Episode 2 The Blame Game

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Hello!

Hello and welcome, welcome to The Blame Game, the show that's got

more jokes than James Brokenshire has broken deadlines.

And that's a lot of jokes!

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

Colin Murphy, Jake O'Kane and Neil Delamere.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And our special guest tonight is a star of theatre, film and TV,

and as if that wasn't enough,

she's also one of Ireland's funniest stand-up comedians.

One review said that when she exits,

applause follows her all the way down the street.

Likewise when I finish a gig,

I'm followed all the way down the street by people shouting,

"Da, I want my money back!"

LAUGHTER

Please welcome the fabulous Deirdre O'Kane!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Yes, it's a new series of The Blame Game. We're back!

We're like the Northern Ireland Assembly, except we're back!

LAUGHTER

And to start the series, we're in the wonderful Ardhowen Theatre

in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh.

The name Fermanagh, of course, comes from the Irish "Fir Manach",

meaning "frack all you want".

The county is famous for its close links to literature,

art and culture.

Both Samuel Beckett and Oscar Wilde went to school in Enniskillen,

plus Fermanagh is home to Coronation Street's Charlie Lawson.

So it is.

Fermanagh is also Arlene Foster's home county,

and I'm just looking to see if she's in tonight...she's in...

No, strange.

Not as if she has much on at the minute.

Arlene is still Northern Ireland's First Minister, which is

a job of enormous importance. Arlene has two main duties.

Number one, every day she has to repeat the phrase,

"No, you're not getting an Irish language act."

And number two, now that winter is coming,

she has to remind the elderly to keep warm

by moving out of their homes

and into a barn with an RHI boiler.

APPLAUSE

Now, on with the show!

The audience asks the questions and our panel provide

some very unreliable answers.

So, who's to blame for the Ardhowen Theatre being overheated tonight?

And that comes from someone called Michelle Gildernew. Is it...?

APPLAUSE

Is that Michelle Gildernew, the-the local MP?

Yes, no, I saw her taking her seat earlier on.

First time for everything.

Who's to blame for the Northern Ireland population who keep

voting for the same political arseholes

at each and every election?

Michelle Gildernew, erm...?

But what is our first question tonight?

Our first question tonight is,

who do you blame for the talks finally failing?

We're recording this programme a few days before it's broadcast

so there is actually a chance that by the time you are watching

this, the talks have succeeded and an historic deal has been reached.

Of course there's slightly more chance of Ian Paisley snogging

Gerry Adams at a disco in the Gaeltacht.

Despite not being at work for nine months,

Assembly Members are still being paid, and even got a pay rise.

Yes, it turns out that MLA is even better than DLA!

LAUGHTER APPLAUSE

But who can we blame for the talks finally failing?

Are they failing?

I don't think you'll be failing if you were an MLA

and you'd got nine months' free paid leave!

I think you wouldn't mind that at all,

just pottering about your garden or whatever else they do.

Yous remember why it fell over,

why the Assembly fell over in the first place was RHI,

the most expensive chicken heating system in the history of humanity, right?

That's gone from 500 million to being up now to 700 million -

nobody even noticed!

Nobody noticed, because it's all changed,

it's all now gone to language. They're arguing about language.

Only 3% of candidates at the last election could speak Irish

but they want an Irish language act.

And the DUP being the DUP,

"Well if they're getting in their language act,

"we want our own Ulster Scots act."

So we now have this impasse

because one party want a language that nobody speaks

and the other party wants a language that doesn't even exist!

LAUGHTER APPLAUSE

And you see this...

You see the MLAS - "No, we're doing an awful lot of

"very good constituency work behind the scenes."

Please! As we say in Northern Ireland,

"Don't pee down my neck and tell me it's raining, do you understand?"

So you get angry, I get angry. Going to complain.

Who are you going to complain to?

You might as well complain to Ghostbusters

cos you may as well... There's nobody coming... MLAs?

The turkeys aren't going to vote for Christmas!

These turkeys don't vote at all!

So where are you going to go? You go to Chief Constable.

