I’m here this evening for a reason I
drank too much at a garden party and
said I’d do this talk yes true I can’t
believe I said I’d do a TEDx talk it’s
just so California it’s all let me
transform your lives with my inspiring
words in Belfast we just go catch
yourself on we’re much more cynical we
pour cold water on ideas because we’re a
cold rainy country but tonight I’m here
for a reason other than drinking a wee
bit too much at a garden party I’m here
to tell you something
why because I’m angry and the most
perfect thing is I’m installment because
I’m angry at Stormont
now we all know that art is about
suffering but this is ridiculous
our publishing industry has virtually
been killed off our theatres are hardly
producing any new work and even if they
do most directors now ask me if I’ll
write a play for two characters and you
know what that’s like it’s like throwing
a party and only two people turn up
Belfast Derry has put in a bid for
European Capital of Culture 2023 which
should be terrific
after all everyone loves culture night
so why not culture year but I can only
imagine the content of the bed focuses
on the names of two famous writers from
Northern Ireland can anyone have a gas
here at those two names
shamelessly knee absolutely and CS Lewis
jiminy
he was brilliant but he’s still unfairly
elevated above all other Northern Irish
writers even the poet Michael Longley
recently said that Heaney may have
written some great immortal poems but so
did Derek Mann and Paul Muldoon
but CS Lewis we have yes Lewis square
steers Lewis Festival East Belfast whole
literary identity is built on CS Lewis
I’m just waiting for Central Station to
be renamed CS Lewis station selling
Narnia discounts but CS Lewis he left at
the age of seven even though he’s from
Belfast the tourist board would love for
him to be the northern James Joyce but
there is one big difference
Joyce wrote about Dublin were did Seamus
Heaney or sorry CS Lewis write about
England no Narnia and and yeah England
there are lots of brilliant writers
writing right now by here but by many
names do you know take the fall a huge
success from here where’s the writer
from here know England and he’s a man
whatever little money there is in the
arts tends to go to male artists last
year I finally had a play here comes the
night on the main stage of the Loretta
one reviewer wrote that it was produced
on the man’s stage a hilarious but
pretty appropriate misprint I love
writing writing itself is an incredible
to thing to think that from one tiny
mind comes a huge world what could be
better than making something beautiful
out of your pen and pleasure
writing is so important to me compared
to writing
Bing is merely a hobby a typical day in
my life I get up and switch the computer
on then I start writing to my back
bricks and my eyeballs burst like their
sockets I love it
years ago when I first started writing I
rented a room in a house I had no car no
belongings except about some books and a
computer and I I still live in a rented
house no car but the only difference is
I do get to go to the odd garden party
but the thing is I don’t need to live in
rich surroundings because I can paint my
mind in rich images but studies do show
that writers die young from the grinding
poverty playwrights die at an average
age of 63 poets die even younger at 62
of course that might be because they do
more drink and drugs than you but still
let me take you back to the garden party
where I crazily offered to do this talk
there were cries of happy people the
conversation was flowing the champagne
was flowing especially down my throat
but it was flowing I find myself talking
to a DUP MLA he was telling me how much
he loved going to the theater and I said
to him that’s great
why don’t you advocate more funding for
the Arts even better why don’t you
become Culture Minister your way
laughter couldn’t take the pay cut
exactly
we know that MLAs
like a lot of people all profess to love
the Arts so they can
cultured and sophisticated but they know
they give us peanuts so that’s what they
get shows on a shoestring and the only
reason I’m artisan residents at the
lyric is thanks to the generosity of
private patron madly we don’t even have
a Culture Minister and I people say to
me get a real job get a nine-to-five I
say this is a real job you know when you
sign up for a TED talk they give you
this sheet called the Ted Commandments
one of them is do not ask for funding
but I don’t care I’m gonna break it
so the Conservative Party have given us
a billion Pines
now we don’t know if we’re ever gonna
get it but that’s money to
infrastructure broadband schools
hospitals mental health areas of
deprivation fantastic but what did the
arts get I’m all for giving money to
hospitals but what about money for art
therapy’s art is proven to help mental
health and to reduce NHS spending I want
to see the arts grow I don’t want it
just to be a couple of cosmetic CS Lewis
statues using writing as a means of
urban regeneration is all rubbish look
at writers square in the cathedral
quarter under new development plants
half of it would disappear let’s
regenerate literature writing can give
this city its identity we can make it
modern we can make it breathe but flash
on it’s bare bricks I want to see the
tour’s board set up tours based around
our living writers writers who write
about here like what about the Sinead
Morris eater or the Mary Jones –
why not it would be great as much as we
have to build bridges we have to burn
them too
even bridges like the Sam Miller bridge
let’s say goodbye to our literary past
and hello to the new writers some people
say think that writing is about making
money no some people think that it’s
about family no some people think that
it’s about sitting in a cafe dressed in
black and being pretentious a little but
no writing if there is one thing I know
in life it’s about freedom – by
education that’s outside the system
it’s about dangerous thoughts making you
all shift uncomfortably in your chairs
it’s the real reason
Stormin doesn’t like living writers
because we might Lampoon them and hold
them up to ridicule yes the reason why
we writers are dangerous is because
unlike the politicians we can see other
people’s points of view whenever I go
south of the border things are brilliant
for writers there’s the Irish writer
centre culture Ireland compared to the
south where like a third world country
oral storytellers in Africa would
probably be held and more steam than we
are
so let’s get it sorted let’s promote new
writers promote female writers and let’s
make a real bed to make Belfast Derry
European Capital of Culture and know I’m
heading back to my rented house on the
bus thank you
[Applause]
you
