Episode 7 The Blame Game

Hello and welcome to The Blame Game Best Bits,

a look back at some of the hilarious highlights of the recent series.

Now, this year, we celebrated ten years of The Blame Game,

and kicked off the series in a packed Waterfront Hall

with a very special guest, Mr Kevin Bridges.

Kevin loves Northern Irish audiences, and they love him.

Usually.

Have we got anybody in from Derry here?

-CHEERING

-Don't know...

I had a show last year, I don't know if anybody heard about that?

-Everybody's heard about that!

-In Derry. I don't know if she's in.

I'm still suffering from PTSD, you know that...?

The first 20 minutes of the show,

we just had this woman, just going, "Kevin, Kevin, Kevin."

It was like a fucking smoke alarm going off inside your brain.

That's not a heckle, that's just like...

-Have you ever clicked on a pop-up virus?

-Yeah.

So that was me trying to deal with her, to try and close,

and then another 500 pop up at the same time. "Kevin, Kevin, Kevin!"

And it was crazy, it made the paper.

The people of Derry, the reaction was incredible. The next day...

-FEMALE AUDIENCE MEMBER WHOOPS

-Thank you there.

Yes, she's in tonight!

APPLAUSE

The next day...

..a guy, who... I've never heard something so chilling in my life.

A guy walked up to me and he goes,

"Don't you worry, Kevin, she's been named and shamed."

But he said it in a way as if

he had her in the boot of his car or something.

And I had to sort of tweet

and just say, "Look, it's cool, she was just a bit drunk."

I never knew what was going to happen to this poor woman.

And it was in the local newspaper.

An audience member said the heckling was horrific,

and branded it "the worst night ever".

Which, in Derry, the worst night ever...

I'm pretty sure there's being worse nights in recent history.

"Oh, you want to have heard the heckling, I had to leave.

"All covering people's ears and things."

Anyway, no hard feelings to her.

I hope she never got sacked or took away in the back of your boot

or whatever.

In the week that's in it, with Bake Off final, it's not fair.

Cos it's taken away from Andrew Smyth, who's from here,

and he's in the final. And... I know, three women going, "Yay!"

I watch Bake Off, I am a fan, I like it.

And Andrew is great, but his voice is really annoying.

And... It really is. Oh, my God. It's just...

-Oh, my... You know.

-I don't watch it.

-I watch it, yeah.

-He's got...

He went to Cambridge and he's a very educated person.

And he's talking very much like this HERE!!!

-IN RAISED TONE:

-"And what are making this week?

Oh, we're making Tudor things. Oh, it's amazing!!!"

And he's a very talented man,

but you're going, "Oh, shut up, shut up, shut up."

But he's not from here, he can't be from here, he's on Bake Off,

he has not made a sausage roll or a mushroom vol-au-vent once.

The man is some sort of, you know, charlatan, that's all.

They keep saying he's from Derby, they keep saying he's from Derby.

Even though he's actually from here.

Cos, you see, he's one of those stealth Northern Irish accents.

He's one of those ones that's changed,

and you don't know until every so often he says one of those words

that gives everybody from Northern Ireland away.

So he'll say, "I'm just putting the cake into the oven

"and then the cake will be ready in about two HOURS!!!

"Hours!!! NOW the cake is done, so it is!!!" And then...

Next question. Tonight, who do you blame for men

not being able to take each other up the aisle?

APPLAUSE

Yes. The DUP have confirmed they will continue to block gay marriage.

Arlene Foster says she knows gay men who don't want to get married.

Arlene, no men want to get married.

It's just, you know, you make us.

But who can we blame for men

not being able to take each other up the aisle?

Arlene's had a good week this week, hasn't she?

First of all, she said she's going to use a petition of concerns

to stop any sort of gay marriage legislation.

A petition of concern was designed to help the peace process.

So she's using something good to do something bad, in my opinion.

It's like beating the shite out of somebody with a life jacket.

I mean, you can do it, but you probably shouldn't do it, right?

