Episode 7 The Blame Game

Hello, hello, and welcome to The Blame Game.

You're more welcome than a Sinn Fein canvasser in Rathfriland.

Yes, this is The Blame Game,

the cutting-edge comedy show that's as funny as Jim Wells' Twitter feed.

I'm Tim McGarry and our regular panellists are, of course, Colin Murphy,

Jake O'Kane and Neil Delamere.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

And our special guest tonight is quite simply a comedy superstar.

He made his first-ever TV appearance on The Blame Game.

Since then he's become one of the most popular and best-loved

comedians in Britain and Ireland.

He's had sell-out arena shows, primetime TV programmes,

he's raised millions for charity and he's about to embark on another mega

arena tour called Winging It.

Yes, it's Liverpool's favourite son, the Jurgen Klopp of comedy.

Please give it up for the fabulous John Bishop.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Now, on with the show.

The audience asks the questions and our panel provides some very

unreliable answers. So what questions have you the audience

asked us tonight?

Who's to blame for me having to use a fake e-mail to

sign into the iPlayer to watch this

so they can't find out I don't have a TV licence?

Then he puts his name on it.

Who's to blame for me being too starstruck to ask Jake O'Kane for a selfie?

It's from John Bishop.

I was too scared.

Your first TV programme was actually on this.

My first television programme ever was on this.

And of the English comedians that come over I have a little bit of

understanding of Northern Irish politics because I've been coming

over here for 30 years.

So I have a little understanding and I have to say, to me,

it's glad that over the last ten years things have moved on so much.

It's great to see you progressing so well.

Honest to God, the Stormont Assembly is like a snowman to me,

it looks magnificent and then you turn around and look back and it's just dissolved.

So, what is our first question tonight?

Who do you blame for electoral meltdown?

Yes, next week we go to the polls.

I'm not saying that the outcome is predictable but Northern Ireland voters

are like lorry drivers speeding towards that low bridge in Banbridge.

Yes, it's been so boring, it turns out that a special Northern Ireland

election debate was on the car radio

when Tiger Woods fell asleep at the wheel.

But who can we blame for electoral meltdown?

It isn't a meltdown. It's like a slow-onset coma.

It is the most tedious bore. I don't have the adjectives for how much I hate it.

I hate politicians, I hate elections.

We're voting for the least incompetent.

That's the best you'll get here, the least incompetent.

Have you read the manifestos?

It's very easy to summarise.

The Unionists want to get you out of Europe but remain in the UK and

the Nationalists want to get you to stay in Europe

but out of the UK by a united Ireland.

And the Alliance Party are going to make nice sandwiches with a cup of tea when it's all finished.

LAUGHTER

It's all about money, do you know what I mean?

They can make whatever promises they want.

The chickens have the money so it doesn't matter what's going on.

We're stuffed. There's very little Gerry Adams this time.

Gerry was always... Gerry can't get into a picture.

"Would you like me in your picture?

"Would you like me in your poster picture?

"I'm not doing much down South."

"No, Gerry, you're all right, son, walk away."

Arlene Foster, she's running about like Basil Fawlty,

"Don't mention RHI, don't mention RHI!"

And everybody behind her is going...

SQUAWKS LIKE A CHICKEN

And the UUP and SDLP are like the two ugly brothers at the

end of the dance who are desperate to pull anybody.

They're just walking around, "Please vote for me, please vote for me,

"don't make me beg, please vote for me."

Don't you have, like, the mad ones, like the Monster Raving Loony Party?

No, that's ALL ours.

That's all ours.

Do you see,

if the Monster Raving Loony Party set up here they'd be taken seriously.

People would be... "That boy makes a good point, there should be..."

"No, no, no. Are you a Protestant Monster Raving Loony...

"or are you a Catholic Monster Raving Loony?"

Arlene Foster, in fairness, Arlene Foster wants a centenary celebration

for the establishment of Northern Ireland in about... Is that four years, 1921?

There's no actual date, that's the problem, there's no date when the state was actually set up.

But in four years you could have a joint celebration between that

and the new united Ireland, it's going to be brilliant.

She wants a centenary forest as well,

possibly for the wood pellets...

But...

She genuinely wants that.

She says there will be no border poll in her lifetime.

