Episode 4 Radio Face

Stand by as the listeners to the biggest radio show in the country

are given their own TV show.

Norman!

Anne-Marie.

Marie!

Bernie.

Carmel.

Mervyn...

and Heidi.

Radio Face is not recorded live

but after the programme has finished,

these are real listeners to The Nolan Show,

continuing the conversation while I stay in the studio

and they speak to me from their own homes and cars.

RADIO PLAYS COUNTRY STYLE SONG

# Did you ever get a ride, did you ever get a ride?

# Did you ever get a ride on a tractor?

-Could you put those on double speed?

-No.

-This is really dangerous.

# Did you ever get a ride on a tractor?

# No, I never had a ride on a tractor

# Did you ever get a ride on a tractor? #

# No, I never got a ride, never got a ride

# Never got a ride on a tractor!#

Dopey, dopey tractors! They drive you absolutely insane!

Don't they? Why are we talking about this today?

Well, a consultation has begun

about raising the speed limit for tractors

from 20 to 25mph.

A big jump of 5mph there.

Will it make any difference?

Patrick McNicol is a sheep farmer. Morning, Patrick.

-Is it me you're talking to now?

-Yes, Patrick.

Hello. We're just going about our business. We're just like yourself.

We're very considerate people

because, you see, we're only like you boys doing our business,

90% of the time. You know, because you're driving through our farmland.

-We have to go about our work too, you know.

-Get off the road!

-What do we do? Buy helicopters?

-You what?

I couldn't make out a bloody thing that man was saying.

But here, Stephen, on a personal note,

have you ever had a ride on a tractor?

They're not supposed to be on the road. Don't they have red diesel?

Get over yourself!

They're taxed and insured. They're entitled to be on the road.

They're doing a very valuable job.

There should be a rule that when one of you lot are on the road

on your tractor, if there's a car behind you,

you should be required to pull in.

I agree with you 100%. Correct!

Well, why don't yous do it?

Well, if they build the roads in such a way as we can pull in.

Where were we to go?

Trundling along on our roads. Seriously! Back me up here.

We are living in a rural economy.

And if a tractor has to drive slowly from field to field

and I'm on a country lane,

then I'm quite happy to sit in behind him.

-But, I tell you something, they'll be fecked!

-Fecked all right.

Especially the ones that raise cattle for slaughtering,

-for meat. Or the sheep.

-I think that's terrible.

I would say they have a quare bank.

I've a lot of sheep. They're not good at the present time.

We're taking a pure hammer.

-How many sheep do you have?

-I wouldn't know - I've sold one.

You never know how many sheep you have.

You know how many you have if somebody stole some,

but you wouldn't be running about counting them all the time.

Thank you, Patrick!

What did I tell you?

If it wasn't for a tractor, digging up your spuds,

-what would you have for your dinner?

-Rice.

-You need it.

I think the farmers drive their tractors really slow

just to get up the townies' noses.

You think the farmers do it for badness? Why do you say that?

Sometimes, I think,

just to slow the traffic up sometimes,

-I would say.

-Everybody's always in a rush!

It is very annoying sometimes.

You're out on the road and you get a tractor,

especially if you're in a hurry going to Newcastle, or somewhere.

Say, blooming tractor's stuck on the front of me here.

I say, wait a minute,

who puts the stuff on the plate in front of you?

Your fried egg and your bacon and your sausages?

They're going to the farmers? If we hadn't them, what would we do?

The thing is, I don't know how you would solve it.

The only solution to it's patience.

Do you remember the time, Anne-Marie, seeing Stephen Nolan

-on that farm, talking about that tractor business?

-Yes.

Cleaning up all the cows' geek.

You look like something out of Little Britain

but you didn't have your PVC stuff on.

While the cows are in the parlour, I'm cleaning out their barn and...

Ooh! ..does it need it?

I just... Eurgh!

HE GAGS AND GASPS

COWS MOO

I can't!