And then she also said that the authorities in the South

were poaching business from Northern Ireland and talking down

the Northern economy, and trying to poach investors away from you.

As a representative on this show of the South, can I just say,

of course we are! What do you expect?

We've been telling lies about you lads for years. We're over...

We're making up paramilitary organisations.

We're standing there with investors going,

"Where are you going to invest?"

"We're thinking of investing in Northern Ireland."

"Oh, well, there's running battles between the RVH and the IFA."

"What's the RVH stand for?" "The Royal Volunteer Hoors.

-"They're terrible."

-APPLAUSE

"They're against the IFA, the Irish Fenian Association.

"It's terrible what they're doing to informers.

"One of them is on fire.

"Will Grigg, they set him on fire. He's on fire."

"But Northern Ireland looks so great on Game Of Thrones."

"That's because all the extras are using their own clothes.

"I'm telling you. Poverty stricken.

"Northern Ireland is poverty stricken."

Have you ever done a gig in a prison before?

-No.

-Yes.

-I've done that before.

-Crumlin Road Gaol. But there's nobody in it.

-I done one...

..when I was 18, in Shotts prison. In Scotland.

And about ten minutes into the gig,

a guy stood up and went back to his cell.

APPLAUSE

That's a heckle that has never been topped.

"This guy's shite, I'm away to finish my life sentence."

Coalisland. Coalisland was mine.

I did Coalisland way back when the Troubles were still on.

And I knew it was a rough gig.

You're walking in and about 1.5 of vodka and 1.5 of whisky,

which they hand round the audience. This is a tough gig.

But I'm doing all right.

And about half an hour in, 40 minutes in,

and suddenly a door opens and these two wee guys,

wee black moustaches, right, leather jackets, not unlike this, right?

Here's me. "Shh! The Ra have arrived."

Nobody laughed.

And the publican who owned the bar is sitting in the front row going...

HE MAKES WHIMPERING NOISES

"Sorry, we're late, we were bombing the police station."

APPLAUSE

The other thing this week was, did you see on Facebook and Twitter they

were talking about banning terrorist videos and this, that and the other?

But we have our local terrorists who did their bit and had a wee video.

-Did you see their...?

-I... And they said it was horrific.

Up in Ardoyne,

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

And it was, it was horrific.

I mean, 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.

You know, the props. I mean... And the acting.

The acting was wooden, it was wooden.

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

these guys are crawling around the ground.

What let them down most of all, cos if you're on the internet now,

you need a unique selling point, you know what I mean?

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

-Right.

-You know what I mean?

There's so many of them, you know what I mean?

But the costume, I thought... Like, balaclavas.

-Bal...

-Very 1972, isn't it?

-1972!

-Yeah.

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

So I've got a suggestion for them. No, no. This is serious.

This could break it for them, this could make all the difference,

if they actually...

I suggest...

APPLAUSE

Last year, I was quite ill, right.

I changed my diet, right, so I had to do a lot of reading and research.

I was told by my doctor that I have a gluten allergy.

-Now, I know you're coeliac, Jake, aren't you?

-And proud of it.

You're coeliac, yeah.

He's coeliac, but I'm classed as gluten intolerant,

which is very different. You know what I mean?

So I woke up one morning,

I probably get some of the same symptoms you have,

like rashes, spots all over my face, diarrhoea, bloated stomach...

No?

Dandruff. No, none of that?

I did what I should never do whenever you're sick... No? No?

But I did what you should never do.

I typed all those symptoms into the internet.

Don't ever type anything into the internet,

because the internet said I could be from Scotland.

I couldn't believe it. I went to my GP.

I don't know how you got diagnosed, but I went to my GP and he said,

"We're going to send you for a blood test," so I did that.

Failed it. I don't know how you fail a blood test, right.

And then he said, "We're going to send you for a biopsy."

He said, "In the meantime, go gluten free."

And I was like, "What the hell is gluten free?"