That's a challenge to boys, I'm telling you.

When you say no border poll,

no poll about having a border or no pole at the border,

what do you mean by no pole?

No vote on whether you want a united Ireland, so there'll be no vote.

I think that was a Ukip policy.

That's a Ukip policy, no Poles at the border!

It's bad when the election in the UK is more exciting than the election here.

Like, who are you going to vote for?

Oh, fucking hell.

Well, well, well, to be honest,

I've always been a Labour voter and I like Jeremy Corbyn but he keeps

bringing Diane Abbott out and you think,

"Oh, for Christ's sake!"

It's like somebody giving a five-year-old

the responsibility of looking after a baby with a pair of scissors in

their hand, you think, "Fucking put them down, Diane!"

You have to look at it as well, the choice that we've got.

The job says Prime Minister, "prime" is in the title,

and you look at Theresa May and you look at Jeremy Corbyn,

and you look at the guy who's just been voted as the French President,

and if you stood him next to them it looks like he's out with his mum and dad.

Neither of them are in their prime.

If you see both of them walk, they're both like that.

They should forget the election and have a race.

LAUGHTER

But they've started now with the handshakes,

Macron, because Trump does...

Give me your hand. Trump goes "Hello!"

So the French guy, they got this death grip,

and you could see their knuckles going...

That's the leaders of the modern world we're talking about here.

I mean, Donald Trump is one of those things, as you say,

it makes you realise how stupid the rest of the world are.

They've all been allowed a vote and I think there should be a test before

anyone can vote, where you show them a picture of someone and go,

"On a scale of one to ten how big a dickhead is that person?"

And if you don't say Donald Trump is up in the tens, you can't vote.

John, can I just point out, that's the reason why they put photographs

on election posters here!

In England you don't have photographs.

Here we have photographs.

On my first visit to Ireland, I kept thinking, "What is going on,

"all these photographs?" And today I took a trip,

I'd never been down that road,

I went down the Newtownards Road today.

Very colourful down there, isn't it?

I'm telling you who's doing well,

the photographer who takes those shit photographs.

-Unbelievable.

-None of them look good.

They're the best those people can look.

There were other ones that were rejected.

Can you imagine the other ones?

"Trust me with your future!"

It's that sort of...look.

The other ones, do you remember, do you know the ones,

was it Jim Allister?

You being a normal person and Jim Allister being in the background like that.

Remember those?

The boy in front always looked like he was being examined!

Oh, so, like, this election, she's called this snap election,

which is annoying because we've only just recovered from the Brexit.

I don't know what it was like for you,

how important the Brexit vote was here,

because it's so confusing because you're sort of in and out of something anyway,

and then we had it at home,

and again, in England it's very sensitive,

in Britain it's the Brexit vote,

people get very tense about it and so I won't go on about it,

but half of you are wrong.

52% or 48?

In our house, it became a big thing in our house, me and my missus,

cos Mandy said to me, "What are you going to do?"

I said, "I'm going to vote Remain, I'm going to vote in."

I said, "What are you going to do?" She said, "I'm going to vote out."

And in my head I thought, "You're just doing that for spite.

"You really haven't listened to any of this, have you?

"You waited to hear what I was doing and then you just wanted to cancel me out."

It became one of those things, I just thought, I wanted in,

she wanted out, a bit like our sex life, but that was...

Your wife voted Leave.

-Presumably, she didn't...

-No, she didn't, she changed her mind.

-She told you she changed her mind.

-No, what happened...

What happened...

What happened... We went... So I had a chat with her going,

"How can you vote Leave? You've got to vote..."

So we went all the way through it,

and we got to the voting booth and we went in, voted,

and I voted Remain and I thought she voted Leave,

got in the car and I said, "Did you cancel me out?"

She said, "No, I listened to you and voted Remain," and we went home and

watched it on the telly and the result come out and the country voted Leave.

And she went, "Told you I was right!"

Thank you, thank you very much for that.

Yes, indeed, the Secretary of State, James Brokenstick,

launched the Northern Ireland Conservative Party manifesto in front of an audience of 30.

Every single Tory voter in Northern Ireland was invited to attend,

and they all did.

Across the water, the BBC have been accused of anti-Labour bias.

The BBC have denied this and say they are totally impartial.

