Episode 6 The Blame Game

This programme contains some strong language.

CHEERING

Hello, hello, and welcome to The Blame Game,

the show that is hotter than a farmer's empty barn.

I'm Tim McGarry and, as always, our regular panellists are, of course,

Colin Murphy, Jake O'Kane and Neil Delamere!

CHEERING

And our special guest tonight is a superb stand-up comedian.

She has written for The Last Leg, Mock The Week and 8 Out Of 10 Cats.

Her brilliant new solo show is called Common

and celebrates her working-class roots,

which is why she wasn't asked

to switch on the Christmas tree lights in Cultra.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the wonderful Suzi Ruffell!

CHEERING

Now on with the show.

The audience ask the questions

and our panel provide some very unreliable answers.

So, what questions did you, the audience, ask us tonight?

We got some strange questions from the audience tonight. We got,

"Who is to blame for me having to be here despite having the norovirus?"

Everybody... Everybody is now going...

It's all very well for you. The NHS is free!

That's not funny where I'm from!

"Who is to blame for the show being mega?

"Every time I watch the show,

"the word 'mega' is seen behind in very large letters."

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Richard from the Waterside in Derry, thank you for that.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's Christmas time

and children everywhere are looking forward to Santa coming,

but bad news, children, Santa lives in Lapland and he works very hard,

so he is a migrant worker.

After Brexit, he'd need a visa to come down your chimney.

Our first question comes via e-mail.

It's from Charlotte in County Down and Charlotte is only 14.

Isn't that lovely? And, Charlotte, on behalf of everyone on the panel,

can I just say, what the hell are you doing up at this time of night?

It's nearly 11 o'clock!

When I was your age, I was in bed at nine!

Of course, you could be watching this on the iPlayer,

in which case, thank you for your lovely questions.

Charlotte asks, "Who do you blame for the Carrickfergus goat?"

LAUGHTER

Yes, a goat got loose and caused chaos in Carrickfergus.

The billy goat butted a pensioner called Billy.

Two Billys in Carrickfergus?

What are the odds?!

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

The badly behaved goat was eventually caught and taken away.

We don't know what happened to it, but apparently,

the local Orange Lodge are getting a superb new Lambeg drum.

But who can we blame for the Carrickfergus goat?

The Carrickfergus goat has just brightened my week,

and the footage of the Carrickfergus goat was quite disappointing,

but there is a brilliant still, I saw it on one of the online sites,

and the goat is really pissed off and...

He wants into the Eurospar, that's what he wants,

that's all he wants in life. This goat has been...

He obviously lives near the Eurospar,

he can smell the sausage rolls in the Eurospar.

He is just lying in his field, eating his grass,

going, "Someday I'm getting to that Eurospar,"

and he was just dying to.

And then he arrives and your man panics.

6.20 in the morning, this was. There's an awful lot of traffic

in this particular Eurospar at 6.20 in the morning!

Old fella, pensioner, up, bugger all to do, obviously,

so he just thinks, "I'm going for a pint of milk," and he's in and the next thing, goat.

"What the hell?!" Which I... That's probably exactly what he said

because that's what an old fella would say when a goat...

"What the hell? In the name of...!"

No words come out when an old fella gets...

When something happens to an old fella, it's, "What the..."

Beats the goat with a newspaper,

you could guarantee he'd have a newspaper.

He's got the newsletter, beating it.

They wouldn't sell him any Irish News in Carrickfergus.

And I saw the headline, "Goat Runs Rampage In Carrickfergus,"

and I thought, "At last, a reason to visit Carrickfergus!"

It was very exciting, it ran around...

It ran amok, that's what they said. "It ran amok!"

And it ran around the forecourt, jumped on a car,

all over the car, dented the car, two people in the car,

then it ate some flowers outside...

Yeah, yeah, ran amok!

Behaved like a goat, I think you'll find!

And it... 30 minutes, this went on. 30 minutes.

Do you know how far the police station in Carrickfergus is

from this particular Eurospar?

I'm not joking, I looked it up on Google maps.

It is one third of a mile.

It took 30 minutes. They still didn't turn up.

If you had rung them and said,

"There's someone stealing sausage rolls here."

-HE IMITATES A SIREN

-Just...in seconds.

