Episode 5 Late Licence

# Some people live a healthy lifestyle

# I don't

# Some people listen to advice

# I won't

# Some people ask me why doesn't that big arse make you cry?

# Well, yes, but I can still have cake and wine

# Goodbye, Slimming world

# I'm done with watching weight

# Fuck you, Dr Atkins

# Yes, that's bread rolls on my plate

# Who wants to be size 10 or a walk in a straight line?

# Not me I'd rather have my cake and wine

# Goodbye, extra sizing

# Like a dickhead in the park

# Come in, Mr White Wine

# Reality, piss off

# Who wants buns of steel or to be sober after nine?

# Not me I'd rather have my cake and wine

# This is not a cry for help

# I'm actually fine

# With love handles and my gout

# I'm in my prime

# I may get fat and drunk

# But I'll have a good time. #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

PHONE RINGS

'Hello, is that Ballyconnell PSNI station?'

It is. Sgt James speaking.

'Brilliant. Look, I have got a theoretical question.'

-A theoretical question?

-'Yeah.

'So, I was wondering, just say, theoretically,

'I was on a cross-channel ferry with a couple of friends

'on a theoretical stag do...'

-Yes.

-'..and then just say that we had a theoretical barbecue.'

Theoretical barbecue on a theoretical ferry?

'Yeah, I mean, you've got to have a theoretical barbecue

'on a theoretical stag do.

'You know, a few theoretical sausages stuck on a few theoretical baps,

'and maybe a few conjectural beers as well.'

I have a bad feeling where this is going.

'Yeah, well, let's just say that the theoretical barbecue

'gets knocked over because Marvin,

'being the theoretical arse that he is,

'has brought his theoretical basset hound on board with him

'and then got said basset hound theoretically drunk

'on a few conjectural beers.'

Oh, God, no.

'Oh, theoretically, yes.

'Now, if all that happened, it would be theoretically all right

'if the ferry theoretically caught fire, wouldn't it?'

No, it wouldn't.

'Because we would be surrounded by all the theoretical water.'

It wouldn't, it would be an absolute disaster.

'Ah, it would be...'

It would be a theoretical disaster.

Look, listen, what I need you to - I need you to go and get

all the fire extinguishers and try to put the fire out.

'I would love to do that,

'but unfortunately Marvin theoretically used them

'to start the theoretical barbecue.'

What?!

How can he use a fire extinguisher to start a fire?

'Yeah, to be honest,

'we were very theoretically surprised by that as well.

'He's not the brightest man in the world,

'but when it comes to things like that,

'he is fiercely persistent, fiercely theoretically persistent.'

Right, look, what I need you to do...

'Listen, I am going to have to go now.

'Marvin's theoretical dog

'has just cast off in the last theoretical lifeboat.

'I can't even do the theoretical doggy paddle,

'so I'm off to theoretically find someone who can swim

'and can theoretically sticky-tape myself to the back of them.

'It has been a pleasure as always, Officer.'

I need to stop answering this phone.

All right, guys, this is my impression of myself

trying to sleep in my house in Belfast city centre

every single night.

WHIRRING, HE GROANS

LAUGHTER

The joke train is about to depart. Is everybody on board?

CHEERING

BELL RINGS

That's not the right tune.

Let's do this.

MID-TEMPO BEAT BEGINS

Oh, yeah.

I'm not even singing.

All right. HE CLEARS HIS THROAT

I invented a time machine next week.

LAUGHTER

HE PLAYS TUNE

I got the sack in work last week...

or as my boss calls it, teabagged.

LAUGHTER

HE PLAYS TUNE

Where is the worst place to hide in a hospital?

ICU!

LAUGHTER

HE PLAYS TUNE

I composed this jingle myself,

if you could not laugh over the top of it, that would be...

Otherwise I don't get paid, sort of thing.

HE PLAYS TUNE

So myself and my girlfriend, we were talking about belly buttons.

She says, "I have an outie",

I said, "Bitch, I don't care what you drive, you need to shave that thing."

HE PLAYS TUNE

(Remix.)

HE PLAYS TUNE

There's no remix.

You know when couples are in bed at night

and one hugs the other from behind?

That is called spooning.

Do dwarfs call it teaspooning?

HE PLAYS TUNE

LAUGHTER

So I've got a six-year-old son.

God, he is too cool for school, you know?

But, according to social services,

that is not a legitimate reason to keep him off.

It is actually his birthday coming up.

I've got him a jigsaw.

Well, that laminate floor is not going to cut itself.

HE PLAYS JAUNTY TUNE

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

My name, just to reiterate, is Fergus O'Queeff.

