Episode 3 The Commute

Ah, the morning routine - a couple of hours that brings

half a million of us out and onto Northern Ireland's roads.

It's rarely the highlight of anyone's day...

Another day, another dollar.

Another day, another tuppence ha'penny.

Ready for another day in paradise.

It can be a time to make wedding plans...

I'm a bit frightened cos probably I'LL have to end up marrying you.

..a time to make those final plans...

When the two heels are kicked up, I have told her,

you're to put me in a Batman suit.

..and a time when all plans go out the window altogether.

HE CHUCKLES

So buckle up, everyone, as we take you on The Commute.

THEY SQUEAL

MUSIC: Sing by Ed Sheeran

Hey! Hey!

# Oh-oh, livin' on a prayer. #

# Are you sorry we drifted apart? #

-# It's raining

-Men

# Hallelujah, it's raining men. #

# I'll take you home again, Kathleen. #

It's all about lurve for this morning's commuters.

Over in Carrickfergus,

11-year-old Leonardo has the whole relationship business worked out.

If I would have a relationship, I'd make sure it's special.

I can't have, like, ten special relationships.

It just doesn't work like that.

If you have the special relationship and then that person grows old

and dies - yeah? - what stops that next relationship not being real?

Because you can't get over your last relationship.

Yes, it would take me a while. I'd probably take, like,

two centuries to get over my one undying true love, but...

You never know. In two centuries the Earth might not exist.

Way to go, Leo! Cheery conversation on the way to school!

See when I marry my farmer? I'll just have a small wedding.

Me and her were in Balmoral Show and our eyes were like saucers,

looking at the young fellas, all the young farmers.

-Oh, my God!

-They were.

Yeah, they were! Checked shirts, jeans and brown shoes.

-Isn't that right?

-Yeah, that's right, Mum.

And they're all going round looking at the masses.

I'm going to find my husband at one of the Balmoral Shows.

-I'm not joking.

-Is that why you always go?

-No!

-She goes every year!

-She loves it. She does.

-I actually love it!

Cos I'm going to be a farmer's wife when I'm older.

And what if you get an auld boy? Does he have to be young or old?

-Same age-ish.

-There's loads of people that marry out of their age.

Wrinkles!

Well, the thing about men...

-Like, is that even an answer to that word - men?

-Kill.

THEY CHUCKLE

If tradition is not your thing, why not take a leaf out of Janet's book?

It's tree-mendous.

I was reading a magazine. There was an article in there about a woman

who had fallen in love with a tree. He was called Tim.

-Tim the tree?

-Tim.

-She wants to marry the tree. It's a true story.

Isn't there some very odd people?

# Cos if you like it, then you shoulda put a ring on it

# If you like it, then you shoulda put a ring on it

# Oh-oh-oh... #

On their way to school in Newtownards, Bethany and Emily

have thought this whole wedding thing through.

What age do you want to get married at?

Like, I don't know. 20...

-Oh, I don't know, actually.

-I want to get married at 21.

-I love that number.

-It's a good number.

-Oh, OK!

-What made you want to propose at the age of four?

-I was stupid.

-I didn't have a brain.

-But I assisted you.

-I remember getting this little card.

-I remember you telling me, like,

"Oh, Leo, you should even give her a ring."

So you're dumb and you're dumber?

-What did you do when you proposed to her, Gordy?

-What did I do?

We just had a romantic meal and I proposed.

-Did you go down on one knee?

-Aye, I was on the one knee.

-Did she help you back up?

-THEY CHUCKLE

I wouldn't want the whole down on one knee and definitely not

-in public.

-Oh, no.

Like, I rather would just be, like, driving and just be like,

"Let's get married." Like, "All right."

No, well, now, I don't want that but at the same time, I hate

the thought of, like, a restaurant in front of loads of people.

I hate the thought of somebody clapping at you.

No, but, see, my thing is, if it's like, you're making

the decision that you are going to get engaged or yous are going to get

married... Like, I wouldn't want to be engaged just to be engaged for,

like, ten years of my life.

