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The Public Nuisance Podcast
Host Sean McComb interviews various guests
The Public Nuisance Podcast
The Public Nuisance Podcast #045 “West Belfast Disneyland” with Paddy Raff
Welcome to a new episode of The Public Nuisance Podcast with me, Sean McComb.
This week we welcome Comedian, Paddy Raff to the podcast.
We cover Belfast accents, social media confidence, Lavery’s comedy nights, West Belfast Disneyland, toilet emergencies, sitcom projects, home renovation fails, tool collections, and much more.
New episodes every Tuesday.
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Sean McComb
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Killen Studios
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Website: https://killenstudios.com/
That Prize Guy
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Website: https://thatprizeguy.co.uk/
The Public News House. Sean McCann, welcome to this episode of the Public News Podcast brought to you by Killin' Studios right here, where you can get all your content done from photo shoots, podcasts, we have it all. It's lovely to have you. Paddy, we've got a special guest on today, the OG of the comedy scene.
Speaker 2:Paddy Raff, where'd you hear that?
Speaker 1:thanks for having me you would be like, one of the like, one of the founding members of the comedy like that. I can remember like, because obviously growing up it wasn't, it wasn't as big like a Baffrey, like nah, it's massive, yeah, but like, if we're talking, let's go back like 10 years. I remember like there might have been a comedy night in the field when I was a 10th. I remember Paddy McDonnell being a lot, maybe yeah, and going into folks. Paddy McDonnell, yeah, yeah, yeah, and now it's just like big names everywhere.
Speaker 2:It's class, like it's. I would talk people. People ask us a lot. You know where do you think it came from? And I do think it is to do with our accent. We used to cringe when you heard our accent, like did you ever record yourself?
Speaker 1:on a tape when you were. You still cringe at your accent. I'll ask these back.
Speaker 2:I'm the same, though I can't watch it back, but yeah. So I think that we're kind of starting to be okay with hearing any kind of accent from here, because I from here, because and I think social media is that as well because you know like what age are you right? I'm 33, 33, so I'm 41. I had a fucking, do you remember Talkboy, the you know, of Home Alone. I got one of them one Christmas.
Speaker 2:It was a knock off one from from the markets from the markets you press play and your voice went in Japanese whoa didn't know it was playing it's brilliant.
Speaker 2:So I had one of them and like every time you heard, like any, especially older relatives, if you played their voice back, they were like turn that off. And we never heard ourselves on TV. Because you know, you even think, down south you had like First City and Bosco and all like the old, like RTE stuff. They had entertainment, but we didn't have it up here, we just had the news, and it was always bad news, and then Gerry Adams got dubbed over anyway. So you still didn't hear our accent. So I think that because of social media and then, I suppose, lockdown as well, there was loads of podcasts that were already there and then we were all kind of you know, in lockdown couldn't get out for you know, to see mates or whatever, so you kind of were looking for local stuff and then the comedy scene was already there.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it is, it's true, it's something I. I got something. I would always say, like we're not used to hearing, we don't have TV platforms, like well, maybe we're just late into the industry yeah like this wee, small city, or even the like the north it's just been like we're laid onto the scene of TV where we never really heard yourself but now it's almost like you get used to it.
Speaker 2:Definitely. I think that's what it is, because if, if there was never, even in the early kind of days of social media, there was never anybody like even putting out not to a massive extent videos from here where you were happy to go and you didn't cringe at the accent, we're always still, we're still like that. So I think that, yes, there's a bit of, and it's the same with going and seeing comedy. Like as much as I I've watched comedy from when I was a kid, I never would have thought of going to like lavery's you know, collins had lavery's running for, I don't know, maybe 10 plus years, maybe 15 years or something because it just was like we can't be funny, even though you went out and some of the funniest nights of your life are going, sitting in a Devnish and listening to the haters. You know, and every every frame group has a couple of absolutely, you know, hilarious fellas. But we just never thought we'll never do that, we'll never be the ones on TV doing it.
Speaker 1:But nah, it's all happening you know, yeah, it seems to be like cities like Belfast that have all the best, like you've got Glasgow, you've got Liverpool, yeah, the Repulia of Belfast, it's all like the, like the, the working class Cities almost that are, that are the funniest 100%. Producing the best comedy.
Speaker 2:I feel, though, that, like, when it comes to TV, there's yet to be, aside from Derry Girls, there's yet to be Like a good you know sort of Working class Belfast, like sitcom or something. Yeah, so that's kind of what I always try and do is, you know, I do stuff online and I do the stand-up as well, but you know, most comedians will be writing something in the background that that sort of is there sort of you know that I want to get that made for tv. So for me it's it's. I have a sitcom. I got a bit of funding from northern ireland screen, who they're really good at like sort of finding people who want to write things and they're trying to look for the next dairy girls, yeah, independent yeah, like independent, yeah, and just they're looking for people with good stories from sort of authentic, you know, whatever kind of backgrounds and I have one about from being in a wedding band.
Speaker 2:So I played in a wedding band for like 10 years and like so it was over a thousand, about a thousand. What instruments do you play?
Speaker 2:I play guitar and a DJ as well and sing, but I was never the lead singer, I was always the backing singer oh, aye, yeah like a one man band, which is like whenever you were trying to queue up a song like for like a first dance or whatever, and you're playing, I'd be literally strumming a thing, and then you know, scrolling through Spotify, because I forgot to download the first dance and then you hit play and an advert don't pay for it fuck it, pay for it I know that's genuinely happened at times. You know where, like you go, I'll get it off YouTube.
Speaker 2:Then you hit play and darling, nothing beats a jet suit holiday, the Brian Grimmer stand going, do I go now? But yeah, loads of stories from all that there and yeah, playing loads of different instruments and it was just brilliant crack so in my stand up. That's why I kind of play guitar in my stand up, because when I was coming up with, well, what do you talk about on stage? You talk about your jobs, you talk about your life, and it was like, well, the wedding band stories, and so they usually revolve around music. So I would always have the guitar and it was kind of like early Billy Connolly, I don, really early stuff. He always was stood with a guitar but like 90% of the stuff you saw he was very early playing it but he just had the guitar there and then when you hear the songs, you know. So that was always just something that was like I'll end up doing that. But the wedding band, like sort of sitcom thing, it's kind of. It's a bit like, uh, it's like if kneecap were a wedding band.
Speaker 2:You know, their thing describes where they came from. Well, mine's kind of that, that sort of way. Um, not that we were out rapping in Irish or anything like that. We're on the way with balaclavas, um, but yeah, so it was good crack, but that's what I would love to do.
Speaker 1:You wouldn't have got away with it 10 years ago. Doing that only now, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I was. I was talking about the, the. I wasn't that the. I was gigging on the night of the the Fontaines and kneecap gig in, uh, in Boucher. And there's people saying, like you know, it's the night of the Fontaines and kneecap gig in Boucher and there was people saying, like you know, the sound was shite and all that. And he's like my Protestant mate went to see them and he's kind of interested and he's like the sound was shite and I was like really, and he says I couldn't understand the word they were saying and I was like I think that was Irish like.
Speaker 1:It's like we went for dinner on the lisbon road and we weren't going either. We were actually going to the lyric to watch the show on the same night and, um, that's just the atmosphere coming through. It was like it was just all the ages you know it was like kids, like 16, 17, and then you'd fall like yeah, yeah and and like families, some people like bringing their kids and all this class walking down.
Speaker 2:It's mad like I mad I talk about it in this new tour that I've just started is that you know you can't ignore how class it is at all these. So you've got homegrown acts that are doing big outside of here and then you've got people coming here and you're having big gigs like growing up I never would have thought I'm going to get to see, we never had that it's like you never did like we're spoilt.
Speaker 1:I think there's like four massive festivals on there yeah, belfast. There's the ABA, the Belsanik and then the Custom House Square Emerge, all that stuff. Yeah, it's class, there's so much.