They say it is up to the voters to choose between Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn

and his creepy clique of Provo-loving crypto communists.

The BBC say their only job is to report the news in a way that is strong and stable.

So what is our next question tonight?

Who do you blame for travel chaos?

Yes, British Airways' computer system collapsed this week,

causing travel chaos with passengers trapped in airports for days.

One woman from Northern Ireland complained about BA's response,

saying she would have expected a sandwich and a bottle of water.

Come on, you're from Northern Ireland,

you should have at least asked for a cheese and onion crisp bap and two tins of Harp.

But who can we blame for travel chaos?

I blame my wife.

And there's a reason for this.

Because my missus is mad on Christmas.

So she goes mad with the house and every year she does all the lights

and there's a moment when I have to plug them in and so we do this fairy tree...

Every year I plug that in and then all the other lights go off.

It fuses the house, every frigging year,

even if we buy new lights because she goes over the top.

I think she's got in to someone in BA and said, "Listen,

"why don't you practise your Christmas lights?"

They've plugged it in, because when this computer thing went off,

everyone went terrorism, terrorism.

And they went no, the leccie just went off.

APPLAUSE

Did you see the hare in Dublin Airport?

There's a picture of a hare with a cigarette in Dublin Airport.

I think we have the picture.

The hare is a bit unusual because...

You see, if another animal picks up a cigarette you think that's accidental,

but it's a Dublin hare and it's like, "You caught me, I'm having a break."

You think this is fake but there's a rabbit inside covered in nicotine patches.

In Dublin Airport, the long-stay car park,

there are loads of them, they're huge.

They've no fear of people because they don't really engage with people

because the people are in cars.

They just look at you,

but the biggest scariest animals you've ever seen, looking at you, "Ah, right, yeah."

You look at them, and you feel, "Don't look at it,

"don't look at it.

"The car will be wrecked when we come back from the holiday!"

"I'm watching you, do you know what I mean?"

-They're just...

-It does happen.

That's a kangaroo you're thinking of.

They come up at you and just stare at you, don't they?

"Give us two euro and I'll mind your car."

-Honestly...

-That's the best, that minding the car.

No-one has said that to me in years.

Used to always park your car at Liverpool when we went to matches

and there would always be kids coming up, "Can I mind your car,

can I mind your car?" I remember my dad doing it.

Parking the car and a kid came up "Hey, mister, can I mind your car?"

My dad said, "It's all right, I've got a dog in it."

He said, "Can he put fires out?"

I flew with Ryanair recently, in fact.

I hope this lad does it on every flight.

This is a genuine thing, the air hostess was a male.

-So, what was it, air host?

-Steward.

-Steward.

-Cabin crew.

-Cabin crew.

Cabin crew. An Irish lad, he was so funny, I should have got his name.

He did the announcements, you know when they go,

"Ladies and gentlemen, emergency exits there, this is a non-smoking flight."

All Ryanair flights are non-smoking.

"That includes no vaping.

"However, if you do feel the need for a cigarette,

"there is an outside smoking area."

LAUGHTER

And he... It was brilliant.

And he just carried on and then you could see people going,

people in their tracksuits going...

APPLAUSE

Thank you,

thank you very much for that, yes,

British Airways' computer system crashed.

Some people say the problem was caused when BA's IT department was outsourced to India.

Nonsense - I mean, we've outsourced The Blame Game's joke-writing to India

and haven't had any problems at all.

Meanwhile, there was controversy this week when President Pranab Kumar Mukherjee

tweeted that canvassers from the Bharatiya Janata Party were not

welcome in Rathfriland.

So what's our next question tonight?

Who do you blame for me getting so old that all my childhood heroes are dying?

Yes, intrepid Blue Peter presenter John Noakes has very sadly passed away.

John was hugely popular,

and entertained millions of children when I was young.

He was an unusual 1970s entertainer as he was fun,

he was fearless and he was never arrested under Operation Yewtree.

John's dog Shep was his constant companion and was almost as famous as he was.

Indeed, when John left Blue Peter the BBC let him keep Shep.

In the same way, when The Blame Game finally ends,

we're going to let Neil keep Jake O'Kane.

But who can we blame for me being so old that all my childhood heroes are dying?