HE RETCHES

MOOING CONTINUES

HE GROANS LOUDLY WHILE VOMITING

MORE LOUD GROANS

Could you not be more of a man and boaked off camera?

Only wimps haven't got a stomach.

So he'll know the next time he goes to the farm

not to have anything to eat.

-But then how long? Stephen wouldn't have an empty stomach.

-No.

-It would have to be filled.

-Yeah.

He couldn't go without his breakfast, lunch, and supper.

I know. A good fry-up, there, you must have boaked up.

There was lumps in it.

I've seen lumpy bits. Hold on. You've been on the farm.

How do you know what to do with farms and what to do with cows?

Fresh milk. Put your hand up there.

Ooh! I think I've hurt it!

You wouldn't know what a cow looked like.

Only if you looked in the mirror!

One end to the other!

It's 9.00am. It's The Nolan Show on BBC Radio Ulster.

And, of course, the role of the programme

is to give you at home the chance to have your say. Pick up the phone.

-Let's see's who's on line one.

-Craigavon, the best place to live?

Catch yourself on, it's a complete and utter dump.

Tell me what you mean by that.

Unfortunately, my daughter's like her mother.

She's been gifted with big bones.

-Hello. How are you?

-Well, listening to these two, how would you be?

Well, I'm going to give you just as much.

It just seems to be that we're giving cyclists

so many little priorities now, aren't we?

You're so rude it's unbelievable. And stop burping!

RADIO TUNING THROUGH STATIONS

Now, breast-feeding's all over the news

because of comments from the Ukip leader Nigel Farage.

He said women should not breast-feed in public

in what he calls "an openly, ostentatious way."

LAUGHTER

He says he doesn't have any problem at all

with women feeding their baby wherever they want

but they shouldn't do so ostentatiously.

It all depends who owns the breast.

If she's an extremely fit, good-looking woman,...

-You're disgusting.

-..well made, that is OK.

-You're a disgusting specimen.

If her what-d'you-call-its are hanging on her kneecaps, no.

It would put you off your sausages, so it would.

Seeing a woman breast-feed a child.

I don't want to see a woman breast-feeding a child.

I've seen my wife doing it. Why am I going to see another woman?

Would you breast-feed in public?

-No, because I think...

-She wouldn't be able to hold the baby!

Do you know my point of view to the people complaining?

If a woman's breast-feeding and you don't like it, look the other way.

Mind your own business.

Well, that's right,

but all you also have to do is just pull a cardigan over.

They can cover up, they can put a shawl around them.

They don't even need to cover up. That's what breasts were for.

In a recent incident at Claridge's Hotel in London,

a mother was asked to cover up with a napkin,

while feeding her baby daughter.

There were protests outside Claridge's.

Virginia Blackburn, no less, the columnist of the Daily Express.

-Good morning, Virginia.

-Hi there.

You don't want people sitting beside you in a restaurant breast-feeding.

In fact, you don't even want babies gurgling?

I have no problem with babies gurgling.

The point I was making was that babies make an absolute racket

when they are breast-feeding.

Never heard that. I breast-fed and it didn't make a racket.

I think this is a question of appropriate behaviour.

How people should behave when they are out in public.

Some women mightn't worry about throwing them out,

many of them do but, we're living in a day and age

where people just please themselves and that's the way it goes.

I suppose they don't care who they offend, or anything.

Say a woman in a restaurant starts breast-feeding a child beside you.

Would you not feel uncomfortable? Because I would.

What they could do, if they didn't want to do it in public,

they could express the milk and put it into a bottle.

-And then feed them.

-They could do what?

You can express it and put it in a bottle.

A pump on the boob and the pump sucks the milk out.

Put it into a bottle and the child's still getting the breast milk.

-I didn't know you could do that.

-That's because you're a man.

Sure, you've big enough breasts to try it yourself.

Get a wee bit of a shave around the nipples and then just latch on!

I'm just laughing grimly here to myself.

