Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome to the O2 Dublin.
Please welcome on stage Bill Bailey.
Good evening!
Hello, Dublin.
Welcome to the O2.
A unique building in Dublin, in that it is actually finished.
Every time I've been to any historical building in Ireland,
and just after five minutes, you'll see something on the wall,
and it said, "And then the English came and ruined it."
No. It'll say,
"Yeah, so this building was built
"before the English came."
And then you realise you just got to get out of there.
Yeah. "Shall we stop for the gift shop?" "No, let's just keep going."
Not so great in England at the moment.
In an online poll, we came last.
We came actually bottom of European countries for quality of life.
Right. Because of things like the weather, obviously.
You know, late retirement, poor holiday,
poor public services, poor health service.
It's basically just a kind of a grey, godless wilderness
full of cold pies and broken dreams.
And that's why I didn't get the gig doing the tourist campaign because...
Other countries have got great tourist campaigns.
Like Malaysia is, "Malaysia, Truly Asia."
You see what we did there?
New Zealand is a "100% pure."
It's like it's some kind of narcotic, you know.
Yeah, 100% pure. That's not cut with Vanuatu.
All right. Australia is like, you know,
"Where the bloody hell are you?"
Followed by a terrifying scream.
I've actually thought of one for Ireland. I don't know. See what you think, all right?
I've just sort of mucking around with it. See what you think, right.
Okay, it goes, here we go, something like this.
Come to Ireland.
A magical place.
Where euros mysteriously disappear
by their millions.
Strange structures known as bank headquarters blow in the wind.
Visit the jungles, the beaches, the rainforests.
All right. Ireland.
It's not Brazil, but it's not as shit as Greece.
Something like that.
Yeah. I was actually on tour in Australia.
And Australians are very optimistic and helpful,
and I'm very distrustful of that, you know.
I find that somebody's got an angle, they're being devious.
You know, "What do you mean, you're helpful?" "What?"
And there's an Australian expression which is "Too easy."
Which is meaning, you know, no problem, no worries.
Yeah. "Can you help me?" "Too easy."
I didn't realise that. I thought it was an aggressive thing.
I was in a hotel and a package arrived for me.
The bloke phoned up, he said, "There's a package here for Mr Bailey."
I said, "Oh, thanks very much." He said, "Do you want me to send it up?"
I went, "Oh, yes. Thank you very much." He went, "Too easy."
So I said, "Well, all right, train an ibis to fly it up then,"
"if that constitutes more of a challenge."
I was a little bit surly with him.
Australia is vast. Every time I go there I realise what a vast country it is.
Australia could have been invaded during the Second World War.
Nobody would have noticed, right.
Germany could have set up an entire reich up in the Northern territory somewhere,
they would have been oblivious to it for two years.
Eventually some rural country copper would have blundered across it like that,
"What's going on here?"
"This is the new Germany.
"We have set up a reich in your country."
"All right."
"Oh, carry on."
"You haven't got any fruit, or vegetables or potpourri on you at all, have you?"
The thing is, when I was in Australia, there was a coup, right.
The government was ousted,
the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, was chucked out.
Julia Gillard came in, in his place, all in a matter of days.
And it was very harsh and very brutal,
but it did actually really make a point to me that, you know,
it's what we've all known for many years outside of Australia,
you can't have a world leader called Kevin.
All right. You just can't.
It doesn't really convey any statesman-like gravitas.
Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel. "Uh, Kevin, hello."
And now, today, like we have in Britain now, a coalition government.
It seems to be a bit of a mishmash.
We didn't have the unifying moment of Obama.
You see, Obama unified America,
and he is to me an inspirational figure.
He's intelligent, articulate.
He seems genuinely engaged in the world.
My only problem with Obama is that
some of this phraseology is uplifting but vague.
You know. You hear it and you think, "Oh, cor! Eh, what?"
You know, "Well, I better applaud, you know."
Mainly out of white liberal guilt, I suppose, you know.
I mean, his book title, The Audacity of Hope.
I mean, it sounds very noble and uplifting, doesn't it? The Audacity of Hope.
But it's not really the way I would describe hope.
I wouldn't describe hope with audacity.
Maybe the mundanity of hope, perhaps, you know.
The depressing, inevitability of hope.
The pointless, day-to-day, crushing jackboot of history on the face of hope.
The pointless, uselessness of hope
but not the audacity of hope.
When you think of hope in Britain, you just see the face of Rooney.
Rooney's face is not the face of hope.
It looks like a child's drawing of a cabbage.
All his features are drawing together
in the middle of this face like the top of a duffle bag.
In fact, all the English footballers,
a bunch of useless turf-kicking,
knuckle-dragging, mono-browed
millionaire illiterates.
Every one of them look like some ageing warehousemen
who'd been given conflicting storage instructions.
And, okay, even the pundits were lost for words at how appalling it was.
One of the pundits on BBC, Mark Lawrenson,
you know, the one who looks like a melted rabbit, you know.
Watership Dali, I call him.
He said, "They've got to try and get the ball into the corridor of uncertainty."
Yeah, what's that? Pass the half way line of unknowing,
in the six yard box of tremulous ambiguity.
Manager Fabio Capello. Okay, English not really his strong point.
He was shouting from the touchline, partly in Italian.
Rooney's face, all his features disappeared now, like a black hole.
In his first game in charge of England,
Fabio Capello said it was, "Una partita all'inglese."
"An English-style game."
Which is such... Damning with faint praise, innit?
So, "all'inglese" becomes this terrible negative adjunct.
Yes."All'inglese" sounds like a very disappointing pasta dish, isn't it?
Pasta all'inglese.
Yes, overcooked rigatoni and marmite.
Bellissimo!
So, Obama gave us a good kicking over the oil spill,
which apparently now has been finally capped.
But what they've done apparently, what they've done is,
they've packed the oil well with Dan Brown novels, right.
Because they're very absorbent apparently.
I've seen people go into Waterstones and order a kilo of Dan Brown.
They don't even know what it is. "I've got to cut a bit off the end."
"You'll miss the ending." 'Well, whatever."
