01 February 2003/Transcript

This is a transcription of the 01 February 2003 episode, from Xfm Series 2

I Don't Like Ear Plugs

Song: Badly Drawn Boy – Born Again

Ricky: Badly Drawn Boy – Born Again, on XFM 104.9. Here we are then… Ricky Gervais… with me Steve Merchant and…Karl Pilkington. Raring to go. He’s a bit grumpy, Karl. Woken up at eight o’clock—

Steve: (laughing slightly) Because he’s from the north.

Ricky: Yeah, yeah yeah—

Steve laughs

Ricky: Because he’s in London.

Steve: Yeah.

Ricky: (imitating Karl) And London’s rubbish, right, innit?

Steve laughs

Ricky: (imitating Karl) Uhh. Where can ya, ya can’t even get a band-aid in London, can you, or grouting?

Steve laughs

Ricky: (imitating Karl) In Manchester I could walk to the next shop and definitely get, get some Flash, or maybe some Vim.

Steve laughs

Ricky: (imitating Karl ) You can’t get it down ‘ere. You gotta go to…trendy bistro, haven’t ya? (normal voice) Karl, why are you grumpy?

Karl: I told you before I’m just a little bit tired today.

Ricky: ‘Cus he had to get up, at the builders next store woke him up.

Karl: No—

Ricky: He’s always going on about his hours, those poor builders probably got up at six…

Karl: Yeah bu—

Ricky: To get the righ—

Karl: I can understand builders who, who get up early because…they’re building outside and they got to get the job done before it get’s dark but he’s working in someone’s lounge. If it get’s dark put the light on.

Ricky snorts

Karl: It’s no— it’s not… a problem, so why is he starting work at like, seven o’clock in the morning?

Ricky: Well because builders get paid by the day, and if you get a builder and going ‘oh just do eleven until three’, he’s not going to go, ‘I tell you what love, just give me a, just give me forty quid. I didn’t do a whole day.’ It’s a day’s work, innit? So you want the, get the most out of them, don’t you?

Steve: Plus he probably wants to finish early so he can have a good night out.

Ricky: Yeah it’s a Saturday night, you know what I mean? He wants to—

Steve: Yeah he wants to get at least fifteen pints in.

Ricky: And he was cheery, I bet he whistling and, you know, dancing around—

Karl: Yeah yeah, dancing around—

Ricky: And tapping and d-d— you know, so, I don’t know why, how you can be annoyed at that.

Karl: It’s, s—

Ricky: Why didn’t you get earplugs?

Karl: I’ve, I don’t like it, the idea of earplugs.

Ricky: Why?

Karl: Because I live in a flat, so, it’s not as if I’m looking after my house, right?

Ricky: Ah, well k—

Karl: righ—

Ricky: Already, ALREADY I’ve lost you.

Karl: No—

Ricky: That wasn’t even a whole sentence and I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Ricky pounds table for emphasis

Karl: No but what I mean is…

Ricky: What?

Karl: If you live in a house, right, you know that you’ve turned the lights off downstairs, you know you’ve, you haven’t got a frying pan on, right?

Ricky and Steve: Right

Ricky: Okay, not really—

Steve: Ah kee-bu— KEEP him going.

Karl: But I live in a flat, and I don’t know what the other people are like, there might be some daft people in there who, who—

Ricky scoffs

Ricky: Imagine that.

Ricky sniffs

Karl: Right? Who don’t turn stuff off. Now if I have earplugs, and the fire alarm’s going off…

Ricky: Yeh.

Karl: I’m not going to hear it, I’m going to have a good sleep, but… who knows what could happen?

Pause

Steve scoffs

Karl: So I don’t, I don’t like earplugs. It’s not, it’s not safe.

Ricky: Okay.

Karl: If you live in a block of flats.

Steve: But I think you’ll find, ‘cus I’ve used them, I think you’ll find that a fire alarm will cut through earplugs.

Ricky: I wear them sometimes, uh, eh, if it-it noisy or when I go to bet early or something, and I hear my alarm clock and it’s, it’s... IT IS… it goes: (quietly) bee-bee-beep. bee-bee-beep. bee-bee-be— it’s that loud.

Karl: Alright, okay well…

Ricky: And ah-ah, a fire alarm is DEAFENING.

Karl: Alright, so we’ve talked in the past about snails, who sleep for thirteen years…

Ricky takes a drink

Ricky: No you have. That’s never been confirmed. In fact the expert didn’t, hadn’t heard of it.

Karl: D- well, they do.

Ricky: Ah, Okay

Steve laughs

Karl: I read it on different sites.

Ricky and Steve: Okay.

Karl: So how much does it take to wake them up?

Pause

Ricky sniggers

Steve laughs loudly

Karl: Got you.

Ricky: What do you mean?

Steve laughs

Karl: Well they sleep for thirteen years…

Ricky: Yeah but It’s probably eh-bu-I don’t know what you mean by sleep. It’s not the same sort of pattern that we have on a, in a mollusc is it? There’s different, wha-what is sleep? It’s eh— it’s—

Karl: It’s when you’re… sort of shut down, and…

Ricky: But they can aestivate. They can actually literally shut down.

Karl: No but they didn’t say that. They said sleep, they sleep for thirteen years.

Pause

Steve laughs

Karl: I bet that a-ah, I mean a… have you ever had like more… than ten hours sleep?

Ricky: Yeah.

Karl: Feel really groggy.

Ricky: Well no I feel good after ten hours sleep.

Karl: I feel rough. I just was thinking what a snail would be like. You’re like ohh…

Steve: Be even slower than normal.

Ricky: Be even slower than you.

Steve laughs

Ricky: Play a record.

Karl: Well anyway.

Steve: Email in if you know what on Earth Karl is talking about.

Ricky: Ever.

Song: Wu Tang Clan – Uzi