There's no point in that. I want to be engaged to get married.

In East Belfast, Gary is saying "I don't" to Kathryn's "I do".

Weddings are good. All those happy people, getting married.

All committing themselves for ever.

-Till death do us part.

-Yeah.

What a load of auld shit.

-Och, no! Listen, you'd love to be married.

-No, I wouldn't.

-You would be married in the morning.

-No! Would you like to be married?

-Oh, yes, absolutely.

-Would you? How big would the rock need to be?

I don't think it's anything to do with the rock. I think we're...

-I think we're getting too late, to be quite honest with you.

-Yeah.

In Newcastle, Connor has an all-out equine theme for his intended.

-How would you propose?

-Well, I know how she would want me to propose.

-How would she want you to propose?

-Well, she's big into horses, like,

so it would have to revolve around that somehow, in terms of

getting a whole parade of them to spell out, "Will you marry me?"

Sorry for the joke, man. She would say, "No-o-o-o!"

THEY CHUCKLE

-See, if a guy asked me to marry him in Disney, I'd cry so much.

-Same.

I'll just marry, like, a Disney prince, like one of the...

-..fake characters.

-OK, you.

Of course, many of our commuters

have already done the whole proposal thing.

Just outside Randalstown, Sid is sharing his romantic side.

So, tell me how you proposed to your first wife, then, lad.

Oh, the first wife?

-It was a tree hut.

-That...

-In a treehouse.

-Well...

There was, like, wee teacups and I had a teacup and I had a ring in it.

-I just says, "Look, blah, blah, blah," and that was it.

-Lovely!

Did your husband propose to you long before you were married?

I was going out with my husband exactly a month when we got engaged.

-Ooh!

-My goodness, isn't that wonderful?

How did Robert propose to you, Maureen?

One night during a week, a Wednesday night or whatever,

and he was moving into a new flat in Limavady and that's where

he proposed to me, in the new flat, and, er, of course,

I wasn't particularly...

I pretended not to be eager so, you know, I told him I needed

time to think and one thing and another,

so a few days later I get back and he asked again and then I said,

"Well, yes, yes. If you insist, yes, I will."

What did you do?

-It's funny.

-So what did you do?

-The sun was setting to the east...

And the waves were gently rolling, lapping against the shore.

And I got down on bended knee and...

..the children were there, and...

It sort of worries me that the sun's setting in the east!

I know, I was thinking that! Surely it should have been the west!

-Not entirely sure...

-No, it was MY east.

Well, I worked in Newry at the time and Ian was here and there.

And he said he was coming down one evening or something and I says,

"It's not your evening to come down."

"No, I just want to come down." "What are you coming down for?"

"I just want to come down." And I don't do surprises, as you know.

Nobody can surprise me.

I says, "Well, if you won't tell me what you're coming down for, don't bother coming down."

He said, "I was coming down to ask you to marry me."

"Right, OK, come on ahead down." And that was after six weeks.

And 28 years later...

When you know, you know!

There was a couple that lived near my mother and they had been

-"curting", as they call it in the country.

-Curting!

"Are you goin' curting?"

-And, anyhow, they had been going curting for 40 years.

-Oh, no way!

And they met every night and, you know, in the country,

they only went for a walk.

They went all round the place and down and they walked...

-They must've been very fit!

-Yeah, but wait till you hear!

They walked and walked for 40 years, they did this,

and one night he said to her, "Do you know what I'm thinking, Maggie?"

And she says, "No."

He says, "I think we've been walking the roads long enough,"

he says, "I think it's time we settle down together."

And that was his proposal to her to get married!

Some parents are like, "Come on,

"let's go, daughter, for a holiday to Pakistan." You're like, "Oh..."

"Make sure you leave your job

"and make sure that you say bye-bye to all your friends."

"That's right, and bring your British passport."

-"Make sure you bring your prettiest clothes."

-Yeah.

-"Just in case."

