The Blame Game (2006) - full transcript

APPLAUSE

Hello and welcome to The Blame Game,

the show that has more laughs

than the average Northern Irish

school has toilet rolls.

I'm Tim McGarry and our

regular panellists are,

of course, Colin Murphy,

Jake O'Kane and Neil Delamere.

And our special guest tonight

is a Scottish comedian,

writer and director.

She's been wowing audiences on radio

and TV and at stand-up gigs

all over the world.

Next year sees her first

solo show in five years.

It's called Riches To Rags

and was inspired by the fee

she's getting for being

on The Blame Game.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome

the one and only Jojo Sutherland.

APPLAUSE

Yes, it's the start

of a brand-new series.

We've been off air for a few months.

So what have we missed?

Well, in July, England won

the World Cup by coming fourth.

And Brexit is going swimmingly.

Yes, it has emerged that after

Brexit there might actually

be a time difference between

Northern Ireland and the South.

Yes, the South could be

in a different time zone.

They'll be in the 21st century...

..and we'll still be in the 1600s.

Actually, the difference will,

of course, only be an hour.

Northern Ireland

will be an hour behind.

And if you want to know

what it's like being an hour behind,

try getting through security

at Belfast International Airport.

The Pope visited Ireland in August

and spent a lot of time saying sorry

for the past actions

of the Catholic Church.

To be honest, the last time we heard

so many apologies was when the BBC

met Cliff Richard.

LAUGHS AND GROANS

Now, on with the show.

The audience asks the questions

and our panel provide some

very unreliable answers.

What did you in the audience

ask us tonight?

Who's to blame for the BBC

Northern Ireland studio not

having an RHI boiler

outside to keep the audience warm?

Who's to blame for boring people

standing beside us in the queue

to get in tonight?

Said Seamus Kennedy.

Where's Seamus Kennedy?

No, who's he sitting beside?

What's our first question tonight?

Our first question tonight is who do

you blame for taking

Halloween too seriously?

Yes, in Newtownards a group of men

dressed in Ku Klux Klan outfits

took pictures of themselves

outside an Islamic centre.

It's being treated as

a racist hate crime.

Personally, I hope the racists

are arrested and flown

out of the country.

Ryanair caters for

racist passengers...

But who can we blame for taking

Halloween too seriously?

This place is great craic.

I haven't been north of the border

in a couple of months,

and in that time Gerry Adams

has a cookbook launched,

the Ku Klux Klan has a rally

and you've burned down a Primark.

Wow.

So, you know that everybody

in this show, we're against all

sorts of intolerance and even

perceived intolerance.

I went on the Ashers bakery

website yesterday

and I refused their cookies.

I'm not conflating the two issues.

Some people defended the people

wearing those KKK outfits

in Newtownards, saying

it's just Halloween.

There are loads of outfits

you could wear on Halloween

that aren't offensive

to other people.

What did you wear in the 1980s

when I was growing up?

You didn't get a costume,

your ma put you in a black polythene

plastic bag, the same thing

that wrapped silage in a field,

and you had the time it took

you to walk from your front door

to your neighbour's front door

to decide what you actually were.

You were a chimney sweep,

you were a cat, you were a witch's

cat and as long as you got

the monkey nuts, you were grand.

So why are these people going,

"They're just dressed up on

Halloween?"

It's still offensive and they stood

outside an Islamic prayer centre.

That's offensive to people. You

don't need to dress up like that.

We know what the KKK stands for.

Is there anybody, you think,

in some tiny little racist town

in Mississippi going,

"What are you going to dress up as,

"Billy Bob, for the Halloween?"

"I'm going to dress

up as a member of the UDA! Yeah!"

You think there's some guy...?

"I've learned some

songs on my banjo."

Dinga-ding-ding-ding-ding,

# Up to my neck in fenian blood. #

"I'm in the UDA, I got the guns,

all I need now is the drugs.

"No, sirree surrender,

that's right."

"And you're going to dress

up as a generic member of the UDA?"

"No, I'm going to dress

up as Michael Stone."

"No! THE Michael Stone?"

"That's right, Michael

'I Can't Paint For Shit' Stone."

"OK, if you're Michael Stone,

I'm Dee Stitt.

"Dinga-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding!"

It's just nonsense.

APPLAUSE

They're not the most

educated, are they?

