Ach well at least it's dry.
HBO's president of programming Michael Lombardo thought he was being tactful and diplomatic when he told the truth about Belfast to U.S. magazine Vulture, little did he know that we take being backwards and provincial seriously.
He said that producers Dan B Weiss and David Benioff were struggling to adapt to life in Belfast as Northern Ireland is where some of Game of Thrones is shot and produced.
He said,
"It's a little bit of a personal challenge I don't think they contemplated when we initially found our location in Belfast, what that meant for them personally... Belfast is not the most cosmopolitan of cities to spend half of the year."
Can you imagine coming from L.A. to Belfast? Picture it like what Columbus found when he landed on the island of San Salvador in the Bahamas, he mentioned that their lack of modern weaponry and metal-forged swords was a tactical vulnerability,
"I could conquer the whole
of them with 50 men, and govern them as I pleased."
More or less what Lombardo said.
The *number one newspaper in Northern Ireland* the Belfast Telegraph, took the insult poorly and listed all the great attractions like a BMX park, Cavehill (a hill with small caves) free WiFi and places that serve lunch .... wow, things you'd never get in L. A. fuck you, now who is looking sheepish ....
No, that's Ballymena that has the sheep, he looked foolish cos we showed him how cosmopolitanism an shit we really are.
I think you 'll find that free WiFi is written in the Constitution and many Americans see that, as well as a stream of ventures to entertain you as being a right.
I can imagine Dan B Weiss and David Benioff going to their hotel room, switching on the TV then saying "what is that shite?" turning it off and then looking online to see what is going on in Belfast ... not much.
Some open house festival, it may not be the Foo Fighters but it has cosmopolitan-ism dripping from it, you certainly wouldn't get that in L.A.
On the tourism website you have, Cavehill, St George's market, the Titanic centre, some cathedral and of course the Harland and Wolf shipyard .... the place the producers see everyday because it's beside the studio.
After dark when everything closes you can go to a pub (a historical pub) or the theatre, I'm sure professional TV producers really want to go watch something similar to amateur dramatics.
Considering that they probably don't understand half the things the locals say I don't think that this or a comedy night at a pub is a great idea.
There is so little to do at night that many locals have to make their own entertainment, I'm sure they would let visitors from other cuntries take part. In fact just recently the kind people of Belfast allowed a Paki bastard to take part in a racist attack. He was actually Turkish but we don't discriminate here, we also let another Paki bastard (he was Asian) take part in the random punch in the face festival that is always going on over here.
I can't imagine why Americans would feel at a loss for things to do. A word of advice, go to Catholic areas if you don't want to join in with our hate crime festivals, the Protestants tend to accuse Americans of funding the IRA even though most Americans only know the IRA as an Individual Retirement Account, sure we fund the IRA, we want a bright future.
The Daily Mail also got in on promoting Belfast, they mention the Titanic centre as a must see place to visit, they obviously haven't been there, you get gouged to pay for a noisy, hot, dark hour long display on rivets .... yawn, my feet hurt. The SS Nomadic anchored across from it is far more interesting but you have to be into history of course.
Then there is the Ulster Museum, the only thing that will amaze an American about that is that it's free. They have museums in America which are usually twice the size. The Giant's Causeway .... not in Belfast you idiot Daily Mail Sassenachs, it's like an hour or more on a bus with very little amenities when you get there. Then don't forget the Botanic Gardens...
A hundred year-old greenhouse on 2 acres of grass and trees.
All Lombardo had was the gardens at the Natural history museum with it's water feature, areas that teach you about the different plants like the edible garden and the pollinator garden ... oh and they have toilets including disabled toilets which is a sign of civilisation, just try finding a toilet in Belfast.
I'm not even going to mention the La Brea tar pits in L.A. with it's wall full of hundreds of Dire wolf skulls as I'm sure Belfast has something similiar if not better.