If you are breast-feeding your baby,

you don't want to be starting him on bottles, as well.

I'm just looking at the picture of Louise Burns,

the woman who was asked to cover up. in Claridge's.

There's a bit of a before and after picture.

You can see nothing.

No. You usually can't because the baby's attached to it.

But that's not really the point.

People are being exposed to an activity

which many, many people think should have been done in private.

My mother's generation

would not have dreamt of breast-feeding in public.

It's just modesty, really.

I think they should have a wee bit of modesty, the people.

Look at how many doorways is open there. I would say...

-If you can pass and see someone with their boob out in a doorway.

-No, no!

I personally couldn't do it and it was very, very emotive for me,

but I would love for it to be allowed

and nobody would even raise an eyebrow

because it's the natural way of things.

If you go to Claridge's, for goodness' sakes,

you don't want the sight and the sound of a ratty little baby

being fed in front of you.

That's not what you're there for.

A little baby needs fed. A little baby might be hungry.

I'm not saying that a baby shouldn't be fed

but all they asked her was to cover herself with a napkin.

At the end of the day, people will do it.

No, they won't, because they feel self-conscious and they don't do it

because it's that old-fashioned, stuffy attitude.

"Look what they're doing! She shouldn't be doing that."

It still exists in our society and it shouldn't.

I don't have a problem with it.

She can go to the toilet and, if she wants to breast-feed,

she can breast-feed it in the woman's toilet.

Not in front of people who are eating their dinner.

-I doubt you would eat your dinner in the toilets.

-No, Stephen.

A woman can take a bottle with her and feed the child.

Yes, but if she wants to feed the child

and she wants to have her dinner with the child, then logic follows

she'd have to go into the toilet and eat her dinner with her child.

Why? In a filthy, dirty toilet?

Being a parent, I wouldn't bring a child into a toilet

to breast-feed.

-You shouldn't have to.

-Well, it's respect.

A woman has to have respect.

Would you pick a Royal Avenue where every woman who has a child

decides to breast-feed in a Royal Avenue full of women

breast-feeding children.

Or men standing in alleyways having a pee in an alleyway.

That's the road we'd be going down, so it would.

Once you bring breast-feeding in.

You're equating it to urination?

Someone naturally feeding their child?

Women say breasts and feeding is nature.

Well, so is a man needing the toilet nature.

There is no difference.

Men are going to compare us women breast-feeding and that's natural.

We can compare them that's going to the toilet

in the street, cos that's not natural!

If a man needs to go to the toilet,

he'll look for the nearest entry.

If you need the toilet, you need the toilet.

It's either that or you're going to wet your pants.

-Fionnuala?

-I don't even know where to start.

It's really sad, actually. The two things are very different.

They're both natural bodily functions. They are both necessary.

If you see a man standing with his back to you,

obviously urinating, it's still a highly offensive activity.

You know what I find highly offensive?

Equating urinating with breast-feeding

I find highly offensive.

I'm sure you do but it's an attitude that an awful lot of people share.

How would you feel if you were sitting in your car

eating a KFC and somebody came along and pissed up beside the car?

That's completely different, isn't it?

You'd get up and beat the fuck out of him.

Put it this way, it's the same as a woman's chest hanging out

when she is breast-feeding.

Would you fuck up and give me a chance?

There was a thing on Facebook of a woman had this wee device

and she could stand up and piddle!

WIND HOWLS AND BELL TOLLS

I've told you, inside voice should stay inside.

-Well...

-STEPHEN LAUGHS

My wife was going to the Kennedy Centre on Patrick's Day

with my seven-year-old son,

and there was three individuals

pissing in the residential street where we live.

And, you know, there is a responsibility

in all of us to show respect.

Stephen, I've been down to Belfast with the wife

and I asked the council

"Where's the toilets in Belfast for people to go to?"

I have to go away to Castle Court shopping centre to get a toilet.