Speaker 2:There's so much that you kind of have to choose what do? I have the time and money to go something every night of the week, but that's that's what's class about it. You know saying like you know big things coming here and being able to, you know, just go and say I I went and seen justin timberlake down down the road, even like the fella.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fall the road, like how much is that going? Like? Uv40 is one of my favorite when they bring me, but I bought the chair with me as well. Yeah, and your kids can get their first.
Speaker 2:Get their first taste of it. But that was um the you had like last year, was it? Limp biscuit came in like growing up I was, I was a bit big in the moroccan metal music. Growing up and again like thinking we're going to go and see limp biscuit at some stage in belfast and I the biggest video I've ever did was.
Speaker 2:You had a hit on that with me the hat back to front and it's one of those things like as a comedian, you're kind of never off. Even though I was like I was out for it, I wasn't planning on doing that but it wasn't.
Speaker 1:There wasn't much thought in there it was just it was literally just what it was.
Speaker 2:Yeah so I'd had the cap on, facing forward and a couple of times was chatting to people and they were like I can't wait. And I was like I see, as soon as they come on I'm gonna turn. And I got a few laughs. I was like I'm gonna do that. So I got my mate adam, who used to drum on the wedding band, with me. I was just filming this and he hadn't a clue what I was doing. He was half cut and I can remember what are you doing. So I was like I'll put the audio on out there. So the next day I stuck that up and within about two, three hours Fred Durst had reshared it from the biscuit the drummer John like the fellas in the band.
Speaker 2:It's like that is mad to think that one day you'll do something and they'll be like resharing it and all. So I was classic but it's.
Speaker 1:It's the dream. When you reach the people who you're like Limp Bizkit's massive.
Speaker 2:It's the amount of stuff they see online every day, but like they would skip by something and reshare but now that that's kind of took on a life of its own, because whenever they're going, no matter I can tell where they're touring next, because it's the people from that country.
Speaker 2:Start sharing it and it's like so oh they're in brazil, because there's all these ones from brazil like reshared it and like put in their own. But it's like the reason why that and that's that's kind of like something I must get, must get into that is there's no language in that. If you look at it, it's just there's no english, or it's literally just, and so it's like that's why mr bean was massive, because mr bean didn't have to be translated. So like mr bean is huge around the world. So I want to go down that route of not having to fucking say a word. There's just no language in your comedy the accent doesn't matter, yeah that's it.
Speaker 2:Take the accident of it. There's nobody going like the accent's crazy, like whenever. I don't know if you use like do auto translate on, like sub subtitles or anything. It does not understand our accent about 80% of the stuff that it translates, I'm like what the fuck is this supposed? To be it's easier to just type it out yourself, because it's just, it doesn't pick up Westies at all sorry to interrupt the show but I gotta tell you about that praise guy.
Speaker 1:Sponsors me and many of other podcasts around the north, many of athletes and many of charities and around the north, many of athletes and many charities and he's doing magic work, making people millionaires daily. Plant their praise. Be one. Check out the link in their bio and get involved in some massive praises. No, my, my actions like super strong. When I, when I speak to people, even from Dublin, like I have loads of friends from Dublin, they were like what see, if I get excited, it's game over different language.
Speaker 2:What are you like with a few drugs in you?
Speaker 1:I can't even understand myself. I think people generally think I'm punch drunk and I understand, like, why? Like, because of my accent but, I've always been. I guess I'm actually slower now than I used to be. Yeah, Because of like, just with media training and stuff you always like you, I've always been conscious of who I'm speaking.
Speaker 1:To slow down, but, like when I get excited or in a group, see if we're together. Like see, I train in Amsterdam with my coach and we're speaking to people from Amsterdam and they understand me. Yeah, yeah, see, the second I turn around and speak to my coach, people are like what's he speaking to what? He's from Dublin and I am from Belfast. Sometimes he can't even understand me, it's game over but they certainly can understand me.
Speaker 1:So I'm like fuck, imagine I was speaking to someone else from West Belfast yeah, yeah, that would be it, it's a completely different language altogether.
Speaker 2:So I'm from West Belfast, like I'm from Aldi top of Aldi town Brook, like and like go. I found recently old footage so my uncle had like a camcorder and my dad borrowed it a few summers and I was watching back and I was like whenever I was like 14, 15 back and I was like whenever I was like 14 15, I'm talking like a dirty fucking and I was like when did I change my accent and I was trying to pinpoint, and I think it's whenever I started working in call centers, because you were ringing people from
Speaker 2:around the world and I remember getting one of the fellas, like you know, like listening to your calls, and he called me up and he brought me up and he was like you're gonna get sacked if you keep talking in your west belfast accent. Did you not hear how many times that woman had to ask you to repeat yourself? And he's like you're the one working in the call center. You should be the one asking them to repeat themselves.
Speaker 2:You should. I was like, oh my god. So I started to talk slower and try and round it. And then it's you can't switch it on and switch it off. It kind of just sticks. And then I ended up being a trainer in that call center training people coming in and I remember one of them sitting like some person sitting like from, they're from from the north, like, and they're like, um, so are you from, like lisburn or something.
Speaker 2:I was like, oh no, I've lost the westiness, I've gone, I've gone to lisburn it's like it was like when, slowly but surely yeah, it's like when pole glass started getting their bins done by us. It's like we're losing more of lost brook now as well. So, yeah, it's mad that you can't, you know, flip and flap and change your accent back. You know it's like it's something that you have to, you have to understand as well. It's like if other people can't understand you and you're in this kind of business.
Speaker 1:Then you're like what are you going to do? What chance have you got? That's probably one of the reasons I always say it me acting. I couldn't do it because people wouldn't understand me. People from Belfast sometimes can't understand me because when I get excited it's usually when I'm telling a joke or like and then I laugh while I'm talking. You know what?
Speaker 2:I mean. So I'm like I'm laughing at my own joke. You factor all that in and then it's like so it's just like fucking too much. But you decided to start a podcast like so yeah, I know I'm sure you're fucking sitting over there going.
Speaker 1:I don't know what's going on, fucking transcripts, fucking all this but no, it's good, like it's good to be aware. Do you know what I mean? Some people like it's good to be aware of, like that you can turn it on and off because, like Dervy was saying to me, if I fight and I do it, if we're going like to zone off to my fight or something, she's like, why can't I just pick you at all times and I'm like, because usually I'm shouting, do you know if?
Speaker 2:I'm sitting by the ring after a fight.
Speaker 1:I'm shouting because you're speaking to a large crowd, so it's slower anyway, but she wants you to be like that? Yeah, just bring me an interview. Wasn't I just going around all day?
Speaker 2:Coming into the house. She's like why didn't you clean up? Are they your dirty boxers?
Speaker 1:Because I didn't want to.
Speaker 2:Let me tell you something, right, you may tell me to put them in the fucking basket, right, but I ain't telling you right now.
Speaker 1:She's like you asked for this. Why are you shouting for it? Because you asked me to speak like this. Did she? Did she not ask for?
Speaker 2:this. This is what you wanted. It's me on the accent, jeez, which one, which one do you want?
Speaker 1:my son's standing going. What are you shooting for? That? I am right.
Speaker 2:I don't know she asked for this. Are you not entertained?
Speaker 1:that's the way to go oh fuck, my neighbours would be like, fuck, we're moving out so you're still living in the west, then aye yeah, we moved to Finnegan. We live in Orchardville now, just by the Danish just round by the Danish. So it's quite enough around there. But it's very like there's a lot of old people in that area and my son's bored to tears like.
Speaker 1:But I would never move now yeah I remember moving there and we were looking for houses and durvill's family originally from finicky there from like ladybrook hi, so we were looking in around that area and that's where she wanted to move and I was like and I still have this thing in the I was like I want to live in turf lodge you've grown turf, are you? Yeah, see, when I go into turf lodge now, holy fuck, I'm like jeez. I've really, really thought it's so true. Yeah, I love it like from what I, but it's a show.
Speaker 2:It's so true, yeah, and I love it like from what I, but it's not the same as when I grew up.
