#23 An Unexpected Guest Joins the Podcast

0:05Denis:Welcome to this week's episode of Your Internet Boyfriends. Hello, Mark Teacocks. Hello, Dennis Lane. This week we're chatting about parties at the embassy, a trip to the Aran Islands and London Pride. And Dennis gets attacked by a beast live in the studio. I'm feeling good. I'm a bit crispier. I'm a bit redder. Crispier? Or burnt? Yeah, burnt. You don't have signs of it, no. Oh, shriveled up though. Yeah. Do you see that? I'm now showing Mark my farmer's tan. I don't see it. You don't see it? Oh, wait, he's trying to get me to lift my t-shirt up. Yeah, no, I'm a bit crispier, a bit redder, a bit dehydrated.

0:40A bit hairier. Oh. Yeah. From the sun? Oh, the beard. Yeah, the beard has gone mad. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:46Denis:The beard has gone mad. The hair has gone a bit mad. Yeah. But yeah, I had a great time. I had a wonderful time in wee old Ireland. Are you refreshed? No, I'm not refreshed at all. Correct. I did too much. I went off and I did too much Where did you go tell us? I went everywhere I went up to we started off in Cork and we immediately left it we got in a car and we went down to Killarney This was bringing her around This was bringing Lisa around the place Parade through the land Parading her up and down the streets Yeah First time First time ever yeah Okay So we went down to Killarney and Killarney I had told her it was the most beautiful place in the world Please I told her the Ring of Kerry is the most beautiful scenic drive you can ever do yeah fog on fog on fog oh yeah couldn't see the toes on my feet if I looked on at them did you go around on a horse no we didn't go around on a horse not the lads on the horse we didn't they're great you couldn't see anything Mark oh they're great you couldn't see anything yeah is it true that they got rid of those horses before in Clarny I don't think so the horse and traps yeah the horse and carriage things yeah they're great and they'll tell you an old story and oh Oh, they're great.

1:59Denis:All lies, eh? All lies. Oh, yeah. Talking out the words. Do you know, when I went to Ireland, the one thing that I have to say that I absolutely loved, like I know we could, I might berate them sometimes back home, right? And I have on record, right? And I'll do it again. The flowers in Ireland are absolutely, you're laughing at me, are absolutely amazing. Where do you mean? Everywhere. Yeah. The hydrangeas. Hanging baskets. They just, the gardens that they have done in Ireland are amazing. Well, the rain. Yeah. It's great. It's great for the flowers. And I was up, your country, I was up in Clare.

2:31Denis:I was up in Kerry all around the place. Where'd you go back? Where'd you go in Clare? I went up to, I went up to Cliffs of Moher, obviously. Went to Doolan. Doolan is kind of, it's a bit like Barcelona. It's kind of overrun. It's not, no. No. It's kind of packed sometimes. I'll tell you what's overrun. I'll tell you what is like Barcelona is the Cliffs of Moher. Yeah. That place has lost it, unfortunately. It's a queue. It's lost it like. Yeah. If you want to actually go somewhere that is properly amazing and wild, go down to Loop Head. Oh, very nice. Have you been down there? I have, out by Carrie Gaholt.

3:06Yeah. There's a priest out there. Sorry, I don't want to move on. Come on. No, no, no. Come on. No, no, no. Carry on. All right, come on. There's a priest out there anyway. God knows what he's up to. I have a friend. Beautiful, yeah. And you're just going out and out and out into this long, big, long peninsula. And there's nothing either side of you. Absolutely beautiful. And then we tell the Americans, next stop is New York City. they love that you could nearly see the Statue of Liberty I saw a lad