-"I'd like you to meet..."

"You might find someone, or we might find someone."

"Your cousin. He works in a restaurant!"

MUSIC: You've Got The Love by Florence + the Machine

First comes love, then comes marriage,

but for Gary in Belfast, there's an uneasy sense of obligation.

I'm a bit frightened because probably I'll have to end up marrying you.

-Well, there's always that.

-Yeah.

I mean, if I don't get you married off soon, I'll maybe feel compelled.

-Yes, but it would be a charitable act!

-Yeah!

I'm all about the charity.

We could have a good day out, at least.

And the flowers would be like no other.

-Oh, the flowers would be like no other.

-And the event styling,

I mean, people would talk about it for years.

-Indeed, it might be in Hello! magazine.

-It would.

Or in Belfast it might be in Bout Ye! magazine.

THEY LAUGH

And like, what about a wedding? Would you want a huge wedding?

-I've two ideals.

-OK.

Kind of makes me like,

Sometimes I'd be like, no, I don't want to be, you know,

you're going to be the centre of attention because you're a bride.

-Yeah.

-I'd just like somewhere, a two-day thing,

not local but just a couple of hours away

and you go down the night before and stay, like,

you know, some nice wee cottage or something and have it like that.

But then other times I'm just like,

sure, rub it in people's faces, like, why not?

What better reason?

Most of the ones in work are getting married.

So they've had it planned for, like, years and years,

whereas when Pakistanis get married,

like, we have the space of, like, 35 days to arrange

-from the engagement...

-Yeah.

-..till the wedding.

A lot of Pakistani people just go to find their next potential partner.

I remember at...

It was your wedding, one of the Asian aunties came over

and was like, "Arousa, seriously, show me the potentials for my son."

So I was like, "OK, follow me.

"OK, table four, there's three people.

"Table five, there's two."

It's kind of like they organise and arrange it,

you will get married to this person and that is the end of the story.

Arranged marriages are maybe a good thing.

A lot of people jump into marriages and relationships nowadays.

You would know your child,

you'd have a fair handle on who the other person was,

as long as your intentions were honourable and you weren't thinking,

some sort of financial reason behind it.

People, like, they don't give any kind of gifts,

they just give cash and then the Asians have an accountant counting,

"This guy gave us 50 quid this year, we have to give him back 50 quid."

-You know? What the heck is that all about?

-Or if you gave someone 100

and then their son got married and they slip 20 in the card,

-it's like...

-Oh!

-Oh!

-Wow!

-Black mark.

-Burn, yeah.

Our white Caucasian non-Asian friends are like,

when you invite them, they're like,

"Oh, I cannot wait to go for the cultural experience.

"It's going to be wonderful."

And when they arrive there and find out there's a closed bar...

There's no alcohol!

"Sorry, did I not tell you that no alcohol is being served?

-"I'm so sorry."

-"We have Shloer."

You know what, everybody goes to the wedding,

all everybody wants is a drink.

On a country road around Newtownards, Nathan and Robert

aren't worried about who or indeed when they get married

-but rather where.

-Would you not just go away to get married

or what would you do? Would you stay at home or what would you do?

Don't know, like. I don't think I would personally go away

-to get married.

-I don't think I would either.

You'd want, like, everybody to experience the day

-and have a bit of craic.

-Sure, the boys need a bit of craic.

-The boys need a day out.

-Need a good stag do too.

If you feel like going away to get married, I'm available!

Is that a hint?

You can get married in Disney.

-What?

-Can you actually imagine that?

-I'm getting married in Disney.

-Same.

-I'm getting married in Disney.

-Like, you can go up

-to the castle in Florida.

-You know that's actually my dream?

You turn up in Cinderella's carriage and the horses, like,

with the white horses and all.

-Does it actually say that?

-Yeah.

-It's like, really expensive, obviously, but...

-I don't care.

-Like, you only get married once. Well...

-Hopefully.

-That's not always true.

-Yeah.

-You know I've been married three times.

-Yes.