"Get your hands off the sausage rolls!"

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

But it wasn't... I looked it up.

I thought this was funny when I heard it first,

but then I saw the size of the goat.

It was massive! It was like a bear with horns! It was huge!

And then the shop owner was making jokes about it!

He was going, "He head-butted a guy called Billy. Ha-ha-ha-ha!"

I thought, "Oh, you must be kidding! Ha-ha-ha!"

"Capricorns are very aggressive! Ha-ha-ha!" You're just thinking,

poor old Billy probably regrets wearing the mohair, cashmere jumper.

You know what I thought.

The worst, most hyperbolic, shall we say, headline.

You said it was "He Ran Amok". No, no, no.

"Goat Head-butts Pensioner In Shop Siege."

-Siege?

-Siege!

Now, siege... Siege!

-SUZI:

-That sounds like a movie!

I have seen Under Siege.

Now, I think that would be a worse film

if that was the plot of Under Siege.

Well, somebody pitching to an agent.

"Do you think we should have Steven Seagal?

"Should we have terrorists take over the USS Missouri

"and take their Tomahawk missiles?"

"No, I've got a better idea than that.

"A goat knocks into a shop in Carrickfergus."

-It's immense!

-And takes people hostage.

And takes people hostage, yes. And then they said,

another one said, "Went on the rampage,"

as you said, "after he was refused entry."

After he was refused entry!

Sounds like he's a bouncer!

Yeah, yeah!

With the bouncer going, "You can't come in, you're wearing hooves."

-It's...

-"Got any ID? Come on, come on!"

-It's brilliant.

-There was a brilliant line, though,

at the end of the report I read.

And it said...

Right, this was the last line of the thing.

"It ended when a man believed to be the goat's owner arrived

"and dragged it off by the horns."

Now, the important bit of that sentence is,

"a man BELIEVED to be the goat's owner..."

Nobody around going, "Hey, boy, is that your goat?"

"Aye, aye! Come on, you, back to my house!"

And it also... The other great bit was that

they warned the woman who was driving in by car

by shouting, "GOAT!"

And she went, "What?"

Not, "There is a goat," or, "Mind out, Jesus, there's a big goat."

"Ugh! GOAT!"

Probably flicking through the signs.

They've always got signs at petrol stations

for spilt oil, watch out, slippery when wet...

"Where's the goat sign?! Where's that...?"

There is the best...

Well, not the best, it's another massive story online, really,

viral story, I suppose,

is the most Australian thing in the world that happened this week

where a man punched a kangaroo in the face.

It's... It divided opinion.

Some people thought it was quite...

It is pretty full-on.

I looked... I saw the headlines, "Man Punches Kangaroo,"

and I thought... I'm like, "Oh! Aw!"

What happened was, this kangaroo...

Your man was out hunting and he had two big scary-looking dogs

and one of them had gone up to the kangaroo,

big red back kangaroo, huge big thing, and the kangaroo,

for some reason...

-LAUGHING:

-..got the dog in a headlock.

It's the funniest... It's going...

-"Come on, you!"

-Did he do the thing with the head?

"Ohhhhh!"

-We have footage, do you want...? We have the footage.

-It is...

-No, seriously, the end of it...

-We'll have a review of this.

See what you think of this, ladies and gentlemen.

The end of it, just be careful.

-It's...

-It stood its ground, the kangaroo stood its ground.

"Come on, is that the best you've got? Come on, come on!"

It genuinely was like that.

He had the thing and I loved that bit when he went, "Come on, you!"

And then he runs over and...

He had no need to hit the kangaroo, really,

because the kangaroo had let go whenever your man came over,

it just let go, so he could have just walked away.

But he didn't cos he was a big Aussie, you know, "I'm a man,"

and he saw a kangaroo and squared up to it and then he thought,

"Oh, I can't back down now."

And the kangaroo is looking at him and going,

"Are you really going to do what I think you're going to do?"

And then the guy smacked him and then... See the speed he walks away?

He's like, "Yeah, that's you. Ohh..."

Cos the kangaroo is looking at him, going...

"Did you just hit me in the face?"

How does he explain that to his friends?

"I had to hit him, he was looking at me."

He is a real kangaroo

and, guess what, that kangaroo, sadly enough...