3:32Denis:like yourself actually wandering around the moustache doing tours doing tours? yeah where? down in Loophead oh wandering around walking around not much in a blue umbrella out in the field okay and there's a lighthouse isn't there out in the did I see that? on the head yeah I think I'll be honest I saw so many lighthouses I know yeah and you drive all the way out and then you just come back well you have to remain positive about what you're seeing it is lovely but then you have to go all the way back but the scenery is amazing but the other thing about it as well is there's two more things what was really interesting is that I was viewing wee little Ireland through Lisa's eyes and it was a little bit worrying right one thing she remarked on was that the houses are painted all sorts of mad colours and they are which I think is cool but I think it's all a cope right for how bad the weather is especially in Clare they do love a vibrant they do there's Shanahan Shanahan's paints in Ennis is responsible for a lot of that yeah they have some kooky colours did you ever watch them making the paint I love that I used to love that when I was young oh I love that and it goes into the big fucking vibrating thing it's great crack there was a lad used to sell paint in the paint shop in Malo and his name was Pat Wall right no Pat Wall Pat Wall and you get onto Pat Walls and he'd mix the paint for you and then they'd talk about and then every neighbour would want the same paint.

4:57Yeah.

4:57Denis:So they'd come in and they'd view it inside my mother's room or something. Yeah. Just be white like. Because they all start, I didn't realise they make the paint like to order. So whatever you want, they start with a big can of white paint and then they put the tiniest little dribble of red and it turns into pink. Wait, so? They make the paint. Yeah, but not all the tins of paint are white. Well, they start white, yeah. Like if you go down to Pat Wall, which doesn't exist and hasn't existed for about 50 years. If you go down there and you say, oh, I want elephant breath, and you pick that out and it's brown on the outside or whatever.

5:32Probably starts as white. Do they tip it out and then put it into the mixer or mix it for you? They put a tiny little, the little machine, put the little drop and then shakes it around and then it's done. It's great. Do you know what? I haven't seen that happen in years. It's magic. Oh, I love it. Yeah. I'm going to Shannon's. My little plug there. Yeah, very vibrant colours. What were the tones? Are we pinks? Are we creams? off the wall everything

5:55Denis:there was one there was one house and I think they should I shouldn't say they should go to jail but they should maybe go to jail right they painted their house a sort of a dirty mango right it was horrendous you could see it like talking about lighthouses you could see it forever there was one that was like a witch's purple looked horrible a lot of greens that are the wrong green yeah a lot of blues I think again just kind of matching the hydrangeas yeah But again, it was cool. It looked amazing. They do. They love the flower baskets and the windowsill. Yeah. The flower basket could win you a Tidy Tone Award, of course.

6:33Yeah, the hanging baskets, I mean, they're great. Do you know what I loved to do when I was small? Because the hanging basket kind of hangs off three bits of chain and I like to spin it. And then watch it spin back the other way and then watch all the shite and flowers fly out of it. And go over all the house, or the wall of the house. Yeah, I love doing that.

6:53Denis:And if you spin it too much, then it would hop out of the thing. Oh yeah. And you'd get a fright. The same with the swing. You know, you put a child on a swing and you spin it. You watch it spin around and they go flying. That's great. Another thing I noticed right, just before we get into everything else, was one thing I noticed was and again, it was Lisa that said this and then it got me thinking was, we have beautiful rolling hills and beautiful paths and whatever. Everyone out doing their walk on the dual carriageway? On the main road. What are they doing? Do you know why? Why? Because they have lights on the dual carriageways and they have footpaths.

7:30So people love, because they want to get a rhythm and they want to get a pace and they don't want to be stopping for cars on the country lanes. So they go down the concrete footpath on the N72 or whatever it is. Pounding it. Pounding. Pounding down the road. A bypass packed full of people. walking.

7:51Denis:Like ants. No, it was very strange. I know. And they're powering down and I'm just kind of thinking, I guess it makes sense, right? But this was during the day as well. Yeah. You know, and they were, and it's the same when I was thinking about like where I'm from, like the small town, like people just, we used to call it, well, it's called Fat Arse Bridge. That's where you'd go walk. I'm going to Fat Arse Bridge for my walk. Oh, to work, to walk off the... Yeah, yeah. I had three bags of chips now last night. I'm going for a walk this morning. I'm just going for my walk. How big is the bridge?