Speaker 1:Like it's just fucking.
Speaker 2:I know ones from Turf Lodge who were like whenever so my wife's family are from Turf Lodge and when you go down there was ones that I knew like from around about our age and whenever we were just starting to look for a house we wanted to live up Ladybrook, where you know sort of her family and I are and there's ones going no, you couldn't, you couldn't pay me to go up there, it's too quiet. And see, now they're all looking at it.
Speaker 1:They're like, yeah, it's hard to get a house up there. I think that's why it took us so long. We literally narrowed our like where we wanted to live down, only it was like literally Ladybrook. We looked at a house in Brooke, we looked at a few houses in Ladybrook. We looked at a few houses in Orchardville.
Speaker 1:And it was like one fell through fours in Orchardville and then we ended up going to Grantsia. Her mom lives in the Glen Road. She's like next door to Glen Owen, so it was like a house across the street, but it was that street that people bypass to go in. Oh, I was like you're going to be in some constant traffic Because the first house in North Trafford fell through the day before we were at the bath, fuck's sake. So we were going to have a sister fees and everything.
Speaker 1:And then we went to Grantsy and we got in a lot and then we got to Excelsior Fat and then that there fell through Sounds like you were looking for houses that were always high winds and then I ended up in one anyway, 100 metres from the, from the Danish, but we ended up just narrowed down and then I think we got there and I'm just I'm glad now we got there because, like I say, when I walk up through Turf like see a fucking stereo place, like it's just, like it's bad to say because people won't really like who you think he. It's taken me to move out of it to realise how much of a shithole it's became like.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying this anyway. This is all coming from him. He's safe. He could say it, he's from there.
Speaker 1:I'm alright, but uh, nah, it's just, it's when the dog's like, and then up where we are it's like quiet, almost too quiet for the child, you know like no one to play with there's anyway, but we lived in a wee cul-de-sac in Turf going up yeah and like our five of us in total, like.
Speaker 1:So. I have three older brothers one of my sister, then me, and then we're cousins and family and we all lived in this wee cul-de-sac. We lived there in cul-de-sac so you could always go out and play, even when I was four.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and some can't, and you tell him to go out a way out and play. He's like my shadow.
Speaker 1:He'd be away, he would like it, he would do a runner. I was walking up under the bridge in Finnegan. We were past Woodlands and he has a wee scooter. But I was going down and I says we'll walk up, so he's on the scooter and he fucking padded it away way on. But I just let him ride. He knows like to stop when he's crossing, so he was way on. I don't normally panic in situations like that, but he was just going and going and going and he must have been at least honestly no joking 400 metres away from me, like, and I mean way way up like and I was looking at like there was bypassers coming down and there was shopping and they were like there's a kid down on his own.
Speaker 1:So I started to speed up because I didn't want to be like having a glack to my son and they were like he's with me, he's with me, he's like you, better go get him. He's way up there I was like I'm not going to see him.
Speaker 1:He's alright, he'll be ok. And they were like he'll be ok and I had to tell him off. I was like, right on the way back, you're not allowed to go so far and did he listen to you? No, he didn't sometimes you be like sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn't do. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:But did you live anywhere near? We used to take a trip this is how you know you're from West Belfast. At Christmas, you went to the West Belfast Disneyland, which was Paddy. Was it Paddy? What's his surname? The house with all the lights.
Speaker 1:Was that in? Uh Balmurphy? Yeah, it's Balmurphy. Paddy McMahon has his house.
Speaker 2:Oh I see Like he used to stick all the all the.
Speaker 1:Christmas decorations up at the West Belfast Disney. I was joking going.
Speaker 2:He definitely has a magnet on or one else's house lies there flickering and he's there with a 20 foot santa. But he was doing that stuff before it became like a thing about 15, 20 years ago was when everybody not everybody but when more and more people's. But he was the first one like back in the day to do that and I remember whenever.
Speaker 2:Then so her sorry, her dad's from turf and her ma's from the murph, and um, davis moore, I think davis moore, that's right. So whenever we used to go and visit her granny, we'd be like, come on, we'll go up to Paddy's house. And then when you were an adult, you got to go in and he'd be in just watching Coronation Street. You're just walking around some fella's house. He's like alright, how's it going? He just left the door open.
Speaker 1:I know it, for, like, I don't actually know why I done it, but it was like you must have got something out of it, but it used to have some great people in this house. You know, and it used to be like, say, at the end of like. Maybe it was like mid-November he used to start doing it and it used to be on the Only 10 News it's like you know, like, like the only ones that covered it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, look it's up. Oh my god, every year, every year. But like, like social media wasn't a thing if it was like, if it was back then what you would see is more people starting to do it because it would be like fuck, hang on to that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly, hang on to it back the halls fuck sake.
Speaker 2:That's like everybody sort of competing against each other, but that was, it was one of those things, that fair play to him for doing it, because even with a magnet it's going to cost him to buy the actual things in. You know, even if he was getting the electricity for free not saying he was, but it's like, yeah, it was like fair play to him for doing that because it just as a kid like we used to just drive past it when we were kids whenever we went in.
Speaker 1:But then they actually get inside and like I don't know what even inside's decorated like the balics, you walk in sometime like an aft, were put in there like, and it was the same every year yeah, yeah, how do you remember it was?
Speaker 2:in the exact same place every year, like I don't like when people do that, don't want to put their decorations up throughout the year and you can still fucking see it.
Speaker 1:It still says Merry Christmas there and there's still a Santa on the roof. Just because he's not lit up doesn't mean it's okay to leave it there. There's so much people there, there are loads of people you go does it really?
Speaker 2:I come and take them down for you.
Speaker 1:It's annoying me, for fuck's sake but fucking like my already, like Dervla's already putting up the Halloween stuff.
Speaker 2:I know she's calling autumn. My wife's doing the same autumn. She's doing that to me fucking pumpkin yep we're going all tunnel and lighting the wee, a wee spiced apple fucking Yankee candle.
Speaker 1:We got it at B&M, one of those fake ones you got at B&M it looks like a Yankee candle, but when you let it, it goes a yakky candle when you let it everybody has to run out.
Speaker 2:So my wife's doing the same and she's just currently on to me to go. Well, you got out that garage because I want to get all the autumnal stuff, so you have the autumnal stuff, then it's Halloween. That shit's only put away and you get about a week of nothing, and then it's the Christmas shit starts 100%.
Speaker 1:It's a fucking nightmare. And then after Christmas it's like blue cut the grass.
Speaker 2:It's not even spring, yet are you?
Speaker 1:not. Are you for real?
Speaker 2:I've just cleaned my trunks up, you've not enough people talk about how busy it is for fighters like me. You see, this is what I'm every day, or?
Speaker 1:something like. She's like the guys do you want to get this guys on? And I'm useless. I don't know about you. Yeah, I'm absolutely useless with my hands with when it comes to tools, right? I don't. I don't know how to work oh, yeah, I have no trade behind me yeah, I never worked on a building site was her.
Speaker 2:Does her dad or anything have a background in?
Speaker 1:her dad. All my brothers do. I see, that's it. So my brother-in-law and her dad all joiners and background in trades.
Speaker 2:Her dad, all my brothers do. I see, that's it. So my brother-in-law and her dad all joiners. And she'd be like surely you can put that banister on. I'm like fucking wouldn't know where to start with that. Oh, exactly, and he's all. Have you raw plugs? Have you got a have?
Speaker 1:exactly me. So she's taxing me and saying I was in Amsterdam last week. She's like can someone do something about these back doors? I want to get like maybe sliding doors or something. Instead I was like, great, fuck sake. I was like I'll tax my uncle. Now he's like an architect. So I taxed him to give me someone's number and he says look, I'll get you the doors. She was like you just measure.
Speaker 2:When you're back and I was like I don't have a measuring tape.
Speaker 1:So I was getting her dad in a dute and I still have. This was last week, from my open home. She's like have you measured them doors yet? And I'm like, nah, I have no measuring tape. So she had my hair on last Friday, right? I says I'm going to order a full tool box just in case, like just so I can't get shouted at no more in the house and they shout back.