You see signs, there are other signs

as well with people saying,

"Pakis go back to India".

Geography!

What's even better,

Britain First came over here

because apparently this is Britain!

I think you'll find it's not -

if anything technically

it's the United Kingdom,

but it's not Britain,

Britain is the big island,

this is the bit that's stuck

on the side of the big

island, apparently.

Britain First have turned up here,

typical bloody foreigners,

coming over here,

telling us how to live.

They got chucked out of

Wetherspoons. I've seen people

stabbed in Wetherspoons,

haven't been chucked out.

I've seen people thrown

into Wetherspoons.

They went into Wetherspoons

and Wetherspoons refused to serve

them but they didn't chuck them out,

so the guys stood around for five

minutes, pointy hats on -

I presume they kept them on...

Do you drink like that?

..and then one of them goes,

"Here, boys, I'm roasting,"

and that was it.

Stand further away from the cross.

APPLAUSE

By the way, stop having

a go at Michael Stone.

Michael Stone was released

during the summer.

Oh, you didn't know that!

You could have told me halfway

through the joke, couldn't you?

A good story came out of

Derry over Halloween.

Derry do Halloween...

But the police and army raided

the dissidents before Halloween

and they took away 300 fireworks

and 100 firework fuses.

I think that's positive,

because there would have been a time

they'd have got rocket

launchers and Armalites.

Now they're getting fireworks.

What's the dissidents like?

"Right, lads, everybody together,

light your sparklers!"

That's improvement. That's good.

Just watching...

Ooh, aah!

Ooh, ahh...

Thank you, thank you

very much for that.

This week a video showed Celtic

and Rangers fans clashing

at Belfast City Airport.

And just for Karen Bradley's

benefit, Glasgow Rangers

is a football team that is mainly

supported by Catholics

in Northern Ireland.

Catholics love the Gers.

So next time you meet Sinn Fein,

break the ice by wearing a Rangers

top and saying,

"Steven Gerrard's doing

a great job, isn't he?"

They'll love it,

Karen, I promise you.

Sadly, however, there is

still too much prejudice

in Northern Ireland

and here on The Blame Game

we are against

prejudice of any form.

The last thing anybody wants to see

is the spectre of sectarianism

raising its ugly Protestant head.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Karen Bradley's sitting at home

going, "Why is that funny?"

So what is our next

question tonight?

Our next question tonight is

who do you blame for asking

too many questions?

Yes, after 111 days, the RHI inquiry

has finished taking oral evidence.

So far the inquiry

has cost £4.6 million.

4.6 million quid to find out

that our politicians are useless.

Who knew?

To be fair, there has been some

shocking evidence.

We've learnt about the blatant

breaches of ministerial codes,

civil service incompetence,

lapses in governance and most

importantly of all,

we learnt that when Jonathan Bell

is pissed, his go-to song

is Breakfast At Tiffany's.

Imagine that - a DUP minister

who was so blocked he couldn't even

remember the words to The Sash.

But who can we blame

for asking too many questions?

You can't blame your wee chairman,

the wee guy, Sir Patrick Coghlin.

God love him,

what he's had to listen to -

60 witnesses, 111 days,

a million pages of evidence,

and what have we learnt?

Arlene Foster didn't read the RHI

bill before she brought

it to the Assembly.

Worse still, her memory is so bad

I wouldn't trust her to find

the toilet by herself.

As the civil servants,

civil servants who we pay,

didn't bother taking notes.

If you've a pigeon club,

you take notes.

They didn't take notes.

Wee civil servant... "What are you

doing, son?" "I'm taking notes."

"Put your notebook away, son.

"Hear no evil, see no evil,

think to evil, son."

I have to talk about

the Ballymena One.

It would be wrong not to talk

about the Ballymena One.

What is this country coming

to when an MP can't accept a couple

of luxury family holidays

from a repressive regime

and just ask a couple of questions

of the Prime Minister

without getting dragged in, pulled

over the coals? And he was put

out for 30 days, put out for 30 days

from Westminster while Westminster

was on holiday!

So after two years of no government,

after two years of no government,

we have failed politicians

who are still getting paid,

we have failed civil servants

who are still getting paid,

we have failed Spads who will get

paid but most importantly,

we have learnt, we have learnt

that Ian Paisley Jr

could be filmed singing

The Soldier's Song while getting

a massage from a Bangkok

ladyboy and he would still

keep his job!