He's another one, pudding-faced, currant-eyed, murderer of prose.
But I would never condone the burning of a Dan Brown book, okay.
Much though I loathe and detest his work...
Well, his I say work, you know,
words randomly arranged to form millions of dollars.
Not bitter at all.
So, hey.
I tell you what I hate, though,
are those sort of whimsical, girly singer/songwriters, you know, the ones...
You know, the ones that kind of, they sing songs like this.
♪ I'm a girl and I live in the clouds
♪ I float like a worm
♪ That dreamt it was an acorn on the wings of the morning
♪ I'm a girl and I live in the sky
♪ Like a cotton gossamer strand of thread
♪ That unravelled from a dress
♪ That was woven from the thoughts of a mermaid
♪ I've got a gossamer brain
♪ Got a dandelion mind
♪ One poof and it's gone ♪
Tonight's show is about doubt.
Or maybe it isn't. I haven't made my mind up yet.
One of the ways that music finds its way into our consciousness
is through advertising.
And advertisers are very keen to banish doubt
from your minds when you're selecting a product.
That's why the music always surreptitiously, subconsciously
leads you to believe in the trustworthiness
of the product in question.
Something, perhaps, you know, you may have heard something of this nature,
like in the advert for makeup.
"Life never stops and that can take a toll on your skin.
"That's why new super youthful face shaper ointmenty stuff
"can smooth those troubles away.
"Our unique atom rearranging pro-dermitiser
"contains our de-uglification technology that
"re-lovelifies your actual face off.
"And replaces it with a newer, kinder one
"which eventually seeps all the way into your brain.
"Kinder face marmalade from L'Oréal. Because you need it."
All right then, you cheeky scamps.
All right, so, anyone familiar with this particular instrument?
Lute? No.
Did you say banjo? No.
- Mandolin! - Mandolin. No.
- Balalaika! - Balalaika, no.
- Bouzouki. - An acorn? What?
Bouzouki. No.
Oud.
Who said, "Oud"?
Oud!
That was one of the strangest things I've ever heard.
"Is this an oud?" "Oud!"
See, that's not the right answer to that question, is it, really.
Yes, but no. "Is this an oud?" "Oud!"
"The prophecy..."
"Is this an oud?" "Oud!"
"No, is this an oud?" "Oud!"
"No, but is it an oud?" "Oud!"
Time slows in the O2 to a glacial drip.
"Is this an oud?" "Oud!"
Outside the O2, empires rise and fall.
Huge winged crabs hold dominion
over a blasted post-apocalyptic wilderness.
But inside, "Is this an oud?" "Oud!"
"Is this an oud?" "Oud!"
"Is this an oud?"
Oud! Oud! Oud! Oud!
Behold!
Oud!
Truly, truly,
it is an instrument that clearly does not need to be played.
It's mainly rock you can play on it.
And, of course, Iranian hip-hop.
♪ Welcome to Tehran
♪ Anyone can vote
♪ As long as it rhymes with Ahmadinejad
♪ I'll take my foot off your throat ♪
One of the things I thought was extraordinary about Obama winning was that,
he's such an intellectual,
he borrowed phrases from other world leaders.
You know, Gandhi said, "Be the change you seek in the world."
Obama says, "We are the change we seek in the world."
And this went over big in the rural heartlands of America.
I was amazed by that.
I'd have thought there'd be two cowpokes standing in Ohio somewhere going,
"What the hell's he on about, Frank?
"'We are the change we seek.'
"Well, hell, I don't know what the hell's he's on about."
Like that. But no.
Apparently they were saying, "I believe he's paraphrasing Gandhi."
"Yes, I believe he is."
"Tapenade?" "Oh, don't mind if I do."
And the thing is, I'm amazed they went with Obama at all.
I mean, you know, I thought Hillary would have been a shoo-in but no, you know.
Apparently America's got an issue with gender not with race.
So, um...
It reminded me of an old country and western song I'd like to play on the oud.
Thus rendering it country and eastern. So, here we go.
♪ Well, I don't mind if a black man
♪ Takes away my guns and bans the Ku Klux Klan
♪ But I don't think I could take that
♪ From a woman ♪
Oud!
The trouble is in Britain now,
we rely mainly for our electricity on France, right.
We get all our electricity from France,
from a company called EDF,
which is helpfully called Electricité de France.
Which is just "electricity from France."
I don't know whether that makes it any nicer.
I just don't understand how it can be any better.
Is it French electricity that's slightly more, I don't know, a little bit more stylish?
People saying, "Ooh, get you with your Parisian voltage."
And the things is now, because we have to rely on them,
we have to phone them up. And of course, they always know.
They know that we're English even 'cause our accents give us away.
Oh, les Anglais.
"I just put you on hold." "No."
It's even worse with the German companies like Power-Gen,
you have to phone them up and say...
"Nein!"
I'm very worried about the teaching of creationism in our schools now.
Creationists...
Thank you. Oh, a few Darwinist's in?
Thank God for Darwin, eh?
So...
Creationists mainly are Americans
who think that the world was created in 1982
to coincide with the rise of Supertramp, all right?
And you can really easily disprove this
by playing them some of Supertramp's earlier albums.
But they won't have it, you know.
The thing is, they always bang on about these, sort of, these things
like intelligent design.
The irreducible complexity of certain aspects of nature
like a giraffe's neck or a human eye,
or the bombardier beetle that fires acid out of his arse,
which is a handy trick to, you know, in a tight spot.
But the thing is nature isn't...
There's no intelligent design in a lot of nature.
Most of nature is work in progress.
It's very imperfect.
I mean, look at frogs. When frogs, male frogs,
will so often try to copulate with other male frogs,
that the frog has a release call to let the other frog know
basically he's wasting his time.
If you see two frogs going at it, hammer and tongs,
the one underneath goes, "Ribbit." What he's actually saying is,
"Leave it, Frank, you're embarrassing yourself.
"Look, look, socially I'm cool with it, all right?
"But reproductively, this is a cul-de-sac, okay?"
And I think the thing is we are actually evolving. That's the key.