Speaker 1:I haven't got a toolkit. So nah, it's almost Friday, it's almost a week past, and I still haven't ordered a toolkit. You still haven't ordered it.
Speaker 2:Still haven't done it.
Speaker 2:Ah, Jesus you're no use. You can't expect somebody like me or you to measure for something that important, because then, all of a sudden, it's like were you measuring in inches? Or fucking things like what's the wee quotation mark? That's fucking inches. I thought that was sent me, and all of a sudden, you got these wee tiny doors ordered. I did the same, though, because, like, my wife was like gotta get you a toolbox, because you know, every time my dad comes around, he has to bring his, and then you're borrowing tools of his and then not giving them back. I'm a nightmare for that. And I was like right, I'll get one. So he was coming around to do a job it was a few years ago and he was like have you got tools? You know, because I don't have my toolboxes in the van. I was like where'd you get that?
Speaker 2:and I was like B&M and he just went. Nah, it's a fucking Fisher Price tools here, you know like something that makes a wee noise and there were shit and he was just like get rid of that and I was like it cost like fucking 15 quid he said exactly one of them. Tools should have cost you if you had to go to yeah, so I'm gonna.
Speaker 1:That's my job today, that's my listen. I'm gonna, I'm gonna order. I'm gonna order a two bucks when does this come out?
Speaker 2:though this podcast?
Speaker 1:you're gonna hold this back don't be putting that out yet. Give it a few weeks wait until that's been bought and then say here you can release that podcast, yeah, so like I wanna, and then she wants us to get out of the garage all done, and I I just don't know what I do. You know what I hate doing? I hate reaching out to people they ask to do something because I don't know what we want done ah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't know how much I want done and then I don't want them to come out and go oh, I'll do that.
Speaker 2:Aye, it's about 20 grand and then you have to say it's alright, actually just leave it. What are you going to do? Convert it like the?
Speaker 1:she just wants to like I don't know, like maybe plaster it and say and insulate the walls and just make it like aye, and then put like a bit of a I don't know see. The thing is, I don't even know it's wired and all, but I'm just like it's just like it's just shit, aye.
Speaker 2:And she holds on to all the whole long two, see we both, me and my wife, grew up like we didn't have a garage. Growing up we were in like a mid well, hers was maybe hers was semi-detached, but I was mid-terrace three bedroom house. There was five kids my mam had to. I was fucking rammed and so you didn't keep anything because there was no room for anything to be kept. So I'm like that, but but now she's fucking keeping everything.
Speaker 2:So when you go into the garage there's stuff coming down Like will you ever use a fully inflated fit ball from fucking 15 years ago? It's sitting there, it hasn't been bounced once in 15 years and it's gathering dust. You're like come on, I'll get rid of some of this stuff. So with this stuff, you and then. But I, and to this day she just reminds me of this every time.
Speaker 2:So whenever I started going out, where we were going out from, we were both 18, like from you know no age and I remember one time around her room I was like what's this bag under the bed? She's like oh, those are my beer mats. I was like your beer? She didn't even drink and I was like what do you mean beer mats? She says everybody in my family knows I collect beer mats and I was like, imagine keeping beer mats. So she threw them out because I was probably more fortunate, exactly that's the kind of thing.
Speaker 2:We'd be in the garage and we'd be worth something. So like every now and again, like she'll go, I'll find something, but then she'll find stuff that I've kept for years like, oh, but I had to throw my fucking beer mats out. So everywhere we go, no matter where we've been on holiday. Like you know, we went to hawaii for for our honeymoon. I don't know how we got the money for that there's still about five credit unions after me but uh, you know, and she'd be sitting and even then, even if she'd have restarted then. So we were married in 2009, so it was like 16 years ago. Even if she'd have restarted her collection, it would still be impressive. But even back then she was like I, like I could have had that one the Mahalo fucking lodge or whatever, and she didn't get it.
Speaker 2:So this, this beer mat collection, would have been in the it would have been worth loads.
Speaker 1:Have you ever seen like some bars that do like like memorabilia of like? I went in there like a wee bar down the side Emerald Park, it's Tato Park. Tato potato for the OGs, yeah, and it was like they had like caps hanging from the ceiling, like 8,000 caps I read it on the hangers like over 8,000 caps, baseball caps hanging from the ceiling from all over the world class. It'd be like something like that if you could like get out of full room in beer mats yeah, yeah, yeah you could have had a class yeah exactly, if you had.
Speaker 2:So I have a shed, I have a shed At the end of the garden when, like that's where I do all my Like writing and like practice All my stand up and play guitar and all that shit, and it is like A proper wee man cave. And I got she got me a bar built. For my Fuck would it have been 30th birthday. Like she got a bar made, it was just like you were on the ball early.
Speaker 1:Everyone started building bars during lockdown. You were way before that, no so.
Speaker 2:I had that, yeah, so the company that put that did the shed for me. They took off big time during lockdown because they started doing all them pods and bars and whatever, but so I, so we moved about two years ago and I got the same one built again, just a wee bit bigger, but so this would have been 15 years ago that I got this shed made and it was brilliant and me and and so that was I was completely. It was one of the most stressful times in my life because her brother and her dad were coming around to help.
Speaker 2:So we were plastering it and I was having to cut kingspan and cut a floor and all and like you want to see the state of me like with a jigsaw? I'm like, right, we'll measure, you go cut. And I think it's a jump in the norm.
Speaker 2:They're like for fuck's sake. So we got the bar, but we got the shade. And then she got this bar for my birthday. That was just like brought and put in. It was class looking and like we're all standing there going, it'd be class to decorate it and then, like somebody was like oh no, it'll be class. Like put like memorabilia and stuff around the wall and like, and she's looking at me going, my beer mats would've been up in that fucking wall the beer mats.
Speaker 1:That's usually like the best bars you go into, like when you go in and you see all those stuff like really small bars. You see those on.
Speaker 2:Instagram and stuff people like showing you inside these wee ones that you wouldn't know like even existed, but during lockdown it came in. It's fucking, that was it's heyday, because obviously who can go anywhere and I people don't believe me when I say this both speaker and I would go on to YouTube and type in 10 hours bar ambience.
Speaker 2:So when you hit play it's like all people talking and glasses clinking and all so it sounds like a bar and then I would put music on on the other speaker and then I'd be having my own drink.
Speaker 1:So it felt like you were in a bar.
Speaker 2:I was like I was wanting like a bouncer to throw me out and all the other, but there's nobody can tell you to go home and you can put like 90% gin and then it's a wee dollop of fucking thing that was great. That was fucking cool. So once we come out of lockdown it changed me I will not go out, bring back lockdown that's it.
Speaker 2:I won't go back out, like whenever we're out. If there are occasions like I would go out with mates, I'd be sitting there going here, safe ahead. Now, like you know, we'll get back to mine for about you know, 10 o'clock and it's like we're really out to fucking 9 you know, but I can't. I don't know. Do you like going out still, or are you?
Speaker 1:I like going out. I would say my original thought on the garage was we're going to turn in the bar like my daughter was like, dude, you want, I don't care, just give me some utility space. And I was like, right, okay. So I was like I'm going to turn. But then I was like maybe that's a bad idea, because I love a gargoyle and I would just be.
Speaker 1:I would be afraid of just fucking sitting at the tree office and I was actually thinking at the very start like turning the barn and doing a podcast from it and then. I was like inviting people to the house and stuff, maybe.
Speaker 2:I would get out too fucking personal, you know?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, yeah so I sort of fucking parted ways with that idea. And then the idea of a of having a bar in the house would be too, too easy to access.
Speaker 2:I'd be like, oh, fuck that no, any day, if not.
Speaker 1:If not, I'd just go out there and drink. Aye and um, I was a wee bit. I was afraid of that. You know what I mean. So I was like, fuck, this can go on the temptation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you don't want to be building a bar for you and then as well, coming home after night out.