The man who hit the kangaroo is actually probably going to

get nominated ahead of Carl Frampton

for the BBC Sports Personality Of The Year Award.

APPLAUSE

The thing I like is, obviously, that Aussie guy's mate is filming it,

so rather than being like, "Should we both go and help my dog?"

He's like, "No, mate, you know what, we'll work out what happens,

"but I'll definitely have a video."

Thank you, thank you very much for that.

Yes, indeed, a man punched a kangaroo in the face.

The kangaroo was very shocked and is still feeling a little jumpy.

GROANING AND LAUGHTER

No, I like it, I like it!

APPLAUSE

So, what's our next question tonight?

Who do you blame for Northern Ireland being so hot?

Yes, one of Northern Ireland's hottest days this year

was in December, because this is Northern Ireland,

even our weather is thrawn.

On Wednesday, Derry was actually as warm as Paris,

and there Derry's comparison with Paris ends.

Oh, please! We need Disneyland Derry!

That would be amazing!

But who can we blame for Northern Ireland being so hot?

I blame... I blame chicken farmers. Chicken farmers who have

their new renewable heating boilers turned to max

and they've left their windows open.

You may as well get used to this, you're going to hear a lot more

about this RHI - Renewable Heat Initiative - and it's going to make

Red Sky, Nama and Charter NI look like chicken feed.

-Do you like that?

-Yeah, I liked it, I saw what you did.

Only our politicians could take a good idea -

and the idea was very simple, where we change from fossil-fuel boilers

into more environmental boilers - and mess it up.

Now, that's not hard, you know what I mean?

It wouldn't be hard. How could you mess that up?

Well, how you could mess that up is,

they were giving a subsidy to people for changing the boilers.

The way you mess it up is by not putting a cap on the subsidy,

so if the farmer is spending £100 on his heating,

then the Northern Ireland Executive is giving him £110.

We are the first government in history to invent a form,

a way of burning money!

You can't blame the chicken farmers, do you know what I mean?

I would have my boiler turned up to Burn Baby Burn too.

On a positive note...

You know chicken farmers in most places say it's disgraceful

because the poor wee chickens have no feathers.

In Northern Ireland, the chickens are so hot,

they are plucking their own feathers off!

First country in the world you are going to get

precooked chickens in the supermarket from the farm.

This is the biggest scandal, in terms of money,

-since devolution, isn't it?

-So far!

It's 400 million. 400 million!

If you don't understand what that is,

£400 million is about 500 million euro,

or 233 Dee Stitts.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

So, one... Try and get quicker.

Try and get quicker.

One e-mail could have saved the Northern Irish taxpayer millions

-and millions and millions and...

-Hundreds of millions.

Hundreds of millions, sorry. And Arlene Foster, apparently,

didn't respond to it even though she was the Minister involved,

and you think, well, she should have responded to that,

but usually when you get an e-mail

that says you could get millions and millions and millions, you think,

"This Nigerian fellow doesn't need to know my bank account details."

Did you hear what Mike Nesbitt said?

Mike Nesbitt said, and I wrote it down,

"We will be paying for this for 20 years.

"There are children not yet born who will become mothers and fathers

"before this debt is paid off,

"and in West Belfast, worse - grandmothers and grandfathers."

I couldn't believe it when I arrived today,

because I flew over this morning and came in and I was all wrapped up

cos I assumed it would be freezing because, no matter when I gig here,

it's always freezing cold, so I arrived

and it was lovely and I got into my...

got a taxi from the airport to take me into town and, you know,

me and the taxi driver are having a nice little chat,

you know, "It's very warm."

He was a really nice guy, this taxi driver,

and he was telling me about how he had moved around Belfast,

all this stuff, and he's new to being a taxi driver

and how he was enjoying it,

people were in a better mood because the weather was so nice

and he said to me, "Oh, it's great being a taxi driver,

"you get all different people in the back of your cab,

"people from all sorts of places, you get to learn about them,

"it's really made me more open-minded.

"I'll give you an example.

"The other day I had a guy in the back of the cab

"from West Belfast and do you know what?

"He was all right."

LAUGHTER

This is in East Belfast?!

Yes!

"It took me a while to understand him, but eventually..."

