12 April 2003/Transcript

This is a transcription of the 12 April 2003 episode, from Xfm Series 2

There Are Rules In Place

Ricky: Placebo, “The Bitter End.” That’s the first single we’ve lifted from their forthcoming album, “Sleeping With Ghosts,” which you can hear in full on the Xfm online listening posts. I’m Ricky “The Cheeky Little Devil” Gervais. With me, Steve “Alright Ladies, What Can I Get You to Drink? What, You Think I’m Made of Money? I Meant Half a Mile For Summat” Merchant and Karl “Oh, I’m Stressed, I’m Stressed. If It’s Too Hard I Don’t Want to Do It” Pilkington.

Steve: (chuckling) Indeed. Oh, well. It’s nice to be back, Rick.

Ricky: Mm.

Steve: Um--

Ricky: Mm.

Steve: Rick, I heard a rumour that you weren’t going to be playing great music today. I’m assuming that’s wrong!

Ricky: It is wrong. This is what I mean about the-the-the gr- the grapevine--

Steve: Sure.

Ricky: And just Chinese whispers. I-I’m not having it. There’s some great music coming up.

Steve: Right.

Ricky: So--

Steve: I also heard that there was going to be, uh, some boring chat.

Ricky stammers

Steve: Sorry, is that--

Ricky: Well, I want, I want names!

Steve: (laughing) I mean, I don’t want to name names, Rick--

Ricky: And addresses!

Steve: But that’s the gossip I heard.

Ricky: Well, it’s totally wrong.

Steve: I heard that it’s going to be inane, ill-thought out.

Ricky: No.

Steve: Often stupid.

Ricky: No, we’re- it- Karl’s not going to talk so much this week. We’re going to try and, sort of, uh, bring, you know, bring it back to-to real radio. So that’s an absolute lie.

Steve: Yeah, yeah. Great, great, great, great, great, great, great.

Ricky: Great.

Steve: Good, so--

Ricky: Alright Karl, had a good week?

Karl: Yeah, not bad.

Ricky: Have ya?

Karl: Mm.

Ricky: Going on holiday now, aren’t ya?

Karl: Well, I will be doing later. Tell ya about that later on.

Steve: What, um--

Ricky: There’s a hook.

Steve laughs

Steve: Can I just check, cause there are rules in place, aren’t there?

Ricky: Yeah.

Steve: There was a big, there was a big bust-up in the week.

Ricky: Oh, I’m not, I-I’m only allowed to wind him up on-air. I’m not allowed to wind him up socially now. I’m not allowed to- What am I not allowed to do? Socially?

Karl: Um, I think squeezing the head.

Ricky: Okay.

Karl: Uh, socially.

Ricky: Yeah.

Karl: Has been crossed off.

Ricky: Right, okay and I agreed to that cause it got to a head where, you know, Karl was really upset and he was thinking of just, uh, giving it, giving it all in, weren’t ya?

Karl: Yeah.

Ricky: Yeah. What- why was that?

Karl: Cause it was just winding me up too much.

Steve: Yeah.

Karl: I mean, do you want to bring it all up again?

Ricky: (laughing) I don’t mind. What was I doing?

Karl: It was, it was just--

Steve: I mean, I should say now that there was a conversation where it was all, we were all, sort of, really walking on eggshells.

Ricky: Yeah.

Steve: It was, it was frosty. It was a conference call and Karl was on one end and I’ll tell you--

Ricky chuckles

Ricky: At one point--

Steve: I was very much a media- I was very much a U.N. mediator.

Ricky: What do you think of that, Karl?

Karl: It was difficult to, sort of, keep it serious when I’m saying stuff like, “I’m sick of you putting a Burger King bag on me head.”

Ricky laughs

Steve: Yeah.

Karl: You know what I mean?

Steve: Yeah, yeah.

Karl: There’s a part of me that’s, like, “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

Ricky continues to laugh

Karl: But it’s--

Ricky: I li- What I like about it is that, um, I’m laughing and going, “Well, uh, I won’t do that anymore” and he’s going, “You can still do it on air” and it- like today I was going to- I came in, I wanted to squeeze his head. He went, “At one o’clock.”

Steve: Yeah.

Ricky: I love those rules! I love those rules!

Steve: Well, between the hours of one and three on a Saturday you can squeeze his head, you can put a Burger King bag on his--

Ricky: (laughing) But I can’t wait! It’s terrible. Oh, dear.

Karl: But it all started last week, as well, really, because I got in a bit early to do an edit for you on some track that had swearing in it, right? So I get in early, he comes in, first thing he does is go to sort of squeeze my head.

Ricky laughs

Karl: And my reaction was, “Not now, do it later!” As if it’s alright to do it later.

Ricky and Steve laugh

Steve: Yeah, yeah.

Karl: So, that’s-that’s kind of what made me think, “This isn’t normal.”

Ricky laughs

Steve: We should just point out when you- when we say “squeezing your head,” what exactly does that mean?

Ricky: I-I-I put my hand on the front- I do two experiments, right?

Steve: Yeah.

Ricky: One is the side cause I- you can crush an egg sideways so I think that’s more dangerous.

Steve: Right.

Ricky: And I squeeze- I actually put me elbows out and I press like a vice and I really go for it until it really hurts. And the front one is- it shouldn’t hurt as much if I’m- if my experiment’s right. I don’t know.

Steve chuckles

Ricky: I mean--

Karl: Well, it was all this that, sort of, you know, built up.

Steve: Sure.

Karl: Um--

Steve: And the research that you’re doing there, Rick, is that going to be available online at some point?

Ricky sniggers and giggles

Karl: That-that was the problem. That’s what I was saying to him because it kind of started last week, uh--

Steve: Well, it’s been going on since we’ve known you, hasn’t it, Rick?

