Episode 8 The Blame Game

Hello, hello, and welcome to the Blame Game Review Of The Year show,

the show that will have you laughing like

a farmer on the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme.

I'm Tim McGarry, and in a year marked by celebrity deaths,

I'm delighted to say that our panel made it through 2016 alive!

They are, of course, Colin Murphy,

Jake O'Kane, and Neil Delamere!

And our special guest tonight is a TV presenter, actress and comedian.

She starred with Basil Brush,

you saw her on Channel 4's Balls Of Steel,

and she did hidden camera pranks on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the fabulous Olivia Lee!

Olivia's current show is called Dirty, Sexy, Funny,

which incidentally accurately describes our panel.

I'll let you decide who's who!

Now, on with the show. The audience ask the questions,

and our panel provide some very unreliable answers.

So, what's our first question tonight?

Well, we actually only have one question tonight for everyone,

and it's the same question -

"Who do you blame for 2016?"

Yes, 2016, a year to remember.

Or, to put it another way, what a fecking awful year that was!

Much-loved celebrities died, there were wars,

environmental disasters, and political extremism was on the rise.

And that was just the first week in January.

Locally, we had the Fresh Start,

when our politicians finally turned away from petty sectarian politics

and got on with the job of pissing taxpayer's money down the drain...

and up a chimney.

There was the Nama scandal. Solicitors in the Nama scandal

were said to have accepted £7.5 million

for just two weeks' work.

And as an ex-lawyer myself, can I just say...

that's quite reasonable, actually.

As part of the Nama-drama, flag protestor Jamie Bryson

was alleged to have been coached by Sinn Fein on how to give evidence.

I don't believe it myself.

I mean, I know Shinners, and the only coaching they've ever given

anyone on giving evidence is, "Say feck all."

Our politicians also continued to block gay marriage.

Arlene Foster said that many gay men didn't really want to get married.

Well, that's not true.

Many gay men would like to get married,

the trouble is they just can't find somewhere to buy a wedding cake.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

But, Jake O'Kane, who do you blame for 2016?

The vice-chancellor of Queen's University,

he came out in 2016 and he said that

he wanted to do away

with 21-year-olds studying 6th-century history.

Know what I mean? It was a waste of time,

and society doesn't need kids with

degrees in 6th-century history.

But if it's about here, if history's about here,

then that's current affairs, because...

LAUGHTER

What we need is politics students!

I never thought I'd be saying it, we need politics students!

And coincidentally, I know that there was a teacher,

A-level teacher in a school, who advised her pupils to watch

The Blame Game to keep abreast of local politics.

Now, when a teacher is telling A-level politics students

to watch a satirical comedy show to keep up with local politics,

that tells you all you need to know about local politicians.

The Assembly, in 2016, as you said, a fresh start, fresh start.

And the big fresh start was that Sinn Fein and the DUP

were FINALLY going to deal with the scourge of paramilitarism.

Finally, we're going to face them down.

By the end of 2016,

the Shinners were describing Slab Murphy,

a convicted tax-dodger, and a man with many other talents...

LAUGHTER

..none of which I intend mentioning here,

as a "Good republican."

And Arlene Foster was photographed handing two million over

to self-confessed UDA man Dee Stitt.

About as fresh a start as a fart in a spaceship.

Now, my plea to A-level politics students is, we need you.

Do you understand? I'm not messing about here.

We need you to study hard and get your exams.

And then go to university, but not here...

No, no, no, no, no.

I want you to go away for three years and find out there's

more to life than flags and marching, right?

I want you to go away and get good politics degrees

and come back and save us.

But don't you do what a lot of them do - don't you sneak off.

Don't you dare sneak off!

Don't you go away and not come back cos you see if you do,

I have a special set of skills.

LAUGHTER

I will find you!

But I won't kill you! Oh, no, I'll do something much worse!

I will take you back here and make you live out your days in Larne,

walking The Gobbins Path!

There is big money to be made, though, in studying,

from foreign students coming here, because we are...

We are, evidently, are...

We run courses in conflict resolution, here...

-Makes sense, makes sense.

-..that are the talk of the world.