drank too much at a garden party and
said I’d do this talk yes true I can’t
believe I said I’d do a TEDx talk it’s
just so California it’s all let me
transform your lives with my inspiring
words in Belfast we just go catch
yourself on we’re much more cynical we
pour cold water on ideas because we’re a
cold rainy country but tonight I’m here
for a reason other than drinking a wee
bit too much at a garden party I’m here
to tell you something
why because I’m angry and the most
perfect thing is I’m installment because
I’m angry at Stormont
now we all know that art is about
suffering but this is ridiculous
our publishing industry has virtually
been killed off our theatres are hardly
producing any new work and even if they
do most directors now ask me if I’ll
write a play for two characters and you
know what that’s like it’s like throwing
a party and only two people turn up
Belfast Derry has put in a bid for
European Capital of Culture 2023 which
should be terrific
after all everyone loves culture night
so why not culture year but I can only
imagine the content of the bed focuses
on the names of two famous writers from
Northern Ireland can anyone have a gas
here at those two names
shamelessly knee absolutely and CS Lewis
jiminy
he was brilliant but he’s still unfairly
elevated above all other Northern Irish
writers even the poet Michael Longley
recently said that Heaney may have
written some great immortal poems but so
did Derek Mann and Paul Muldoon
but CS Lewis we have yes Lewis square
steers Lewis Festival East Belfast whole
literary identity is built on CS Lewis
I’m just waiting for Central Station to
be renamed CS Lewis station selling
Narnia discounts but CS Lewis he left at
the age of seven even though he’s from
Belfast the tourist board would love for
him to be the northern James Joyce but
there is one big difference
Joyce wrote about Dublin were did Seamus
Heaney or sorry CS Lewis write about
England no Narnia and and yeah England
there are lots of brilliant writers
writing right now by here but by many
names do you know take the fall a huge
success from here where’s the writer
from here know England and he’s a man
whatever little money there is in the
arts tends to go to male artists last
year I finally had a play here comes the
night on the main stage of the Loretta
one reviewer wrote that it was produced
on the man’s stage a hilarious but
pretty appropriate misprint I love
writing writing itself is an incredible
to thing to think that from one tiny
mind comes a huge world what could be
better than making something beautiful
out of your pen and pleasure
writing is so important to me compared
to writing
Bing is merely a hobby a typical day in
my life I get up and switch the computer
on then I start writing to my back
bricks and my eyeballs burst like their
sockets I love it
years ago when I first started writing I
rented a room in a house I had no car no
belongings except about some books and a
computer and I I still live in a rented
house no car but the only difference is
I do get to go to the odd garden party
but the thing is I don’t need to live in
rich surroundings because I can paint my
mind in rich images but studies do show
that writers die young from the grinding
poverty playwrights die at an average
age of 63 poets die even younger at 62
of course that might be because they do
more drink and drugs than you but still
let me take you back to the garden party
where I crazily offered to do this talk
there were cries of happy people the
conversation was flowing the champagne
was flowing especially down my throat
but it was flowing I find myself talking
to a DUP MLA he was telling me how much
he loved going to the theater and I said
to him that’s great
why don’t you advocate more funding for
the Arts even better why don’t you
become Culture Minister your way
laughter couldn’t take the pay cut
exactly
we know that MLAs
like a lot of people all profess to love
the Arts so they can
cultured and sophisticated but they know
they give us peanuts so that’s what they
get shows on a shoestring and the only
reason I’m artisan residents at the
lyric is thanks to the generosity of
private patron madly we don’t even have
a Culture Minister and I people say to
me get a real job get a nine-to-five I
say this is a real job you know when you
sign up for a TED talk they give you
this sheet called the Ted Commandments
one of them is do not ask for funding
but I don’t care I’m gonna break it
so the Conservative Party have given us
a billion Pines
now we don’t know if we’re ever gonna
get it but that’s money to
infrastructure broadband schools
hospitals mental health areas of
deprivation fantastic but what did the
arts get I’m all for giving money to
hospitals but what about money for art
therapy’s art is proven to help mental
health and to reduce NHS spending I want
to see the arts grow I don’t want it
just to be a couple of cosmetic CS Lewis
statues using writing as a means of
urban regeneration is all rubbish look
at writers square in the cathedral
quarter under new development plants
half of it would disappear let’s
regenerate literature writing can give
this city its identity we can make it
modern we can make it breathe but flash
on it’s bare bricks I want to see the
tour’s board set up tours based around
our living writers writers who write
about here like what about the Sinead
Morris eater or the Mary Jones –
why not it would be great as much as we
have to build bridges we have to burn
them too
even bridges like the Sam Miller bridge
let’s say goodbye to our literary past
and hello to the new writers some people
say think that writing is about making
money no some people think that it’s
about family no some people think that
it’s about sitting in a cafe dressed in
black and being pretentious a little but
no writing if there is one thing I know
in life it’s about freedom – by
education that’s outside the system
it’s about dangerous thoughts making you
all shift uncomfortably in your chairs
it’s the real reason
Stormin doesn’t like living writers
because we might Lampoon them and hold
them up to ridicule yes the reason why
we writers are dangerous is because
unlike the politicians we can see other
people’s points of view whenever I go
south of the border things are brilliant
for writers there’s the Irish writer
centre culture Ireland compared to the
south where like a third world country
oral storytellers in Africa would
probably be held and more steam than we
are
so let’s get it sorted let’s promote new
writers promote female writers and let’s
make a real bed to make Belfast Derry
European Capital of Culture and know I’m
heading back to my rented house on the
bus thank you
[Applause]
you
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