Karl: Yeah, but it’s--

Ricky: I’ve just upped it. I’ve just upped it last week.

Karl: It got out of hand a bit.

Steve: Mm.

Ricky: I upped it to when I, um- I think it got to, uh, a head on, um, Thursday when I filmed it.

Steve: (chuckling) That was it, yeah.

Karl: That’s right, yeah.

Ricky: I brought in a cameraman to film me torturing him. And there was people from the sixth floor being shown around?

Karl: Yeah, some management an’ that.

Ricky quietly giggles

Karl: Showing probably clients around.

Steve: Yeah.

Karl: You know, sort of- they’ve probably been on all the different floors, seeing what all the different radio stations do.

Steve: They’ve seen Dr. Fox.

Karl: Uh, “This-this is Xfm, the sort of alter-” “Aughhh!”

Ricky laughs

Karl: This sort of noise going on.

Steve: Yeah.

Karl: You see ‘em all look down. I’m saying, “Don’t do that,” right?

Ricky laughs

Steve: Yeah, sure.

Karl: Cause they might, they might want to spend a load of money.

Steve: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Karl: So just- and he’s-he’s doing that. He’s wrestling with me. He’s filming it. So that’s when I just thought, you know--

Ricky: Mad, innit?

Karl: And then when-when we’re having the argument on the phone, I was saying, you know, “Has this been some sort of experiment?”

Ricky laughs

Steve: Yeah, yeah.

Ricky: He did! He said that and of course I lost it.

Steve: Yeah.

Ricky: But, uh, it’s all, it’s all good now, innit?

Steve: But do you want to squeeze his head before we play the next--

Ricky: I won’t at the moment because, I mean, we’ve got to get on. It’s not, it’s not right. And that annoyed me, as well. Um, cause I was, um, trying to find out where he was going. I was filming him, I was going, “I’m waiting for Karl. Told Johnny he’s meeting a mate at six, so which annoys me on two counts." I’m just looking into the camera. "Um, you know, so I’m gonna, I’m gonna follow him and just turn up and go, ‘Alright? Where’ve ya been?’” But then when I came in he went, “Oh, I’m meeting a mate” and he told me where it was, so I told him that spoils my fun.

Steve: Of course.

Ricky: I wa--

Steve: Cause you don’t- you’d want to just track him down and--

Ricky: Yeah. I don’t want, I don’t want him to like it.

Steve: Yeah.

Ricky: Which is so- it’s sort of taken- pull the rug under my carpet now that he’s going to let me- you know what I mean? It’s just--

Steve: Yeah.

Ricky: It’s a little bit annoying.

Karl: It’s that thing, though, you see- this happened years ago to me, right? When, you know, you get pally with someone--

Ricky: Mm.

Karl: And then you wind each other up--

Ricky: Mmhmm.

Karl: And then there comes a time--

Ricky: Mm.

Karl: When you just go over the line.

Ricky: Yeah.

Karl: Right?

Ricky: What happened?

Karl: Well, it was this lad called Antony, right? He was me mate.

Ricky: Yeah.

Karl: And, uh, we used to, sort of, always have a, have a little fight in the toilet an’ that. Right?

Ricky: Sure.

Karl: Um, punch each other--

Ricky: “No, I want to wipe it!”

Karl: And the, and the punches, you know, used to get harder.

Ricky: Yeah.

Karl: An’ stuff. And then, you know, so he-he hit me harder. Turned out into a proper fight.

Ricky: Yeah.

Karl: I chipped his tooth on the sink. Right?

Ricky: Right.

Karl: This happened at school and it was time for assembly and I thought, “Ohh” and he-he’s in the toilet crying. I thought, “Ohh.” Go to assembly. Uh, there’s a- there’s police in there, in the assembly that day telling people about unnecessary violence.

Ricky: And you thought they were there for you.

Karl: So I’m like, “Ohh, no! Antony‘s going to come in in a minute, like, crying with all blood coming from his mouth. I’m gonna get arrested.”

Ricky: (chuckling) Yeah.

Steve: Yeah.

Karl: Uh--

Ricky: Did you go running asleep?

Karl: And that-that was an example--

Ricky: Yeah.

Karl: Of- I mean, it kind of happened because…I went out with…a girl who he fancied.

Ricky: And how old- how- how old were you, how old were you now?

Karl: Uh, about eight or nine.

Ricky quietly laughs

Steve: I think that’s out of order, going out with a mate’s girl.

Karl: Yeah, but it- she didn’t like him. He had, like, big ears an’ that. He had no chance--

Steve: Yeah, cause you’re such a dish.

Karl: No, but do you know what I mean? Alright, I haven’t got the looks like I used to.

Steve: Sure, when you were eight.

Karl: But that--

Ricky: Were you--

Karl: That’s before the stress of, you know, having heads squozed an’ that sort of thing.

Ricky and Steve laugh

Karl: I have aged a lot since--

Ricky: Have you aged?

Steve: Having your head squozed--

Ricky: I love your own grammar.

Steve: Yeah.

Ricky: I lo- yeah.

Steve: Is that- that’s the past tense, is it? Squeeze or to have squozed.

Ricky: “Oh, he did squoze his head.”

Steve: (laughing) Yeah.

Ricky: Oh, brilliant.

Karl: So, you know, it’s just--

Ricky: What about a bit of Bowie? Let’s, uh--

Karl: Bit of Bowie?

Ricky: “Be My Wife.” Karl, I’m asking you.

Steve: I think we can squoze that in.

Ricky: B-be my wife, Karl. C’mon on.

Song: David Bowie- Be My Wife