The other thing this week was that on Facebook and Twitter

they are talking about banning terrorist videos

and this, that and the other,

but we have our local terrorists did their bit and did a wee video.

Did you see their bit?

Aye, and they said it was horrific, up in Ardoyne,

the dissidents were out with a rocket launcher and the video and...

And it was...horrific.

It was horrific in the sense that the lighting was pathetic.

Do you know what I mean?

The editing left an awful lot to be desired.

Props... I mean, they made...

And the acting, it was wooden, it was wooden.

In the old days, the IRA stood up when they walked down,

these guys were crawling around the ground,

but what let them down most of all...

If you are on the internet now, you need a unique selling point,

do you know what I mean?

You need something to set you apart if you're a paramilitary online.

You know what I mean? Because there's so many of them.

But the costume, I thought...

Like, balaclavas.

Very 1972, isn't it?

1972!

They need something that's going to really...

So, I've got a suggestion for them. I've got...

-LAUGHTER

-No, no, this is serious,

this could break it for them,

this could make all the difference if they actually...

I suggest that...

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Now, I'm only throwing this out here to the dissidents,

I'm only saying to the Ardoyne dissidents...

And paramilitaries could all have their own, do you know what I mean?

They could all have, like... The UDA could do puppies.

The UFF could do... It's actually hard to see outside this...

I really hope someone turns on The Blame Game just at this bit.

Do you know what not to do?

Is that. Don't do that, don't do that.

Once there was a UFF man did that.

I can't take you seriously!

He did that, a UFF man. He was reading a report,

he was reading a report and he put his glasses on, right,

the same glasses as he was wearing the day before

and the police went, "We'll have you."

It's not a great look, really, sort of...

"Right!"

There was a famous picture from the '70s,

and I'm not making this up, where a guy with a home-made balaclava,

right, holding a rifle, OK?

Fair enough, but they got the eyes wrong,

so there is an eye up here

and there is an eye down there.

And whoever is standing beside him,

I'd be very worried if he shot because you are dead meat.

Look at him, giving formal advice to terrorists.

But what is our next question tonight?

Who do you blame for tiger parenting?

Yes, children from the South of England

are more likely to get to the top universities.

In Northern Ireland, we have two universities -

Ulster University... and the proper one.

GASPS AND LAUGHTER

SOME BOOING

Parents here are always worrying about their children's education.

Not me, I'm not bothered,

because your children can succeed in life without much education at all,

for example, they could become chief executive of Charter NI,

or Deputy First Minister.

But who can we blame for tiger parenting?

Yeah, I was quite interested in this story

because I'm from the South of England,

but not the South that everyone always thinks of

as being a bit rah,

I'm from, like, the working-class...

Sorry, qualify the "rah".

-LAUGHTER

-OK, so, like...

APPLAUSE

It means something else here.

-What does it mean here?

-Oh, wow!

Put your balaclava back on.

LAUGHTER

-That's the...

-Yeah, yeah, OK, all right, OK, well, rah in...

-OK, I've got it.

-Rah, rah, rah, smash the oiks?

-Yeah, it...

-Gerry Adams was never in it, by the way.

Yeah, I know that, I've done that much research!

OK, so, rah, where I'm from, would be more like,

"Oh, Hugo, oh, Felicity, let's get the horses, come on, let's go!"

That's all part of the South of England,

but the part that I'm from is a bit more like,

"Oi-oi, all right, mate? Let's have a fight."

And so... It... It's weird because the North and the South divide

often sort of suggests that all of the South is really posh,

but it's really, really not.

I'm massively working-class,

like, you can't trust any of my family at a free bar.

That is the level of... Like my dad can't write in capital letters,

like that is the family that I'm from, everyone is just a bit...

And...

No, no, but, like, the idea of, like, pushing your kids,

that is what this story is about, so like mothers in...

This idea of tiger patenting is sort of this Chinese thing,

apparently comes from China, that Chinese mothers are really pushy

and that's happening now in the South of England,

pushy mothers trying to get the kids to go to these amazing universities,

but when I was 15, I said to my mum,

"I might go to university one day, one day I'd like to go to uni,"

and my mum's response to me was,

"Oh, Suze, come on, your brother is the clever one,

"you can tap-dance!"

