31 May 2003/Transcript

This is a transcription of the 31 May 2003 episode, from Xfm Series 2

You're Lucky I'm Here, Steve

Ricky: “Out of Time” on Xfm 104.9. I’m Ricky Gervais. With me is Steve Merchant and Karl Pilkington. I really like that Blur track. I think it’s the best thing they’ve ever done.

Steve: Blimey!

Ricky: So--

Steve: Strong words.

Ricky: They can quote me on that if they want.

Steve: (laughing) Yes.

Ricky: On their, on their--

Steve: I’m sure they’ll have to.

Ricky: On their, uh, you know--

Steve: On their posters.

Ricky: One of their albums.

Steve: Yeah.

Ricky: If they wanted. Well, listen. You’re lucky I’m here, Steve. Right?

Steve: Okay.

Ricky: I’m- you can see- you know, you know something’s happened. I’ve done me back in again.

Steve: Right.

Ricky: Alright? I’ve-I’ve got a special chair in here. I’m in…agony.

Steve: Yeah.

Ricky: And I’m on the strongest pain killers I can get.

Steve: Okay.

Ricky: Uh, I feel a bit- right. Karl- I had to call Karl up today and say, “Look, I don’t know if I can make it in. Can you come and get me?” He came over to my house. We got in a cab and he got me here. Right? Um, while he was ‘round my house, uh, Jane showed him, um, sort of, camcorder footage of how I actually did it.

Steve: Of how you hurt your back?

Ricky: And, uh, I-I wanted Karl to tell you cause I was actually worried if I didn’t turn up, what you’d say to me.

Steve: Yes.

Ricky: What-what-what was I doing, Karl?

Karl: Right, so. I get ‘round to his place, right? Says, “Right. Hit play on the video.” Right? Uh, have you ever seen…a gorilla having a fight?

Ricky laughs

Steve: Uh, I think I have, yeah. Yeah.

Karl: It’s like that. Him and his mate ‘round at his place last night. Decided to, sort of, have a bit of a wrestle.

Steve: Yes.

Karl: Um… it went on- I mean, how much footage--

Ricky: Honestly, it was like a scene from “Women in Love.”

Steve: Yeah.

Ricky: Um, we’d had about five fights. We had to stop at one point cause his arm was bleeding.

Steve: You’d had about five fights?

Ricky: Yeah. Well, we were wrestling. We were doing wrestling, right, in ff- the ff-- just behind the couch.

Steve: What, in the lounge?

Ricky: Yeah! Well, we were on our knees and then, sort of, like, (unknown) ‘round, you know and I kept, I kept winning with an arm lock. Right?

Steve: Yeah.

Ricky: And then the last time, right, he sort of threw me and I- on my- I went on my back and my back was done. And I was, you know. It was Iain Morris.

Steve: Yes.

Ricky: Who’s, uh, you know.

Ricky laughs

Steve: Yeah. Now isn’t he a, um--

Ricky: Commissioning editor at Channel--

Steve: Isn’t he a commissioning editor of comedy at Channel 4?

Ricky: (laughing) Yeah, yeah. And, uh, the funny thing was that we-we’d had lots and lots of wine and we ran around--

Steve: You surprise me.

Ricky: Yeah, right. And we were going, “Come on, come on, come on. Take- film this.” Um, the time we film- I said, “Film this.” Jane went, “Ohh,” right? And (laughing) I took my shirt off!

Steve laughs

Ricky: Right there and you could just hear slapping! Oh, God.

Steve: Why- can I just ask, though, I mean, it’s a Friday night.

Ricky: Yeah.

Steve: You know, you had a couple drinks.

Ricky: Yeah.

Steve: You know, there’s some intellectual conversation.

Ricky: Yeah.

Steve: How does it get around to, “Do you fancy wrestling me?”

Ricky: Well, I’m-I’m--

Steve: “And having it filmed?”

Ricky: Well, I was- he was on the couch, but I kept sticking my socks in his face to annoy him.

Steve: (laughing) Sure.

Ricky: Right?

Steve: Yeah.

Ricky: And then he-he hit me on the shin and I got sharp shins. And it hurt. And I was going, “I’m going to smack your face in.”

Steve: Yeah.

Ricky: He’s done kickboxing and it’s that thing like you sort of joke and they go, “Come on, then.”

Steve: Yeah.

Ricky: And you start- have you ever seen anything when Jack Osbourne fights that skater dude--

Steve: No, I haven’t seen it.