Speaker 1:I'd be like lads. I was so close to that yeah, yeah, yeah, and you know how hard it is. You're gonna attack you from that niche.
Speaker 1:I was like I'd be like my house 40, it would just be, chaos, yeah so, but I think like if I was to do it, I would want it to be like I would try and get loads of memorabilia yeah, and stuff like that, but who knows what the future holds you'll change your mind someday, the older you get, like you cannot get me before lockdown I think I kind of would have went, wouldn't have minded going out.
Speaker 2:But see now, like suppose with kids as well, like my kids are, what age is your wee fella about? Six, four, four is it Jesus? Four fucking flan. I so like.
Speaker 2:But mine are like ten, no, no, eleven and eight, and like see now that for me what I look forward to is a Saturday in and see what he told me 10, 15 years ago you're gonna, you're gonna look forward to sitting in on a Saturday and be like what am I gonna get kicked in the head in the future and end up, you know totally, because I would not have ever. But that's, I love that. Just get in, get the TV on, you know, get a wee fire on the go, have a wee drink. I think it's more to do with like taxis and all that shit, but you know what?
Speaker 1:That's something I love doing, Like I would love sitting in the house and having a drink, a wee couple of snacks Me and Derby just sitting watching TV, a child, but like maybe he's even better. Aye, and it's like you just know it's going to be like it's controlled drinking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, just chill out and have a cargo and have a laugh and a couple of snacks and maybe watch a podcast or watch something funny and put music on, and next time we're going to punch each other nah what you saying what do you want?
Speaker 2:a pack of Doritos, oh Jesus, would you stick your own podcast on? Imagine doing that. I know would she look at you like a fucking mad man. You love yourself one year. It's been one year, shh.
Speaker 1:It's coming now alright, so I was not no look she was like fuck sick, bore me later. But she watches it like in front of her, so I don't.
Speaker 2:That's one thing I don't know why, I just I never watch back totally it is.
Speaker 2:It's an embarrassment thing, it's like you'll do it and you go aye, that's all grand, you enjoy doing it. But then once you kind of like, even when I'm out on tour for the first time ever I've bought a camera to film my set try and get some clips, because most people don't know I do stand up and that's what even people that follow me and have followed me from day one are like you know they'll come and see me and they'll be like we didn't realise you do stand up. We thought tonight was going to be like, you know, like sketch comedy or whatever. I'm like, no, no, it's like stand up, but yeah, but see, once I filmed it like if I can get away with not watching it, then people are like what's the point in filming if you're not going to watch it back?
Speaker 1:it's like, why would I do that though? But you were, yeah, I was there, I did it, I seen it, I heard it, I done it.
Speaker 2:I couldn't get much more of already seen it because I was there for it. But yeah, I'm the same, like it's just a wee bit sort of why did love watching yourself back at baby?
Speaker 1:but I think for me. I don't watch it back at all um, like in years to come maybe years to come down, and then I'll maybe look back. Go, fuck around like maybe something like that. The long name names, but obviously boxing, like I would watch my boxing face, but I never used to yeah but like I do, like in terms of technical thing for like for like what I can get better at, and what I don't like.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean that way, but I wouldn't watch too much myself, like I would maybe watch, say, I fight on Saturday. I'll watch my fight back the next day if I can like one of the zone or one of those apps and get it, watch it back and that's it. I'll probably never watch it again, but it's just to see, like, what I was doing and what worked and what didn't work. Yeah, yeah, you gotta do that, but uh, when it comes to this, like I say, I know what was talked about.
Speaker 2:I know what part I laughed at? Yeah, yeah it was there and then, in a load of years of time, maybe I'll look back and laugh at it people come up to me sometimes sketches or something or things that I put out, and I'm looking at them going, is that one of mine? And like I genuinely think they've got the wrong person, I think. And then they go no, do you not? And then they literally have to explain and then I go oh fuck yeah, and it could be something that I put out two weeks ago.
Speaker 1:It could be something from years ago, but I just have this mind blank where I go it's yeah like things flowing, or like sometimes you're in the flow state yeah, yeah, you don't even realise.
Speaker 2:You said it and then they're like oh, why is it? It's a good effuse isn't it oh? Here, sorry. I was in a flow state there, love, I'm in a flow state, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm just flowing. You know it's heck always. You're always in a flow state these days. It's heck yeah see you in that bar. You're the Flow State. That's a good name For the bar, the.
Speaker 2:Flow State, that's sick.
Speaker 1:The Flow State inn, yeah Fucking right, bought beer mats everywhere.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, my wife's beer mats. She's like I'm still not going to Live up one down You're never going to Live up one down.
Speaker 1:Even I would like To live up one down. That's like that's a bad one, that's a good.
Speaker 2:That's good, every I know and everyone would like go on holiday, and they'd all know. And then after a while they were coming home with him and she's like no, I've threw them out. And they're like, oh okay. And they're like wonder why? And now they know.
Speaker 1:Nah, ah, fuck's sake, you like you wouldn't be being in the podcast anyway, would you like?
Speaker 2:I was just saying did you?
Speaker 1:is this the only podcast I've probably seen you on?
Speaker 2:yeah, I've done. I'll guest on anybody that asks. I'll normally go on. But in terms of being like doing podcasts, I so lockdown. I didn't have one going into lockdown so like I was only doing stand up like two years leading into lockdown and then. So it was mostly like doing sketches and stuff doing stand up.
Speaker 2:Lockdown came and then that's when I was doing. I was doing like a sketch a day during lockdown and then I's when I was doing, I was doing like a sketch a day during lockdown and then I did the tv show. So when most people on the comedy scene were either starting a podcast during lockdown or were doing one that they'd kind of been doing just before and they were going big, I was doing tv. So I kind of missed that initial explosion, you know, or the big sort of upturn, because I was doing a tv show and then by the time I'd done two series of that, I was then going on my first tour. So again, I'd never toured properly. I'd done like the ssa and stuff just before lockdown. So we'd be doing everything in belfast but I was like, oh, I'm gonna go out and start doing, you know, sort of a tour and um. So that came after the tv show and you, you kind of don't have the time and people, people see podcasts and think, oh, it's dead easy.
Speaker 2:You just, you know you rack up, you talk and then you fuck off and it's like there's so much work goes into the background of it and you know you have to be dedicated to it. Whatever, and it was a decision of sort of if you're going to do it, you're going to have to do it, right and you'll know yourself you know exactly, go all in or don't do it at all.
Speaker 2:Because there's examples where you could say, and you know, even talking to someone's in the comedy scene, like I didn't, I didn't go all in, I was kind of, and it didn't really go anywhere, and then it's, it's a waste of time. So for me I was like I'll not do it unless there's something that comes by that I can go. I'll do that because it doesn't take up too much time. So I did one with the producer and it was like it was more sort of it felt more like a radio show for an hour there was a certain theme and whatever.
Speaker 2:And we did a year a series of that, so maybe like 10 or 15 episodes, really enjoyed it. It was good crack. But at the same time it was like we did one series of it and we said, right, we'll let them go out and then we'll go back and do a second series of it if it's going well and like it. Just you have to get those numbers, you have to keep going, keep going before it sort of takes off. So I was just like another tour was coming up then and another TV thing and I was like I don't have time for that and you kind of have to make those decisions at times where you go.
Speaker 2:I'm either going to focus on other things Because you know, like you're saying there about, you know the family and stuff. I want to leave a lot of time for my kids you know, because you don't get those years back. And if you kind of work really really hard and you're not home because you're, you know, podcasting, touring, and you're just, you take up all your time, before you know it fast forward five years and my son is 15, doesn't want to, doesn't want to know me now he doesn't want to be out with his mates.
