19 October 2002/Transcript

This is a transcription of the 19 October 2002 episode, from Xfm Series 2

A Little Big Hungover or Still a Bit Drunk

Ricky: Doves…Caught by the river, on Xfm 104.9. I’m Ricky Gervais... Steve Merchant... Karl Pilkington and everything…

Steve Laughs

Ricky: No...I'm gonna be honest with you...

Steve: Go on

Ricky: Little bit hungover, don't feel very well. I don't know if I'm hungover or still a bit drunk, but I don't feel->

Steve: You sound like you're still a bit drunk.

Ricky: Yeah. So what I'm worried about-

Steve: Then you do every week, so...

Ricky Laughs

Ricky: What I'm worried about is... that the standard will slip.

Steve Laughs

Ricky: Yeah? I'm not right on the ball, urm and, the other thing is I haven't had a lot of time to prepare the show today.

Steve Laughs

Steve: Ok...

Ricky: So I don't... And I - and, I don't really... I don't feel...you know.

Steve: 100%.>

Ricky: Yep. I haven't done any... Karl...

Steve: Right...

Ricky: Look-

Steve: Have you finished that sentence?

Ricky Laughs

Ricky: I... don't make me laugh because it- it hurts as well. And the other- the other- there's another side effect to me being a little bit hungover, and um drunk or whatever, right, is that I can be annoying.

Steve: Right, yes, yes.

Ricky: 'Cos I just to amuse myself I sort of like turn my body off a little bit and just poke, and like-

Ricky Groans

Ricky: Like that, and annoy people and that... I wanna- I wanna sort of like cl-

Steve: Well you do the physical equivalent of freewheeling.

Ricky Laughs

Ricky: Yeah, yeah! I sort of like, I sort of wanna climb on Karl and go to sleep on him.

Steve: Yes.

Ricky: Do you know what I mean? Both annoy him, and it'd be comfortable.

Steve: Yes.

Ricky: Which is... you know, can be annoying.

Steve: Do you know, just a quick little thing to make this show a bit easier; if you'd put your hand up when you want one of us to speak... Cos it's not quite- I'm not quite sure when the sentences are finished.

Ricky: The hands are up!

Steve: Ok, good. So um- well-

Ricky: The hands are up.

Steve: Ok, good, all right. Are you just going to keep them up for the rest of the show, or are-

Ricky: No that'll ache, Karl, do what you, what you've... Uh?

Steve Laughs

Steve: Good, alright. Do you wanna- Is there any excuse as to why you're a bit hungover?

Ricky: Too much wine.

Steve: OK...

Ricky: Last night, yeah...

Steve: Yep. Good, good. 'Cos this is the only- I mean this is the only work you've got to do all week-

Ricky Laughs

Steve: -unless I'm very much mistaken, you don't have to do anything. You just sit at home eating- eating cheese-

Ricky: Yep.

Steve: -um, and then occasionally you do a bit of um, sort of shadow boxing-.

Ricky Sniggers

Steve: -And that's exersise... And then you sit at home and watch TV.

Ricky: Yeah.

Steve: Is that roughly what you did this week?

Ricky: Mmm... yep.

Steve: Uh-huh. So this is... the only two hours you've had to do anything for all week, this is the only thing you had to prepare for...

Ricky: Yes, I... Who can plan a hangover?

Steve Laughs

Steve: Right.

Ricky: You know, you'd think th- Karl, you said you had some stuff.

Karl pauses

Karl: ...Yep.

Ricky: <What have you got?

Ricky Laughs

Ricky: I love the fact that whereas I was a little bit slow, Karl there leapt into action, to keep this show afloat, keep the pace up! Go on.

Karl pauses

Karl: ...Right... well, uhh...

Ricky Sniggers

Steve: Karl, are you hungover as well or .

Ricky Laughs

Karl: Do you know, I'm just a bit annoyed, 'cos I'm with you.

Steve: Sure.

Karl: Do y' know what I mean?

Steve: Yeah.

Karl: He hasn't got much to do all week...

Ricky: You're having a laugh.

Karl: What?

Steve: What angers me is I kind of hoped that maybe I could have quite a long career in radio, and I sort of feel like I'm... I don't know, the words 'sinking ship'-

Ricky Sniggers

Steve: Those words spring to mind.

Ricky: But-

Steve: 'Cos if you... Karl, you're just a chancer anyway, you weren't even supposed to be on air and we made you into something of a household name and that's cool.

Ricky Sniggers

Ricky: Household name!

Steve: And Ricky's already a celebrity, he's got it stitched up, he's got coroporates, he's got you know, voiceover work, but I've got nothing, I'm running on empty I've got... You know, I'm not... nothing, I've got nothing, I'm sort of dependent a bit on this, financially and...

Ricky: Yep.

Steve: And...you two are sort of bringing it down really.

Karl: Right, well-

Steve: Do you reckon I could get my own show, Karl?

Ricky: Karl, Karl, Karl. Tell him what, no, Karl, Karl, tell him how funny I was out there with the bin, that... a minute ago.

Karl: So anyway, come on, right.

Steve: I'm bored of this.