And people travel from far and wide,

-they come from America and all those sorts of places.

-America, you say?

-America!

-Wow!

-Oh, marvellous! They're all here. They're thinking...

-AMERICAN ACCENT:

-"Oh, my God, it's conflict resolution. Oh, yeah!"

-"I love Ireland."

-Yeah. And then it's taught by an English fella...

-LAUGHTER

-And, eh, he...

-They can't understand a word he's saying.

-Yeah.

We get them at the comedy club quite a lot, we get the students in.

And it's a field trip for them, it genuinely is,

and they're there going, "Why are you here?"

"We were told by our tutor to come here to see how you, like,

"cope with the Troubles and things, the humour..."

And then you get Jake O'Kane, the angriest man in Northern Ireland!

But you need arts students, because if you go...

Because they're a bit of craic.

If you go to a university and it has science students

and medical students, they're studying all the time.

So are lawyers - studying all the time.

You have rag week, you get the Iron Stomach Competition, where people have to eat mad stuff.

All the science students are going, "Oh, you could get E. coli from that, or salmonella from that..."

You want a fella studying sociology and anthropology who's doing

an hour a week of each going,

"I'm going to eat that, cos I haven't eaten since Wednesday." That's what you want!

Do you know, arts students, it's been proven, they gentrify an area.

-They do. Yep.

-They do. Arts students, media students, suddenly coffee shops open

selling machachinos and soya mafa-lafa-cafa-frappa-chinos.

If you have ever been to the Holy Land,

it's like walking through Napoli.

Yeah.

LAUGHTER

The coffee shops aren't making any money, though,

cos they buy one coffee and they sit there all day staring at the wall,

or on Instagram, you know, so it's a bit of a false economy.

Well, you see, the thing is, this happens in every other part of the world, right?

Hipsters move in with their very large beards and

lumberjack shirts, and all of a sudden house prices go up,

and an area that was once scummy is now lovely and gentrified.

-This does not happen here.

-No?

-Places here are crap.

They have been crap, they will always be crap,

and hipsters are terrified to go anywhere near them, that's why.

Cos if they go anywhere them they get their shit kicked in.

We're going, "See you and your beard, on you... F... Off!"

But that's maybe part of the charm.

You're right, though. The politicians haven't done great, as normal.

But things have been good this year. The Euros, fantastic.

Let's be honest. It was a brilliant year, no disrespect, Olivia, but Northern Ireland were superb,

Republic of Ireland were superb, and England were shite!

It was brilliant. It was so good...

-The fans were so good, they won awards...

-We won a medal.

-Well...

Yeah. The fans of Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland

won a medal, and Anne Hidalgo, I think her name is,

who is the mayor of Paris, gave it to the Irish fans

from the South, and from the North as well,

which... Rafael Nadal has also won the same medal!

How annoyed would you be if you were him? You're just in a pub...

"Oh, you've got one as well. What did you get it for?"

"I won seven French... Opens and a load of Grand Slam tournaments.

"What did you get if for?" "Ah, just, you know, singing.

-"And, eh...

-LAUGHTER

"..just, you know, not wrecking the gaff, basically."

So, Tim McGarry was at the Euros, so Tim McGarry,

-you have that medal, right?

-Yeah!

I've written this down, do you know who else got that medal as well?

Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority.

Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority and Tim McGarry

have the same medal.

A man who has worked tirelessly for peace in one of the most

divided places in the world...

and Mahmoud Abbas.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

But it was. It was a beautiful thing.

The Northern Ireland fans and Republic fans all got on well,

and they were drinking and mingling together,

and at one stage I thought the entire competition was organised by

the bloody Alliance Party(!) I mean it was...

LAUGHTER

# Stand up for Naomi Long! #

You know. The fans from where I'm from,

they're really louty and very uncouth. You know, really.

Oh, no, we're not saying,

we're not saying that these people were running around singing opera!

They were singing, let's face it, the one song for three weeks!

But, Jake, who do you blame for 2016? Do you have any resolutions?

Are you going to do something different than 2016, going to...?

I'm going to try to stay alive to 2017. My ambition.