Speaker 2:You don't see him, see my daughter be getting into that sort of age. So for me, those years of like, I started doing stand-up when my daughter was like one. So I always have kept, you know, one foot at home, where I'll always and to me. For for comedy it's different for boxing or whatever else, but for comedy it's your mentality is a big thing. If you're not happy as a comedian, if you're not happy at home and you're not having a good life and you're not enjoying life, then it'll change the kind of comedy you make and maybe you're not going to be as funny anymore. So for me, love to. You know they'll just be able to just walk in and say that podcast is going to fly and then you'll do a couple interviews or whatever podcasts a week.
Speaker 2:But there's so much work and I have a big respect for the ones who put the effort, like yourself, into it and, like you know, colin and shane and all like their podcasts are.
Speaker 1:They're there for a reason you know, like they're proper. Yeah, that's like one of the reasons why I started shane had me on a few times ages ago during lockdown yep and then they asked me again, and then there were funny episodes and we're having a bit of crack now and people are like like, loads of people are like started saying like would you like your own podcast? Was that your own podcast?
Speaker 1:so it started like people, so I always like, told the idea of doing it, and then I would put it up, my story saying yeah I'm my own podcast and like are we voting stuff for a poll? And people like yes, definitely. And all then over time. And then obviously the opportunity came and ran was doing he's doing all photography work in our gym and videography and then he says to me I've got a studio, so it was like sweet, it's like works out, maybe this is meant to be.
Speaker 1:And then sort of, I was going in with already almost like almost already having an audience because they were all like you're gonna have one, you're gonna do one, you're gonna do one and then I sort of just went with it.
Speaker 2:That's the way to do it. So the demand you knew the demand was there. People were coming to you. It's not like you're forcing it, yeah, and you're saying you know it's there, so that's the way to do it. But I Aye, it's like it's such a big medium now. It's like most people have most people. The first thing they'll do is like they'll listen to the new episode of whoever's podcast they're following. But for me, I've genuinely, I've been on more podcasts than I've listened to.
Speaker 1:I just don't have the time for a podcast. I know I'm the same. I used to.
Speaker 2:Now, in fairness, I used to listen to them when I was driving to Dublin every day if I'm out on tour, I might try and have one, but very rare that I'd be out driving those distances, but that's the only time I get to listen to it. Like if my wife found out that I was listening to podcasts, she'd be more annoyed she'd be more annoyed.
Speaker 1:She'd rather was watching porn than listening to a podcast if she found a podcast on my phone she'd be like excuse me, what's this where?
Speaker 2:where do you get the time to be listening?
Speaker 1:to this, those trunks still haven't been picked up. What Do you want me to laugh? Like no, she would genuinely be more she wouldn't be happy at all if I listened to a podcast, she'd be like, absolutely not. The love of what we dig and like. It'd be great to just come in one day and just watch a wee podcast yeah, why do you watch the podcast?
Speaker 2:I wish I had time to do that.
Speaker 1:But I always be like, I be like, oh fucking right, it's great, and we like rub it in and it turns into a fake, exactly, yeah you can't go that way either way, when they say that no matter what response you have, it's gonna be a fake, because if you say oh, I better hang. Oh well, I had to do this and I had to do that. Yep, it's already been written. There's no way out of it.
Speaker 2:You're better off just sitting and saying it because my job, like with comedy, you know, I have to kind of keep up to date with what's going on and I'd be like on my phone something like we're watching like a comedy clip or watching something else, and it genuinely because like I'm, and like if your wife comes in and she's doing something, you haven't clocked it and she's cleaning and she goes, must be great, you go, oh fuck, every day Must be great, must be great.
Speaker 1:I sit at the school say tick, tock all day and I'm like it's my job, like oh, really Is it.
Speaker 2:Wish I had a job like that. Maybe you should get one now. You're on the road every fucking day.
Speaker 1:You're away to Mayo living in fucking stay in the Einstein Hotel. Where am I up looking?
Speaker 2:after flu and.
Speaker 1:I'm in the gym this morning, I'm doing a podcast and I'm fucking training and who's picking the?
Speaker 2:tail up.
Speaker 1:Next thing, the mic comes in, you know and you're here giving an interview again fucking Bruce Buffer behind you okay, fight, fight, fans, here we go, oh jeez, yeah, no, it's just that's. I suppose that's just a life in the that's family, isn't it? It's just what happens in the households of West Belfast or the greater Belfast area now that you're on the other side of the you're beyond the M1 once it changes, I'll start to slow down and start to speak a little like, a little bit proper, and then I'll start to. Maybe someone from Lisbon will start.
Speaker 2:I tease it out of you, yeah, yeah, the day that happens, do you like you'll be? I remember when it happened it was like oh fuck, I really have changed that somebody because we, the call center I worked in was it was HCL, you know, on the, on the voucher road voucher and, um, it was great, crack like and that.
Speaker 2:But that was one of those things. I think that was like a gateway into comedy for me, because I was already playing guitar in a wedding band and then I was doing training and you'd be training people for, like, vodafone and sky digital and all this shit you know, so you would learn. You know, you knew the stuff you had to train them. But I was throwing in wee jokes left, right and center and then it was getting to the stage where the next week I'd be training another group but I'd have the same material and I'd be throwing in more jokes and then it was like it was a good crack, you know.
Speaker 2:And then somebody shadowed me and were like you made the same jokes whenever we thought that was the first time and I was off the top of the dome I was like I have them written down here, but I remember we so we used to train people and you would get them from like recruiters, like Manpower, randstad, who were recruiting for like call centre jobs. And I remember they were like oh, apparently, apparently we're going to start taking in industrial temps. And they were people who were waiting to work on building sites and whatever, so they wouldn't have the same skill set to work in. And everybody was up fuck off, we're not taking industrial temps in here and all. And there was ones calling them industrial tramps and I was like here, that's, that's too.
Speaker 2:And so I was sticking off them because I was like from the west and a load of my mates were with industrial temps. I was like here, no, look, there's as much right to work in here as anybody else. So I was getting all fucking mad at the people about it. So you want to just click on your screen? And the fellow was like well, he says use your mouse to click on your screen and your fellow was just looking what's the mouse?
Speaker 1:and I was like I'd never worked a computer before and I was like fucking.
Speaker 2:And Donald Trump says right and I was like I swear to fuck. And he says lift your mouse and click it on the screen and he lifted the fucking mouse and put it. I now have to. So I had this technical training and this guy.
Speaker 1:I just defended you all last week. You can't even use a mouse. You're letting me down, get out of the fuck. You're letting me down, get out of the fuck it was wild but they were.
Speaker 2:They were the best crack, and that's what I felt was really weird about it was that I was probably 22 and I'm training this fella who's in his early 60s, has worked the building sites all his life like would have respect out in the fucking building sites but I'm like a wee dick in here going click on the fucking you know talking gobbledygook to him. So it was. It was mad like, but the jokes didn't work on them.
Speaker 2:I got the jokes that was like like fuck up tell us one tell us fucking tell us a good joke. Would you own class?
Speaker 1:that's what happens. See people, people who work on a building site just seem to be just messing, just constantly messing all the time. Like my dad, like some of his stories, my bro, he's a bricklayer. One of them is a bricklayer, my dad, just a few mates just constantly, just they're videoing that and they they're crazy because you get that like on the tools you know like on social media and stuff, although a lot of their stuff is set up now and I hate when you say set up, but like
Speaker 2:when you hear the old jokes like how could you even put that on social media? Like I remember hearing from my father-in-law telling me that there was a fella had a radio like back in the sort of 70s or 80s, had like blaster you bring in and he used to play the fucking worst like music on it. Don't know what he was listening to, but they were, and they always see you in that fucking radio. And one day he was down having his lunch or whatever and uh, he came back up and it wasn't working. He was like this fucking isn't and they were all laughing and he opened the batteries and somebody had just shit took the batteries out and laid a fucking cable in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's the big thick ones, like ever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was the big thick one, it was like ever ready, just fucking end to end, and I was like and he was telling us, laughing Like long rail crosses, it's not working. Yeah, could you imagine that my fucking pride and joy like he spent money on it to somebody.
Speaker 1:How do you have that kind of control Level of not a better line, that's it.