APPLAUSE

It was a family holiday,

Ian Paisley didn't bring Edwin Poots

because with those ears he would

have been shot by poachers

in Sri Lanka.

If you're taking notes at a pigeon

club, is that technically a tweet?

Wahey! Come on!

RHI, you probably haven't

been following it because

you have a life,

but basically the RHI...

Basically you have no heating.

You're doing a show

called Riches To Rags,

basically the RHI has done the same

to Northern Ireland.

They've basically lost millions.

Were you the same?

Yeah, because, I grew up in a castle

for the first 15 years of my life.

Yeah.

Snap!

It's quite similar because my

parents were very posh

and very eccentric,

which, thank goodness,

had they been working

class and eccentric

I'd have been taken into care.

They were very posh

but we didn't have any money,

so we lived in a castle that had

no under-floor heating.

The only way to keep warm

was to hope the cat

pissed in your bed. It was...

Give the cat more water!

We didn't have things.

I was reading the Ulster Gazette,

as I often do.

There was actually an ad

that popped up for ArmaTile.

Have you seen this?

ArmaTile, A-R-M-A tile.

Which is dodgy enough, cos if you're

dyslexic that's Armalite. Yep.

This ad popped up,

but the story was about Armagh jail.

Have you seen this?

Armagh jail, it was meant

to be refurbished into a hotel

but there will be a long delay,

but it will be a jail-themed hotel.

Would you stay in

a jail-themed hotel?

"Mr McGarry, welcome along,

you're going to stay with us for six

"nights, the last two suspended.

"I see you're staying

in the Gerry Kelly Suite.

"OK, it's like a normal room

but you have to check out

"in the middle of the night

on a bread van.

"Oh, there's an upgrade available

to the Michaella McCollum Room,

"which is the same as the normal

room but the mini-bar

only has coke."

The horrible story, that wee rat,

do you remember the poor woman died

and he had the flat above her flat

and he didn't tell anybody

and he had her credit card

and was buying a pizza every day

for two years, pizza every day?

It was a horrible story,

but I don't know about you,

when I saw that on the news

and saw him, all I could think was,

why is he so skinny?

How is he so skinny?!

Speaking of culinary delights,

I'll maybe get you the Gerry Adams

cookbook for Christmas.

He launched his cookbook this week.

Launch is not the right word to use.

Gerry Adams launched nothing.

We've already established

this, several times.

Most of the recipes basically

start with, "Set your timer".

Most of them start that way.

Does Gerry actually like cooking?

No, they cook for Gerry.

I had an image of Gerry's kitchen,

like, the island isn't partitioned.

It's got all the posh cutlery

except steak knives.

We have to talk about

the very sad fire in Primark,

£2 million in the budget this week.

People are still upset.

Primark has become Belfast's Diana.

Is it too soon?

It's too soon, sorry.

Are you saying that Prince Philip

set Primark on fire?

I'm not saying anything, you know.

But I've been down there

and it's very weird,

you forget about it,

you walk around the corner

and the hoardings are there

and people are standing with a

wee tear in their eye,

laying a wee bunch of flowers.

Once they start removing

all the rubble out of that place,

"Oh, my God, I wouldn't

like the motorway that day,

"there will be trucks, people on the

flyover throwing flowers."

We used to have a whole lot

of things for Christmas.

This is typical of us -

when it's gone we're very upset

and angry, but when it was there,

did we give it any respect?

No, we were all in there

picking up jeans going,

"Nah!"

"T-shirt for two quid?

That's too dear."

Thank you. So what's our next

question tonight?

Who do you blame for bordering

on the ridiculous?

MPs have been told one of the major

items now being smuggled

across the border is washing powder.

Apparently it's used by criminals

to launder their money.

GROANS

They say washing powder

is being smuggled.

I'm not so sure, I'm not saying

the PSNI are useless but I reckon

some drug dealers have been caught

with a lot of white powder

and just told

the peelers it was Daz.

But who can we blame for

bordering on the ridiculous?

I think...

I think it has all become

ridiculous, Brexit has become

like an actual joke,

do you know what I mean?

An Englishman, a Scotsman,

an Irishman walk into a pub.

The Englishman decides to leave

so we've all got to BLEEP off.