8:17Denis:It's quite big. Like long? No, as in you walk out to the bridge and that's and then you walk back from the bridge oh that's like a turning point yeah the thing that I noticed as well though with I think this is a phenomenon in Ireland is that they do I mean I believed it at one point as well maybe I still do is that like a walk could could absolve you of all your sins from the last week oh yeah do you know go for a walk and there's walking groups there is yeah they like at home they like walk so beautiful countryside beautiful beautiful country lanes and we have an ecology park. A lot of money from Europe came to build that a few years ago and it's beautiful and there's ducks and trees and it's really lovely and no one goes there.

9:02They all walk around the football pitch. Oh, I'd love it. They walk around the football pitch with the big floodlights and the big bloody whatever it's made of. What do they make? Like the running track. Yeah, yeah. They go around 20 times. Yeah. And it's like a big thing like, how are you, Theresa? How many rounds of the pitch did you do? Theresa's done 27 rounds of the pitch. And all the lovely walks and lovely laneways that we have. Maybe it's just a metric thing for them. I think it's just dangerous, the cars. Like, the cars fly along.

9:32Denis:Where some of these people were walking was like, they may as well be a car. Like, you know, they'd like, I get it, right? Like, you're out in the country and there's tourists driving around your roads and whatever, I understand, right? But like, at the same time, some of these people are wearing high-vis jackets as if they They were like, armour plating. Well, you have to have the high-vis. But, Mark, like, it was, like, you know, there's Americans going around here who have never driven on these roads before. Yeah. And they're going around and there's like, you know, Barty Sullivan coming down in the high-vis jacket waving at some rental car and it's like, Barty, like, you're going to die if you keep going down there.

10:04Yeah.

10:05Denis:Lord. What have you been up to this week on, Mark? I was socialising. Yeah? I'm very drained now. There was a lot of talking. So, first of all, I have a spot. I want to tell the people. I'm, you know, known to be very attractive but I do have flaws. And I got this little spot. We have positioned the microphone so it's hiding very carefully. But I've never been busier and I never had to meet so many people in a short period of days. And then I got a spot and I was like, it's all over. I'm going to cancel everything. I don't want to see anybody. Very, very annoying. Because we had Pride, LGBT. Pride in London was on this weekend.

10:46So it's been a lot now. There was a lot of going. We started off on Wednesday or Thursday at the embassy. The embassy of Ireland. Oh, did you have the spot in the embassy? Yeah, of course. I met everyone I've ever known in my life. And, you know, hideous.

11:02Denis:Were they talking to you? They all said it. But their eyes were drifting down. Yeah. The people. I hate it. And I'm tall and it's on my neck. So then it's in everyone's eyeline. so I'm like well I'm just going to get out of here but I met a lot of nice people we had the ambassador knew me I'm friends with the ambassador Martin I've met him before as well isn't he lovely he's very good I took the piss out of him in his own house in his house and Deirdre they were lovely and I met the daughter they're lovely I think they're coming to the end of the job maybe so Deirdre's phenomenal isn't she do we get a new ambassador soon I don't know anyway they've been there a few years so I think it might be finished soon.

11:41But they're very nice. They're very nice to the LGBT. Like they started this Pride reception a few years ago. The first time ever that there was a Pride event in the embassy two years ago.

11:53Denis:In the Irish embassy? Yeah. They never had anything? No. Like not even a band? No. That's shocking. So, but they started it and they've kept it up so that's nice. So all the gays were there. A lot of civil service gays. Are they, is that like a Lovely. Is that a subset? Lovely. Nice lads. lovely shirts. And then we were like the artists. So we were there wearing kind of funny things. Oh, she must have been walking electricity for them. It was great. And my friend Veda was there, a drag queen from Dublin. And loads of nice people. Met Hugh from I Kissed a Boy. The meeting happened. Finally, I was sweating.