I suggest you don't do any more jokes about Slab Murphy...

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

No. No, no, no.

No, you see, that's where you're not up with your current affairs.

Slab's still inside or I wouldn't have done that joke!

Thank you very much for that.

Yes, indeed, we remembered the events of 1916 this year.

Martin McGuinness actually went to the battlefield of the Somme

to pay his respects. He met local dignitaries and was shown artefacts

from the battlefield, such as helmets and bullets.

The visit went very well, right up until they handed Marty

a 1916 machine gun, and he stripped it down and cleaned it.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

And the Queen turned 90 this year.

She's 90, yet she always manages to move with the times and stay young.

If you were to go to Buckingham Palace today,

you'd find Her Majesty running around collecting Pokemon Go.

I actually did a royal gig for the first time myself.

Yes, I did a gig for Prince Charles, and it went very well.

He'd no idea who I was, obviously.

For the first ten minutes he genuinely thought I was

Jeremy Corbyn's dad.

And can I just say that, just because I've met royalty,

it won't affect me. It won't change Tim McGarry...

OBE.

Well, who's next tonight? Who do you blame for 2016, Neil Delamere?

-Who do you blame?

-Trump! Got to blame Trump.

What's going on with the world. I can't even believe...

I don't even understand how he got elected because

Clinton had all the experience and all the celebrity backers as well.

She had Jay Z and Beyonce and all the glamour,

and Donald Trump had...

He had Don King, the boxing promoter, and Mike Tyson.

Now, you can understand why Don King would support him,

he's the only one who has weirder hair than Donald Trump.

But Mike Tyson? What did Donald Trump say,

and what did he reveal about his attitudes to women

that would convince convicted rapist

Mike Tyson to support him?

One person who kind of described it in one little synopsis was

a barber I went to the other day, right?

In Dublin. And he went to me,

"Oh, the Americans are after electing a muppet!

"A bleeding muppet, a republican again!

"Why do people make the same mistakes

"over and over and over again?

"Then again, I've got five different kids by five different mammies,

"so what do I know?"

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

-But Brexit's the other thing that...

-Oh, Brexit.

It's the gift that keeps on giving...

unless you've got a grant. Erm...

-Yeah.

-They won't, actually... They don't know what they're going to do.

-The British Government hasn't a clue...

-Before we go any further, I want to clear something up,

cos I am sick to the back of teeth of reading about Brexit,

looking at Brexit and everybody talking about when Britain gets out

of this, and when Britain will look after itself, when Britain... Can I just point something out?

Britain is not leaving the EU, the United Kingdom is leaving the EU.

It's not called Brexit, it's called "UKexit". That's what it's called.

-UKexit could work.

-UKexit could work.

-Yeah, but they don't have a clue what they're going to do, they haven't a clue.

-No.

So, basically they want access to the single market,

but they also want to control their immigration.

-Like, that doesn't work.

-No.

They want to be in the club, but not obey any of the rules of the club.

-You know what they sound like? Catholics.

-They do.

-Do you know those people who go,

"I cannot believe my child can't go to that Catholic school." "Do you go to mass?"

"That is not the point of this argument!"

-They haven't a clue what they're going to do.

-No.

-One of the things they suggested, right...

-So, the Scots might leave.

-Yep.

They might have another independence referendum,

even though in 2014 they said, when they had an independence referendum,

"This is a once in a generation event!"

Only in Scotland, only in a country with such low life expectancy,

is three years a generation!

That is true!

Absolutely.

Cos we're Northern Ireland, we can work out a compromise.

We could be part of the EU and then not part of the EU, say,

-on designated days.

-Oh, that's a good idea.

-I don't know, there must be a flag we could use for that.

-Oh, a flag!

I'll get on it. I'll start doing one now.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Cos we love a flag. And you know...

-You know, Brexit actually reminds me...

-UKexit.

UKexit, yes, it remains me of when Geri Halliwell overestimated

things a little bit and left the Spice Girls to go solo.

That's the only comparison I can make.

Everyone told her at the time, it was hubris, like, "Yeah!