LAUGHTER

Like that was going to be my career choice.

And, like, the idea of being pushy at school...

Because there was another story that came out about, like,

children with confident fathers go very far in the world.

Now I've definitely got that, I've got a massively confident dad,

and my dad wasn't pushy with my schooling either,

he just wanted me to go and not make too much of a fuss,

but I sort of did make a fuss in a lot of ways because I was not...

I wasn't very well behaved at school and...

For many reasons and one of them is that I'm hugely dyslexic,

like really, really badly dyslexic.

When I drive into Wales,

their signs make more sense to me than the English ones.

"Oh, Fla-fla-fla-fla-fla-fla? Brilliant, I'll go there."

Tell you who was a superstar this week, was the Monkman.

Anybody watch University Challenge?

Oh, University Challenge! I love University Challenge!

And the Monkman was back.

There's a guy called Monkman, right?

And he was a bit of a sensation in September time

when he was in the first heat

and he's the most intense person you've ever seen in your life.

Google him, look him up. People at home now, look him up.

And his face is just... It's just the most aggressive...

HE IMITATES BUZZER AND GRUNTS INTENSELY

And he'd answer like that and he was from Cambridge, I think it was,

but they were Jesus, Cambridge, there was Jesus College, Cambridge.

-So every time they pressed...

-HE IMITATES BUZZER

..the guy, the announcer guy, would go, "Jesus, Cambridge!"

They were doing it all night,

-every time there was...

-HE IMITATES BUZZER

.."Jesus, Cambridge!"

I was going, if Queens were in this, it would be, "Christ, Queens!"

I watch boxing and he's watching University Challenge.

Do you not watch University Challenge

and then you get one question right and go, "Yes, back of the net!",

then retire for the rest of the week?

Jake, you don't have to have been to university to watch University Challenge.

I was actually thrown out of two universities, I'll have you know!

-I know.

-That was his University Challenge - staying in!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Thank you, thank you very much for that.

Our next question tonight.

Who do you blame for not being properly fed?

Yes, a study this week said

that people from a strong Catholic background

are less likely to breast-feed.

There's an old sectarian stereotype

that says Protestants work harder than Catholics.

Now we know, Catholics aren't lazy,

we are just suffering from a calcium deficiency.

But who can we blame for not being properly fed?

Yeah, Protestants breast-feed more than Catholics

and researchers have found this out.

Protestant mummies tend to pass on antibodies

and Catholic mummies tend to pass on guilt.

Guilt and shame!

And a lot of... A lot of unknowns in this.

We don't know if the further you get from Catholicism,

the more you breast-feed,

if it's like Catholics, maybe 50% or 60% of them breast-feed

and then Church of Ireland, like 70%,

then Free Presbyterians breast-feed the child until he gets married,

we don't know if it's all that way.

But some of them are unsurprising, like Baptists,

they've got "baps" and "tits" in their name, like...

Like, come on, surely that's a bit of a giveaway, isn't it?

I think it's because Catholic women are bolshier because the midwives...

The midwives do give you... You've had a baby, the first thing is,

"You're going to breast-feed, you're going to breast-feed,"

and I think the prods fold, I think the prod women just fold,

whereas when you say to a Catholic woman, "You're going to breast-feed,"

the Catholic says, "Oh, is that right?

"Well, I was going to breast-feed

"but now the wee bastard is getting a bottle.

"That's what I'm telling you."

That's really... Don't ever feed a child like that.

-It's not vinegar!

-That's what you do!

Slap the back of the bottle a lot.

You do see a lot of...

Again, that South of England thing, that London thing,

"Marvellous, Rupert here is getting breast-fed,

"it's very important to bond with the child,"

-and Rupert is there, going...

-DEEP VOICE:

-"That's right, it is."

They are really old. You know, when you are doing that

to line your stomach before you go drinking, that's really too late.

You should stop.

"All right, Mother, I'm off to get pissed."

I think it's wonderful that you were looking for a name out there

and you're wearing that shirt and you went for Rupert.

APPLAUSE

-And custard creams...

-Yeah, custard creams have gone down.

What's this about custard creams?

Custard creams are apparently

not as popular as they used to be, sales have fallen.

First Fidel Castro and now this?!

Yes.

