Bucko's World

Belfast Day 2 (Part 2)

Due to the tardiness of the café, we’re running a bit late for our 11.00 start at the Titanic Experience, so we decide to grab a cab there.  Lisa has seen a cab office just across the road, so over we hop.  On arrival we notice that rather than being your usual cab office with a surly old cow behind a screen – who tells you “ain’t nuffink for twenty minutes” while playing with her hair, chewing gum and refusing to make eye contact lest she miss something on the Gold UK re-runs of Eastenders  - it’s just an ante room with three plastic chairs and a telephone.  Quality service guaranteed then.

Lisa does the biz and we’re told it’ll be a few minutes so we wait outside…

It’s worth, at this point, giving a brief description of the cab hole’s location.  Facing the building, to the left is a wide entrance into warehouse where vans and small trucks are constantly on their way in and out.  You can’t miss it – when the large, garage type door is down it says “Keep Clear” in massive fuck off letters – and when that’s open you can clearly see all the vans and trucks being unloaded.  To the right is, unsurprisingly given the location, a taxi rank – big enough for at least four cabbies to line up and eat crisps, watch daytime TV on their iPads and bash out a sneaky wank while waiting for their next fare.  Ever wonder why they all have those vinyl covers on there seats?  Seems straightforward enough to me – and so I’ll continue…

Almost immediately a BTCC car disguised as a cab turns up, mounting the kerb, screeching to a halt millimetres from where we’re standing.  How he didn’t take us all out is a mystery.  My life certainly flashed before my eyes and I was left slightly deflated at how dull it had been.  He has one wheel up on the kerb and is just six feet from actually being able to pull into the cab rank.  I’ll let him off that coz if he’d made it that far we’d have all been toast.  He gets a 4 out 10. 

As it turns out, this isn’t the cab we’re looking for.  We find this out when we go to get in and the cabby tells us “This isn’t the cab you’re looking for” and that he’s only there to tell us our cab is on it’s way.  He has no passengers and sits there a full five minutes before driving off without a fare.  He’s downgraded to a 3.

Next up another cabby pulls in.  He’s outside the cab office, no wheels on the pavement; but still, as if the place has some strange curse on it, not in the cab rank.  He let’s some passengers off and then waves at us.  Over we trot and he asks “Are yeez waiting for a cab?”  Holy Mother of God.  “Yes!” of course we’re waiting for a fucking cab you numpty and we go to get in.  Before we’ve even touched a door handle he says “Ah sure, I’m sure one will be along in a wee minute.” and fucks off.  Really? 3 out of 10 feels fucking generous.

A few minutes later another cabby pulls up, this time straight across the entrance to the warehouse, some 30 feet from the cab rank.  He is absent of customers, and, obviously keen to get his next fare on board, he pulls out his mobile and makes a phone call.  It’s obviously important because he completely ignores us, the truck trying to pull into the warehouse, and the two trying to get out.  Eventually he notices the situation and pulls forward far enough that the truck trying to pull into the warehouse can at least pull off the road, but not far enough to let the others out.  This takes an immense level of skill and car control – or the most obstinate attitude known to man ever – you decide.

When we finally get in and tell him where we are going he pulls away by driving up the kerb and thumping us down the other side.  1 out of ten feels one too many.

The Titanic Experience, like many other tourist attractions, offers different levels of “Experience” depending how much you are willing to cough.  It’s one price to come in and wander round on your own, or a few quid more to do that with a particularly dodgy picture included.  Finally, there is the full on guided-tour-team-photo-and-money-off-in-the gift-shop-and-tearoom-experience that we decide to go for.  As it works out cheaper than coming in, hiring one of those weird headset things and paying for the photo, we feel we’re onto a winner.  High fives all round!

As the attraction has been built right next to the slipway where the fabled old boat was assembled, part of the tour is outside, and it comes as no surprise to anyone that just as our guide arrives the weather outside turns biblical.  Nice.  We are, however, a hardy bunch and get through the first ten minutes hardly noticing soaked jeans and the icy streams running down our necks.  Personally, I still had my sunnies on.

When the weather takes a turn for the worse (this is marginal by this time believe you me…) we’re ushered back in and the tour continues in the warm and dry, even if the squelching is quite loud from one or two in our group.  This, you may or may not believe, is better than for some; to whit, if you’d elected to do the Segway tour of the boatyard…

 Damp we may be, but looking at those poor fuckers trying to control those machines in the pissing cold – and even watching one of them miss an exit ramp completely and land smack on their face (co-incidentally right where the violins made there last stand) – is a sight to behold.  And behold we do, with tears running down our faces.  Or rain dripping down from our hoods, it could be either.  Seriously, it’s like watching a bunch of drunk Daleks having a rave, off their tits on Space Dust and Sherbet Fountains, it’s fucking classic.  Which seems slightly at odds with the gravity of the exhibition…

..coz as we move further and further up the building we find we’re at the level where people would have been jumping off from the ship as it was sinking – and it’s high…and humbling…and fucking scary to think about…

The only thing to say about this experience is this – to appreciate the scale of what happened here, you have to visit, no words of mine can give you the slightest clue to the scale of this place…so put your out-of-date thoughts aside and come and have a look – it’s EPIC.

As a quick aside, and before we head off for tonight’s piss up involving strippers, midgets, and girls firing ping pong balls out of their vajazzled hoo-hee’s – well, that’s Belfast for you – we must mention our stop off at the only remaining vessel surviving from back in the Titanic’s day – and it’s called the Nomadic. 

Now, this is actually the last remaining ship from the Titanic era, having been built at the same time, and being used to transfer passengers from Cherbourg to the Titanic; and I must admit, I expected it to be awesome.  Erm, it wasn’t.  Perhaps, back in the day, it’s lino floors and bench seating were de rigueur for the fan-waving and generally-more-snotty-than-you-set, but as a first class passenger now I would expect a bit more than a separate toilet and slightly effeminate barman to justify my massively expensive trip across the Atlantic compared to 3^rd class…Hmmm…

We do, however, get a 1^st class greeting when we board.  This is perhaps because the young lady welcoming us onto the ship is the most enthusiastic employee in the history of the world ever, or because she is completely coked out off her tits.  Personally, I’m not sure…

…Honestly, this little vessel, which had one very brief role in life, if we are to be fair, is, today at least, being bigged up as the best thing since sliced bread, with a seven day shelf life and extra fibre for those of a looser disposition, by a girl with eyes like saucers and a faster gag delivery than Frank Carson at his 70s best –it’s a cracker! 

I was biting my lip and in tears as she was telling us where the bar was and how the barman spoke faster than her.  She even suggested he’d make us any drink we’d like, which was a stretch in anyone’s imagination seeing as he was a fucking hologram.  Daft cow…