Although biological evolution
happens so slowly that we don't notice it in our lifetime.
But social evolution is happening. I think that's happening quicker.
It's speeded up by the technology, by the internet.
And science will help us get on better as a species.
I'll give you an example. Women are always claimed to be
more empathetic than men.
They claim to have greater empathy. That men are no good at it.
When women talk to each other, they empathise.
But men don't, they just drink.
That's all they do, we can't empathise. We just drink.
"What's your problem?"
So, the thing is now,
we always thought that was a behavioural thing,
that women were just happened to be better at it,
because of, I don't know, their upbringing.
But scientists have worked out that there's an actual chemical in the brain called oxytocin
which gives women a greater affinity for empathy.
They just have more of it. So, it's a physiological reason.
The good news for men is
that this chemical is now available as a nasal spray, right.
So, if your wife/girlfriend/partner thinks you're not being empathetic enough
do a little quick... Blast of that.
"I feel it! I feel your pain!"
And women will get so suspicious
of blokes who are genuinely empathetic.
'Cause they say, "You've just been at the oxytocin again, haven't you?"
Then they'll go, "No! No, I haven't."
And, clearly, they're OD'ing on it
because they burst into tears because there's no tomato puree in the house.
"The ragù will be ruined!"
You know, if blokes OD on oxytocin,
there'll be other blokes trying to bring them down
by blow piping shots of chauvinol into their neck.
The thing is, though, you see, I'm a Darwinist and I mean I believe in evolution.
I mean, evolution has been around for ages, you know.
And the creationists will say that it only happened with Darwin.
But, of course, Darwin just used the accumulated evolutionary thought
that had been building up for centuries.
I mean, the first inklings of evolution
happened round about the 4th century B.C. with Empedocles, the Greek philosopher.
And he noticed patterns in nature.
He also was a vegetarian because he thought
that animals are the dwelling places of tortured souls,
which is a brilliant way of ruining a meat-based barbecue.
"Sausage?" "No, they're vessels of the damned."
And Darwin knew that his book was going to cause a furore.
So he needed a bit of extra kudos,
a bit of gravitas, a bit of respect from his peers.
And what he did, he decided to become a world expert in something.
And so he had a few barnacles kicking around his house after the Beagle trip,
so, he started to become an expert in barnacles.
That was his aim, to become a world expert in barnacles.
And the thing is, he probably thought it would take him about a couple of months,
but it took him eight years.
He spent eight years studying barnacles.
He studied them by putting his hands in a block and tackle
and rested them over the table where he was working on the barnacles.
His kids grew up knowing nothing other than barnacles.
They went round to other people's houses,
"Is this where your dad does his barnacles?"
After eight years, he was the world expert in barnacles,
as you would indeed hope to be.
In fact, the previous world expert said,
"Well, that's 12 minutes of my life I'll never get back."
And Darwin actually wrote in his journal,
"I hate a barnacle as no man has ever done before."
Barnacles are fascinating things, they're fascinating creatures.
And everywhere I go I ask people about their collected knowledge of barnacles,
as I will do tonight.
So...
I was in Stornoway in the Isle of Lewis,
I said, "Anyone know anything of barnacles?"
And a bloke down the front went, "They stick to boats."
I went, "That's good. We'll work, chop that up."
And, eventually, a little voice from the back of the room said,
"Tell him nothing else.
"Don't share your barnacle knowledge with the stranger!
"I'll keep my barnacle information to the grave."
I asked this question one night, and a bloke said,
"I know something about barnacles, Bill," he said.
There was a little bonus joke he threw in.
He said, "I am the barnacle expert at the Natural History Museum in London."
I said, "Wow! You must be like the world expert in barnacles.
"You must be the number one expert in the world.
And he went, "Oh, no, no, no, no, no."
I said, "Well, you must be top three, then?" He went, "Oh, yeah. Top three, yeah."
It's like a chart of barnacles.
The barnacle is an extraordinary creature.
It has the largest penis to body ratio of any animal in the natural kingdom.
And you know, fair play...
Yeah, exactly. You may well whoop that.
The barnacle cannot, of course, understand you.
Contextually, it doesn't really know anything about that, but well done.
Does anyone know what the ratio is actually, off the top of their head?
- Eight! - Eight?
You said that with a degree of confidence there, sir.
Sort of thing, the kind of fact that just trips off your tongue lightly.
Somebody just nudges you at work,
"Excuse me, what's the ratio of barnacle penis?"
"Eight." "Carry on."
- Five! - Seven!
- What? - Seven!
- Eleven? - Sixty nine.
Sixty nine!
Well, someone had to.
Ten. I reckon it's round about 10. Something like that. It's quite a lot.
I mean, that'll be huge.
That will be equivalent of a man with a 60-foot penis.
Which would be unwieldy to say the least, wouldn't it?
"Here's Clive. Don't get him excited. He'll have the buffet over.
"There he goes in his little van."
Let's expunge that thought from our brain now,
as we all say the word "barnacle" in unison after three.
One, two, three.
Barnacle!
Oh, you see, that's weird, innit?
Getting a bearded stranger to demand you say the word "barnacle".
It's like a middle-class mugging, innit?
It's like, "You there, say 'barnacle'." "Barnacle." "On your way."
Or a middle-class mugging would be,
"You there, make the sound of sherry being decanted."
"A little viscous, more like port, but I'll let it go this time."
Well, to relax... I'm gonna have to relax now.
What I like to do, I like to go to the supermarket.
But this is one thing I recommend that you never do.
And that is I gazed into the laser scanner, right.
Unexpected item in bagging area.
Thank you very much! That's the end of the first half!
See you back in a bit, bye-bye.
Oud... Oud...
Oud... Oud!
Oud... Oud...
The church is now in session.
The high priest of oud is upon us.
Oud.
It's going really well, I don't think I'll come out.
I think I'll do it from back here.
So, okay, are you ready for the second half?
Please welcome back to the stage, the comedy stylings of Bill Bailey.
Oud!
Yeah!