Thankfully, I have no trouble with the plumbing system

but there's other people, maybe, not as fortunate as I am

and will just take a chance

and when they have to get in a doorway, or somewhere,

on course just trying to hold on.

Maybe if they stop funding the like of the Irish Language Centres

and the Ulster Scots,

maybe they could use that money to put pop-up toilets in the city.

I wonder what a tourist would say coming to Belfast

and he needs to go to the toilet and can't find a toilet.

Radio Face, where the stars of the Nolan radio programme

get their own TV show.

RADIO TUNES THROUGH CHANNELS

A devastated mother has contacted The Nolan Show

after her profoundly disabled daughter was told

she was not welcome to stay in the seat she was in

at a pantomime at the Grand Opera House.

Other members of the audience

had complained about the noise her daughter was making.

Amy has toys 24 hours a day.

It's how she engages in life and enjoys life.

If she doesn't have a toy, she can't engage in anything.

She gets all her sensory stimulation from them.

Within 20 minutes,

I was aware that staff were watching from the sides.

And then I was approached by a lady who I assumed was management

who said that the toys would have to be removed from Amy.

You paid for it, surely you want to go and get it in peace.

And the wee girl wanted to go too so... Why take her along to the show

if she didn't want to listen?

She couldn't listen to the phone or radio or whatever

she has playing and follow the show at the same time.

See the ones that complained? They should've been removed.

Because if it's a pantomime, pantomimes are for children.

-Aye.

-They are not for adults.

That child had no more interest in what was going on in the

Opera House than the man on the moon.

That lady sitting behind and all the people

sitting behind they couldn't hear what was going on up there at all.

I would have asked her to move.

-Well...

-I would have asked her to move.

But hold on a wee second, people paid their money.

They paid their money too.

It's not the child's fault. The child had a disability.

No, no, no it wasn't. It was the stupid mother that done that.

-It was the stupid mother.

-Are you joking?

You can't say that. Absolutely, categorically cannot say that.

I was so upset when she said that she was a distraction

and it was so...

It was heartbreaking to hear words like that being

said in this day and age about a child with a disability.

So I had no choice but to leave, there was no other option.

Let us speak to the Grand Opera House.

Aine Dolan is Opera House community and education manager.

It doesn't sound good for you.

All of the complaints were about

"what is the music that is playing, can you switch it off?"

We also had a situation where the company manager

for the production, for the pantomime

came around to the duty manager

and said, "What is the music that is being played in the auditorium,

"it's really distracting for the performers. Can you see

"if you can get it turned off or turned down?"

Hello, Peter.

I just think it is an absolute disgrace with the way

the Opera House done it.

What happens when you're on a plane and a baby starts crying?

Going to stick a parachute on and throw it out the door?

I would fully support adult-only airplane flights.

SHE LAUGHS

-I'm serious.

-Used to be a child once, you know.

Are you seriously saying that a disabled child can't

-go to the pantomime?

-No, I'm not.

I was one person who took disabled children,

so I wouldn't say that at all.

But if that child had no interest whatsoever in that pantomime,

if that lady had any sense in her she would have got a baby-sitter

and kept the child at home.

They paid their money like everybody else to come and see the show.

They didn't want to hear a child screaming or whatever was wrong.

But they paid their money too.

At the end of the day, it's a pantomime. What is pantomime?

It's for children.

It is for children. Adults go to bring their children there.

-Aye.

-They are not for adults.

You can see both sides there, there were people being distracted

and the wee girl still wanted the thing turned on but was there not

another part of the building they could have moved her to?

It is the same as the time the Catholic Church went to what

do you call it? The mass. And they had a crying room.

They didn't believe in a child crying.

A child cries, tough, a child cries.

If that was a disabled child they can't control the emotions.

I know what it feels like because I remember

when I had my first child

and I was at Christmas mass and the priest stopped

the mass in the middle and turned around

and said "See, whoever has that child crying,

"could they take him out?" And that was a priest.