"You're great, you can go on your own, yeah, you've got talent, girl!"

And then - leaves, tumbleweeds!

Nothing.

-That is a very good analogy.

-It's my own pop culture analogy.

Even had her own flag and everything.

LAUGHTER

Thank you, thank you very much for that.

Yes, Donald Trump is the new American president.

The Donald says he's 100% American.

In fact, his roots are so pure it turns out

he is actually descended from Native Americans, yes.

His original Native American name is

"man with dead beaver on head."

People said that the Brexit vote was anti-establishment,

a kickback against the liberal metropolitan elite.

Of course, this is Northern Ireland,

we don't have a liberal metropolitan elite.

At least, that's what Jake O'Kane told me yesterday

as he ordered a gluten-free muffin...

with his cinnamon latte...

in a pub in North Belfast.

Our next question, as always, is who do you blame for 2016?

Olivia Lee, who do you blame?

Well, it's very simple for me and it's undisputed.

I blame Kim Kardashian.

I don't actually blame her, I blame her bum.

She keeps breaking the internet with this thing, doesn't she?

And we need the internet.

It's her bum everywhere, like, "Here's my bum in the kitchen.

"Here's my bum at Lidl. Here's my bum doing bum things."

Put your bum away, stop breaking the internet.

And the guy, the main internet guy who owns the internet,

the internet God, you know, he's sat there,

it's costing him thousands in repair bills.

And he's like, you know, he's on the phone like, "Yeah, yeah,

"all right, mate. Can someone come out today?

"Yeah, no, Kim got her bum out again.

"Yeah, no, no, definitely broken.

"No, I tried switching it on and off, no luck, no luck."

So, you know, she's quite clearly addicted to social media.

-It has become a thing, though, hasn't it?

-It's her bum!

And also it's a whole phenomenon now, this addiction to social media.

And she's clearly addicted and no-one is kind of saying it from a psychological point of view.

They're like, "Oh, my God, she's amazing,"

and she's earning thousands with every tweet,

and I think I'm a little bit addicted to social media.

I'm always on my phone.

Recently it took me two months to realise

that my fiance had grown a beard.

And there's a little part of me that might be jealous.

You know, cos Kim Kardashian gets paid thousands

every time she tweets a picture of her bum.

And I get paid not to tweet pictures of my bottom.

Because when I bend over the internet disappears

into this kind of black hole of nothingness.

You've got one of those arses that blocks the internet?

-No, it blocks the sun!

-A friend of mine...

I bend over and the sun goes in. Total eclipse!

-My friend is convinced his missus blocks the internet.

-With her bum?!

-Yeah. Seriously!

-Maybe the Wi-Fi signal.

I'm saying the Wi-Fi, and I said, "Stop saying the bum thing."

And he's going, "No, but it is,

"every time she walks in the room her hole stops the internet."

LAUGHTER

I've noticed this, you're watching TV, you're watching the news,

and if they ever talk about obesity,

there's always a picture

of some poor crater's arse walking down the street.

And...

Imagine you're sitting at home having your tea

and, "That's my arse!"

"That's my arse there, nobody asked me to put my arse on TV!"

You'd see it and go...

The best one was at Johnny McDaid's wedding, wasn't it?

-Or his sister's wedding.

-His sister's wedding, the Snow Patrol fella.

-Brid... Was that her name?

-Yeah.

-She got married,

and Snow Patrol and Ed Sheeran turned up at the wedding

and played at the wedding.

And Courteney Cox was at the wedding.

-It's fantastic!

-I would be furious, as a bride.

Cos you think they'd show off you.

Yeah, they did a gig for half an hour, so all the guests were

going, "My God, your brother's amazing, I love that song."

-It's about me!

-That's true. I hadn't thought of that.

It's a Derry wedding! The ones in Derry would be going,

"Ah, they were good, but I wouldn't have paid to see them."

LAUGHTER

You have Snow Patrol,

you've Snow Patrol there for your first dance.

That's kind of amazing.

I'm planning my wedding so that just makes me feel awful, because there's no way...

You can tell a lot about a person by what they had for their first dance.

You can tell an age of a person.