Ricky Sniggers

Karl: Tell you what. Will we tease them with what we've got coming up next.

Steve: Yep, Karl, tease us after the next record.

Karl: 'Cos I think we've already got 'em for two hours.

Ricky Laughs

Steve: Yep, yep, we've hooked them Karl, don't worry, this is textbook radio.

Ricky: What's this? Badly Drawn Boy?

Steve: Yep.

Song: Badly Drawn Boy - You Were Right

Pete Horton's In It

Ricky: Badly Drawn Boy, you were right, Xfm 104.9 Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, Karl Pilkington. Karl you were saying, what's coming up.

Karl: Right, over the next 2 hours then... last week was a bit of a mess...

Ricky sighs

Ricky: Don't be silly.

Karl: ... So I sorted it out. Same features, uhhhh...

Steve: I think that was the reason it was a mess to be honest.

Ricky laughs

Karl: Well, uhh...

Steve: You tightened it, you tightened it, you tightened the ship.

Karl: Tightened it up, tightened it up, and also, keeping people for longer.

Steve: Ok.

Ricky: Right, tell me your, tell me your plans, tell me your ethos, then.

Steve: What've you come up with then? Always show your workings, Karl.

Ricky: Always show your workings, Karl.

Karl: Alright then. So last week we started a good sort of play on words we had going...

Ricky: Go on.

Karl: The well known film Educating Rita.

Ricky giggles

Steve: That's become, thanks to Karl Pilkington's brain, it's become..

Karl: I've..I've tweaked it a bit and now it's educating ricky

Steve: Brilliant

Karl: Right. And that was a new feature we started last week if you weren't listening. Where I teach ricky stuff.

Ricky: What did you teach me?

Karl: Uh, I taught you about that little Chinese hairy kid.

Ricky: Yeah, you didn't teach me anything. You said there was a kid that was born a little slightly hairier than other Chinese people.

Karl: I taught you where the saying "Chewing the Fat" came from.

Ricky: I enjoyed that. That was good.

Steve: That was good, that was interesting.

Karl: ..And uh..

Ricky: And a man who had a beard 'cause he had been abducted for 3 days.

Karl: Yep. Yep.

Steve laughs

Ricky: Again that was rubbish.

Steve: Lest we forget.

Ricky: That taught me more about you than about alien abduction.

Karl: ..But what happened last week is...

Ricky: Go on...

Karl: ..uh we sort of talked about it all in one go and you can't...

Steve: Where as this week you've done what, you've spread it out over the chat

Ricky giggles

Karl: Well I've spread it across the two hours...

Steve: Brilliant.

Karl: ...'cause I've always found that if you're trying to be taught to much in one go you just can't take it in and it will be wasted.

Ricky and Steve laugh

What's Tomato With You

Ricky: Cold Play, Scientist, on XFM 104.9. Right. Competition, innit?

Steve: No, it's Educating Ricky part two.

Ricky: Oh, is it? I wasn't even listening. He's doing all the work, I wasn't even listening. Oh, I nearly spilt some water now on that. What's this one again, then?

Karl: Right, uhh...

Steve: What's the er, teaser headline?

Karl: Teaser headline is "What's tomato with you?"

Steve: Brilliant.

Ricky: Go on, then.

Karl: Yeah.

Steve: How excited were you when you came up with that? You couldn't wait to tell us, could you? He-hee!

Karl: I think it's a good one because you won't forget it now, will you? Like the worm one. What's special about the worm?

Ricky: A lot of people think that if you cut a worm in half, two worms will grow, but no, what happens is, if you cut the head end slightly nearer the tail than the head, the tail will die but the worm with the head will be ok, so it's exploded a myth and taught me something.

Steve laughs.

Karl: Right, so, the second one, part two of Educating Ricky, uh, "What's tomato with you?"

Ricky: Yeah.

Karl: What this one's about is, er... ages ago...

Ricky and Steve laugh.

Ricky: That's scientific!

Steve: There's never a date, there's never a country...

Ricky: I love the attention to detail! OK, settle down children, this is A-level History. Right.

Steve: "Once upon a time..."

Ricky: Yeah, yeah. "When a mental place with swords was a king, forget his name, but he was a loony, uh, so, and it was literally ages ago. So er, good luck in the exam!"

Karl: So like, you know, all right, many years ago...

Ricky: Oh yes, yeah yeah yeah, cleared that up, go on.

Karl: They thought tomatoes were poisonous.

Ricky sniggers. Steve laughs.

Steve: OK.

Karl: Right? Because what they-

Ricky: Hold on, are they going to be proved wrong at the end of this story?

Karl: Well, what-

Ricky: Because I don't want to give away the ending, but... is it something to do with the... are they poisonous, tomatoes?

Karl: Nope.

Ricky: Oh, you're having a laugh.

Steve: I don't believe it.

Ricky: Go on, go on.

Karl: But what-

Steve: I could have been eating tomatoes all this time!

Ricky laughs.

Ricky: Oh, Steve, what's tomato with you, anyway?

Steve laughs.

Steve: OK, so, wait a minute.