We are living in a society where we are all meant to be integrating

-and we're not ready for it.

-I'm not saying you're wrong.

You have to think of the people who wanted to come to the show

without being disturbed.

Right. So what did these children do, and their families?

They're not allowed to go?

They are allowed to go but they have to be put somewhere else.

What do you mean somewhere else? What are they, cattle?

We'll have a listen to Bill in Bangor because he is another

person who is supporting the Grand Opera House, Bill, aren't you?

Yes, I am indeed. I think it is a bit ridiculous.

The Opera House is bending over backwards.

What does that woman want them to do?

Does she want them to put down what people like?

I wouldn't like to have been the manager in the place.

No matter what he done, he done wrong.

Shame on them people.

If them people can't stand the noise of a toy for a disabled child

then there's something wrong with them, so there is.

If that was me and my child was like that, I wouldn't go in there

-tormenting all those people.

-Tormenting?

I think it is an absolute disgrace.

You're embarrassing, mate. You're embarrassing.

Are you trying to say that you should be ashamed of your child

because it has a disability? What you want to do, lock them in a room?

Are you serious?

You're probably a Bible thumper who goes to church every week.

What do you say to the people who say, "Tough, get that kid

"out of here, get the child out?"

Hold on, Stephen. Do you want me to tell you what I would say to them?

They need to get the fuck out.

I'm getting fucking fined by the council now.

See, you made me curse again.

Now, young people out of work,

education or training for six months will

not have to do unpaid community work to get benefits,

according to David Cameron.

The Prime Minister said about 50,000 18 to 21-year-olds would be

required to do daily work experience,

so alongside job searching, they would be required

to carry out 30 hours a week of mandatory community work.

So, should unemployed young people be made to do volunteer

work in order to claim benefits?

They are lying in their bed all day

and then they are out running the streets all night.

They should be made to work and to go out to work.

Maybe if they did it would put a bit of manners

and a bit of brains into them. Let them see what real life is like.

If they are going to work for their benefits,

why don't they give them a job and get them off benefits?

There are jobs out there but lots of people don't want to do

the jobs that other people are prepared to do.

If they can create work for people that is on the brew

and not pay them, but pay them the buttons that they pay them

on the brew, how can they not give them a job?

That is telling them what to do with their lives.

"I am in charge now of your life because you are on benefits."

Whenever I was growing up I had to go out to work

-and you had to go out to work.

-But you were paid, you were paid.

Got paid as you learned. These ones, Cameron says it.

-These ones are to work free.

-That is taking your rights away.

"You will do what we tell you to do.

"If you want this £50-£60 a week, we are telling you what you're

"doing on Monday, Tuesday," or whatever it is. No!

# Trouble my way

# Lord, lord

# Trouble my way. #

At the end of the day, going out to work

and getting your benefits, it is slave labour.

Why should people go out and work

-and not get paid...

-Are you actually saying it's slave labour?

-Yeah.

-While everybody goes out and works?

-Hold on, you interrupted me there.

I was about to turn around and tell you that

if they can put people out to work for their benefits why can

they not put people out to work to get a wage,

like every other painter or gardener or anything else like that?

I think in a way, young people, yes, it is

all right because it gets them up out of bed, it gets them

a couple of hours' work and they still get their benefits.

And what could you be doing to earn your benefits,

sitting on your arse, watching Jeremy Kyle, no doubt.

Oh, no, I lie in bed

and watch Jeremy Kyle, I don't sit on my arse.

Now just get that bit right.

THEY LAUGH

-Go ahead.

-Let us be serious about what we're talking about here.

It is not working for free, there are benefits being paid out as well.

-Are they getting minimum wage?

-No, but they're getting benefits.

Why not?

Because what they are trying to do is exploit young people...

THEY TALK OVER EACH OTHER

Bit of manners, bit of manners.

Let's not forget, we've come through

the worst economic circumstances for decades.

That's a total disgrace, they need to get out and go to work.