I don't know, I seem

to be referendum'd out,

we're talking about a

second Brexit referendum,

we're talking about,

there's a second talk of an

indy ref in Scotland.

It's like we're having more

referendums than you're having

any decisions made

in your own parliament.

It's... I don't know about how you

feel about the Brexit thing.

I was a proper one-man,

one-woman, whatever...

Transgender.

..on the independence movement.

I was like a proper...

And we're going to get a second one

and I'm going to go out again.

But I was literally,

people just in the street,

getting at them, what are you

voting? What are you voting?

The day before the referendum

I spoke to a woman in the bus stop,

said, "What are you voting?"

"I don't know, dear."

I was like, can you make a decision,

it's the day before the referendum?

She said, "I don't know,"

so I spent the entire bus journey...

By the end of it I'd completely

converted her to Islam.

Which, when I think of it now,

she had a look of Sinead O'Connor

about her.

That's... Piece of advice...

Don't go around Northern Ireland

going, "Who do you vote for?"

The people of Northern Ireland,

they give you a warm glow

in their heart.

Newsnight did a survey,

they went around the United Kingdom

saying, what did people

think about Brexit.

They went to Scotland,

they went to various parts

of England and people said,

"We're getting our sovereignty back,

immigration will be dealt with,"

and they came to Northern Ireland

and they said to this guy,

"What do you think of Brexit?"

"Lot of bollocks."

Why can't we vote

for your president?

We can't vote for Mickey D.

As soon as you learn how to say

the Taoiseach's name,

you can vote for our president.

The one good line to come

out of it was Robin Swann.

"At last I have a president

I can look in the eye."

Jacob Rees-Mogg, how has he

lived and survived so long?

How did he survive school?

Because they're all like that.

He would not have

survived in my school.

Bullying is not right.

He didn't go to your school.

You could not have bullied him,

there would be a ballot,

you would have had to win

to get a go at him.

They're all called things like that,

they are genuinely.

When I was at school and I'm sorry,

and I apologise, I'm so glad

that everything went

wrong because I would

have been an absolute unmitigated

arsehole if life had continued the

way it was, but when I was at school

I was at school with people called

Rumpty Lowther-Pinkerton.

I'm not kidding.

That's what I call my penis.

Too many words.

One of my best friends

was called Pixie Balfour Pole.

That's tattooed on the underside.

There's a lot of people turning

up at the Irish Embassy now

to get passports.

It's a good embassy to go to.

It's better than going

to the Saudi embassy,

for example, you don't

want to do that.

I got propositioned

in a lift in Dubai which...

I didn't know, I'd never

been to the Middle East before,

this guy said to me,

"What floor?" I said,

"Floor four, thanks very much."

"Where are you from?"

"Scotland."

"He said, "Vacation?"

I said, "No, working."

He said, "Good,

what's your room number?"

I know! He thought I

was a prostitute.

I was just like, I got all flustered

because I had no idea

what to charge!

Thank you very much for that.

Talking of bordering

on the ridiculous,

despite all the evidence,

Saudi Arabia continually denied

it had anything to do

with the murder of a journalist.

Indeed, they issued so many

ridiculous denials even Gerry Adams

was scundered for them.

Yes, Saudi Arabia has been

criticised over many years

over its human rights record.

So it's only a matter of time before

Ian Paisley goes there on holiday.

What's our next question tonight?

Our next question is who do

you blame for illegitimate targets?

Yes, new hard hitting adverts

have been broadcast depicting

paramilitaries and so-called

punishment shootings.

Northern Ireland, the only part

of the world where actors

have publicity photographs

of themselves wearing balaclavas.

"Yes, that was me,

Provo number two."

Also this week, a stag was

shot dead in East Belfast.

When I heard the news,

my first thought was,

I hope the fiancee kept the receipt

for her wedding dress.

It was an actual animal stag.

The stag wasn't actually a danger

to itself or others,

but Translink had it shot dead

when it wandered

into the Glider bus lane.

But who can we blame

for illegitimate targets?

This is the only part of the world

that we need to be told,

"See paramilitaries,

they're not all that, you know."

Seriously, I was watching

the ad - who's this for?

They're supposed to be for the mums.

"Don't be driving

your sons to get shot."

Typically here it's the women doing

all the bloody work.

