19 April 2003/Transcript

This is a transcription of the 19 April 2003 episode, from Xfm Series 2

He's Packing Margarine

Song: U2 – Beautiful Day

Ricky: Bono, you should be a weatherman, because once again you’ve predicted, uh, wrongly. It’s not a beautiful day at all, is it Stephen?

Steve: (laughing) Ooh ho ho, quite.

Ricky: That was U2. XFM 104.9. Ricky Gervais, Steve Merchant, Claire Sturgess.

Steve: Claire Sturgess in for Karl Pilkington.

Ricky: Karl Pilkington is…

Claire: uh…

Ricky: On holiday.

Steve: Sunning himself.

Ricky: As we speak.

Steve: Where is, Where’s he gone? Mauritius, you said?

Ricky: Madeira.

Steve: Madeira.

Ricky: I think, with um, uh… his girlfriend’s parents.

Steve: (laughing) Ooh…

Ricky: You remember last week he was uh, worried. They’d never been abroad and uh, her dad was saying how… (mumbling) to pack teabags.

Steve: Yeah.

Ricky: Karl was going, ‘to get them over there’. And he was going, ‘put a couple in a jar’. He goes, ‘put’m in a jar’. I phoned him up in the week, uh, just before he went, I think Friday. I said, ‘Have a nice time.’ And uh, Sunday, and he said, uh, ‘Guess what he’s doing now. ‘

Claire and Steve laugh

Ricky: I said, ‘what?’ He said, ‘He’s packin’ margarine.’

Steve: (laughing) Ha ha, of course he is.

Ricky and Steve sigh

Ricky and Steve: Bless him.

Steve: My dad does that. My parent’s always take uh, teabags wherever they’re going.

Ricky: Really?

Steve: For fear of, of there being some kind of teabag drought in France.

Ricky: Yeah…

Steve: You know.

Ricky: Is it, is it wrong, but I mean…

Steve: I don’t know, is it because maybe English breakfast tea you can’t get over there, so—

Ricky: But you can.

Steve: Can you though? I mean—

Ricky: You can.

Claire: You can get PG Tips.

Ricky: Tea is probably the single most popular drink in the world.

Steve: I know but what about the foreign, the fancy foreign teas, your Earl Greys and the like?

Ricky: Well, I don’t know.

Steve: ‘Cus I want good English breakfast. Don’t bother me with Earl Grey. I don’t know what that cup of tea is. It’s not tea to me. It’s just, it’s laughable. It’s weak, it’s pathetic, it’s just, it’s…ugh.

Ricky: I, d’know what? Earl Grey with a little bit of skim milk isn’t so bad.

Steve: Oh yeah?

Claire laughs

Ricky: Oh and—

Steve: And is your husband a fan?

Ricky cackles

Ricky: We’ve started.

Steve: Aye?

Ricky: It’s all off already.

Steve: All right, we can get started.

Ricky: Banter, having a little go at each other. Sometimes sort of pretending, you know…

Steve: Sometimes pretending we’re not close mates. Not close personal friends.

Ricky: Yeah, yeah. All that innuendo ‘n that.

Steve: Oh, smutty. smutty.

Ricky: (spluttering) Freaky goggle-eyed thing…

Steve: all right, once again, it’s …

Ricky: (serious) I go too far.

Steve: Ruin it. Ruining it.

Ricky: I sometimes go too far. I do ruin it when I go too far.

Claire laughs in the background

Steve: Thank you very much.

Ricky: I can be nice—well. Let’s have a bit of Blur.

Steve: Oooh, clever man. Clever man.

Song: Blur – Out of Time

I'm Quite a Weak Child

Ricky: We’re not out of time, we’ve got a whole hour and 50 minutes to go, on the Ricky Gervaise, Steve Merchant show. Xfm 104.

Steve: I vote we have one of those every record. They’re great, aren’t they?

Ricky Laughs

Ricky: It’s just…

Steve: I think if you were actually like a proper DJ, if you actually tried to do the Doctor Fox thing I think you’d be quite good.

Ricky: Really? But I think I could only survive doing that, sort of, um, post 11pm. (in DJ voice) Ooh… quiet things down now.

Steve: Yeah.

Ricky: I love all that…

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Late night radio.

Ricky: Yeah. Yeah. That,.. sort… that American jock type thing as well, um… I listen to Saga Radio now sometimes.

Steve: What?

Ricky: It’s on digital. I think it’s radio for the over 50s.

Steve: Yeah.

Claire laughs in the background.

Ricky: It plays all… it was playing Cliff Richard this morning. It played, um, Sammy Davis Jr. It played, um, Beatles “Here Comes The Sun”. And I was loving it.

Steve: Well, yeah.

Ricky: And I was thinking…

Steve: Well It’s aimed at your age group.

Ricky laughs.

Ricky: Yeah, exactly. And I’ve got a bad back. I have been complaing of a bad back all week. He’ been ill.

Steve: Oh, don’t even start with me.

Ricky: We… we haven’t worked this week. He’s been ill with the flu.

Steve: I’m still not… bad… I… ah… Wednesday morning I think it was… I woke up, I had the head the sore throat the aching body. And I… d’you know I immediately thought “I’ve got the SARS” virus. I really did I genui… ‘cause I’ve always been a bit of a hypochondriac. I mean, Ricky pretends to be but I genuinely was petrified.

Ricky: No… that doesn’t make sense does it? How can you pretend to be a hypochondriac. No, I am a hy… I am a hypochondriac and you are genuinely always ill. You’re always sort of… you’ve always got a bit of a snuff…

Steve: So I’ve got… so I’m justified in thinking it might be the SARS virus.

Ricky: You’re a sickly child, I don’t know whats happened to you.