YouTube Transcription #63 Rhod Gilbert

The best of Welsh comedy – Rhod Gilbert. He plays on the stereotype of Welsh being dour and miserable. His jokes are all complaining. He has a weekly free podcast taken from his BBC Radio Wales Saturday morning show. It’s available from the BBC website or from iTunes and other podcast sources.

From 0:50
The story, the true story happened on a flight to Dublin some years ago, with an airline that I can’t name for legal reasons, but which, for the purposes of giving them a name, we’ll call “Ryan Air”. Thinly veiled, I admit.
I’m Welsh, I was going abroad, I was going to Dublin. Have you ever been abroad? But I was excited; I bought shorts! T-shirts, sunglasses – they don’t even sell them in Wales. I had to go to Bristol to buy them! I was excited about going abroad, and then I bought myself a brand new suitcase. One of the posh ones with the wheels and the handle, and then I flew to Dublin with “Ryan-bloody-Air”. I’ll show you what I found when I arrived in Dublin airport just a few hours later. I get the last laugh – it still works.  You can see where some hilarious Ryan Air handler has put a “heavy” label on that, look! “Bend your knees” is the advice given to anybody picking that up. “Assisted lift may be required” it says.

I’m not an idiot, the flight was about £9.99; I wasn’t expecting miracles, and if I’m completely honest with you, the first three times this went round the baggage carousel, I laughed. Everybody laughed the first three times. The passengers, the crew, everybody was having a great time, and then one by one they p****d off! Just me and this! I took this to the… I took this to the desk! “I’ll sort this out. We’ll soon sort this out!” I didn’t know what I was up against. There was a girl on the desk, looks at me me, not a hint of irony, she says, “What seems to be the problem?” I said, “Mainly, it’s about my luggage.” She said, “Is that not it?” I said, “This is some of it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled to get this back. The thing is, I’m here for a month. Pretty sure that I packed more than this.” She had the nerve to ask me those questions that they ask you. I’d heard these questions all over the world; they’re normally perfectly sensible questions, but there was no need for it. She said, “Could anybody have interfered with it?” I said, “Well you shouldn’t rule that out.” She said, “Have you left it unattended at any point?”  I said, I suppose I must have, yes.  I’m not the most observant person in the world but if this had happened while I was wheeling it through Dublin airport I think even I’d have noticed! Surely it would’ve gone very light, very quickly.” She said, “Did you pack it yourself?” “Why? What are you suggesting? Do you think my Mum packed for me and thought this was all I’d need?” She said, “We’ll do a report, Mr…, we’ll　do an official Ryan Air… we’ll soon have your luggage back, don’t you worry. We’ll do an official report.” I thought, good, do your report. This is progress. It was all going quite well until about question three or four. She took my name, she took my address, and then she said, “Does your luggage have any distinguishing features, Mr. Gilbert?” I said, “It’s got one of them (those) long black handles if that’s any use.” She wrote that down. Everyone’s a comedian here in Ireland, aren’t they? They all think they’re so bloody hilarious! Do we have any Irish people in tonight? Yeah, you all think you’re hilarious. The taxi drivers, they’re the worst, aren’t they? ‘Cause I walked from, from the.. what do you call it? Airport! The taxi rank outside, it’s a normal, three or four taxis there. Bear in mind when I walked out with this I didn’t have a five-minute story to tell, I just had 22 kilograms of missing s**t. I wasn’t looking too happy, you know. The taxi driver saw… his eyes lit up! So predictable. You could see what he was going to do, he practically leapt out of his car. He stormed round to the back. You could see exactly what he was going to do – pops open the boot, the little s**t! Typical Irish wit, he says, “Do you want a hand with that?” “No thank you, I think I can manage.” I said, “If you really wanna help, you can take the trolley back!”