"I suppose I have to drive him to

get shot, you're sitting there

watching the bloody football again."

"Get your coat. It's your da

they should be shooting."

The ad is, if you haven't seen them,

there are four different ads,

done from different point of views.

One of them, the camera

is from the point of view

of the mother, or the son

going to get shot,

or the guy doing the shooting,

or from a witness.

They're done from four

different angles, same ad.

They're quite good ads actually.

But the ad is, a woman

driving along with the son.

You don't know what it's for,

initially, you've no idea,

just lots of heavy

breathing, kind of weird.

The one I saw was the young

lad's point of view,

he's coming downstairs, panting,

he's got his phone.

And then his mother is there,

"Have you got your coat?

Come on, let's go.

"You don't want to get cold

when you're getting shot."

Then they get in the car

and they're driving down the road

and there's silence.

Thank God there's not

Cool FM or something on -

that would be worse, you'd be

looking forward to getting shot.

"Shout out to all the crew in Ards."

"Just do it now, just do it now."

Basically it's, paramilitaries,

they don't care about you.

The line should be, "dump them".

It's just the weirdest thing,

who are the ads for?

Are they to stop people doing this?

Bringing their kids to get shot?

Is it for them? It is certainly not

for the people getting shot,

they're at home going,

"I don't fancy the look of that."

Is it for the people

who are shooting,

is it for the people at home doing

the shooting sitting there going,

"Actually, now that I look at it

in the cold light of day...

"You need a bit of distance,

it's a bit harsh."

It's not realistic.

It's the teenage boys.

The ma will be going,

"Sean, Sean, get up, son,

you're going to be late.

"He'll be late for his own funeral,

that child, I swear to God."

And there's no sound

in the car driving down.

There's no way a Northern Irish

mother would be driving her son

to get kneecapped,

and not bang his ears in.

"I told you your whole life,

it's going to happen to you,

and now it's going to happen.

"If you had listened to me.

I told you..."

APPLAUSE

The stag wandered in off

the Comber Greenway,

a disused railway line,

now a cycle path, it wandered in

and ended up in East Belfast

and was wandering around

East Belfast and reports

say it was agitated.

That's cos it was in East Belfast.

And it said it was very dangerous

because it's rutting season.

I thought, "In East Belfast?

Is it rutting season in East

Belfast?"

There are spides

everywhere going, "Argh!"

Walking around with

erections and trackies on.

They said it was

a menace to traffic.

At 3.00 in the morning?

You knew that was a taxi driver

going, "There was an old deer

"in the middle of the road,

I had to go round it."

So they rang the cops,

the cops turned up,

and the cops said they tried

to corral it but it was getting

more and more agitated

and they shot it.

It's worst weekend of

the year to shoot someone.

This is a stag.

There's a good chance

you would shoot the stag

and you'd hear,

"Aagh! Agh!

"I have to go to a party!"

Or a pissed Santa comes out of

a hedge after having a pee going...

"Is that Davie and Robert?"

Oh, in Holywood, was it

Holywood at the weekend?

There were ructions,

absolute ructions.

There was to be a massive,

massive fireworks display,

possibly an extravaganza.

It may be too harsh a word,

but I think possibly,

and it had to be cancelled

at the last moment.

8,000 people were there,

do you know what I mean?

8,000 people turned up to watch

this fireworks extravaganza

that was going to be launched

from Belfast Lough on this boat,

this barge they put out.

What happened was,

the tide went out.

It does that quite a lot. It does it

twice a day, every single day.

The people who organised said,

"It went very, very low."

You think, "Really?"

Do you believe that? I would say

what happens they got a phone call

from somebody in Derry going,

"They've taken all our fireworks."

Thank you very much for that,

time for our quickfire round,

I will read you various

newspaper headlines and I want

you to be faster than someone

from Derry telling you how great

Halloween is in Derry.

You like dressing up, we get it.

Not the best names for twins.

Because they all have

type two diabetes.

Says Popeye.

I think that's called an act of God.

Finally...

Thrush.

That's it, ladies and gentlemen,

that's the end of the show.

Please show your appreciation

to our panel, Colin Murphy,

Jojo Sutherland, Jake O'Kane

and Neil Delamere.

CHEERING

I'm...

I'm Tim McGarry. Until next time,

don't blame yourselves,

blame each other. Goodbye.