♪ 'Cause I'm the real Bill Bailey Not the fake Bill Bailey
♪ All those other Bill Bailey's are not the actual Bill Bailey
♪ Because I'm not like the diamond and lady kind of person
♪ I want houses and patios
♪ I'm not a random meener
♪ I'm shy and more of a woodland creature
♪ Yeah
♪ I don't like the bling The urban bling and all that thing
♪ You know, I've got a bear and a leopard and a solid gold owl
♪ You wanna go gardening, I've got a Fabergé trowel
♪ It's like a Fabergé egg but in trowel form
♪ I'm friend to the hawk the badger and the sparrow
♪ But I like the rustic bling I've got a Prada wheelbarrow
♪ I've got a farm
♪ I've got cows made out of tungsten Sometimes I get crazy
♪ I like to get amongst them
♪ Empty out a clip of my Glock on my tungsten cow
♪ Cow goes down, pow! Who's laughing now?
♪ Who's laughing now?
♪ 'Cause I'm the rural guru I'm the rustic mystic
♪ Check out the countryside karma I'm the Dalai farmer ♪
Oud!
Who is the greatest doubter?
Yes, Thomas.
I feel sorry for Thomas, really, 'cause I think he's got a bit of a bad rap.
You know, Thomas, the name, Thomas, has become this phrase,
"A doubting Thomas."
It seems harsh. I just think Thomas was just a sensible, rational human being
and all the other disciples were just credulous nitwits.
You know? Oh!
Jesus says, "I came back from the dead. Look, I'm back from the dead. Whoo-hoo!"
And they all went, "Yes, that's great."
Thomas, "Just a couple of things I need to clear up here, Christ."
He's branded some sort of doubter!
And that moment, when Christ reveals his wound to Thomas to prove to him
that he has come back from the dead. It's this iconic moment.
He takes back his cloak, he shows Thomas the wound
and he says, "Touch the wound of Christ."
In that way, 'cause he was quite posh, Christ.
"Touch the wound of Christ."
It wouldn't have worked if he was from the north of England.
"Touch the wound of Christ."
Definitely not Australian.
"Touch the wound of Christ. Go on!
"Too easy. Put your finger in there.
"Move it around."
And that moment in Christian iconography has become immortalised
in many, many paintings.
The fact that it's been painted by dozens of artists over hundreds of years.
And it's a very famous painting called The Incredulity of Saint Thomas.
And it's really the moment where in the Christian faith
doubt was expunged for all time because Thomas was then convinced.
And I'm just going to take you through a few of these paintings, all right?
Now, here, this is by Honthorst.
And you can see here, this is clearly Christ. Here.
Note the beard, uh...
The long hair, the beatific demeanour.
And he's looking down. He's massive, look, he's huge.
And Thomas is invited to touch the wound. "Touch it. Touch the wound of Christ."
The square bellybutton of Christ.
Wait a minute, how's he got a belly button? Wait a minute, uh...
And Christ has actually just ordered a coffee in this scene
and he's just said, "Just put it there."
I've just noticed.
Look at that boil on Thomas's finger.
I really wouldn't want that hand getting anywhere near an open wound, would you?
All right, that's Honthorst. Now, this is by a painter called Guercino.
And, which is, if you know you're Italian, is a nickname, The Squinter,
which is obviously not a great attribute if you're a painter.
But, uh, here, dark, moody scene.
Very, very moody. Influenced by Caravaggio, of course.
He must have been a Caravaggista.
And here, Thomas touching the wound gingerly.
Tenderly touching the wound. Quite a sexy Christ.
Quite an erect nipple.
And thus, quite good nipple shadow. Very good nipple shadow.
Which is actually the name of a prog rock band I was in at school.
Nipple shadow!
Well, it should have been.
And over there, just some random beardy bloke waving,
trying to get the bloke's attention.
"Over here, mate. Chuck us an orange,
"chuck us a satsuma or an apple or something.
"Over here, mate. Whoo-hoo!
"Cuckoo!"
I just like the slightly...
The slightly affected pose of Christ in this one.
"Come on, just get it over with."
And it looks like Thomas is actually putting some money in the slot in Christ.
It's actually a mechanical Christ.
The arm's going to go up and down in a minute.
And here, Christ has surprised Thomas. He went
And Thomas is, "Whoa!"
Now, this is a very famous one. This is by Rubens.
Now, over here, this rather fine-looking gentlemen is Nicholas Rockox
and he was Rubens' patron.
A very wealthy Dutch merchant. Look at his lovely fur. Look at that.
And the thing is, about being a patron, you could actually be in the painting.
And at least he's got the good grace to appear interested in the scene.
Unlike his wife, over here, who's just happy to be in the painting.
And over here, we have Christ. Quite a hippy Christ.
"Yeah, like I was totally crucified, yeah, I was like...
"It was, like, really painful. Really painful? Like when the nail went in, like, 'Ow.'
"Like really ow a lot. Like ooh!
"Like when you really catch your toe on something. I mean, like, really ow."
And Thomas, clearly Scottish, I think.
"Oh, look at that. Look at that!
"Oh, it's gone right through. Oh, no."
And then the same random beardy bloke, just in the corner, stoned off his bonce.
Transfixed by Christ's nose.
He's looking at it going, "That is an amazing nose. I've never seen a nose like that.
"Oh, my giddy aunt."
Okay, now this one, these people at the back have clearly got the wrong idea.
"Look, it's in his hair!" "No, it's there, it's there. It's clearly there."
Quite an aggressive looking, kind of, biker Christ there.
"Touch the wound, man. Touch it. Yeah. Yeah, you weren't... You don't know, man.
"You weren't there. You weren't there, man."
And this is a Verrocchio, the sculptor obviously.
And look at the work that's gone in here.
Look at the folds he's chipped out of these cloth...
I mean, I really feel sorry for him. I feel desperately sorry for Verrocchio.
He spent all his time and effort on getting the cloaks right
and he thought, "Now, I'll tell you what? I'll top it off with a lovely halo."
And he stood back and he thought, "Oh, no, I've done a fruit bowl. Oh!"
Bollocks.