So I had to go and read up on it, and he said to me,

"Get some books, do a bit of reading on it, do a bit of research.

"No wheat, no barley, no rye, gluten free flour,

"gluten free cakes," all this kind of stuff.

And because I was Irish, he leaned in, he looked at me

and he went, "I'm afraid, Andrew, no more Guinness for you."

I was like, "You should be afraid."

I said, "What will happen if I do drink Guinness?

He goes, "You'll have a gluten attack."

I said, "I'll be honest with you, Doctor,

"after a few pints, I'm up for a fight anyway.

-APPLAUSE

-I couldn't believe it. And then...

And then, when I left the GP surgery,

I rang my dad back home in Cork, cos he was going with me.

I said, "Dad, you're not going to believe this, right,

"but the English GP, right,

"has just said I can't drink Guinness any more."

And my dad said, "Has he mentioned Murphy's or Beamish?"

I was like, "No, drive on, drive on."

APPLAUSE

And custard creams, they've come off the...

Custard creams have gone down.

Big fan of the custard cream.

Hold on, what's this, custard creams what?

Custard creams apparently not as popular as they used to be.

-Sales have fallen.

-Yeah. First Fidel Castro and now this.

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

Apparently children's biscuits...

Is there such a thing? Children's biscuits like Jammie Dodgers.

I think you'll find they're not children's biscuits.

They're the good biscuits. That's what they're called.

There should be a section called Good Biscuits and Biscuits, all right?

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

-Yes.

-Yes, everybody had this, visitors biscuits.

-Did you have this when you were growing up?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

Visitors biscuits. "We're not allowed to touch those biscuits."

"Why?" "They're for visitors."

"So... Are you expecting any?" "No." "Why...?"

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

"Just in case, they're visitors biscuits." "What do I get to eat?"

"These ones." Ironically called Nice.

-Talking of...

-They suck moisture from the inside out.

You put them in suitcases to stop damp.

The biscuits that your ma used to give the priest

-if the priest came over?

-Yeah.

The priest came round, you see?

I have 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, cos it was in a jug.

LAUGHTER

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."

LAUGHTER

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

And my father went...

"Be my guest."

And the priest leaned over and went 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?"

A lot of people say, you know, that health and safety has gone mad

and health and safety legislation is stupid, but it's not.

Cos people are stupid.

That's why the health and safety legislation has to be brought in.

You go, "That's a ridiculous..."

No, anything that gets brought in, it's cos somebody did it, right?

Like, when you buy an electronic device

and there's a little bag of silica gel,

and written on that packet is "Do not eat,"

that's cos some arsehole ate his silica gel,

didn't just eat it, ate it, felt poorly

and then still somehow had the sense to hire a lawyer to go,

"Well, nobody told him not to eat it.

"My client is a victim of your incompetence,

"not his own stupidity."

You're dead right about people being morons.

You were pointing at me like I said something wrong there.

"You don't care how much I love you!"

I'm agreeing with you!

I saw, you know the sign in the airport on the travelator

that says, "Face direction of travel?"

I was on it with my friend, right?

And it said, "Face direction of travel" and he looked at me

and we were flying to France and he went,

"Well, I don't know which way is east."

This whole thing of Christmas ads starting early,

what it is, it's like when you've got to get up at seven,

so you set your alarm for half five.

Cos you know you're just going to be pressing snooze

for a good 90 minutes, and yet it still gets to 7am

and you go, "Oh, I'm late."

So...

That's what's happening and that's an analogy for what's

happening in general with the whole Christmas being advertised early.

And I understand it, but I also resent it, having said that.

It's not so much the advertising early.

It's the ridiculously early preparations.

Like, I was in my local supermarket.

Stuff in October, right?

Selling stuff in October for Christmas -

stollen and mince pies - and I went up,

and the mince pies had a best before date of November 12th.

So...

That's not... That just made me sad,

cos I just thought, "Somebody's celebrating Christmas early.

"That's who that's for."

And nobody celebrates Christmas early for a happy reason.

