Tell me then, how did you

become an announcer then? What was the...

Well, it was quite funny.

So they were like, let's make him the ring announcer.

Also, they didn't have anybody else to do it.

Yeah.

and I didn't have the money for a suit, and I took my school blazer, and I had my mom remove the school crest, so it sort of looked like a suit.

Now, can you reveal whether or not you are telling the truth

Ted.

That's right, that's right.

He was on the British comedy circuit for years, and he had an opening joke that he would use on the circuit.

He did it on television, but it got lifted, allegedly lifted, by Joe Pasquale.

who did the joke on the Royal Variety performance.

And this became something of a hot topic insofar as the alternative comedian Stuart Lee, who people will be familiar with.

He's one of the great alternative comedians.

Is it people can look at what seems to be an AI-generated human telling jokes that have just been scraped off different websites or whatever?

Hi, how are you? Before AI started doing this, did humans do that a lot? As in human companions,

I mean.

Sure, joke thievery is nothing new.

And in fact, in the bad old days, in the kind of 40s, 50s and 60s, Comedians didn't believe in writing their own material at all.

They just used to borrow or outright copy each other's jokes.

So if you went to see comedians in a working men's club in the north of England, for example, before the show, the comedians in the green room would maybe have a blackboard with all the jokes written on them and say, right, tonight you do the mother-in-law jokes.

I do the Paddy Irishman jokes and they would go out and just recycle these jokes.

Is it people can look at what seems to be an AI-generated human telling jokes that have just been scraped off different websites or whatever?

Yeah.

It was like a school nurse.

I don't know if she'd been to university, but she was the school nurse, and it was sexual education.

Uh, one of the girls put up her hand.

She ... "Any questions?" You know, and one of the girls put up her hand and said, you know, "Can I get an STI from giving a guy a blowjob?" And the matron just shook her head and said, "If you're giving someone a blowjob, you must have no respect for yourself."

Yeah.

But that was my breakfast cereal, and I loved it, loved it, loved it, loved it.

And I used to get excited to go to the supermarket with my mother to buy it.

Is it possible that just some people have the drive or the interest or the, the grá to go to the UK because you can be a bigger fish in a bigger pond?

I think that's fair.

I think that's fair.

Obviously, it's a much bigger market, you know what I mean? Ireland, we don't like to think of ourselves that way, but it's, it's, it's ultimately a, a small country, and the UK, uh, is a much bigger, bigger market, and there will be, uh, you know, there will be more opportunities for people, uh, in the UK by and large.

But that's not always the case, a- and it's also no excuse that RTE can't, uh, build a competency, uh, within its own, um, commissioning departments to, uh, cultivate not just comedians, but I think, I think what's lacking is, uh, comedy producers and also a willingness of executives themselves to back comedians.

I mean, it should be pretty easy.

As you said at the start of the show, you mentioned all the famous, uh, comedy talent that we've produced over the years.

Sure

Enjoy.

I went back contracting when I was 23, mustering and fencing and being in the bush.

That's the life for me.

I'd done a bit of work up at Kilcleany Station for Mr and Mrs Leggett.

Good days and great people, but some hard riding I'll never forget.

We'd be up and about with the sun coming up and knocking off as it was going down, sitting in the shed drinking beer and spinning yarns with smiles all round.

When people heard I went back contracting, you're mad they would say, but mate, it's in my blood and it's an adventure every day.

Wow

... it's, it's some pub in Ireland, and they've got this girl working for them, and she creates AI slop.

And she had Gaddafi on with, uh, Larry King Live with the Amazonian Guard, and they're drinking pints of Guinness.

Yeah.

And, uh, two glasses of wine, two glasses of water, and I'm walking through this busy restaurant on a Friday night, and I'm so nervous.

My, I'm, my, my sense of balance, my sense of direction, you know, I just, I really struggle.

And I'm just walking, and everybody's watching me going through the restaurant, and I get to their table, and I'm putting the tray down.