Good.

Go to the Chief Constable, can't go to Chief Constable.

He's rather busy...

because he's being invested by the police themselves, so...

I was really desperate then, I thought, that's it.

I'll just bite the bullet, I'll go to wee Brokenshire.

I'll go to wee... I'll go to wee James, wee James.

That's how desperate I got.

Because Secretaries of State, if you're my age, you know

are the dregs of Westminster.

The dregs of Westminster have been sent here for decades

to be our overlords, except for Mo Mowlam, who was the exception.

But wee James...

is a wimp

of proportions

even we have not seen before!

There have been so many... What did he say? What did he call them?

-"This is the last one..."

-Deadlines.

-Deadlines!

-Ultimatum.

Oh, no, deadlines! "Right, this is the last deadline. OK, Monday."

"Monday. You chaps better this sorted right by Monday.

"OK, Tuesday. Tuesday'll do fine. Right, then.

"OK, next week, next week's fine!

"We're making wonderful progress."

You know looking at this wimp he's been bullied from his first day

in public school.

And he's still having his pocket money stolen from him,

only this time it's by MLAs!

James, if you're watching, bit of advice.

Here's the difference between Mo Mowlam and James Brokenshire.

Know it? One word.

Balls!

Balls!

LAUGHTER APPLAUSE

-No, no...

-This may be comedy for you but it's therapy for me,

that's all I'm saying!

We ought to try and get somebody in the DUP

to support the Irish language.

Why don't you just tell Ian Paisley Jr that there's a Gaeltacht in Sri Lanka?

LAUGHTER

But the Shinners are very keen on the Catalan thing. Very keen.

They had a...what was it,

demonstrations of support for the people of Catalonia?

Er...at the weekend, and they had, erm,

they had sort of demonstrations in Derry at the Free Derry wall

and they put the thing up, and then there were demonstrations

in Belfast, demonstrations in Dublin, and...

-WHISPERS:

-..nobody went. And, er...

And was...? I don't know whether...

Was Gerry speaking Spanish at all during this? I don't know.

I'm sure he was trying to speak it, probably as well as he speaks Irish.

And, erm... It's hilarious watching him when you see footage of him

in the Dail when he's speaking in Irish and you can just hear everybody going,

"Oh, oh, oh, o-oh, o-oh!"

It's the way we use to react when we saw your woman from Girls Aloud speaking.

-You know what I mean?

-Nadine.

-"Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh! Shh!"

Gerry's losing it.

-Gerry's definitely...

-That's why we need an Irish language act.

Gerry's losing it. Did you see Gerry in the Dail the other week?

He was talking and he was arguing one-on-one across the way

about the Budget or something, and they said something,

-he said something, like...

-AS GERRY ADAMS:

-"Well, actually,

"actually, it's £30 a bottle of wine."

Where are you buying your wine, Gerry?

You must put some subsidy on Buckfast!

Gerry's never used the wine, he's poured out the wine,

he's put an oily rag in the top of the bottle and then...

LAUGHTER

The best heckle, the best heckle was during that,

when he said it was 30 euro for a bottle of wine

and everybody started heckling him, and one guy said,

he says - listen to this - "Chucky-ah la-di-da!"

Isn't that brilliant?

Thank you very much for that. Yes, indeed, Catalonia is in crisis.

Many in Spain and Catalonia think the constitutional dispute

will be quickly resolved.

Bad news. WE thought that in 1998.

The President of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont,

declared independence and then fled to Belgium.

He now has a few options.

He could go back and face trial for treason,

he could go into exile, or he could do a Gerry Adams

and deny he was ever a member of the Catalan parliament.

So, what is our next question tonight?

Who do you blame for taking the fun out of flying?

Yes, extra security checks on flights to America

are being introduced.

Passengers will be questioned before they board flights.

We don't know what the questions are yet but if you want to go to

America and they ask you, "Is Donald Trump a total arsehole?"

whatever you do, don't give them the right answer.

-But who can we blame for taking the fun out of flying?

-Well...