But, yeah, custard creams off the top of the list

and, apparently, children's biscuits... Is there such a thing?

Children's biscuit like Jammie Dodgers...

I think you'll find they are not children's biscuits,

they are the good biscuits, that's what they are.

There should be a section called "good biscuits" and "biscuits".

There's visitors' biscuits. Did anybody else have this?

-AUDIENCE MURMURS

-Yes, everybody had this.

Visitors' biscuits. Did you have this when you were growing up?

-Yeah.

-Visitors' biscuits.

We are not allowed to touch those biscuits. Why?

"They are for visitors."

"So, are you expecting any?"

"No." "But why...?"

"Just in case somebody comes." "Nobody comes to our house!"

"Just in case, they are visitors' biscuits."

"What do I get to eat?"

"These ones, ironically called Nice."

LAUGHTER

-Talking of...

-They suck moisture from the inside out.

You put them in suitcases to stop damp.

The biscuits your ma used to give the priest if he came over?

-Yeah.

-You see? I had to translate it into his language.

The priest came round to our house one day, years ago,

he was the parish priest,

and me and my da spent a good 20 minutes looking for the milk.

We couldn't find it because it was in a jug.

I swear... I swear to God, I swear to God.

And my da had to try and bait the priest into going first,

so the priest went, "Milk, John?"

And my father went, "Yes.

"Would you like some milk, Father?" And he went, "Yes."

And my father went, "Be my guest."

And the priest leaned over for the jug

and my dad went, "Oh, the jug, Neil! The jug!

"Look at him! The jug! What does he think he is?

"A Protestant?"

We had...

Well, my mum and dad are very similar

with having the sort of Christmas biscuits,

-like we get the chocolaty ones.

-Oh, a tin?

-Yeah.

-Have you got Family Circle or...?

-Sorry?

Do you go for a Family Circle, the biscuits, you know?

Do you not get a Family Circle?

There's only four of us, so it's more of a square, to be honest.

You don't know you're living!

Bring one of those back with you, the family will... They'll...

-They'll love you for ever!

-Where my mum and dad...

My mum and dad live on a little, tiny farm

and there is a field next to it that my dad

has basically been trying to get planning permission on for...

since I was born, and my dad is like,

"When I get planning permission on that...

"it will be our day, all the ships will come in that day."

That is what Dad is all about, getting planning permission, OK?

Now, a year ago, around this time of year,

Dad knew that he had a bloke coming to the house from the council

that Dad had to chat to

about this little bit of land for planning permission.

Brilliant, OK.

Someone knocks on the door, my dad goes, "Oh, we're waiting for you."

Dad says to my mum, "Get the nice biscuits out,

"we've got to make this man our friend because he could, like...

"He could help us, right?"

So, Mum gets out the nice biscuits,

my dad is talking to this guy for ages.

"Yeah, we've got family, yeah." All this chitchat, biscuits.

The guy has been for ten minutes and then the guy goes,

"We should talk about what we're here for,"

and my dad goes, "Yeah, here are the plans."

The guy pops open his briefcase and says,

-"When was the last time you thought about God?"

-No!

That actually happened!

My dad was so embarrassed, he left the room

and left my mum to deal with it!

But took the biscuits with him!

Suzi, here, ring that number, I'll get you planning permission.

LAUGHTER

I love the way in England you apply for planning permission first.

In Ireland, you build a house

because it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

That's where John Lewis have been going wrong all these years.

Yeah, just build the bloody thing.

"Just build it, boys!

"They'll never let you take it down now it's built!"

Just... Just ring the number.

It's pronounced Peter Robinson.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Thank you, thank you very much for that.

Just time for this week's news.

I will read you various newspaper headlines and I want you

to be faster than Arlene Foster saying to her Chinese host,

"Any chance I could stay here until the heat dies down?"

Story of my life!

To be 4,000 miles away from The Proclaimers.

I'm not sure, but I'm definitely worried about it.

Miss Piggy makes Kermit get tested.

That's it, that's the end of the show.

Please show your appreciation to our panel -

Colin Murphy, Suzi Ruffell, Jake O'Kane and Neil Delamere!

CHEERING

I'm Tim McGarry. Until next time,

don't blame yourselves, blame each other. Goodbye.