-No.

-You know?

It's like, "Grandad's not going to make it to December.

"We're buying mince pies that we're having in November,"

or, you know, "Your Uncle John's going back inside in..."

But it's the ads. This is the thing.

There was a... The Coke ads...

The American Coke ads, the Christmas ads,

you know, "Holidays are coming."

And Saturday night's was the first...

It's less terrifying than that, to be honest with you.

That's the way I see it! "Holidays are coming."

Sounds like a warning, the way you're doing it.

"Holidays are coming, holidays are coming."

Someone else said that they had tears in their eyes watching it.

-Tears in their eyes watching...

-You know what that is?

"Do you know what? I'd love a Coke!

"It's brilliant, so it is!"

"Holidays are coming, holidays are coming!"

Most people have a bucket list

and want to swim with dolphins or skydive.

Not me.

Top of my bucket list, I want to joyride the popemobile.

And in two years' time, I may get the chance,

because the Papa is coming to Northern Ireland in 2018.

I hope Pope Francis has a sense of humour, because if he doesn't,

some of our panellists will be up for excommunication.

It's very exciting, cos everybody's getting back together again

and now the Catholic Church is getting back together again,

reforming, going on tour. "Oh, yeah!"

It's not going to... They're very '80s.

The Catholic Church was very '80s and they're back.

Cos younger people, I went to see them,

-I went to Phoenix Park and I saw them.

-'79, yeah.

A quarter of the population of this island

in a field to watch a man say Mass.

That's how little there was to do in this country, Felicity, in 1979.

That everybody thought, "That sounds brilliant." And...

Charisma, you know, it's like, if you've only seen the Pope on TV,

he's good, but live, unbelievable....

Un... Oh, I remember that, everybody, the lighters in the air,

"Hail Mary, I love this one, it's brilliant."

-CHANTING:

-One more prayer! One more prayer!

-Do you reckon the Pope has a different hat on tour?

-Oh!

You know how footballers have, like, an away game outfit?

I reckon he's got a different one that he goes on tour with.

There was merch whenever it he was last here. There was merch.

Oh, the Catholic Church does merch like nobody else.

Wait, wait, wait. Are you telling me

that the Catholic Church tries to get money out of people?

-Yeah, you wouldn't believe it.

-I won't hear of it!

-"Merch"?

-Merchandise, yeah.

-Oh, merchandise.

-So, tour T-shirts?

APPLAUSE

-Old man, old man, sorry.

-What did you think it was?

I don't know, I thought some disease or something.

So, Arlene Foster, she says she will meet him.

Our First Minister says she will meet the Pope,

but she will meet him as the Head of State, do you understand?

So she's not meeting him as the leader of half the Christians

in the world, she's meeting him as the leader

of the smallest nation in the world.

And that's a very touching thing.

And if I was the Pope, I would Pope it up. I would Pope it up.

When I'm meeting her, I would Pope it up, I would be carried in.

They've stopped carrying him. I would be carried in.

Four wee guys carrying me in. I'd have about 20 with the incense

in front of me giving me that there, right?

I'll be hitting everybody with holy water.

I'd give her a relic of John Paul II,

his wee toe or something, something to keep.

And I would insist,

I would insist she kissed my papal ring before I leave.

That's it, I'm telling you.

APPLAUSE

I grew up in southern Ireland.

I grew up in Waterford, Dunmore East in Waterford.

And of course I went to Mass until I was ten years old.

And explaining to, you know, my non-Catholic friends

back in England, what you had to...

It's the ritual of religion, when you leave it just seems odd.

And confession is one of those weird things

where they said, "Well, what do you have to do?"

And you go, "Well...

"They lock you...

"..in a wardrobe...

"..with a priest."

"And then you've got to tell him what you've done wrong." I mean...

I love the fact they're actually bringing it out.

Clonard Monastery are bringing confession

to Kennedy Shopping Centre.

-In West Belfast?

-In West Belfast, right?

-What?

They're going to have a wee tent.