Ricky: Oh, “what’s tomato with you?”.

Steve: Let’s just recap quickly, recap quickly. Many years ago, when people thought tromatoes were poisonous…

Karl: Yeah.

Ricky: Go on, yeah.

Karl: They didn’t know they were poisonous then because they were still eating them. But what was happening was-

Ricky: Well they’re not.

Steve: But they’re not poisonous.

Karl: Ah! But hang on a minute…

Steve: All right, I’m not going- I’m just going to listen. I’m not going to talk now.

Ricky: OK, I’m not going to talk anymore.

Karl: So, if you remember, years ago, they didn’t have, like, pottery plates.

Ricky sniggers.

Karl: They had lead plates, right?

Steve laughs.

Ricky: What are you talking about?

Steve: Just let him talk-

Ricky: Sorry, what year is this?

Steve: Let him talk…

Karl: Plates made out of lead, and what they’d end up doing, they’d say, “Right, do you want a tomato?” and they’d go, “Yeah, all right,” and they’d put the tomato on the lead plate and cut it, and because of the acid in the tomato, right, it would sort of… er, sort of, make the lead runny, and the lead would go into the tomato, and they’d say, “Oh, it’s lovely this,” and they’d be eating it, they’d get food poisoning, lead poisoning and what have you, and they’d be really ill. So they thought tomatoes were poisonous so they didn’t eat them for many years.

Steve: And when you say they, do you mean the people of Narnia?

Ricky: Yeah! This didn’t happen, Karl.

Steve: Where was this happening?

Karl: Err… sort of in Britain… and that.

Ricky laughs.

Ricky: You put him on the spot there! Oh, I hope there’s no uppity pupils in this school when they go, “What do you mean, sir?”—“Oh, if you’re gonna… oh, I’m fed up with you…”

Karl: Do you understand?

Ricky: No!

Karl: So, so- the, the-

Ricky: First of all, Karl, where did you get this information from?

Karl: Where did I get that…

Steve: 'Fortean Times' as well?

Karl: I…

Steve: You can’t remember.

Karl: I don’t know where I got that from.

Ricky and Steve snigger.

Karl: But… what I don’t… why don’t you think it makes sense?

Ricky: But, what? Somoeone once got lead poisoning from a tomato?

Karl: Not just one, loads, and then all of a sudden…

Ricky laughs.

Karl: No, no…

Ricky: Why is this educating me?

Karl: Because I’m telling you that tomatoes used to…

Ricky: But I can’t take anything away from this! I don’t know what to take away from this! What have I learnt? What have I learnt? Don’t mix lead with tomatoes?

Steve laughs.

Ricky laughs.

Ricky: Why is this educational in any shape or form? What are you talk- what are you telling me?

Ricky taps the desk.

Ricky: “A long time ago in the land of Glunk, right, where the Ninnies did slib, right, they thought tomatoes were poisonous because they ate of plates of lead!” What are you talking about?

Karl: We all know tomatoes aren’t poisonous.

Both: Ricky and Steve laugh.}}

Ricky: What are you talking about?

Karl: Is that what we’re taking from the story?

Ricky: Is that the moral of the story? Don’t believe these people that I’d never heard of before? What are you talking about, Karl?

Karl: I just… I think it’s a bit weird.

Ricky laughs.

Ricky: I think it’s a bit weird, yeah!

Steve: Is this the same people who were spreading those malicious worm rumours?

Ricky laughs.

Ricky: My hangover’s coming back. I’ve got to get some water. Play a record--that was rubbish.

Steve laughs.

It Was Pushing People Off Their Bikes

Karl starts telling a story

Karl: There's a shadow somewhere, no right, thers a shadow, I think it's in America, it's on a quiet road, i'm guessing somewhere like Boston,...

Ricky: Well don't

Karl: Somewhere like Boston, and people at night used to see this shadow moving about and they'd go "what's that?", right, and it got known, the little local town got known for this shadow, but it didn't cause any problems

Ricky: What are you talking about?

Steve: You've lost me

Karl: No, d'you know like some places get famous, like Scotland's got the loch ness monster, an' that, but it doesn't cause any problems

Ricky: ...doesn't exist

Karl: Right, so theres this shadow walking about on the road

Ricky: What do you mean? ...again, rubbish, nonsense, where did you read this?

Karl: THIS was on the INTERNET.

Ricky: OH, SORRY! I thought it was sh*te! ..I didn't know it was on the internet

Karl: So this shadow was moving about

Steve: Independently of an object?

Karl: Yeh, and the local mayor, an' that, is like, "yeh, it's a bit weird, but it's not harming anyone"

Ricky: HAHAHA, the mayor involved

Steve: He was elected to that post?

Ricky: (American accent)"Hey, mayor we got a problem down here, seems like a shadow","Well its not causing anybody probems"

Karl: But that's the thing, it was left for years, and then it did start causing problems

Steve: I see that's it, if you leave these shadows to go unchecked, Rick, they go crazy, you let them run amock in the city, you've got to stamp down on roaming shadows

Ricky: Yeh, what did the shadow do?

Karl: It was pushing people off their bikes!