Like this .... leaving potholes to wreck yer car or to trap a passing mammoth is something that thousands of visitors come to see and experience every year. We have a sea aquarium that we had to fight for it to stay open, it's not the aquarium of the Pacific or anything, if you want our version of that then just go to yer local Pet smart and stare at the guppies.
A Belfast Telegraph columnist got in on the being defensive about Belfast gig, she mentioned Liam Neeson, Sir Kenneth Branagh, Stephen Rea, Ciaran Hinds, Jamie Dornan, Warren Christie, Paula Malcolmson and Stephen Boyd ... aye, I don't know who some of those people are either but I do know that not all of them come from Belfast.
Van Morrison and Jimmy Kennedy, who wrote the Teddy Bears Picnic tune .... ach a load of other people no one knows but who may have passed through Belfast at some time and thus the silly bint who wrote this article Gail Walker has laid a claim to. Inventors like Harry Ferguson and his tractors and John Boyd Dunlop the inventor of the pneumatic tyre. Impressed yet?
She even mentioned the inventor of Milk of Magnesia, which she thinks that Hollywood execs down by the bucket-load .... aye, in the 1930's maybe, that shit barely works and tastes vile, it was banned by the EU for having too much sulphate, try to keep up.
If Joffrey had read Walker's article he would have had her sent to the dungeons for the boring quim she is.
The Irish are great writers but not readers, she cited writers such as Brian Moore, C S Lewis, Seamus Heaney and Louis McNeice.
All these great people, as soon as they could they left Northern Ireland. Liam Neeson gives his voice for the tourist board but he wouldn't live here, Louis McNeice is (locally) famous for his Carrickfergus poem but he got the fuck out and made England his home where he died, C S Lewis died in England too, Seamus Heaney died in Dublin which is far more cosmopolitan than Belfast, Brian Moore who wrote nothing that I have heard of died in his Malibu home ..... that's so Belfast like.
Walker, who gets paid to write this shite says, "there is a strange paradox at the heart of Belfast; though proudly provincial, we keep on shaping the wider world."
Proudly provincial? I myself am ashamed every time I read the news and hear what our leaders and people say,
"I wouldn't trust a Muslim on spiritual matters but I'd let them go to the shops for me" says the proud First minister of our wee backwards province.
As for shaping the world, you do know that the world thinks we are Irish and barely hears from us except for the odd blurb about rioting. The only way we shape the world is because HBO executives didn't know anything about Northern Ireland and filmed some of their series here. The cash incentives lured them in but can we keep them here?
Peter Robinson was shamed into privately and publicly apologising for his Muslim comment, especially when he found out that many of Northern Ireland's Muslims (who are not really Pakis) were professional people like surgeons who repair the hearts of many after a lifetime of bacon abuse.
Lombardo felt the need to apologise for his comments but why should he? His friends are bored shitless and are sick of eating crappy food, maybe certain people and newspapers should stop being so touchy and trying (and failing) to argue how worldly wise Northern Ireland is, even though if they were worldly wise they would
know just how small, backwards and unimportant we really are in the world view.
Small steps, first we make the streets safe, especially for visitors and people who are not white and chinless, then we look at the culture of intimidation we have going on. We may make excuses for it like a woman in an abusive relationship would but we deserve better.
Parades are something you take children to for a good fun time, not something full of angry looking hard men with pot bellies and tattoos.
Terrorist/paramilitary/criminals should not be allowed to paint their gang colours on walls or display flags that mean the same thing.
Respect should be shown at the top levels of our society in order for it to trickle down to the people. I've never known such rude and pushy people in my life who jump queues and cough in yer face than those of Northern Ireland.
The place needs less churches and pubs, there are hardly any nice places for nice people to go to and how about letting shops open for their full hours on Sundays instead of the limited Sharia law opening times we have now.
We'll never have nice things and be spoken well of if we're cunts with nothing to offer. Winter is coming.
*competitors can be counted on yer hand*