12:34Did he mention you talking about him? Yeah, of course. Yeah. And we made friends. That was nice. He's very sweet. He's very good. And he got a mention in the speech. He was pointed out. So he was delighted. From your speech? No, no. I had no speech this year. I had a speech two years ago. I sang a song for the ambassador. Who else was there? It was great crack, yeah. And then they come around with like, it's all Irish canapés. So they have like little bits of cheese things and black pudding. and like loads of Guinness flying around it was great crack I had a fair lot of Guinness when I was over in Ireland what was your favourite?

13:14could you recommend

13:15Denis:Guinness wise the best place I know this is a very like silly thing to just jump into after talking about pride but here I am if you're in Killarney get a point at Guinness in a place called Hussies Hussies I think they call it Hussies really but it's spelled Hussies if you're looking at it but go in there I went in there with Lisa and three old lads standing at the door tiny door and you'd have to ask them to move out of the way to get in there like when he released she was petrified absolutely petrified and she's so glam going in there yeah but that's the kind of way I wanted to bring her in there because it's funny and then when I went up to get my pint up to order drinks it all went quiet because they were sussing out where I was from yeah trying to listen yeah listen to the accent or where because they knew she wasn't from Killarney like or whatever just bought that straight away but they were wondering then where's this fella from so we're all having mad conversations the minute I come up open my mouth total silence and not in an intimidating way but just like let's see where he's from now and did they talk to you then?

14:13no no no back to what they were talking about then oh I thought they'd ask you no no okay and would she have a pint?

14:19Denis:I she tried a little bit of Guinness but it wasn't for her okay she tried ordering a strawberry daiquiri at the bar then as well go out the door sit down get out the vodka and lime that's all you're getting near so okay They gave her a bottle of Nashes and a packet of smoky bacon. Yeah, and was it one of those dark, dusty old... Yeah, yeah. It was actually a really nice pub, though. It's all, like, you know, cubbies and stuff. You can't recreate that. No, you can't. So many places try to rebuild that. You just need the hundred years of smoke. And the publicans as well, though. Like, you know, the family publicans back there.

14:55Denis:Like, you know, they'd be in a bag of crisps behind the place talking about something. They're cooking the dinner in the back. Back to your embassy, though, for a second. Yeah. Was that it? Did you all part ways then with the civil service? Or did you? Oh, he's smiling here. He's smirking at me. No, I was very well behaved. I'm conscious of my role in the public eye. Oh, yeah. Since when? When I'm at a formal event. Ah, yes. So I did my rounds and I made sure everyone saw me. And then I went out the door. And some of them were going somewhere else drinking. And I said, no, I'm going to leave it now.

15:26Because I had a great time. You wanted them all talking about you. That's a move. Oh, yes. I have to go. But it's a move as well. If you leave, you give people an opportunity to talk about you, right? I suppose, yeah. Yeah, he's great. So I swept away. Who else was there? Which was great, and then we had the whole weekend of Pride. Then I had, we went into town on Saturday and I met everyone in the world, a lot of fans, the podcast, people, and like early in the day, there was nice people kind of, they might look at you and kind of wave or whatever. and then they got very drunk, like very messy.

16:01So they were screaming, like literally coming up saying they love it and asking for you. They thought you were coming along behind me. So they were upset there was no, it was noted that you weren't present. Oh yeah. At the LGBT gathering.

16:14Denis:Well, as you know, you don't want to take the space off. I know, yeah. That's why I exiled myself to the Iron Islands. Took off. Yeah, I took off. But yeah, it was just a lot. A lot of people went to the new Soho Theatre as well in Walthamstow. Have you heard about this? No. Stunning. Beautiful old building. Oh, actually, no, I have heard about this. It's only opened a couple of months ago. Yeah, yeah. So I was there on Friday night. I'm sure that was another presentation and every gay in the world was there. So it's been great. I've just seen. Any bit of scandal over the weekend? No, scandal.

