Clare In The Community

Clare arrives home early to find Brian sat in front of the TV. Brian quickly switches it off and stutters with surprise. Clare demands to know what has been on. Brian has been watching porn. Or so he says. Clare switches on the TV to only hear Jeremy Clarkson claim "...this car can get from nought to sixty in...". Clare is appalled that Brian has been watching Top Gear.

At a team meeting the next day, Libby has to leave early to pick up Germaine from the airport even though she doesn't want to see her. Libby hates her and wants their relationship to be over. Helen in the meantime has been looking up her family tree. She apparently descends from Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots and gets to know all this for only £200 an hour. Talking of the past, Megan thinks she once saw a ghost but thinks it could have been a cow. Clare is planning a Conflict Resolution Workshop and Ray is running a marathon for charity but no one seems to care. He claims that Eddie Izzard has spoilt it for everyone. Clare announces that it is also Local History Week, she hates the idea. Libby and Megan however like the idea of tracing the past. Ray is descended from Churchill; that is the Prime Minster he adds, not the insurance dog.

At home, Clare has second thoughts about tracing her past as she hates being white and descending from Angelo Saxons. While Brian tries to comfort her with the news that her grandfather was a Geordie coalminer, it turns out to be a lie. He was a Geordie coalminer as an extra in Billy Elliot. That and he was a Cyberman in Doctor Who. The next morning Clare discovers Brian has been up all night researching Clare's family tree. He found no one interesting. He then cross referenced with the electronic register and found nothing. He looked at the National Census Record and found nothing. He then looked on YouTube to watch a video of a skateboarding duck and then later found a relation... several times removed: Patrick Paddy O'Reardon, born Dublin 1906. Clare is ecstatic.

At work, Clare is taking the minor Irish relation too far, singing Irish and putting Irish accents in her speech. Megan goes into her office telling Clare that one of her clients isn't doing too well. Clare thinks Megan will be better with a 'cup o tea in yer 'and.' Megan doesn't want tea but Clare insists saying 'yer will, yer will, yer will!' (very reminiscent of a popular Father Ted tea enthusiast). Megan leaves Clare's offices scared by the whole thing. Libby thinks Clare is going to start River Dancing and Helen can't understand why Clare got angry when she was offered a potato. Clare decides she wants a St Patrick's day party at her house... despite it being June.

That night at home, Clare is reading Ulysses but is really exited about the party. Brian has been doing some more research and has discovered Patrick's records come to a sudden end in Spain, 1936: The Spanish Civil War.

Now that time of the party has finally come around, Clare has organised Irish music and plenty of Guinness. Brian tells Clare that he is waiting for an email from Trinity College Dublin concerning Patrick. Helen has brought psychic Ptolemy along and announces that they are making a business partnership. Libby is liking the party as she as finally told Germaine that the relationship is over and she is now sitting under coats upstairs in the bedroom with a bottle of vodka. Libby realises that it was probably bad to have sex with her first before telling her. Nali meanwhile is watching the hurling outside even though Clare hasn't organised any - the people who ate Clare's seaweed vol-au-vent's seem to have hurled in a different way.

Ray finally meets Ptolemy and claims to know him after being told Ptolemy and Helen are going into business. Ray is convinced that he knows this man, only he wasn't called Ptolemy and that he has changed his appearance slightly, but it is definitely him.

Clare thinks the party is the greatest thing ever and teases Brian with ideas for later that night, telling him he will have his own 'personal tiger between the sheets'. Brian though has received the email he was expecting concerning the family tree and Patrick. He doesn't want Clare to read it.

Back with Ray and Ptolemy, Ptolemy changes his accent knowing he's been found out as a con-artist. Ray says he remembers Hastings 1997 and threatens to call the police and Ptolemy gives up and runs away. Libby is proud of Ray but curious about Hastings 1997. Ray called his bluff in order to save Helen's money.

Despite Brian pleading with Clare not to read the email, Clare huddles all of her guests around the computer to see the photographs and hear the new information. The photographs show Patrick at the Dublin docks, 1936, ready to sail for Spain. Everyone in the photograph is waving until Clare clicks and notices the waves are salutes with a stiff arm. Patrick was a fascist who was killed not in Spain but serving for the Waffen-SS in Russia. And if that wasn't enough, Germaine has been sick on all the coats.

After the ordeal, Clare knows the present is more important. Even though she admits this, Brian says he did some more research, this time on Clare's mother's side. It turns out Clare has some Welsh blood running in her family. She asks Brian if it would be okay if they could keep that quiet.