Does anyone know any Drag Queens? (1 Viewer)

[pete]

Eddie Hobbs knows one. The dude on last week's show was a full time social dance teacher / part time drag queen, and was also the first person I've heard use the phrase "stop the lights" in actual conversation in a looooong time.

 

[Bellatrix]

Eddie Hobbs knows one. The dude on last week's show was a full time social dance teacher / part time drag queen, and was also the first person I've heard use the phrase "stop the lights" in actual conversation in a looooong time.

I love the phrase "stop the lights". It´s the kind of thing "Fidelma from accounts" would say after a couple of Smirnoff Ices. Throw a drag queen into the mix and it´s almost too delightful.

 

[Ciansy]

I love the phrase "stop the lights". It´s the kind of thing "Fidelma from accounts" would say after a couple of Smirnoff Ices. Throw a drag queen into the mix and it´s almost too delightful.

I dunno about that now, 'stop the lights' is dangerously close to 'get up the yard', and there's no coming back from there.

 

[carbide]

I love the phrase "stop the lights". It´s the kind of thing "Fidelma from accounts" would say after a couple of Smirnoff Ices. Throw a drag queen into the mix and it´s almost too delightful.

there's a woman working in medical admin in tallaght hospital who's an exact cross between an archetypal fidelma from accounts and janine from ghostbusters, with a killer wpm to match. astonishing. i was going to ask her if anyone had based a comic on her yet, but it seemed a little inappropriate.

 

[Bellatrix]

there's a woman working in medical admin in tallaght hospital who's an exact cross between an archetypal fidelma from accounts and janine from ghostbusters, with a killer wpm to match. astonishing. i was going to ask her if anyone had based a comic on her yet, but it seemed a little inappropriate.

She sounds amazing. You should write that comic!

 

[pete]

I dunno about that now, 'stop the lights' is dangerously close to 'get up the yard', and there's no coming back from there.

The frightening beginnings
So you all think you're great with your "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" We all like to pretend that Irish quiz shows began with Gaybo's sub-Tarrant blather. But deep down, in the primordial slime of our pre-tiger psyche, there's a horrifying reminder of whence we came. The name of this beast was Quicksilver.
Don't pretend you don't remember it. You've just spent the last 20 years trying to block it out. In an attempt to work through the pain together, let's recall the format. You're quietly minding your own business in a small market town in the midlands, when you're taken in the night, bound and gagged by RTE's secret police, and dragged to Dublin to compete in the gladiatorial thunderdome of Studio One.

Stop the lights!
Staring you in the face was quizmaster Bunny Carr, a man who was surely born in his mid-fifties. Bunny managed to combine Larry Gogan's "Ah they didn't suit you" bonhomie with the sinister undertones of a high-ranking officer in the SS, who will get answers from you, no matter what it takes.


And you had it all to play for. The board had a row of lights, each representing a question with increasing prize money. The quicker you answered the questions, the more you could play for. The first question had a cash reward of one old penny. That's 12 and a half pence in new money. If you could make it over that hurdle, the stakes rose to a threepenny bit. The longer it took you to answer the question, the more lights went out on the board, robbing you of your potential fortune. And when it all got too much, you could pass on a question by screaming "Stop the Lights!", a phrase that was very much the "Whassup" of its day. Nobody says it any more.


Entering the ninth circle of hell
The maximum payout per show, if every contestant got every question right, was £86.75. But RTE made sure that you couldn't get to this crock of gold - this was a time when we were all living beyond Charlie Haughey's means, and the taxes meant you'd be lucky to afford the bus fare back to Strokestown.


And as if the trivia questions weren't taxing enough, the musical ones were the ninth circle of hell. A man called Norman Metcalfe not so much played the organ, but more pummelled it for information, and the notes it would wheeze out made it difficult to distinguish "The Sash My Father Wore" from Mahler's 8th Symphony. Norman's atonal stylings can still be enjoyed every second Wednesday at the Longford Arms. Allegedly.
So next time you are sitting back enjoying Gaybo's good natured piss-taking of some poor eejit on Millionaire, remember who went before us, and what they sacrificed so that we may enjoy new, less crap quiz shows. May their lights never go out.

ah, bunny carr.

 

[carbide]

She sounds amazing. You should write that comic!

maybe! given my lousy drawing skills, it'd at least ensure that she'd never see it, although it would deprive the world of finding out whether a one-minute interaction could be the basis for libel.

also: i know someone who deliberately adopted "stop the lights!" and uses it regularly. somehow it's still endearing. am cautious of trying on phrases, too close to an outbreak of "banter" (wtf?) for comfort.

Staring you in the face was quizmaster Bunny Carr, a man who was surely born in his mid-fifties.

beautiful. i think i know what i want on my headstone.

 

[IFF]

i was hoping for pics