IGUANA SUE!

Pet shop man takes GoT to court

ABELFAST pet shop owner has launched legal action against HBO, the producers of Game

of Thrones, after the show’s production staff allegedly damaged three of his lizards. FINTAN MCBEAMISH, manager of Stranmillis Exotic Pets, claims that the show’s special effects team borrowed three valuable iguanas to use during filming of the latest series, before returning them in a damaged state.

He told us: “They came in the shop and asked if I had any lizards that looked a bit like dragons. I showed him my iguanas, and they asked if they could borrow them.” “They said they were going to film them and then blow the film up to make them look a hundred times bigger than what they were. I said they could rent them for fifty pounds a week, as long as they brought them back in good nick. They promised they would look after them and I would have them back by Friday.”

“I even threw in a free bag of dead baby rats to feed them on,” added Mr McBeamish.

lizards

However, on Friday there was no sign of the lizards being returned. And it was only after another fortnight and repeated phone-calls to Titanic Studios that they were finally dropped off at the shop by a runner. “He apologised for them being late, but said that they’d fallen behind on the shooting schedule,” said Mr McBeamish.

“When I asked him for the hundred quid to cover the extra two weeks’ rental, he told me it was nothing to do with him and I’d have to bill George RR Martin direct.”

McBeamish was glad to have his lizards back, but when he looked in the box, he got a shock. “My iguanas had been absolutely trashed,” he said. “They were all covered in glue and bits of rubber where they’d had wings and spikes stuck to them. And one of them had even been painted blue.”

scotsmen

And McBeamish, who has run the shop for more than twenty years, was horrified at what he found next. “One of them had had a disposable cigarette lighter stuck in its mouth, presumably to make it breathe fire,” he told us. “The cruel special effects people had Araldited it onto the roof of its mouth.”

“In the end, I had to prise it out with a lolly stick, and even then I had to leave some bits of broken plastic stuck to the poor thing’s palate.”

A company spokesman confirmed that HBO had borrowed the lizards, but he insisted that they had been properly looked after and had been returned in the same condition they were when they were borrowed. “Game of Thrones production staff always take great pains to ensure that no animals are harmed during the making of the show,” he told us. “If Mr McBeamish’s lizards were returned to him covered in paint, glue and bits of plastic, or with cigarette lighters stuck inside them, they must have been like that when we got them.”

pickets

But the exotic pet shop owner flatly refutes HBO’s version of events. “Bullshit,” he told us. “Those lizards were in top A1 condition when they left this shop, and they were trashed when I got them back.”

Indeed, he now fears he won’t be able to sell the iguanas in his shop. “They are in a right old state. I’ll have to sell them at a knock down price, and that’s going to leave me well out of pocket,” he fumed.

“Ordinarily, iguanas go for about two hundred pound a pop, but I’ll lucky if I get thirty quid for these as a job lot,” said Mr McBeamish.

“I might even have to bin them.”