I have a sister who was an air hostess for a while,

she worked for British Airways. And Jennifer Lopez

took the fun out of it for her

-because she kind of caused her to be fired.

-Jennifer Lopez?

-J Lo?

-From the block?

-J Lo, the very one, from the block. She was...

My sister, who I never understood how she got this job, by the way,

cos she has a horrible manner.

She doesn't even really like people.

But British Airways thought she was fabulous, so they promoted

her to being a bursar, looking after passengers who flew first class.

And Jennifer Lopez happened to be on her flight.

They were flying from London to Los Angeles.

And J Lo had a personal assistant with her.

And the personal assistant kept asking my sister.

She kept going, "Excuse me, J Lo would like some water."

Minutes later, she'd go, "J Lo would like some coffee.

"More water, more coffee. More water, more coffee.

"More coffee, more water. More water, more coffee."

And there was no pleasing her. "Thank you," as my sister said,

"If there was a please or a thank you." Anyway, this went on

for several hours but they were talking to the wrong girl.

The wrong girl. She cracked after about five hours of the flight

and she went down to Jennifer Lopez's PA and she said to her...

"Come here to me," she said.

"Can J Lo not ask for the water herself?" And the PA said, "Oh, no.

"J Lo doesn't speak to flight attendants."

To which the sister said,

"Oh, that's gas!

"I knew she couldn't sing..."

UPROARIOUS LAUGHTER

She actually got away with that.

She wasn't fired for that set of events

but she was fired months later because she had another...

Happened to be an American passenger who was particularly loud

and arrogant, and he was going, "I need water, I need...

"Can I get a gin and tonic? I need a blanket, I'm cold."

And hot on the heels of J Lo, the patience was low,

so she went down to him a couple of hours into the flight

and she said, and she said it as nicely as she could,

she said, "Sir...

"would you ever F off?"

And the man... This man just lost the plot, as you would

if you'd spent several thousand dollars on a first-class ticket.

He lost it. He said, "This is absolutely outrageous,

"and I want to see the pilot or the autopilot,

"I want to see whoever's in charge here."

The autopilot couldn't come down to him.

He was busy looking out for mountains, but anyway...

The pilot came down. My sister had a reputation, so... Funnily enough!

And he took her aside and he said, "Liz, please tell me...

"Please tell me that you did not tell that man to F off."

And she said...

"No, I didn't. No, no. He's mad. He's absolutely barking.

"He's been ranting and raving from the minute he got onto the flight.

"Not well, not well. Keep away from him."

So the pilot went down to the man in question and said,

"Sir, I apologise profusely and I'm very sorry about what happened.

"However, my staff member tells me that she didn't tell you to F off."

He said, "Now, I believe you and I'm going to take her away

"and someone else is going to look after you."

He said, "Here's some champagne, it's on the plane."

He managed to appease the man until they landed at LAX airport.

But when they did land,

my sister went back over to her side of the plane just to get her

own coat, and the guy shouted at her, "Uh, could you get MY coat?"

So she went down to him and she said...

"I thought I told you..."

-And she was fired!

-Americans are like that.

On the one hand, they can be the nicest people in the world

and very, very pleasant, and very, very polite,

but they've got a way of asking for things, do you know what I mean?

-"I want! Get me!"

-That's what she said.

-We don't.

We go, "Jesus, you wouldn't, I couldn't now... I know I'm...

"You probably wouldn't have... Jesus, don't even bother!

-"It's all right, I'll go without it."

-We do it in the negative.

You go into a shop and go, "You wouldn't have bread?"

"Well, it's a bakery, of course we'll have bread, yeah."

That's how they should have asked for it in Ashers.

"You wouldn't have a cake that supports gay marriage, would you?"

I got kicked off a flight once for being cheeky

on a boarding pass during the Troubles,

a long time ago under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

In fairness, that was a helicopter and it was over South Armagh.

The Prevention of Terrorism Act,

and you had to fill in this form where you're going from.

The question and it, "Purpose of visit."

And just for a laugh, I wrote, "friendly".