They're going to have a tent and bring it to West Belfast.

-Now, my problem with this is...

-Hold on.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. They're bringing an actual...?

Yes, confession out to the shopping centre.

-A box?

-A box.

-A tent...

-I think it's a gazebo or something.

-Gazebo.

It's nice, and you walk in. Have they thought about the priests?

Have they thought about the moral turpitude

they're putting the priests in?

Cos you're going to have wee guys -

"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned."

"Yes, my son, what's your sin?"

"Theft, Father."

-Shoplifting.

-"What have you stolen, son?"

"What do you want, Father? Do you want razor blades?

"I'll get you anything you want, Father, a nice wee jacket?

"Do you fancy a jacket, Father?"

That's click and collect on a whole other level, isn't it?

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Will there be queues, like ten sins or less?

Yeah, loyalty cards, this kind of thing.

What you don't want is "Unexpected priest in the bagging area".

Why do you even have confession boxes in Ireland, anyway?

Everybody knows everybody else.

You walk in, "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned."

"How are you, Neil?" Like, they know who...

They know who you are!

So it should be like the '80s in Sinn Fein,

where somebody else does your voice. So somebody else...

So you say it, and the guy goes...

-THEATRICAL VOICE:

-.."Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.

"It has been many years since my last confession."

That's what it should be.

Or you should have something that digitises your voice, so...

-ELECTRONIC VOICE:

-"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned."

Right? Now, I assume that you have to...

You'd tell the priest before you develop that,

otherwise the priest goes, "God, Stephen Hawking has led a mad life!"

But it should be something like that. Or, better still,

so, the priest knows what's coming up - maybe you could pick

different voices depending on the severity of the sin. You know?

So you just, like, harmless, set it to Daniel O'Donnell voice.

-SOFT VOICE:

-"I looked at a lamb in the wrong way," something like that.

"Oh... A lamb ran away..." Blah-blah-blah.

Is there a RIGHT way to look at a lamb? That's the other thing!

Well, you're not from Donegal! Right?

Then you just ramp it up all the way to Christian Bale in Batman.

-GRUFF VOICE:

-"Father, Father, I had sex with a Protestant,

"and I liked it!"

-The Church of Ireland, God love them...

-I think he does!

No, he does, he probably does.

-No, they're having a census in Derry, and...

-A census in Derry?!

"There's one! There's one!"

-That's exactly it!

-There's one!

-That's exactly it!

They're trying to work out how many there are,

and there's only about seven. Right?

And it should be, like, a Quiet Man.

Remember that scene in The Quiet Man?

-AUDIENCE MEMBER:

-Yes!

-You remember it? You know what I mean?

The parish priest in Derry should get all the Taigs out. Right?

In The Quiet Man, the parish priest got all his flock out,

the Bishop was going by, and he says,

"Cheer like good Protestants," right?

In Derry, all the Taigs should go into the Protestant church,

-fill in the wee form and then go out the side.

-So your man keeps his job.

Keeps his job.

Otherwise he's stuffed.

Two big issues dominated the entire Blame Game series.

"How does Tim McGarry still look so young?"

And "What the hell is Colin Murphy wearing this week?"

I'm joking! It's Brexit and Trump.

Very week, the news was all about Trump or Brexit,

or sometimes Brexit AND Trump.

Brexump!

Who can we blame for Donald Trump?

It's very confusing if you're from Northern Ireland, though,

cos he's the only orange man who's also a Republican.

It's quite confusing. He admitted...

He said on air on a video that he groped women

and that he grabbed them by their nether regions -

I'll say it in the most polite way possible -

by their genitals, like.

My theory is that if you grab him by his own genitals,

the hair just hinges up like that, just...

You know when you stand on a pedal bin, and it just goes mwuh?

I don't know if it makes that noise. Mwuh!

-Like that!

-He's only 4% behind in the opinion polls.

-He could win!

-I blame Hillary Clinton. How bad is she?

-I know!