John Noakes, yes, for the younger viewers,

as in the ones who have children, not grandchildren,

John Noakes was my hero when I was a kid.

I loved him.

He was brilliant. He did all the stuff you're not supposed to do when you're a kid.

And you're told not to climb things, he would climb them.

You were told not to jump out of planes, he would jump out of planes.

He would do anything. He would wrestle things. He was nuts...

We've footage of him climbing Nelson's Column.

This is the best thing ever.

-JOHN NOAKES:

-How high is it?

-About 180 feet, I think.

Is it?

How are the ladders fixed on?

-Firmly.

-They're quite firmly around the actual column itself.

They're very secure.

'Our cameraman Terry was waiting at the top and he really did

'have a bird's-eye view of me reaching the worst part of the climb.

'At this level the plinth on which Nelson stands overhangs the column.

'I found myself literally hanging from the ladder with nothing beneath me.'

You told me there was overhang, but you didn't tell me it leant to one side.

No, that was the awkward part.

It's a long way up, really.

That's the 1970s, right?

1970s, no high-vis, no helmets, no harnesses

and wearing flares.

That is a man.

That is a man.

The 1970s, right.

People say that nowadays are dangerous and the '70s were dangerous.

The dangers in the '70s, yeah, they were dangerous,

flares being the main danger.

The people used to just go about their business,

no-one had uniforms when they went to work.

You'd see builders digging the road and they used to just wear a sports coat.

The stuff they used to wear to Mass,

now they don't wear to Mass any more cos they use it for digging the road.

Climbing that. Rioters, see, nowadays, people riot,

you get anarchists rioting all over the world.

Anarchists are rioting and they're all dressed in black, in running gear,

they're dressed for rioting.

People used to riot in the '70s and '80s wearing flares.

Do you know how difficult it is to outrun a snatch squad wearing flares?

Your hair in your eyes and you're running,

it's a miracle anybody got anything done.

And Shep. That whole thing with Shep the dog.

He was on a show years later, that one with Anne Robinson.

-The Weakest Link.

-Weakest Link - on that.

And she deliberately asked him about Shep,

knowing she would get a reaction from him and she did.

She did what's known in the business as a "Nolan"...

APPLAUSE AND LAUGHTER

She asked him about Shep and of course he teared up.

And, er, you know...and...

I feel ill watching that.

If you think that, you should have kept it going,

because when Shep went up it, I couldn't believe it.

That's where the phrase "Get down, Shep" came from.

-That was the first.

-We don't know if John Noakes was the first person to do that.

Climb up Nelson's Column?

He couldn't have been, the fella who went up with the ladder!

My favourite story of the week was the cows who photobombed the wedding party.

-What?

-Two cows.

That was so inappropriate.

Two cows and they were...

No, that is appropriate, pretty much what they were doing, yeah. That was brilliant.

They were taking the wedding pictures

and they didn't realise behind them was a randy bull cow and...

Moo!

The way it was reported was that they photobombed it,

like they were getting their wedding photo taken and the cow went...

LAUGHTER

"I'll be Jim Allister, you be the candidate."

LAUGHTER

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much for that.

Our next question tonight is...

Who do you blame for unwanted visitors?

DUP MLA Jim Wells tweeted that Sinn Fein canvassers were not welcome in

Rathfriland, particularly on a Sunday, and he's right.

It's Rathfriland, Wednesday is Hug A Taig day.

Jim...Jim called Rathfriland a Unionist town.

Sinn Fein said it was sectarian and wrong to designate areas on religious lines.

Mind you, if you ever see a Jim Allister election poster in the Ardoyne,

double-check your chemist gave you the right prescription.

But who can we blame for unwanted visitors?

Poor oul' Jim Wells off tweeting again.

He said many complaints about Sinn Fein canvassing on Rathfriland

yesterday, they're not welcome in a Unionist town, particularly on a Sunday.

He was upset with the Sunday thing because he would have been

watching the Derry/Tyrone match, it was a cracker.

A cracker. It was very good.

He was a bit annoyed then because the papers then contacted him for comment

and he went, no, no, no papers, the media's job is just to set traps.

Jim, you just say stuff, that's all.

People just respond to the stuff you say.

You dig holes for yourself every single week.

I think that's why he's called Wells, he should...

he should live up to his name.