So we'll just sort of brush over that, but the first time...

SHE LAUGHS

The first time I got married, right, I was pregnant.

My dad said, "No, you don't need to get married."

But his brother said, "No, you do need to get married."

The upshot of it was we got married.

There was five of us at the wedding

and we went back to my Nanny Edwards's

and we had fish paste sandwiches

-and we had a little bit of a Victoria sponge.

-Isn't that lovely?

And number two was...

Do you know what, I don't even think he proposed, number two,

but anyway, we got married, and that was nice. And my third marriage...

-Right, right.

-My third marriage was...

I shouldn't have got married, really. He was a lot, lot younger.

About a week before we got married,

we had this conversation to say, really, you know,

"We shouldn't be getting married, this is all a big mistake."

But so many people had put so much effort into it...

-You had to go ahead.

-We didn't feel that we could not do it.

-Let them down, yeah.

-So it lasted three years.

Ah, who says romance is dead?

Well, Aislinn over in Limavady does.

After 20 years, generally you have your kids up by then.

-Yeah.

-20, 21 years.

There should be, once you hit that 21 mark, you say, "Right",

and you can go.

You don't have to say, "I'm leaving" or anything else,

you can just leave. And that should be in your wedding vows.

For better or for worse, till 20 years or death do us part.

It's been a rocky road for celebrities in 2016

with the loss of so many legends.

In Belfast city centre, Bellal and Arousa are lamenting.

This year, 2016, took Prince.

-What is my Facebook feed...

-It kept Kim Kardashian.

HE LAUGHS

-Did you see the thing about Kanye West?

-No.

-Devastating news.

He's still alive.

-Did you not see that?

-No.

But then people find out more whenever they die.

-Me, myself included.

-That's right, you found out more about them.

-David Bowie. Remember?

-David Bowie's music, yeah.

-And then after it,

-you're like, you know...

-I knew him from the Labyrinth.

I remember him from the Labyrinth.

But he kind of freaked me out.

And then Muhammad Ali, you know, like, fair enough,

you remember him with his Parkinson's or whatever, but then

when you see the footage of him when he was younger, he was gorgeous.

-Yes.

-And you're like, "Oh..."

-He had everything, didn't he?

-He did.

-He had beauty, brains.

He was lovely.

Ali was some boxer in his day, though, all the same.

Aye, Ali was very good, now.

A bit cocky, like, but...

I think he was cocky, you know, but I think he also, you know,

he seemed to have a good way with people too.

What was it he said?

Fly like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

Aye, fly like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

Or float, maybe, lads?

On the back road from Lisburn to Belfast,

Gerry is killing off people that aren't even dead yet.

I was trying to figure out

which one sort of affected me the most, not that really

any of them should affect me, but...

Was it not Cilla that affected you the most?

Maybe.

I was more sorry about, um...

-Paul Daniels?

-Paul Daniels? God, I can't stand Paul Daniels.

-No, I think it was...

-Prince?

Was it your man Robinson?

You know, that used to be the leader here, the Assembly leader?

-Peter Robinson, is he dead?

-He's not dead.

Did he not have a heart attack and die?

He had a heart attack but he didn't die.

-Was he the Sinn Fein leader, Peter Robinson?

-Ach!

I thought he was dead.

MUSIC: Do You Realize?? by The Flaming Lips

All this talk of celebrity deaths

has got our commuters thinking about their own mortality.

# ..that everyone you know

# Someday will die? #

And in Newry, a subject that challenged some of humanity's finest.

I would like to believe that once you die you go up

and you meet your family who've died and all.

So what do you do - go, sit, have a cup of coffee with them?

I don't think they do Nescafe in heaven.

Well, I always thought that when I died I would go to heaven...

-Mm-hmm.

-..and I believed that you would join your husband.

-Yeah.

-Well, I've divorced three, so which one would I meet?

And to be honest,

I really wouldn't want to particularly meet any of them

because that's why I divorced them, so in a really serious...