A friend of mine had Snow Patrol as his first dance.

You had Nick Cave for your first dance.

Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds.

And you had a man come out and play the lute, didn't he?

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

A harpsichord.

Oh! No! That's...

This is the sad thing, and this is true -

that is the only time I've ever danced with my wife.

Was it?

It lasted about three minutes.

HE HUMS

Is that what you were doing?! I thought you were moving furniture!

Thank you, thank you very much for that.

Yes, indeed, we said goodbye to many things in 2016.

The Twaddell Avenue stand-off ended,

which pleased everyone except Jake O'Kane,

who lost 15 minutes of material for his new stand-up show.

And we're finally saying goodbye to DLA

and hello to Personal Independence Payments, or Pips.

It's hard to explain the concept of DLA to someone not from here,

but basically in Northern Ireland many shopping centres set aside

special car parking spaces for drivers who are able-bodied.

LAUGHTER

And finally, who do you blame, Colin Murphy, for 2016?

You know, there are all the big stories and big things,

the Trumps and the Brexits, but you know what?

Local things are the things that I...

You know, people forget about all that at the end of the year.

Some people do make it into the bigger picture,

like your man Andrew Smith.

I do watch Bake Off, I like it,

and I wasn't rooting for him.

He's lovely, but his voice would go through you like a dose of salts.

Another bun story is Michaela McCollum came back this year.

She did, yeah. Welcome home.

She came back all glamorous, but within a few months the bun's back.

-The bun is back.

-Is the bun back?

-The bun's back.

She was photographed at the end of August and the bun is back there.

You need a bun, where else are you going to hide a load of cocaine?

-Yeah, it's buns.

-I can think of one place.

You can think of one place,

but if you did put it up there it would block the Wi-Fi signal.

And certainly change your hairstyle.

Yes, so she's back, that's good.

The other bun story this year was Greggs opened this year here.

Yeah, I was dead against it, you know, I'm a lover of home baking.

So, it opened on Royal Avenue,

they tried to open a store in Belfast,

and Bravissimo, the lingerie place,

is next door to it and they lodged an appeal with the planning

people cos they said, "This is going to affect our

"business, we're trying to run an upmarket thing here."

You don't want the smell of, you know, baps on...

LAUGHTER

..on your baps!

And I thought, they're not looking at this the right way, you know?

Lingerie, women don't buy lingerie, men buy lingerie.

This is the perfect combination!

This is bras, pants and the smell of pasties! That's what's...

The place is going to be coming down with fellas going,

"This smells lovely."

"Can I get those knickers there with brown sauce, please?"

And, especially this time of year, Christmas,

women are bringing most lingerie back to the shop,

because men buy it.

I've been in that situation where you're buying bras and pants,

trying to buy something fancy,

and the women in the shop presume that you know nothing.

They presume you don't know what size you're looking for,

so they walk up and treat you like a complete idiot.

I was in one, and this woman comes up and says, "You know what you're looking for?"

"Yes, I do, actually."

I was just about to tell exactly what I want and she just picks up a bra,

"I see you're looking at these,"

-and then holds it up against herself...

-Have a feel!

Yeah! She's doing this, and she'd going,

"Is that the kind of thing you're looking at?"

And I'm going, "What the fuck...?"

And she's doing this modelling thing,

like I don't know where a bra goes. Putting it on my head...

-LAUGHTER

-Did you have a squeeze?

What's this thing for here?!

Are these for holding sandwiches or something?

Making toasties?

And, seriously... It's for making snowballs!

I'd like to buy a catapult, please.

She's holding it up and saying, "Is she bigger or smaller than me?"

Honest to God.

And then picking up pants and holding up pants -

like, I'm aware where those go.

Just really uncomfortable sort of thing.

So this was a perfect combination, I thought -

-Greggs, the bakery and pants...

-You deserve it!

You deserve it, you went in and bought women's underwear.

-Yeah.

-What sort of freak are you?

I wouldn't, I couldn't do it.

-What, go in and buy...?

-No, no, no.

-Why couldn't you?

-No! No!

-Why?

-No!

Hold on, hold on.