11 women have come forward,

claiming that Trump acted sexually inappropriate and he's still 4%...

Fuckin' Bill Cosby could win this election.

-I don't get it, how that guy can be taken so seriously.

-I know.

I've helped old guys into a taxi

in a more coherent state than Donald Trump.

People say they like him cos he speaks his mind.

But old people in pubs speak their mind every Friday night,

but you don't encourage them.

Just a pat on the back, "Enjoy your night, mate."

That's all it would take to defeat Donald Trump.

"Build a wall! Make America great again!"

"Enjoy your night, mate," and just leave him. Leave the guy!

But everybody in America, they're in the streets, they're protesting,

and all the celebrities are on tweets and all this sort of thing,

and everybody is appalled at it,

so appalled about what's going to happen to America.

They said he's going to repeal reproductive rights for women,

he's going to take away gay marriage, he's going to make it

illegal for people to get married if they're gay, he's going to...

the gay blood thing, and I think, "They're describing here!

"They're describing here!"

They're appalled that there is going to turn into here.

"He's going to build walls everywhere." We've got that!

We've got that"!

APPLAUSE

And they're going, "It's going to be so awful!"

The Canadian Embassy went down, didn't it?

The Canadian passport office went down because of people

just trying to get out of there as quickly as they could.

But it was the same, y'know,

in England when the Brexit result came through.

The Irish Embassy went down,

there were so many people trying to get Irish passports

when the Leave result came in.

There was people who'd never even been to Ireland phoning up, going...

-POSH ACCENT:

-"Hello. I'm not actually Irish myself,

"but we did once have an Irish setter called Rory.

"Please can I stay in the EU?"

You've got to feel sorry for Hillary, though.

I mean, that must be gutting, mustn't it,

to lose a popularity race to Trump?

-You'd go, "Oh, my God!"

-But she won.

-She won!

-Well, she got more votes...

-The popular vote.

-Popular votes.

-You know who I feel sorry for?

-But to lose...

And she must be knackered.

I mean, it's been 19 months of campaigning, 19 months,

and she's done a lot of aggressive smiling.

A lot of aggressive...

She's not an easy smiler, is she? It's not a gentle smile. It's a...

APPLAUSE

There was a 120% increase in British people

looking for Irish passports in August alone.

And, no offence to anybody,

but if you're English and you want to come to the Republic of Ireland,

I mean, en masse, I don't think you should be allowed to come over

and take all the jobs off the Polish people.

For the first time ever, the Newsletter basically had,

"Brits out," on the front of its thing, y'know?

And the pound's fell on the euro. I don't know what that is.

It's probably going to be about 20 quid for a Cornetto next summer

when you're on holiday.

What I want to see is the Larne-Stranraer ferry

and the first time an Orangeman is stopped at Stranraer

and asked for his passport. That's what I'm waiting to see!

And he's forced to hand him an Irish one!

-That's going to be fun!

-APPLAUSE

I blame the English. Yeah.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

-It's true! You voted to remain here.

-Yeah.

-Scotland, we voted to...

I think Scotland and Northern Ireland should merge

-and stay in Europe.

-CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

That would be great! We could become the European Capital

of Shite Weather and Religious Intolerance.

It's a pain in the arse, innit?

I don't know why Theresa May's in such a hurry.

She's triggered Article 50.

I don't know if anybody's read any of these 50 articles,

never mind the last one.

But she wants to get it moving by March, which is soon.

It took me about six months to get out of a Vodafone contract, so...

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

"Take issue with the term 'cockpit' "?

"Last time I..."

That doesn't even need finishing off!

"Says passenger on Stena Sealink."

"Civil Service adopts new motto."

"Would be easier than building Casement Park."

"Tim McGarry to star in next 50 Grades Of Sh..." Agh!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

"Bill Cosby to replace Samuel L Jackson in movie sequel."

APPLAUSE

And finally...

"Julian Simmons goes out in style."

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Until next time, don't blame yourselves, blame each other!

Goodbye.