LAUGHTER

Did you see the woman who was on a flight,

she'd booked a flight from Glasgow to Crete?

She was going off to Crete for a month, to write her book.

And the flight was £46, £49 or something.

-She turned up, proper Jumbo Jet, 737, Jet2.com or something?

-Yeah.

Turns up, only passenger on the plane. She's the only person there.

She's sitting there and apparently when they were doing the checks,

like, even the announcements were personalised to her.

So, the pilot came on and went, "OK, this is your pilot,

"Captain Phillips speaking... Karen, We're flying at 15,000 feet."

And then when they were doing the checks, the cabin crew came and sat down beside her

and went, "See when that light goes off?" She goes, "Yeah?"

"You can run up and down if you want."

And she did! She was like...

And you know your friend is a proper culchie,

when I explained this to my friend from home,

I said, she was only one on the flight and his eyes just went...

-HE GASPS

-"Can you imagine how many dinners she'd get!"

LAUGHTER APPLAUSE

That was his reaction!

To me, if you get to fly alone, that's a business class experience.

I was lucky enough to have a business class experience

by accident, I got upgraded on a flight to Vietnam with my children.

And they completely ruined it for me.

I would have given anything to be flying alone!

-The kids ruined it?

-They totally ruined my flight.

Was your sister on it as well? LAUGHTER

It was about 14 hours.

The first seven were fabulous because, by the way,

when you get upgraded to business class, you become a different class.

Honestly, the way I walked into that airport, like I owned it.

I walked in, straight up to desk,

"Hello! "Hello, Mrs O'Kane," how are you?"

"I'm fabulous. Look at me, look at the children. All my own work."

Anyway, they said to me, "No need for you to be queuing here."

Straight through to the business class lounge, free food, free drink.

My kids were locked. And...

we got on the plane and everybody up in business class is very

smug - all looking round at each other going, "Hello, hello.

"Aren't we the kind that deserve to be up here?"

But anyway, first seven hours of the flight were absolutely fantastic.

There was music, there was food, there was wine, there was

more music. And then they made this announcement.

"Ladies and gentleman, we're just going to lower the lights,

"so you can recline in your business class beds..."

That turn into seats or whatever they do, turn into beds,

"..and you can have a lovely big kip for yourselves."

And that's when it all went tits up for me

because my then four-year-old son had been on the iPad for about a half an hour,

playing a game called Temple Run. And if you don't know what that is, I had googled it and it said,

"An endless running game." Focus on the word endless. Right?

And he was running, running, running, over bridges, over bridges and all the rest of it.

What I'm saying is, it's high simulation, right? 20 minutes of it is loads.

So, I thought, this is my opportunity to take it off him

and I said, "Daniel, the captain said everyone has to put their technology away now.

"We're going to go for a lovely big sleep."

And he said, "No-o-o-o!" Very loudly, like that.

And there was quite a lot of, "Shhh!" from around the business class cabin.

So I thought, OK, I'll try my firm-but-fair mum voice.

"Daniel, everyone's technology is going away. You have to put the iPad away."

And he screamed even louder, "No-o-o!"

So I thought, "Oh, Christ, oh, my God..." Panic was setting in.

One man looked at me, one of the passengers,

he locked eyes with me in a kind of, "Please, I am begging you not

"to mess up the six grand I have spent on this ticket."

LAUGHTER

So, I thought, OK, right, I'll have to do my firm-but-fair

while pinching the arm off him. So, I said, "Daniel, give me the iPad NOW."

And he went, "Argh! You're hurting me!"

He screamed it. And I thought, OK, that's it. I have to let it go.

I have to let go. What's the worst that's going to happen?

He's just going to fall asleep eventually. No.

I did not sleep on that flight because he played Temple Run for seven hours straight.

LAUGHTER

All I can say is, by the time we landed in Vietnam,

we looked like we had walked.

LAUGHTER

-He's like...

-Why do you fly? I don't know why yous bother.

I don't trust the planes. The planes, the wheels are too small.

-The wheels are too small for a big, big plane.

-You'd drown otherwise.