-For charity, if we raised enough money...

-No!

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

If we send...

This is what we can do - you and I will write the script

and we'll be in his ear and he has to walk in to,

I don't know, is it Agent Provocateur?

And go, "Hello!"

-GRUFF VOICE:

-"My name's Jake, and I'd like to see a bra!"

-I was doing a show...

-No, no! And she goes, "Is it for your wife?"

"No!"

"Something that makes my arse look small."

"What size of a bra would you want?"

"34B...

"this one..."

LAUGHTER

A live show, wee girl in the audience,

and she says, "Say hello to her!"

Like 20 of them, and I said...

She says, "She's booked the tickets, it's our Christmas party."

"Where are you from?"

"Ann Summers."

"How are you doing, missus?"

"Tell him, tell him! Tell him the dream you had."

Seemingly, the manageress

dreamt that I came into Ann Summers

and asked for a job.

LAUGHTER

I explained to the lady,

"That is not a dream, that is a nightmare, love."

Could you imagine him as a greeter in Ann Summers?

"All right?"

Our other local hero who didn't have a great year, Jullian Simmons.

Taking off in-vision. Yes, "Aww." Very sad.

Jullian was taken off in-vision.

Jullian was the last remaining in-vision continuity announcer

on commercial television. On ITV.

The last one. And he is the colour of Donald Trump.

Genuinely, if you imagine just a really camp Donald Trump,

that's exactly what he looks like. And...

I would love a really camp Donald Trump.

"We're going to build a wall, it's going to be gorgeous!"

"Here, would you look at them Mexicans,

"what they're at now, hmmm?"

It is such a Northern Irish thing, though.

-We did not understand.

-Hold on, hold on!

Yous have The Angelus, don't give me this!

Dong! Dong! Dong!

No-one hits... Well, we do play it in.

There isn't a fella hitting a fucking bell!

LAUGHTER

There are also isn't somebody there going,

"And next up on the RTE, The Angelus."

"Wait till you hear the bongs this week, hmmm."

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Exactly, there isn't a guy announcing it.

The point is, he is uniquely Northern Irish in that people

from the south don't really get it at all.

You can be with the most Republican fella and you'll be sitting there

and you'll be going, "Do you think there'll ever be a united Ireland?"

And then Jullian Simmons will come on and go,

"Next up on Coronation Street..."

And he'll be going, "I don't know if I want them back."

-I've had that conversation.

-Absolutely true.

And Jackie Fullerton, as well.

Oh, legend.

I don't follow football, but his commentary seemed to be...

Jackie had a list of names, and he would just read them out.

That seemed to be the way it would work.

He would go, "Magentsy! Gillespie!"

It was like... It was just incredible.

You really don't follow football, do you?

He was shouting out the names

-in the order of the ball going between them.

-Oh, I know!

But that's all it was, there was nothing else!

It wasn't somebody going, "And a lovely move there."

None of that. It was just, "Gillespie!

"Milgilton."

That's how long ago I watched it, by the way.

He was good, though, I liked Jackie.

He told me once his interviewing technique, when he interviewed

people he had only two questions, and the first question was, "Really?"

And the second question was, "Really?!"

LAUGHTER

Didn't you say you met him and he was working on his autobiography?

Yeah, working on his autobiography and he said

he was having trouble finishing the last chapter of his autobiography.

I said, "What's the problem?"

He said, "Wife's still alive."

LAUGHTER

Thank you, thank you very much for that.

Just time for our quickfire round.

I will read you various newspaper headlines and I want you to

be faster than the whole world going,

"Well, at least 2017 can't be as bad as...

"Oh, hang on, President Trump."

People in Lurgan start drinking Buckfast again.

Hedgehogs try doggy style.

The other quarter are on the DLA.

APPLAUSE

Unless it's insulin.

Cliff's single every Christmas.

That's it, that's the end of the show and the current series.

Please show your appreciation to our panel,

Colin Murphy, Olivia Lee, Jake O'Kane and Neil Delamere!

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

And I'm Tim McGarry, until next time,

don't blame yourselves, blame each other.

Goodbye.

APPLAUSE