And he's painted Christ as some kind of avenging ninja as well.
It's like, there's the wound...
Now, this one, I don't know what the hell's going on here.
I mean, somebody seems to have sailed Christ into this particular painting.
And this has got to be, I'm afraid, the campest Christ I've ever seen.
"Oh, look, I'm a sailboat. What am I like?"
But, probably, the most...
Probably the most famous of all the incarnations of this particular painting,
uh, is done by Caravaggio.
Now, look at this. It's an extraordinary painting.
Here we see the rich colours, the dark, the light, the chiaroscuro,
and here, the rich cloaks of the believers, the flimsy material of the doubter.
The crazed, gaunt expression.
"Oh, look! I get it, Christ. I get it!"
Christ has got his hand. He's forcing it into his wound.
Look at the visceral, modern realism of this scene.
"Poke the wound of Christ."
Thomas is like, "Yeah, I get it, Christ, I get it."
And Christ says, "No, feel the wound!
"Touch the wound. Feel the wound of Christ. Feel it!
"Faster, faster!" "Okay, I get it. I get it, guys, I get it!"
Thomas isn't even looking at it. He's looking at something else.
He's looking at that. That's what he's looking at.
You see, whatever your views on that particular thing,
Christ at least could claim to be some kind of celebrity.
Modern celebrity, the word has no meaning. It is devoid of all currency.
Anyone can be a celebrity, endless parades of cookery shows.
Endless cookery shows.
Junior MasterChef, Senior MasterChef, Tiny MasterChef, Klingon MasterChef.
"Mmm, revenge. Mmm, too warm."
Okay.
I watched this programme, it was Michael Winner's Dining Stars.
And Michael Winner, all right, Michael Winner, not known...
He likes eating.
That's his only qualification for judging people's dinners, all right?
Worrying what Michael Winner thinks of your food,
it would be like going to the park
and worrying that a duck has looked at you in a funny way.
And some woman phoned him up,
and he said, "What are we having for dinner, my dear?"
And she said some typical bourgeois tit bit. It was, you know,
otter-caught scallops relaxing on a cristini plinth, in a fog of pesto.
And he said, "I don't like pesto."
And she said, "Oh, no! What am I gonna do?"
And I was shouting at the TV,
I said, "Get a cricket bat and make a latex mould of the cricket bat,
"fill it with pesto, then freeze it
"and when he comes round for dinner,
"you say, 'You're not going to like this, Michael, on several different levels."'
See, I don't really subscribe to the whole celebrity culture,
I try and avoid it most of the time. I don't even like the word "celebrity."
But, occasionally, I get invited to things and they always end up disastrous.
I always pick the wrong thing.
I was invited to a premiere of a film of one of the Saw film franchises, all right.
They're horrible films.
A bloke is drugged and he wakes up and he's superglued to a wolf.
And he's only allowed to smash it off with his own nephew.
Or a bloke is drugged and he wakes up
and his ears are being nailed to a washing machine
and it's about to go to the spin cycle and twist his head right off.
And he can only change it,
but he's got to saw his fingers off with a stale baguette,
over hours and hours and hours
then glue them all together to make a stick so he can reach the controls.
Ugh! Horrible.
And straddling above the whole of popular culture
like some crab-faced predator-like colossus, is Simon Cowell, right?
Who I call Agent Orange, all right. 'Cause it works on so many levels.
He's an agent, he's orange,
and like the chemical defoliant used in Vietnam,
he's a toxic blight on a generation, all right.
It kind of works.
Actually, where I live in west London, in Hammersmith,
there was a cleaning company called, Agent Orange, right,
which I thought was a little bit insensitive.
Not as insensitive as a record shop at the end of my road
called The Vinyl Solution.
Which is just wrong on so many levels, isn't it?
It's like calling a Chinese laundry Ethnic Cleansing, isn't it?
Or a Lionel Richie-themed Muslim butcher's
Halal, Is It Meat You're Looking For?
See, the thing is...
This is the Tenori-on, right. It's a Japanese thing.
And it allows you expression of music.
And this is, I think, the antithesis of the X-Factor.
The X-Factor is about moulding people. Making them sound exactly like...
Music should be about an expression. Freedom of expression.
I'm just going to show you what I'm going to do.
You press these buttons here and you get a little pulse.
I'm going to play my musical fingerprint here. Here we go.
Here. Here we go.
This is my hand print. Here we go.
And the thing...
The thing about the Tenori is, it allows you to play images with music.
And the thing is, you can take familiar images
and then hear what they sound like,
with music.
And, thus, we create beauty from hatred.
I was in a pub recently, imagine that,
and there were these two blokes talking
and one of them said, "You know that Mugabe, right?"
And the bloke went, "What, Eric Mugabe, used to play left back for Leyton Orient?"
He went, "No."
"The other one." "Oh, yeah, Robert, yeah. Well?"
He goes, "He's like a black Hitler, right."
And I said, "I don't think he is."
I said, "Although conceptually, I'd like that to occur."
Just to see the look on the British National Party's face.
No!
Well, so, I don't think he is. I don't think analogy works.
I said, "Basically, you know, he's not trying to annexe neighbouring nations.
"What he is trying to do, he's persecuting the intellectuals
"and forcibly reintroducing a Maoist-style agrarian society.
"So, if anything, he's the black Pol Pot. Hmm."
And the bloke said, "Well, I shall endeavour to become circumspect
"about my dictator-based analogies in the future."
And with that, he grew a beautiful pair of wings and flew out over the crystal lake
because he was merely a conceptual entity
and I promised him a magical exit from the routine.
♪ Nick Clegg
♪ You don't have to wear that dress tonight
♪ Walk the streets for money
♪ You don't have to sell your body to the right... ♪
Yeah, we're in a strange time at the moment.
Connected, more connected, less connected than ever before.
YouTube is extraordinary.
More content is loaded onto YouTube in 60 days,
than has ever been broadcast in America in 60 years.
Admittedly, most of that is a cat playing the piano.
But it is quite funny though, when the cat is starting to play the piano,
and he's thinking to himself he can't quite play it.