Speaker 2:You know, like moving as you do when you get a fucking ice cream you know, like, how do you know when this happens?
Speaker 2:the story, and it always seems to revolve around shade. The other one was that they used to have, like, when they would get to a site, they would set up the bogs and it was just literally a trench. You would dig and you would put, like you know, plywood around it and you would go in, you would just shit into into a trench. And he says that what the the first fella would have been in every day was the first guy in every day and it would be clean, it would be new, you know, like there'd be no, no shade. There had been clean out the day before. So they used to go and put a shovel to catch his shade. So when he did it he would look and go where the fuck did it go? They did this to him every morning. He'd come out scratching his face and he never knew it.
Speaker 2:Pure fella. Probably fucking checked into the funny farm like going I'm doing doctor, I'm doing shits, and they're going nowhere you actually use a toilet you go to the shade and you look when it's gone. Didn't even leave a skid mark. Where did?
Speaker 1:that go or when you wipe and there's nothing there and you go here, whoa hold on, you do a ghostie and you wait what the fuck happened when you want a ghostie, you never get a fucking ghostie.
Speaker 2:You're like there's only one bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, no like when you're holding A wee shitty bar and you're like Down for shit, and you're like, oh, fuck me, I can't go that far, and I always say they're running around Back to the hotel and you're running and you're sweating and you're like Fuck me, you're hovering. You're hovering Above a toilet.
Speaker 2:That's always the worst. You'll never get a ghostie there, and then people start coming in.
Speaker 1:They're waiting, they say, there's only one point, and I'm like fuck sure you get a clinger, then I come out on.
Speaker 2:I always come out on my phone. If you ever go out and they do a shite and there's some phones they say like well, I'm not gonna, not gonna look yous in the eye, I'll come out your phone's not even on mate. What are you talking about?
Speaker 1:I done it. We done it. Last week in Barcelona and we were sitting in this wee bar in my stomach I was like there's a fucking around the toilet here, so I boat in the toilet, fucking down for shit. Fucking flew to me like water and then I was like fuck, look now the bar was dead in front of us. It was actually a restaurant, but we were sitting in the chair running at the toilet, sitting there caxing. I was like fuck, there's no toilet roll.
Speaker 1:I was like what the fuck so I was taxing, taxing, taxing, taxing. There's no toilet roll in here. Go get me toilet roll. She fucking didn't see her phone. I was like, holy fuck, what am I going to do here? So I sat there freezies going, what am I going to do? Looked out, picked out the door there was no one. So I had them up my hair and pulled my t-shirt down and I was like waiting. And then I just picked my head in the girls toilet.
Speaker 1:There was no one on it and I just bought it in the girls toilet and I threw it in the friend's toilet, but I was sweating, like the sweat was dripping off me because it was like if I'm fucked there's a lot on the line.
Speaker 1:I went to the toilet. I went like I cleaned myself in the girls toilets, washed my hands, opened the door and a wee waiter was walking by me oh, jesus Christ. And then I was like he was looking at me, like what are you doing there? And I was like there's no toilet roll in there. And he's like, oh, I will get now, I will get now. So I walked out the door of it and I was like fuck, she's got to see her phone. She's like my phone's dead. And then my nurseman put it out of the run of the girls toilets. So the wee man was like I will go get now. And then I sit there, just as I sit there, and I'm like fuck. And she was like what me? He's going to run the toilet. I haven't even flushed it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, but you didn't. You didn't plan on yeah.
Speaker 1:I just stayed in there. I was like fuck, I'm hearing Iris Lock the door Because my hole's hanging. So I was like fuck, just as I sat there and she was like. I was like fuck, she's like what, what's wrong? I was like, oh my god, he's gonna go back in there To replace that toilet roll, and I haven't even Changed it. So I bolt, I'll just sit and talk all night or else he'll get any man fucker that was a Belfast live moment there.
Speaker 2:Imagine that you know Belfast boxer.
Speaker 1:Belfast boxer caught in female toilets with his arse out peeking on the way to the door, waiting for the right moment. But when it, hits.
Speaker 2:You see, when you get that feeling, you just go, this has to happen. I used to work in Dunn's in Park Centre, uh. So I was like 16 at the time, I was still in school and you know when, like you, there was ones you fancied and work or whatever. So we're like we're going to have a, we're going to, we'll go to the rock bar and then you would go to somebody's house after. So one of the girls I was interested, like we're going to go back to my house. I was on var. You had to walk the whole way up banty town, so we're in this house party, and she hadn't a notion of me. She didn't give a shit. It was when you were 16 and she would have been like 17. That age difference one year was just like she wasn't looking at me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because she's like like right, yeah, but I'm only 16 and it's just wee skinny whip and I was there and we were all drinking away and then all of a sudden I was like what do you do? And I was like I have to go home and like it wasn't too far for me. But I was like I'll not make it, I'll end up shitting in the street. So I was like fuck it, I'll go up to the toilet. So there was people everywhere been leaving, like a toilet roll in it, you know, like it hadn't flushed. So I did my shit on top of that and then put toilet roll down, it hit it and it's so it's fucking swimming. And I'm just standing there and then I hear people knocking. Who's in there? And it was her and I was like I claimed it.
Speaker 2:I just claimed that the window went, oh, by the time because, because I had like an extension and there was people you could see in the sky, like there was people all sitting drinking and I I gotta get lifted by the visual artist.
Speaker 2:I just, I just climbed, I climbed out, jumped down and just when you're that age, I was like, and then I was like I have to see her and work. So like at some point they would have opened the door. Where's Paddy, oh I wonder. And they're to the fucking toilet swimming. But yeah, I think I left them soon after that.
Speaker 1:Oh, fuck my, my brother. I'm not saying which one, he'd probably fucking beat me up when I tell this story, but yeah, he was telling me he was in a house party ages ago, like it was late at. He said I've got a stomach wound. He was like fuck. Yes, he says he's drinking Guinness now, but he ended up going fuck it. So he bought it. He was in Turf Lodge and he was running home and he was running back over and he says he couldn't hold it in. So he's like fuck everyone.
Speaker 1:It's gotta go so he ran onto Springfield Road where and there's two like big electric boxes, like a green electric box and then a small electric box, and he says he runs and he says I wasn't going to make it.
Speaker 1:He says he looked there was no traffic, even in between the two electric boxes, dropped the cash. He says he literally just squatted back up again and bolted. He says so literally. By the time he squatted it was a free early. By the time time he got back up again he was sitting there like an up and downer, like up and away, and he bolted home and he wrapped the door again in the house. His program turned and opened the door and was like what the fuck are you doing?
Speaker 1:I was like half through in the morning he's like yeah, mary, she made him strip down Pallet naked At the front door. It splashed over the back of his shoes.
Speaker 2:He thought he got away with it. He splattered Pebble dices there, max he had the tailor Like oh fuck.
Speaker 1:He says Did you go back and extend the shack? Have a look at your shit. You know you walk up and you see people all pointing at it like Halyan some dirty bastard this place is going to the dogs, I swear to god. They're like what's that in the back?
Speaker 2:of your ear, max, you've shat up the back of them, so you so McCombs. There was McCombs worked in the call centre when I was was there in HCL.
Speaker 1:Jim McColl. Jim, oh, he's my cousin ah, there you go he ended up managing. He was in BT, he was in Billing, what do you call it?
Speaker 2:yeah, he managed Yale oh, did he go to there?
Speaker 1:he managed Yale for a load of years.
Speaker 2:I don't think he's done it at all now aye, the call centres were wild, like they were a big, big, booming business because our name.
Speaker 1:Like my brother, I think, he worked in ACL as well, but he was bricklaying and then the boom happened. There was no work, yeah. And then he was working in a call centre for like two and a half years and then he just walked out. I loved it, but he loved it too.
