So he said that he did it and it was real then?
I don't rely on google particularly but when researchers say that it dates back to a 1961 book (if I cared I'd find a copy) and someone else states that they were in a lecture of his and they heard him tell it about someone else then I start to realise it may not be a true story about him.
As for being in the spirit and being mean spirited -- I can't speak with any authority about the spirit of this site but I'm not sure it's about regurgitating things which have been going around on the internet since its birth and I don't think it mean spirited to point out that a legend is just that.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Sat 15 Oct 2011, 7:18, 1 reply)

no
it IS a true story about Clement Freud in as much as I heard him say these words on the radio. Whether or not the subject of the story is apocryphal or "legend" is something we'll never know because the big man has snuffed it. How do "Researchers" and "someone else" actually know this didn't happen to Sir Clem? They don't. Maybe the student in question had read the unnamed 1961 book and thought it would be a wizard wheeze to re-enact. Who knows? I'm happy to just take the amusing story and enjoy it for what it is.

I personally haven't seen this story on teh interwebs, but then that's a matter of experience isn't it? I'm sure many others may not have either, and that's why I shared it.
(SausageWarrior destination Zululand, come on boys jump in the van, Sat 15 Oct 2011, 10:19, closed)

I'll admit we only have the venerable gentleman's word for it.
But I was pointing out that this was a legend to someone who had also heard it about Niels Bohr by way of explanation.
I think it is entirely possible that the story in the book is about Clement Freud -- but you having heard him tell it as being about him on the radio doesn't prove it was true any more than my googling proves it false. To not point out that this is seen as an urban legend would be to deprive anyone reading the thread of this knowledge that it may not be true.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Sat 15 Oct 2011, 13:34, closed)