A billion Facebook users, you know.
And I'm on this social networking site, Twitter.
When I first, you know, explored on Twitter,
I was horrified to find there were four people claiming to be me.
There were four Bill Bailey's already.
And they were having a much more interesting time of it,
going skate boarding, going sky diving. I'm thinking, "Wow!"
They're going clubbing, yeah, "I'm might go wind surfing in a minute."
And I'm going, "I'm having a biscuit, I'm walking across the room,
"I'm sitting down. Oh, I might look out the window in a minute.
"Oh, that's Thursday. Whoo!" You know.
It's extraordinary, Twitter, you know.
And everyone is on Twitter now. Obama is on Twitter.
And that's great, 'cause, you know, you get this Twitter feed
and it's just everyone's, sort of, tweets coming through.
And sometimes you just get this
extraordinary, sort of, gap between solemnity and triviality.
Obama would say something like, "I'm trying to get America's economy moving.
"I want to see a future for our children."
And in the next page, "I might have a Jaffa Cake in a minute." You know?
That was me.
And the royal family are on Twitter.
Admittedly, it's not the royal family, you know, it's the British Monarchy,
so it's just a list of engagements.
What you really want is the Queen going, "Corgis have shat in Philip's shoes. Lol."
And Twitter's become very middle-class.
Like, you know, before the World Cup when Ireland were playing France
and Thierry Henry shamelessly and shamefully handballed.
Yes.
Well, people were outraged and rightly so.
And the next day on Twitter, some bloke wrote,
"I was so outraged, I nearly threw my couscous across the room."
The keyword there being "nearly", I think.
"That was bloody good couscous that, I wasn't going to waste it.
"I nearly crushed a cardamom pod with my Montblanc pen. I was livid."
Anyway, this is an internet love song.
♪ Whilst vaguely watching you nibble your sandwich
♪ I was gripped by an overwhelming sense of utter futility
♪ You Twitter "Oh, my God, I'm having a sandwich!"
♪ Like it's thrilling
♪ Four seconds later 19 followers twitter, "What filling?"
♪ One of them is me I say, "Is it carrots and hummus?"
♪ You say, "Wow, there must be a special connection betwum-us."
♪ We meet from a tweet but it's not that appealing
♪ Because unlike Lionel Richie We're not dancing on the ceiling
♪ I caress you like a curious wasp
♪ You embrace me like a spiteful pheasant
♪ It's quite unpleasant
♪ Ow, my eye and then you shit on my head
♪ Do we really love? Do we really care?
♪ Let's sort this out with an online questionnaire
♪ But in the box marked do you really want to be with me?
♪ We both ticked, neither agree nor disagree
♪ I don't hate you, it's not fate It's just we're not that great
♪ I don't dislike you I just unlike you
♪ For your information I am not laughing out loud
♪ Or even laughing my arse off
♪ Or even R-O-F-L-Y-S-S-T
♪ Rolling on the floor laughing yet somehow still typing ♪
This is a punk lament I wrote when I discovered one of my punk heroes,
John Lydon was doing a butter advert!
♪ I can't hear your words Your words of spite
♪ 'Cause they're muffled by the tea and the Vegemite
♪ Bring out the tea and crockery
♪ Carve yourself a slice of hypocrisy
♪ Anarchy in the UK Coming to a tearoom any day
♪ Bankers try to nick my ham Politicians want a taste of the jam
♪ All around, there's scum in the gutter
♪ The only thing you can rely on is Country Life butter
♪ Country Life you spread it with a knife
♪ The knife on the bread has killed punk dead
♪ Country Life you spread it with a knife
♪ The knife on the bread has stabbed punk in the head
♪ Now you're a ghost and punk is toast ♪
We never had the moment in Europe. We never had that unifying moment.
The only unifying thing we had in Europe was the ash cloud.
I, Jolly Geoffrey Jokel,
I was trapped in Spain by the ash cloud.
When I say trapped? I wasn't bricked up in a chimney,
I was in a hotel with room service. It was all right.
I couldn't escape. The ferries were full,
the docks were seething with Russian billionaires saying,
"Take the children, take the children."
I couldn't even get a train home. There was a rail strike in France.
"Hey France, the whole of Europe is paralysed by the ash cloud.
"Maybe put aside your differences, put on some extra trains."
"No."
People were trying to help, you know.
Actually what I did was, I got a lift.
We got to France, so I bought an old car, a Citroën a DS.
A beautiful old retro Citroën and I drove through France,
flicking my Vs at the France. At the France. At the French even.
I flick my V's at the France.
I would have been Dutch there, sorry.
I flick my V's at the France.
It was, uh, very satisfying, especially near the railway stations.
And people were trying to help. I was in this hotel in Spain
and I phoned down to reception. The Spanish receptionist,
she was this woman, quite a sexy, husky voice.
She said, "Don't worry, Señor Bailey.
"I will help you reach your destiny."
I think she was right. I think she was right.
My Spanish was not good enough to respond. My Spanish is pretty poor.
My French is all right.
My Spanish is poor. Once a friend of mine, another comedian, Sean Lock,
and I, we travelled through Colombia in South America.
We trekked through the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta,
to the Lost City, Ciudad Perdida.
And we were woefully underprepared.
We had a rucksack, such as a child might use,
we bought in the market for three quid. It had "Sport" written on it.
It broke in five minutes.
We had half a packet of orange creams
and a big bag of weed I bought off a German arms dealer.
"Ja, that is good stuff" "I trust you."
So, we sat in the Lost City and we didn't know what the hell we were doing.
We just sat there getting mashed, going, "Lost City, yeah, I've lost me city."
We laughed about that for four days.
"Where's your city?" "I can't find it."
We had all the custard creams. We were just going a bit insane.
And, eventually, we confessed the only Spanish phrases we knew.
And I'd learnt what I thought was quite a useful one.
My Spanish phrase was...
Which is, "That's all very well, but do you have a cheaper one?"
It has a practical use.
Sean's phrase was a little bit more desperate. A kind of an emergency phrase.
His phrase was...
Which is, "Please shoot the hairy one."