But they can't get a job.

People won't take them because they haven't got the experience.

Nobody is giving him a chance.

Some of them out there really do want a job,

they would do want to work.

Stephen, I will tell you a story.

I used to be a warehouse manager

and they used to send young lads to me

from the dole office to let them see what work was like in a warehouse.

And you had to stand over them with a whip,

so you would, to get them to work.

Are we really saying we want to write off

an 18-to-21-year-old after six months out of work

and say, "See you at the Job Centre once a week?"

Are you really saying you want to exploit them for cheap labour?

I do not think it is exploitation in the slightest.

You don't pay them and you don't teach these 18-to-21-year-olds.

If you do a fair day's work, you get a fair days' pay.

The rich Tories sends the young, vulnerable kids out to pick up

litter and if they don't do it, you take their means to feed

themselves away from them.

PEOPLE YELL

WHISTLE BLOWS

It is time the authorities got them out and got them

working for their benefits.

If they don't work for their benefits, then stop the benefits.

Hard as it might be, but that's the way America works.

If you don't work, then your jaws don't work.

If you work for your benefits then that means...

-You should work for a decent wage.

-What are they going to do?

You should work for a wage, not benefits.

What is it you're going to do, though?

What is the work you are going to do?

I think the detail has to be further defined

and I would put my hands up and say that that hasn't been done yet.

So it is just a sound bite?

It hasn't been thought through it all then?

-Sorry, Stephen?

-You don't even know what type of work it is.

Well, when I look around my city of Leeds there is

a lot of litter picking work to be done, general upkeep of the city.

We are all saying that it is taking somebody else's job,

but it is not being done now.

There is plenty of work to be done on our streets,

cleaning parks and cleaning walls.

They could be helping pensioners cut their grass,

paint their railings for them and their hedges.

It gets them used to getting up,

getting out to work instead of sitting on their holes all day.

Why just young people?

Well, could you picture me cutting a fucking garden?

I wouldn't know one end of the lawnmower from the other.

You would have to order an ambulance

-and an oxygen mask to revive me from it.

-What would you have to learn?

I've done my time, so I have, working.

You are going to get people that will come in their dozens

and employ them, free employment.

And then other people who are maybe more suitable for the job,

not going to take them because they're going to have to pay them.

If you are not doing that, what are you going to be doing instead?

You can't sit and rewrite your CV 20 times.

Keep going to the dole office.

People down here in the Shankill wouldn't know what a CV is.

Sitting there thinking about it, how many times can you paint

the fence, how may times can you cut the garden?

You can only cut a garden so much.

Three or four times a year.

-And you can only paint the fence so many times.

-Once a year.

-If that.

The whole point about community service is teaching people

a structure. Getting up in the morning and

getting out and having to work

and you don't get money handed to you.

What about you out cutting it and losing a couple of pounds?

Let us not get away from what the alternative is.

The alternative is that people just sit at home.

Once they've done their bit at the Job Centre, they go and sit at home.

That's fair enough.

Is it not better a youngster being out there rather than sitting

-and watching Jeremy Kyle?

-It is not that they are lazy.

It is the culture that they have gotten into.

They lie in bed in the morning, they didn't get up until 10 or 10:30.

And when you get into that culture, it's hard to get back

out of it again.

If the government took less wages themselves,

there would be loads of money.

Instead of getting money for suits that they have to sit on TV

and they have to earn 250 a day if they sit in Parliament and all.

If the government took a cut...

Cough!

My tooth near fell out.

THEY LAUGH

If the government took a cut, there would be more money in this.

Next time on Radio Face...

Oh, Jesus, I think I'm gay.

What? What?

Sodomy is sin!

You're not born gay.

Barrymore wasn't born gay.

The Welsh rugby player wasn't born gay.

We are not a normal, everyday society.

-You think not?

-We're not.

You still want a solution here.

A flag will not hurt you either, unless it is on the end

of a pole and someone hits you over the head with it.