Especially if they owed you a lot of money.

THEY LAUGH

I'll tell you a story, sure, about my mother's belief. My granny...

-Right.

-As soon as she died, a big smile came upon her face.

Your ma's face or her face?

-She believed that was her going to another place.

-Well, that's...

I said, "Mummy, how would you know she was going to a good place?

She says, "Well, Granny was like myself,

-"she wasn't that well behaved all the time and all, but..."

-Oh, right.

-She reckons...

-She believes that...

-Yeah.

See while we're on the subject,

what do youse think happens youse after you die? Truth.

If you were a Christian man,

you'd probably be thinking of going to heaven.

-Well, you probably ARE going to heaven.

-No, I asked you what do you think.

-Oh, what do I think, where I'm going?

-Uh-huh.

Into the ground.

-You know what I think happens when you die?

-What?

You know when you're sleeping,

-and you don't realise you're asleep?

-Yeah.

I think it's just like that.

Yeah.

Well, as a Christian, I'm not afraid of death.

I think it's a normal transition that comes automatically anyway.

You accept whatever state you're in

and certainly I have my will made

and left lots of instructions, as usual, for my family.

I've told them not to be sad but to...

be thankful for the life that I had.

MUSIC: Black Eyed Dog by Nick Drake

# I'm growing old and I want to go home

# I'm growing old and I don't want to know... #

I would want a bit of a themed funeral.

A favourite theme of mine would be Ghostbusters.

Can you imagine then I could come back and scare them all?

-Aye, you just sit up going, "Who you gonna call?"

-Yeah.

For my funeral...

You can get ecological banana-leaf coffins.

I love bananas too. Wonder if you can get any of them in Tesco's,

-out of the box.

-Aye, right enough.

So I'm going to get that,

and you can only get cremated in Roselawn in Northern Ireland.

I know, but they keep saying they're going to bring one to Derry.

Like, that's a good business venture.

If I had the money, I would start a crematorium in Derry.

-Everybody's dying to get in.

-They are!

And see in the paper, they're dying in alphabetical order!

Over to Joe and Connor in Newcastle for some classic...

Joe and Connor in Newcastle.

It should be an automatic opt-in. If you don't want to do it, opt out.

Opt in...

-Like, the donor...

-Oh, right, yeah.

-But is it not already an automatic opt-in?

-No, you have to...

You have to opt in if you want to do it.

But was it not changed there that you automatically opt in,

-then you opt out?

-No, no.

-I thought that's what it was.

-I think it's still being talked about.

-I thought that happened. No?

Pop me in the box, put down the lid,

-couple of good strong nails and that's it, job done.

-Uh-huh.

And then take you up to Roselawn...

Well, yeah, we'll have to pay for that bit.

And then where would you like the ashes?

The ashes, I think, just probably down at Helen's Bay beach.

Oh, right, and then you'll forever be there.

-Just drift into the water.

-Yeah.

-Just drift in.

Take a hell of a big tide!

SHE LAUGHS SARCASTICALLY

I want to be all coiffured and lying there in state, actually.

Would you like your teeth shown or not?

Would you like them to close your mouth or would you like to take the big teeth?

You'd be lying like this.

Your big white teeth.

THEY LAUGH

like Mr Ed!

MUSIC: Tilted by Christine and the Queens

# I'm actually good can't help it if we're tilted... #

When the two heels are kicked up, I have told her,

"You're to put me in a Batman suit, I'm to sit up at an angle."

Why a Batman suit?

Just in case I have to fly somewhere.

-Why not a Batman suit?

-And I've told her to make sure

I'm buried with my watch, so I can tell the time.

Well, I mean, you have to die sometime, and when you get older

you sort of accept dying, and why are we talking about death

at this hour of the morning, going to work?

Because we feel like death after that weekend we've had.

Remember when I was talking this morning about Danny's funeral

and one of the children had brought up this massive, massive,

massive photograph of Elvis because Danny was a big fan of Elvis

so it was sort of sitting on the altar,

and I had all these friends that came from Lifeline to the funeral,

and one of them later on said to me,

"Gerard, my God," he says,

"I could not believe how like your brother was to Elvis."