No, I think there's enough here. There's enough here for a lifetime.

The things that you have on offer - Fermanagh!

Look what Fermanagh has, you've got the lakes, the Marble Arch Caves.

-They're caves you go into!

-LAUGHTER

Big caves...

Sorry, can I just point out, even the Fermanagh people are looking at you, going, "Hmm..."

No, this is the point. They weren't open to the public until 1985.

They've been there for thousands of years.

For thousands of years, parents here have been saying

to their kids, "Here you, stay away from thon big hole! Don't you go near...

"You fall in that big hole, I'm not going in for you. You'll fall in yourself!"

How was it discovered? Some wee man walking home. Fell in.

Eyes adjusted, sitting there.

Thought to himself, "Cheers, boy, I'll tell ye what, hey?

Couple of lights and a wee boat, you'd make a fortune here.

LAUGHTER

Thank you. Thank you very much for that.

Yes, despite cancelling thousands of flights recently,

Ryanair actually made a profit of £1.5 billion.

How many Ryanair employees does it take to change a light bulb?

Just one. But there's a surcharge if you want to switch it on.

LAUGHTER

So, what is our next question tonight?

Who you blame for Fermanagh's good fortunes?

Yes, Fermanagh has reserves of shale gas

and now there's talk of mining for diamonds.

You'll know if diamonds have been found if you're in Lisnaskea

and Arlene Foster drives past in a gold Massey Ferguson.

LAUGHTER

But who can we blame for Fermanagh's good fortune?

Yes, it is the diamonds. Basically...

# Diamonds are Fermana-a-agh! #

And, it's...yeah, but people aren't happy about it.

This company have applied to do test drills, apparently.

But they said it is not mining, it basically allows them

to prospect and to do petrochemical tests and drill

and do boreholes, but it's not mining.

It's definitely not mining.

But the local council said no to the whole thing.

They said "No, we don't want it." The mining company said,

"Well, it will create lots of new jobs," and the local people went,

"Hmm, there are not many miners here that are any good. You know?"

"The senior team's not bad. But the minor team is not great.

-"In fairness."

-APPLAUSE

Apparently, that's what it was, they wanted to do this exploration stuff,

and they reckon there's diamonds and it's far enough away from the border.

It's not like the fracking thing, that was right on the border.

And... all of a sudden, cos the gas goes sideways, you see,

so, all of a sudden they could be nicking shale gas from the South.

-Oh, God. It starts with diesel and then goes to shale gas.

-You see?

Under your feet, you know?

Everybody down South, standing, going, "I can feel the floor moving!"

It is. It's unbelievable.

The lakes and things go across the border, so you've guys smuggling

-in the best way possible, on a boat, going...

-HE MIMICS MOTOR

Just, how brilliant is that? If you're going to smuggle your property,

there's no point in driving a truck across the border.

Just get in a boat with a load of chickens...

There are HOUSES on the border. There was a programme on recently

and there was a house and the front of the house was in Northern Ireland

and the back of the house was in the Republic of Ireland. Now, you want to live in that house!

The craic you'd have with the TV Licence inspector.

-LAUGHTER

-"Do you have a television?" "I do."

"Do you have a licence?" "No, I don't!"

"Where's your television?" "Cavan."

LAUGHTER APPLAUSE

Thank you, thank you very much for that.

Our next question tonight is, who do you blame for excessive celebrations?

In Kilkenny, GAA players from Ballyragget were filmed celebrating

a cup win in the company of two strippers.

The players have been criticised, with people saying

the behaviour was not in line with the ethics of the GAA. Not sure why.

Maybe the strippers were wearing PSNI uniforms.

LAUGHTER APPLAUSE

But who can we blame for excessive celebrations?

The big excessive celebration was the boys in Derry, who were

anti-agreement Republicans who put a Provo snowman on their headquarters.

You see that? So, it's a snowman with an RPG, like an Armalite.

Saying, "Wishing you an explosive Christmas."

First of all, that makes no sense unless

you've sat beside my brother and he's had sprouts and stuffing.

It is vicious.