Okay, I'd like to pay tribute now
to a classic song, Cars by Gary Numan in the French disco pop style.
Oud!
Oh, yes. Hey, let's have a stump up. All right!
Okay, here we go.
Oud!
I feel like I might end up like one of those blokes
you see at the side of the road with two shopping bags,
just shouting at traffic.
I need to relax now.
Other people have got different ways of relaxing.
Jennifer Aniston, she says, "When it all gets too much,
"I just drive up to my Malibu beach house and shout at the ocean."
Oh, poor old Jennifer, eh?
Unlike the rest of us who just get a bottle of Malibu...
go out to the park and shout at the pigeons.
"I trusted you!"
Sometimes I make a chocolate bicycle out of two Wagon Wheels,
some Chocolate Fingers and I park it in a Toblerone bike rack.
Or I take my navel fluff out and weave it into wigs
so that fleas could act out Victorian melodramas.
Actually, I was in a duty free coming back on a plane.
I was looking at the Toblerones. You know, the towers of giant Toblerones,
the ziggurat rack of Toblerones.
I must have been drooling or something while I was looking at it,
'cause a bloke came out of the office, and he came up to me and he went,
"I've got bigger ones."
See things like that happen to me. I was in a shop buying a houseplant
and the bloke said to me, "Oh, that'll give you something to stand next to"
"Yeah. Technically it will, mate. I don't know in what context."
I was thrown out of a shopping centre for sarcasm, right.
The security guard, a tiny little fellow, he had a huge walkie-talkie on his hip.
He looked like a panda with a laptop bag on, right.
And I said, "He looks efficient," and he chucked me out. Chucked me out.
So as I was leaving, I said, "Unhand me, sir.
"I've been treated in this manner by a stranger."
Pretended to be a 19th century southern belle.
Well, I was dressed as a shepherdess. Seemed a shame to waste it.
So, I came back in and said, "You can't chuck me out."
And he said, "Right," and he called for backup.
When he pressed the button, this huge lummacking mal-ogre came
sort of shambling out of a rapid response hutch.
This kind of knuckle-dragging, low-browed, drooling Nickelback fan.
Going...
Shuffling up to me.
And he said, "I'm authorised to use minimum force to eject you."
I was really intrigued to know what minimum force might be.
Like he's gonna waff me out with an oriental fan.
Flick me out with a little flicks. Ow!
It's the joggers I don't trust, right.
'Cause they're always the ones that find the bodies, aren't they?
But I'm not worried about 2012, right.
I'm not worried about the end of days, the Mayan calendar,
the end of the world, the giant tsunamis. I'm not worried about that, no.
You know why because, you know, as a British person, all right,
I'm stoic. British people are very stoic.
If that happens, if there's a huge tsunami in London,
there'll be a bloke on a patio trying to get a barbecue started.
He will look up, see a 1,000-foot wall of water, and go, "Oh, typical. Look at that.
"First decent bit of weather we've had, now this.
"Come on, we'll have to do it on the grill inside. Come on."
No.
What I'm worried about in 2012 is the London Olympics opening ceremony.
You imagine what a toe-curling, cringe fest that is going to be.
Every cheesy aspect of Britishness given some toe-curling makeover.
"Oh, look it's an inflatable Churchill bobbing down the Thames
"to music representing the best of British."
And here come the Morris dancers.
Go, London!
♪ Dizzee Rascal Dizzee Rascal ♪
They we get to Wembley Stadium and a huge animatronic Yorkshire pudding
is wheeled out onto the pitch.
The crust hinges back and dancers
representing gravy and mushy peas capering about.
A huge robot bulldog lumbers into view with "Tesco, Proud Olympic Partners"
shaved into its scrotum.
Down its tongue, on a Stannah stairlift comes the Queen.
A laser from her crown lights the Olympic torch.
And her head snaps back like a PEZ and a corgi shoots out of it.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
I never get invited to these things. I don't know why.
I'll tell you who gets invited. James Blunt. That's the sort of person who gets invited.
James Blunt, who recently got voted more annoying than paper cuts.
I was listening to a song of his, right,
and it's, when I say song, you know, it's sounded like mawkish,
sentimental piffle came dribbling out the radio like oral potpourri
from a lavender hankie drawer of a 19th century dowager.
And...
Apparently, James Blunt's song, Goodbye My Lover, is the most popular song
played at funerals in Britain.
Like your day's not going badly enough.
We can't get funerals right at all, you know. All my family have been cremated, all right.
The dead ones, obviously.
Yeah, that would be a bit harsh, wouldn't it?
"Aunty Doris, we napalmed her, she nodded off, well.
"Apocalypse Now was her favourite film. It's what she would have wanted, you know."
"The horror. The horror. She loved that.
"I watched a snail crawling along a straight razor."
This is just for about 18 people now. So, anyway...
Do you know what though? It's weird getting ash.
I just think that's weird getting your loved one's ashes.
You can do a new thing now. It's called LifeGem.
For £2,000, you could set them in a ring.
Just how weird is that?
"There's Uncle Frank. Doesn't he catch the light?
"Look at that."
For 20 quid, you could put them in a snow globe, couldn't you?
"He never made it to Paris.
"He's there now! Look. Look at that."
So if you're not familiar with the work of James Blunt,
this is a bit of a primer.
♪ I've seen truth
♪ I've seen youth
♪ In a booth
♪ Near a red roof
♪ I've seen lights
♪ I've seen eyes
♪ I've seen lies in the eyes of flies
♪ But you are a beautiful flower
♪ You bloom every hour
♪ So precious
♪ And revealing
♪ Like a rabbit
♪ Stuck to the ceiling
♪ So beautiful
♪ And random
♪ Like a weasel and a duck
♪ On a tandem
Thank you, Dublin. Thank you!
Oud!
All right.
Little bit of a west country hip-hop for you.
♪ Get higher, baby ♪ Get higher, baby
♪ Don't you ever come down
♪ Base
♪ White lines pure as the driven snow
♪ Connected to my mind and now we're having fun
♪ A baby ♪ A baby, rang dang diggity dangy dang
♪ Baby ♪ Ding dang diggity bong a dong
♪ Baby ♪ Ring dang bobbity ding a dong
♪ Diggity bombadon diggity rumbadum...