He says, "He was the spitting image of Elvis."

To this day I've never been able to say to him,

"That WAS a picture of Elvis. That wasn't him."

OK, everyone, hands up if your mum or granny does this.

-You love the death column.

-No, I do not love the death column.

You love the death column.

I've got to say, my mother reads the death column every morning.

And then she will say, "Do you remember such-and-such?" No.

"She went to your nanny's church." No. "Lived off Connsbrook Avenue.

"Married to your cousin's brother's uncle's father..."

No. No, I don't... "Dead."

Your mother's very funny.

-She's very funny.

-I get that story too.

-Yes.

-"Dead."

-With me it's a wee bit longer, though.

"Remember him that was married onto her that used to live round there

"that used to work in the chippy with the red door

-"and then they used to go there..."

-No. No!

-"And then...

"He was married onto her but then they had a blue door?

"Mary."

-No.

-"Ach, you know Mary."

-No idea who you're talking about.

-"Dead!"

No, no idea who you're talking about... "Dead."

All they ever talk about in Portadown is death.

Every time I go down, either my mother has a list of who's dead...

Do you member the time we were up in the graveyard with her the last time, and she broke wind?

Well, she started at the grave, at my daddy's grave, breaking,

and I thought, "Oh, God, I'm going to die,

"I'm not even going to let on I hear this."

And then, could she stop?

And then I just said to her, "Mummy, are you breaking wind?"

But when I said that to her, she just went to hysterics laughing

and broke more, and broke and broke.

Then she took, she run from that part of the graveyard

right to the other side of the graveyard, the whole way

I could see her running up right across the graveyard

and you could hear the wind coming out of her arse the whole way up

to the other side of the graveyard. It was disgusting!

-Like a machinegun!

-And all the size of her.

Then she's standing at the far side of the graveyard,

waving over at us as if to say, "I'm not coming back, I'm embarrassed."

It was like a machinegun.

And if it had been in 1970-something I'd have ducked.

That's enough talk about death.

Let's leave this commute, and indeed the series, on a high.

With our own version of a Queen classic, take it away,

the Commute class of 2016.

MUSIC: Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen

# I see a little silhouetto of a man

# Scaramouche, Scaramouche can you do the Fandango?

# Thunderbolts and lightning very, very frightening me

-# Galileo

-Galileo

-# Galileo

-Galileo

# Galileo, let me go

-# Oh-oh

-O-oh

# I'm just a poor boy

# Nobody loves me

# I'm just a poor boy from a poor family

QUEEN: # Spare him his life from this monstrosity

# Easy come, easy go will you let me go?

# Bismillah!

-# No!

-We will not let you go!

# Let him go!

-# Bismillah!

-We will not let you go! #

Let him go, for God's sake!

-# We will not let you go

-Let him go!

# Will not let you go

-# Let him go!

-Will not let you go

# No-o

# Oh

# No, no, no, no, no, no, no!

-# Mama mia

-Mama mia

# Mama mia, let me go

# Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me

-# For me!

-For me!

# For me! #

Whoo!

I've come over all dizzy.

# So you think you can stone me and spit

# In my eye?

# So you think you can love me

# And leave me to die?

# Oh, baby

# Can't do this to me, baby

# Just gotta get out just gotta get right out of here

# Wa-wow, wa-wow

# Doo doo-doo

# Nothing really matters

# Anyone can see

# Nothing really matters

# Nothing really matters

# To me. #

Ssh.

Ssh! Ssh!

# Any way the wind blows. #

Whoosh!

-That was a bit of a crap ending, wasn't it?

-Mm-hmm.

# Sing with me, sing for the year

# Sing for the laughter sing for the tear

# Sing with me, just for today

# Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away

# Dream on

# Dream on, dream on

# Dream on

# Dream on, dream on

# Dream on, oh... #