000 each in the High Court for contempt of court. The risky nature of the joke was readily apparent on the night itself, with Hislop and Merton humorously claiming that Deayton might genuinely have to prepare himself for a spell in prison because of it. In 1996, a book based on the series, "Have I Got 1997 for
One Foot in the Grave an incident she had at school when she was a child. When she was five, she had two budgies; one day when she opened the door of their cage, one flew straight out and hit the window killing itself, while the other stayed in the cage despite her best efforts to get it to come out. The next day at school her teacher asked the class to write a story about something that had happened to them so Margaret wrote her story about the budgies. Her teacher made Margaret read it out loud in front of the whole class which