16:46No, it was all... Absolute lies. No, nothing I could tell you about here. Met loads of friends. Hello. No, scandal. It was a funny pride, to be honest. a lot of people didn't go because it just felt strange what are we celebrating, like it's all gone wrong all the, do you know about this all the political parties were kicked out of Pride this year, because they're all trash and they've not been helping and they're, you know

17:15Denis:Do you know what I noticed, and again this is just a it's just a hunch, I don't know if this is true or not but I noticed with the advertising you know the corporations, right, but I noticed that their advertising this week was really subtle so they weren't using pride colors but they were using the word pride in their advertising but then keeping it to their own colors and stuff so it was almost like they could distance themselves if they needed to with some of their people or whatever that might be buying their product and then other people like no we're supporting pride it's like I don't think you are I think you're I think you're playing both sides so they lost loads of sponsors this year and like we used to laugh about banks and things changing their logo to a rainbow.

17:58And I don't know, I always thought it was, at least they're doing something, they're acknowledging it's happening. But also, like, we knew they could just throw us in the bin at any moment. And they have, like, loads of them have just pulled away, and they're not supporting this year. Because they're too, they're too, if they're too tied up with America, they don't want to be seen to be too left, too woke. So yeah, they lost loads of sponsors this year. Liverpool Pride was cancelled. They didn't have enough money to run it. So there's been loads of problems and then loads of groups just kind of, you know, pulling back.

18:35And the gigs, like all my friends are drag performers and loads of people got no gigs the way they used to. They'd always bring an old drag queen in and do a bit of a twist on a Friday before Pride and loads of places didn't twist, sorry, an artistic performance. Do you know what I mean? Dragged. Do an old twist there. But they'd often have someone in on like lunchtime on the Friday to do a bingo or something and loads of places didn't bother with that this year because they just want to ease back on all of that. So yeah, it's all a bit grim. But way less stuff this year, way less flags and stuff in the shops and yeah.

19:19Denis:Well we noticed that when we were in London right? No I know it wasn't it was a good few weeks before the weekend. Oh my god do you see the hate? No. On my video. Give me a bit of background to this first. The video I made about my walk-in tours my queer history walk-in tours got loads of comments bullying me saying I was woke and I had woke hair and I was dressed like a penguin and Wait a minute were you dressed like a penguin? No I was wearing a white t-shirt and a vest or something it sounds a bit penguin-y oh my god and it's all from gays no way oh yeah it's all bitter old gays oh god yeah and kind of saying that there's a lot of drama around the word queer sometimes and they don't like that word go on explain it to me well because it was a negative word years ago okay but it's not now it's a great word and it captures a whole load of different people it's an easy it's an easy word to say but some people don't like that word and they don't like being grouped in with everybody else so I've been getting loads of drama I like it though because they're looking every time someone comments like a nasty little thing it pushes up the views Is that you making the comments?

20:37Denis:No that was me, I have like 17 different profiles but I went off because I went off on holidays I think and you posted it up? Yeah, yeah. It's about like the day I went off. And I saw like, I don't know, 10 ,000 views or something like fairly quickly. And I was like, oh, great. That's brilliant. Like, go for that. But I didn't see the comments in the... Yeah, I leave them there. I don't reply. I just let them be there because it just makes them look a bit grumpy. Yeah. But I don't, there's no way to engage. They often have maybe a Union Jack in their profile picture. Yeah, that's a good testament of it.

21:10Denis:So I kind of leave them alone. Well, I was off doing my bit for pride by exiling myself in the Aran Islands. You left. Oh, I love the Aran Islands. Mark, it is the most wonderful place in the world. It is like, it's postcard Ireland. Now, the only problem is, I think, is that people, like, as the start when I was in the ring of Kerry and stuff, I didn't get the weather. And it was depressing. I nearly had a meltdown. I met, there was a nine-year-old child inside in the shed with a card reader, charging money to go down to a fort, right? couldn't see anything and even if you could see it I don't think it was great and I went up and she was there sorry and I was like I was like what it's like it's it's for your euro to get in and I was just like I'm actually going to I'm not going to this is the end of it to look at a stone it was pretty bad but after that we went to the Iron Islands and we got the most amazing day like it was so good I'd said to Lisa that you know there's one night there I'm going to do a little surprise and we'll go somewhere right so off we went down I went to the Iron Islands and she thought, this is brilliant, right?