That is a capital Q and 2Fs. Thank you.

One of the things that people often ask me about would be lyrics.

That's the words in the songs.

People come to me and they ask, "What are your favourite lyrics?

"What lyrics have you given to people?

"How do you come up with these fabulous lyrics?"

I think the first time I wrote a lyric that made it onto an LP

was when a curly-haired fella...

Don't know if you remember him - Don Henley.

You might know him as the drummer and lead singer

of a little band called the Eagles. Yeah?

He came to me, we are talking the late '70s now.

Thatcher had just been voted in,

I was living in Drogheda to avoid...the North.

LAUGHTER

Don came to me.

He knew I was living down there, he was on tour of Ireland.

He brought a little ukulele with him,

a little uke, and he said...

He played this wonderful song, it was called Hotel California.

I said to him, "I really like that. It is very catchy.

"I'm not sure about the themes at the start."

If you think about the song, think about this part -

every time you hear this part,

there is a little bit of me dribbling into your head. Yeah?

Every time you hear the words "dark desert highway",

thank your lucky stars that it was changed from

"the A1 between Newry and Dublin."

LAUGHTER

This is pre-toll bridge era we are talking about.

An arduous trek.

I fixed that.

"The warm smell of colitas" that has become memorable

was originally "a faint whiff of Lynx Africa

"rising up through the air."

Have you ever smelt Lynx Africa

rising out of a man's heated crotch on a tour bus?

Let me tell you something - you dodged a bullet. It's not great.

A lot of people don't know when they look at me

they are looking at the man that gave the world "zig-a-zig-ah".

LAUGHTER

The original lyric was much more racist.

Girl Power would have a very different meaning in that context.

But really, you know, when I think of lyrics really,

the words in songs, the sentences,

the commas, the punctuation, the feeling...

the balls,

I think about one man and one man only.

That is Mr Craig David.

Because when Craig came to me, he said "Fergus",

he said, "can you fill me in?"

I said, "I can fill your little world right up, friend".

He didn't like that.

But it went on to be a hit for The Feeling a few years later.

I said to Craig, "We need more time to work on your first album."

I says, "Go away and come back to me".

He said, "Give me a week." I said, "Sure, take seven days."

LAUGHTER

And he did.

He took that and he came back with a wonderful description,

a descriptive tale, a ballad, of meeting, you know...

a tart, really.

Bumping uglies with her all week, in one week.

Intensive sex.

It was very well meant.

He came to me in a few days later with another song.

Strap in for this one. He said to me, "Fergus, I'm walking away."

I said, "After the week you have just had with your woman..."

"very doubtful", he was torn to shreds down there.

LAUGHTER

And we laughed.

I digress, I think of Craig David,

but I've just thought of something else.

It is very personal and dear to me.

CHAIR CREAKS

I used to think often about my good friend,

a fantastic lyricist and songwriter,

Mr Freddie Mercury.

Freddie Mercury, he was a misunderstood prophet

in his own time.

He came to me with a few ideas.

We didn't like them.

We decided to just start beating ideas around the room,

just back and forth, back and forth.

He would often say that I gave him a great sense of calm and inspiration.

He said to me, he said to me one time, he said,

"I could pretend I like fat bottomed girls."

I said "Freddie, you are a champion. I have got no time for losers."

It came to a point where there was this huge public backlash

about his personal life.

They were going to take him off the radio.

Now, you can't do that to Freddie Mercury.

He was absolutely gaga for it.

I told him that. I told him that.

If Freddie had one vision in this life,

I said to him, I said,

"He will rock you", you know?

He came to me with some trouble one time.

He had put a gun against a man's head and pulled the trigger

and, you know, that was that.

Essentially, he needed me to hide him.

I said, "Freddie, you are a killer queen."

He said, "Yes, I am, Fergus." He said, "Thank you."

He said, he said to me, "I don't know what I am going to do."

I said, "You have to stop this."

He just looked deep into my eyes, dead as you like, and said,

"Don't stop me now."

You know, it went on to be a major, major platinum-selling hit.

I suppose...

You know, I still live off the royalties

of the work we did with Freddie at that time.

It fills my three fridges.

LAUGHTER

MC Beezer, back up at you.

Right, subject - shoot.

What about terrorism an' all?

MID-TEMPO BEAT BEGINS HE RAPS: # Yo, yo

# Terrorism, people with guns

# Shooting nuns

# People all over the world fighting

# Over different gods

# In Northern Ireland it's the Catholics versus the Jews...? #

Protestants.

# Prods

# Isis are... #

BEAT STOPS

BEAT BEGINS # ..not n-Isis. #