John O'Dowd as well was kicking,

there's loads of lads going against each other.

He said that the UDA and the DUP are playing footsy with the UDA this week

because Sinn Fein has never played footsy with anyone. Have they? No!

Quite hard to play footsy if your kneecaps are in a drawer.

Did you see the one, the shark jumped into the boat in Australia?

That's brilliant, unwelcome visitor.

He's 73, off the coast of New South Wales, a shark jumps into the boat.

The boat is four-and-a-half metres long, the shark is 2.7 metres long.

It knocks your man down,

the man lies down like this and he's just looking at the shark like that.

And the shark is like this - "The hare sent me."

He's just looking at this shark like...

It's the worst one-night stand ever.

How did the shark get off the boat?

-Did he keep it on?

-He had this boat and boat lines were going down under

the boat and the shark went...

GRUNTS

I don't know what noise a shark makes, the shark went...

and jumped into it.

-No.

-It did!

-The shark's just going around the ocean looking for a boat to get on

because it's knackered.

No, I reckon there were two sharks down below,

one went, "Bet you couldn't jump over that."

"Yeah, I could." "Bet you couldn't." "I'll show you."

Boom. "Bugger."

If you listen very carefully, you'll hear another shark going....

Na-a-a-ah!

One of them big spiders turned up as well, here,

huntsman, it's the size of my hand.

You've been there. I wouldn't go to Australia.

When you're looking at a shark, or a spider,

and you can see the spider's eyes looking back at you,

it's time to leave the room.

I was genuinely in Australia, lying in bed

at night...at night and...

wooden floor and I heard a noise.

I turned the light on and I could hear the spider walking across the

floor, it was that big.

I turned the light off again and went...

You stayed in the room. I would have left the country!

I would be on a plane travelling home.

You wouldn't be in the country, it has sunshine.

If it was big enough to have clogs on to hear it.

If it was big enough to hear, how do you know it was a spider?

Because I saw it!

Yeah. I heard it first, that's the bit that scared me more than anything.

When you went to sleep again...

And just waited for it to bite you.

Then I went, "I think it saw me."

It was like a horror film,

you'll turn back on the light and the spider will be beside your head!

But it'll be holding its shoes in its hands,

-going...

-Shush.

Just a spider in socks.

I don't know why I find that so funny.

I've heard all sorts of horror stories.

The ones that live under the toilet seat and bite you...

Colin, so when you turned off the light, though,

were you just...? Presumably you heard the spider, tappy-tap,

were you trying to figure out if he was coming in your direction or going away from you?

Oh, Jesus Christ.

Or just dancing.

The funniest bit was I turned the light on and he

stopped, like in a... "Shit!

"Wrong house."

The only thing that would be scarier than that is

if you turn off the light and the spider turned it back on.

Terrifying.

The other bird story as well, the new Bentley, did you see this?

There's a new Bentley SUV, 4X4 yoke.

Colin, we're not doing well enough for that. John, have you seen the new Bentley?

You can get a falcon perch as an optional extra,

a perch for your falcon.

I swear to God!

-So you can go hunting with your thing.

-Surely it's just a wing mirror.

No, it's not.

It's a wing mirror. Wing mirror. Wing mirror!

Fuck yous all, fuck yous all.

It's in the Middle East for the Saudi market.

No, it's a perch for your cock.

It's the wrong bird.

Seriously, you get a perch and it's for your falcon,

I have one of those and it's called handlebars.

But you do, you get...

It's like a Rolls-Royce always has an umbrella.

-Does it?

-Yeah. Press a button and it goes...

-No!

-A Rolls-Royce always has an umbrella.

Why don't they just have a roof?

Thank you, thank you for that. Just time for our quickfire round.

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

than Theresa May running away from an election debate.

Cut a hole in your trouser pocket.

But will claim for a very big one.

Good job you lot can build bonfires, ain't it?

My colon.

It's all right, they find it again when they get married.

Oh, that's pushing it.

And finally...

County Derry, County Tyrone, County Antrim, County Down...

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

Please show your appreciation to our panel, Colin Murphy, John Bishop,

Jake O'Kane and Neil Delamere.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I'm Tim McGarry. Until we're back in the autumn,

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

APPLAUSE