♪ Ooh ♪ Ooh
♪ Ah ♪ Ah
♪ Ooh ♪ Ooh
♪ A million magic crystals
♪ Ah ♪ Burning pure and white
♪ Ooh ♪ About a million dollars
♪ Ah ♪ Almost overnight
♪ Ooh ♪ Twice as sweet as sugar
♪ And twice as bitter as salt ♪ Ah
♪ And if you get hooked, baby ♪ Ooh
♪ It's nobody else's fault ♪ Ah
♪ So don't do it ♪ So don't do it
♪ Get higher, baby ♪ Get higher, baby
♪ Don't you ever come down ♪ Don't you ever come down
♪ Homebase ♪ Free base
♪ Free base ♪
Oud.
And now,
Kraftwerk play the Wurzels.
♪ I ♪ I
♪ I've got ♪ I've got
♪ I've got a ♪ I've got a
♪ I've got a brand ♪ I've got a brand
♪ I've got a brand new ♪ I've got a brand new
♪ I've got a brand new ♪ ♪ I've got a brand new ♪
♪ I drove my tractor through your haystack last night
♪ Oh, ah, oh, ah ♪ I threw my pitchfork
♪ At your dog to keep quiet
♪ Oh, ah, oh, ah ♪ But something's telling me
♪ What? ♪ That you're avoiding me
♪ No ♪ Come on now, darling
♪ Tell me what do you need
♪ What is this thing that you say you require
♪ Tell me some things and I'll give you your desire
♪ Well, is it a cow? ♪ No
♪ Is it a plough? ♪ No
♪ Horse? ♪ No
♪ Hog? ♪ No
♪ Pig? ♪ No
♪ Dog? ♪ Did you call me "pig dog"
♪ No, I didn't call you "pig dog" ♪ You said "pig dog"
♪ I didn't mean "pig dog"
♪ Oh ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
♪ I've got a brand-new combine harvester
♪ I'll give you the key ♪ I'll give you the key
♪ Come on now, let's get together
♪ In perfect harmony ♪ In perfect harmony
♪ I've got 20 acres ♪ And I've got 43
♪ Oh, I've got a brand new combine harvester
♪ I'll give you the key, ja ♪ ♪ I'll give you the key, ja ♪
- Kevin Eldon. - Bill Bailey.
- Thank you. - Thank you.
Oud!
You know,
sometimes what I like to do to relax. I put my, you know...
'Cause Revels right...
I like to put my head in a bucket and eat a packet of Revels, right.
Because let's be honest, the magic of Revels is over, isn't it?
We know what the filling's gonna be from the size and shape of the Revel.
But if you put your head in a bucket, it makes the identification process
a little bit more difficult.
I feel I'm getting a bit old, you know.
The other day, I had this overwhelming compunction to garden.
I put on some cricket pads and went out in the garden
and I didn't know what the hell I was doing.
I was digging with a fork out of the kitchen drawer,
sowing Tic Tacs. I didn't know what the hell I was doing.
After a bit, I just got bored. I just started burying cheap spoons
to baffle the archaeologists of the future.
I would like to finish up with a short poem, thank you.
This is called Since You've Been Gone, I've Been Alone.
Since you've been gone, I've been alone
Like an arm without a bone
Dangling limply like a phone that's out of charge
Like Homer without Marge
Like an egg without a spoon Like a dugong on the moon
Like a clown fish without Nemo Like Twilight without emo
Like Hardy without Laurel Like high ground without the moral
Like Disney without Walt Like battery without assault
Like a pet shop without gerbils Like Hitler without Goebbels
Running naked through a wedding
Driving fast, way out past Reading
Children slaughter kittens playing with their nail gun...
Oh, children's laughter, kittens playing, Withnail And I
Gone are these pleasures
Like a dilemma without the di, just a lemma and a sigh
Like deja without vu, I'm nothing without you
Till the day that you come back, I'm like Whitney without crack
Oud.
Thank you!
Oud!
Thank you, I would like to...
I'd like to finish up with a short film, thank you.
Thank you! Thank you, Dublin
Thank you, Dublin!
Thank you!
Oud.
Thank you for coming!
You're a fantastic audience! Thank you, Dublin!
I'm Bill Bailey. Thanks for coming!
Good night!
Oud!
Hello.
So I guess you're like the hardcore of this night, are you?
Here's a little song called Midnight in Parliament Square.
♪ A cat cries out in the night
♪ A dog cries out in the night
♪ A cat and a dog cry out in the night
♪ Meow, woof
♪ Two cats and a dog cry out in the night
♪ Meow, woof, meow
♪ But the government, ruh, ruh, ruh, ruh, ruh, doesn't hear
♪ It's just the politics of fear
♪ A tramp cries out in the night
♪ A tramp and a cat cry out in the night
♪ Eh, eh, shut up, meow
♪ Two tramps and a cat cry out in the night
♪ Eh, eh, fuckin' see you, meow Oh, polly, fuck off...
♪ Two tramps, a dog and a cat cry out in the night
♪ Eh, someoneinnitaround, meow, oh, ah...
♪ And it's midnight, bong, in Parliament Square
♪ Midnight in Parliament Square ♪
Okay, Dublin hardcore, this is your turn.
♪ A cat cries out in the night
♪ A dog cries out in the night
♪ A weasel cries out in the night
♪ A bat cries out in the night
♪ A dolphin cries out in the night
Have you ever seen a dolphin?
Oh, yeah, fungi, yeah.
♪ A tortoise cries out in the night
♪ A capuchin monkey with Tourette's cries out in the night
♪ A tramp cries out in the night
♪ Supertramp cries out in the night ♪
Quite well-spoken tramps.
Have you got 25 Euros for some Lapsang Souchong?
♪ Midnight in Parliament Square ♪
Thank you!
Oud!
Goodnight!
Thank you, Dublin.
Oud!
Thank you.