Speaker 2:It was good crack if you weren't outbound selling to people. See that, having to ring up and sell to people inbound stuff was dead easy. But I was a trainer so. So we used to go and we would be training people and then whenever there wasn't a group in, they would literally tell you because it was outsourcing. So it was like it wasn't owned by Sky or it wasn't owned by BT, but it was a group that were like we'll take your calls for you. So whenever you weren't working like you didn't have a group in it just say fuck off, just go into the group, just clock in do your and then go home.
Speaker 1:So there was a lot of just swinging the lead and doing nothing, like when I was in school. You say, like I was 16, 17, like lower sixth, like everyone worked in a call centre yeah everyone. See now I don't even know one person works in a call centre.
Speaker 2:I know it's, but I think is that because everybody's working from home and they're, do people even do that?
Speaker 1:I don't know like do people even do that? You know, I don't know like, but like I remember everyone, like I had friends in my class who were like 16, 17 working on a call centre. My brother was maybe 23, 24 working on a call centre, or a load of his friends working on call centres and there was no building work. There was no building getting done. Just everyone I knew working on a call centre, and now I don't even like know one person yeah, it was probably what you said, the kid and I would you apply to work in a call centre?
Speaker 1:probably go. What's that work in a call centre? And all that but back in the day it was like everyone done it.
Speaker 2:I know it was. It was one of those jobs. It was good crack, but yeah, it was like if you're outbound you would literally be bad for your. We used to have to do ones for B&Q and like the calls some of the calls you had to make the people like about deliveries that aren't coming and stuff like that, and it was just like they'd be on the phone just giving you and the amount that. I used to love it, though you knew when it was happening, when someone just threw the head up, you know, and it would normally be like a wee fella.
Speaker 1:You trained you hear no it's fuck and you hear the fucking.
Speaker 2:You hear the? Headset getting thrown and then that was it, and then I'm like that's coming out of your wages because they were like 30 quid or something and you're like fucking, take it out of my wages.
Speaker 1:You don't give a fuck stick your job up your hole, but aye, it's like fucking like door to door my mate Marty used to do I was like nightmare nightmare. He loved it, he still talks about it.
Speaker 2:There's some people that are made for those kind of jobs, though I know people just love it.
Speaker 1:Psychopaths exactly how could you enjoy getting up walking around door to door, like as soon as someone comes to your door you're like I don't even answer or else they're like no, no, no, interest, you don't even want to hear.
Speaker 2:It's never a good time it's never a good time for it.
Speaker 1:I can't understand the method behind it, because if someone wants to buy something, you would just go and bet, especially with phones, and all now like back in the day maybe. But yeah, like if someone like there's still people come to your door every now and again like for something, like for urgent like I've had people come and make me. I forgot the internet.
Speaker 2:I can literally search wherever I want, if.
Speaker 1:I want to buy internet. I'll buy it yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Why do I need you to?
Speaker 1:come to the door and fucking disturb me whenever I'm you know, supposed to be measuring doors here, mate, that's another reason, but I hate those.
Speaker 2:The ones that I hate are the ones that ask you for who your energy supplier is. You know, whenever you're like getting into, you're like, you go in and they get you at the worst possible time. You know, when you're hungover and you're like mate, I'm in here, they get a 1.5 liter bottle of lucasate and andrex because I'm touching cloth. Yeah, you know I'm not here to do fucking admin, but my, I took my wee sister out. I tell this story in stand-up. My wee sister special needs and so you know I, over the years, depending on work, work or whatever, I look after her a few days a week you know, and that's just the way we all muck in.
Speaker 2:But she loves going out shopping for DVDs and stuff. So I took her out one day and we bumped into one of these guys and I always end up talking to them because I can't be a dick and go here, mate. Nah, you know, I'll always end up. Guy, come over. He's like hey, you could ask your energy supplier, isn't it?
Speaker 2:I was like, oh, so I'm talking away to him and sarah's pissed off at this stage because I've done my own shop and she wanted to finish and I guess here just looking at him and like she just, and she's in a wheelchair and he's not looking at her, he's not talking, he's just talking to me. And I was like she's gonna say something and so he's talking about standing orders and blah, blah, blah and much of japan. She's just patrick, tell him to. And I was just like yes, yes. And he was like sorry, mate, the same way he walked. I was just like fucking, what do you do? It was the best thing. Tell him to fuck off and you can't say anything. Like she's disabled, like you wanna? You wanna shout at her, right, exactly. Never saw him again, like obviously.
Speaker 1:I'd bring her everywhere. That's it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just whenever sir, when I I love the fuck off, she's so funny Like she, just like she's such a dry wit and dry sense of humour, and like she'd be sitting like in the car. And there was one time I stopped and there was somebody you know what it's like when you're dry and like I was at the lights and somebody walked past me and I wound her window down with the electric windows and away and she's like oh, patrick, I want to go home now. Hold on, sir, and what about your dad?
Speaker 2:and next she just goes like that as I'm talking to him and she just goes and it just closed and your bandage is like and then the lights had gone green so I had to drive on so it looked like what about your dad? But it was her.
Speaker 1:I was like see you and she's just laughing to herself she knows she's crazy like oh, that's brilliant, it's class, and you're back turning again now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, ah, yes so that's, it just started last week. So it, oh no, two weeks ago. So we've done banger larn and ns gillan so far.
Speaker 1:Where do people get their tickets? Paddy Raff Comedycom do you have like a link on your Instagram, aye it's on my Instagram and my website, paddyraffcomedycom.
Speaker 2:That's where you get all the tickets and stuff. But aye, it's great crack. Most of them sold out.
Speaker 1:People don't realise like especially me. Now it's such a good date night. Do you know what I mean? Like, yeah, a lot of people comedy show fucks again. Don't realize until there are yeah, like I would have had that mentality one stage years ago. But see now, until there are once you're there, yeah and you're with your missus, or you go out. Sometimes me, my missus, my in-laws would go to a wee show like that and we'd love it.
Speaker 2:It's well battled, it is it's something crossed out my mind anyway, like that's what I'm saying growing up, even though I loved comedy, I didn't get to see any local comedy because there's no social media then, I suppose. So you would have seen the big touring acts coming through, but that idea of going to a local comedy night and there's still a lot of people's minds that, oh, we'll give it a, we'll give it a go and then they'll go and they'll love it go.
Speaker 1:I'm just like that's my good wee date night we go to Lyric sometimes it's like the same thing where we go to a stand up and we're like that was brilliant, that's just fucking so easy.
Speaker 2:That's how you know you've changed, because you were sitting in Lisburn Road and everybody else was going to Kneecap and you're like we're going to.
Speaker 1:Lyric I'm training for a fight and.
Speaker 2:I just know that when I am.
Speaker 1:I can't be trusted to go yet because they're planning. I was in Amsterdam last week and they arrived on. Friday and I was speaking to Nish's brother, carver, and the dad, nish, and he was saying come over here and Amsterdam can tax me I was like I can't. I was coming home, I'm afraid anyway. But if I was able to have a drink and go and enjoy it with the lads, I would have, because I went to school room so I would have went at them.
Speaker 1:I went to high school room but I would have went at them, but I didn't trust myself so I would have stayed home for the experience of being there and being maybe with them.
Speaker 2:But but that's that actually would annoy me more is if I, if I have to go somewhere, even people are like why didn't you just go on that drink? No, it would be worse because if I'm going and knowing what I could have done, I could have been, I would have you know, I could just crack nothing, a few beers.
Speaker 1:That would annoy you more being at it so it's better to just not be at it and go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, don't just put it out of your mind.
Speaker 1:Basically, yeah 100%, but I made the right decision and just coming home early anyway, because I know it's what happened, because we would have got there with the intention of maybe I'll take it easy, yeah, yeah, yeah, and everyone's having a crack.
Speaker 2:You think you can do it before you know it I'll have one or two.
Speaker 1:Next thing, you know you paper samples with your RSI listen. We'll finish up here and then, if anyone wants to get tickets, you know puttyraftcom use no crack, get yourselves involved. Trust me you won't look back. Thanks for coming on, lad thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:Good luck with the rest of the podcast. Cheers, lad, thank you. Thank you, that's a wrap.