Secondly, he's holding it wrong, as well.

Thirdly, he has snowman arms, which, snowmen don't have arms,

-do they? What do they have for arms?

-Twigs.

-Sticks, twigs, yeah.

Except every twig in Northern Ireland is now

a wood pellet in an RHI boiler.

Have you ever heard of a Provo snowman? "Tiocfaidh Ar Igloo"?

It makes no sense at all. If there's a Christmas character, who has clearly been in The Ra,

it's Santa Claus, I think we all know this. It's Santa Claus.

He is from the North. He has a big beard. He knows where you live.

LAUGHTER

He leaves a package in your house at night. Come on!

-So, that's ridiculous. And Ballyragg-at in GAA land...

-Sorry, did you just poshify that?

Yeah it's called Bally-regret by some people who live near there.

Genuinely. Ballyragget is actually what it's called.

And apparently, there was a lewd act with these two strippers.

And we have to stress, though,

that not all the players were involved in this.

-Only a handful, is how the stripper described one of the lads.

-LAUGHTER

You know, I'm not allowed to bring the GAA into disrepute unless I actually praise it as well.

Because I'll be killed if I go home.

So, no, did you see in West Belfast, there was a school that

broke the world record for biggest hurling training session ever.

600 kids had hurleys and did a training session.

600 kids. Two Catholic families.

LAUGHTER

I have to say, I have a new-found respect for the women who do

charge for their services because I have reached

a stage of my life now where I insist on being paid for sex, myself.

It's just too boring. It's just too boring.

Long-term relationships, like? Do you know what I mean? Anyone? Anyone? No?

LAUGHTER

So, anyway, I insist on it, and himself leaves a bit of cash by the side of the

bed and if it's not a lot, I just pretend I'm asleep.

-And if it is a decent wage...

-You'll go for it.

I'll have the three jumpers off me in a heartbeat.

LAUGHTER

He's got a loyalty card now, as well.

It's where he swipes it, is what worries me.

No, if he pays me for ten rides, he can ride somebody else for free.

LAUGHTER

Do you know who really got annoyed about excessive celebrations?

Jim Wells.

Over the summer, Jim Wells got really annoyed about the Belfast Pride parade

because he worked for the National Trust, you see?

And the National Trust got involved in the Belfast Pride parade.

And Jim got very hot under the collar.

He said it was a disgrace and he went on Twitter

and said he was cancelling his membership and that was it.

And I'm sure he did a wee dance around his bedroom

when he thought - "Yooo!"

Of course, the result of that is pretty much

everybody in Northern Ireland who had never

heard of the National Trust, had no

interest in the National Trust, went out and joined the National Trust.

LAUGHTER

People who've never seen a stately home before in their lives,

suddenly had cards for the National Trust.

LAUGHTER

Guys like me walking about going, "I wonder if this place has got alarms?

"Do you think it's got alarms?"

LAUGHTER

This is an advertising opportunity.

You do dress like someone who owns a stately home.

-POSH VOICE:

-Yes, it is nice, isn't it?

-It is.

-It is quite nice.

But this is an advertising opportunity.

For example, Jim Wells the opposite, it's negative advertising, admittedly.

-If Jim Wells came out and said...

-That's enough. Just stop it there!

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Can you imagine that?

Thank you, thank you very much for that.

Just time now for our quickfire round.

I will read you various newspaper headlines

and I want you to be faster than that tractor

I was stuck behind on the road between Augher and Clogher.

LAUGHTER

In ten metres, turn far-right.

LAUGHTER

New names for the First and Deputy First Ministers.

LAUGHTER

Kevin Spacey.

GROANS

Glad we did that at the end of the show.

LAUGHTER

Yes, I am.

LAUGHTER

They come back with Black Rod.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Is really, really difficult for demolition experts.

LAUGHTER

And finally...

Just cut a hole in your pocket.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

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

Please show your appreciation to our panel,

Colin Murphy, Deirdre O'Kane, Jake O'Kane and Neil Delamere!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I'm Tim McGarry and until next time,

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