Dara O Briain: Craic Dealer Page #6

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"Does it feed the thing that makes the pictures change?"

"Yeah, whatever, eh..."

I love the fact that people get bewildered by technology,

I love the fact that people get really negative about it, like, there's something wrong about this.

Twitter, I am very fond of Twitter, for example.

I think it's great fun, that title came from Twitter.

It creates community and jokes get passed around.

Twitter's very good

because it's allowed up to 40,000 people to contact me directly

and tell me I look like Gru from Despicable Me.

LAUGHTER:

APPLAUSE:

Hate the round of applause that gets every night.

Eh...

I think it's good for...

And also, people say there's something natural

about the form of communication, it's brevity, it's what we do.

Brevity is the very soul of wit, we've known that since Shakespeare.

It is brief and to the point.

If you're a comic, you love a thing that you explain in seconds.

I had a routine that I used to do about,

what's the stupidest thing you've done on your holidays? I've retired it.

I've almost entirely rested it because it was won.

It was won in January by one bloke from Killarney.

Just nailed it, right.

Now, we just ask to set the bar.

All I want is the first line -

what's the stupidest thing you've done on your holidays?

- MAN:

- Gone to the wrong place.

Went to the wrong place - loving that! What was that that just occurred there?

Went to the wrong place. What did you shout?

- MAN:

- Married my wife.

- Married your wife. Aw!

LAUGHTER:

Thing is, up there's a woman going, "Did you get a big laugh?

"Did you like that? Funny, was it? Did you get a good laugh off them?

"Why don't you go home to bed with them

- "cos you're not going to bed with me right now."

- LAUGHTER

I went out in Killarney and said, "What's the stupidest thing you've ever done on your holiday?"

One bloke goes, "I kicked an armadillo."

LAUGHTER:

"That is epic, my friend.

"Why did you do that?" And he said, "I don't know.

"He just walked out in front of me, I didn't know what the f*** to do."

He was on a jungle trek, like, a guided tour of the wildlife,

with the local guide showing him,

"This is the nest of the such-and-such.

"You can see the tracks there and occasionally,

"those birds will find their fruit and they will bring it..."

All this kind of stuff and in the background he's standing next

to a bush and an armadillo walks out and he just goes, "Oh, f***!"

And he just hoofs it.

LAUGHTER:

Properly...boof!

Apparently, got his foot underneath it with the instep,

lifted it over a tree.

See, I don't know what I find more exciting about that, the face

of the local guide, going, "Don't kick the f***ing wildlife,"

or of the armadillo, going, "This is a bad day for me."

LAUGHTER:

Apropos of nothing - stupidest thing I've ever

done on my holidays was on Bondi Beach in Australia.

I was watching the surfers go fizz, fizz, fizz up and down,

standing on the boards, comfortable, looking very...

And I went, "I can do that."

I went to the board rental area, rented the largest board they had,

ran to the water with the music from Hawaii Five-0 playing in my head.

Ran to the water.

It's amazing - the minute you hit the water it instantly

goes from surfboard to bar of soap, floomp - out of your hands.

LAUGHTER:

And then there's an interesting moment of tension.

Cos when they rent you a surfboard, they strap it to your leg.

So it goes...and then you go as well.

Drags you out of the water. You're hoping nobody spotted. You run back in again.

Every time I tried - floomp - gone. Then - floom - again.

Just 20 minutes of watching this thing disappear off

and yank me with it.

That sounds like it's just embarrassing.

No, it's actually painful, cos the underside of a surfboard has

three bloody razor blades stuck onto it.

They're meant as guides or something,

but it cuts across your thigh each time it shoots out of your hand.

I got all these scratches and nicks and dinks.

After 20 minutes, I looked like some weird emo chick.

Just sitting in the water with all these tiny little cuts.

I was bleeding into the waters off Australia.

LAUGHTER:

I'm luring sharks into Bondi Beach.

But I kept trying.

I ran into the water, I caught a wave coming at me,

just about shoulder height - very important in that situation...

Surfing 101 - when that happens, lift the board over the wave,

or break the wave with the pointy end of the board.

Don't do what I did...

which is hold the board up flat...

LAUGHTER:

..in an effort to deflect the Southern Ocean away from myself.

I managed to harness the entire gravitational pull of the moon.

Boof - "Aw, Jesus!"

- LAUGHTER

- "Agh!" Gone, right.

Now, there's a man looking at me and laughing.

Just standing there in his trunks laughing at me.

I'm going, "I'm going to do this, right."

Ran into the water and leapt onto the board, as if to mount it -

like a rodeo thing.

I went, "I've f***ing... I've got you now! I've got you!

"Oh, Jesus, you're not as buoyant as you let on."

End up forcing it down and wedging myself on the sand with

the waves just lapping in and out around me.

I'm just staring at the other surfers, going,

"How are you, lads? Good day in the water, isn't it?

"Couple of great breakers out there, aren't they? Fantastic.

"Might take a bit of break myself as I'm weak with the blood loss."

But I had to walk past your man.

I picked up the board, walked past the man,

who was in tears laughing at me.

I walked past him and I vividly remember - this is a true story -

I walked past the man just going, "Ooh!"

Your man looks at me, and in the thickest accent

I have ever heard, just goes,

"Oh, Jesus, Dara, we Irish are shite at surfing."

LAUGHTER:

Where was I? Oh, yeah, I was talking about the technology.

One of the things I love about Twitter, for example, is just

that instantaneous community.

We see an event happening,

and we react to it and we have our water cooler moment there and then.

It's fantastic. It's good if you're all watching the same TV show.

It's particularly good for political events.

Last summer during the London riots it was very evident as well.

Did you watch the London riots?

About seven of you did.

The rest of you, waiting for the box set to come out?

There was a big deal at the London riots.

The reaction to it was fast, but it wasn't necessarily profound.

Everyone's reaction was that standard hackneyed

reaction to the riots, which was, "I wouldn't have done that.

"Look at those children. Those 16-year-olds are feral.

"I would not have done that when I was 16."

I would not have done it when I was 16.

I wouldn't have been phoning round organising riots at 16,

cos when I was 16, we had one phone in the house

and it was in the sitting room with the TV and the couch.

And there was literally no way you could organise a riot...

"Yeah, we're going to have a riot. It's going to be amazing...

"I'm on the phone. Leave me be, I'm on the phone."

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