Ricky: On the “Osbournes?” I was very much the Jack Osbourne figure.

Steve: Right, yeah. The fat bloke’s the guy who just came out of rehab.

Ricky laughs

Karl: I’ll tell ya what it was like, Steve. Have you ever seen, like, the David Attenborough stuff?

Ricky laughs

Karl: Where, like, a tiger will be ripping a deer’s head off and you think, “Why doesn’t the camera crew stop it?”

Steve: Yes, yeah.

Karl: You’re sort of watching, thinking, “Why was Jane just letting this happen?”

Steve: Why is she not stepping in and intervening? Yeah.

Karl: And the thing is she said, “Right, you’ve seen enough, haven’t you?” and stopped it so I don’t know how much footage you’ve got.

Ricky: (laughing) It wasn’t much! Wasn’t much.

Steve: But can I- cause your lounge is not huge and there’s not much space between the-the-the back of the sofa and the table.

Ricky: I- it doesn’t need- it was just, it was just, uh, a pin or a submission, so it was- it was all over with, like, one of us throwing the other on their back, arm locked.

Steve: How does this- I mean, how do you start with a wrestling match? Are you both stood up or are you--

Ricky: No, on your knees and you, sort of, like, go together (laughing) like rutting steers.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah.

Ricky: Yeah. Oh, dear.

Steve: Like a giant walrus.

Ricky: It’s not gay. Play a record.

Song: Rod Stewart- Maggie May begins

Steve: Can we put that online?

Ricky giggles

Steve: Can we get that on the web? That-that I would love to see.

Ricky laughs

Karl: Bit of Rod Stewart?

Ricky: Yeah. Yeah.

Song: Rod Stewart- Maggie May

Are You Allowed To Use Email?

Ricky: Stewart. “May.”

Steve laughs

Steve: Indeed! You need say no more. If people don’t know what it is from that information, forget ‘em.

Ricky: X! Gervais, Merchant, Pilk.

Steve: (laughing) Exactly.

Ricky: Alright?

Steve: Exactly. Rick, I was out last night in the Crouch End area. And I passed a- I always- things upset me like this. It was a restaurant. It was a little French restaurant.

Ricky: Yeah.

Steve: But you barely noticed it. You walked past. It was like a row of houses and a little French restaurant there. Open, it was kind of summer-y.

Ricky: Bistro.

Steve: No one in there, Rick. It was about ten to ten.

Ricky: You’re joking?

Steve: I’m thinking if no one’s in there ten to ten on a Friday evening, it’s doomed. And it really upset me. It genuinely upset me because I always think about the little French guy in there. He, you know, he’s put all his money into that.

Ricky: Rène.

Steve: He’s convinced his wife to do it.

Ricky: Yeah.

Steve: You know, she’s not convinced, but she’s a great cook.

Ricky: Eve.

Steve: Exactly. And it’s already going down the pan.

Ricky: D’you know why? You don’t want French food on a hot summer’s night, you want Mexican food.

Steve: (laughing) Indeed. Some kind of Tapas.

Ricky laughs

Steve: But, um--

Ricky: Exactly.

Steve: But then I was- cause we were just discussing other things that upset us and, uh, I glimpsed--

Ricky: War.

Steve: Well, true. Obviously, war. I mean, obviously, I started with war--

Ricky: Famine.

Steve: Famine.

Ricky: Yeah.

Steve: Disease.

Ricky: Yeah.

Steve: SARS, that sort of thing.

Ricky: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Steve: And then, uh, then it came down the list to, uh, worried about people who manufacture fax machines.

Ricky: Why, cause the technology--

Steve: Well, are they--

Ricky: Moving on?

Steve: I mean, if you want to- say you’re making fax machines. You’re a little company, you make fax machines.

Ricky: A little what?

Steve: A little company.

Ricky: Oh, right.

Steve: You’re making fax machines. Are you allowed to use e-mail?

Ricky: What, like if you work for Coke you’re not allowed to drink Pepsi publicly?

Steve: Exactly. It just seems like I’m-I’m assuming--

Ricky: The thing is--

Steve: Fax machine sales are plummeting.

Ricky: Now, the thing is, right? This is it. Now, I haven’t got a fax machine. You’re right, I’ve got e-mail, but I much prefer a fax.

Steve: Why?

Ricky: Cause you get it. It comes out the other- it comes out the other side!

Steve: Yeah, but--

Ricky: D’you know what I mean? It is--

Steve: But the thing is--

Ricky: It is what they’ve sent, that’s what’s great about a fax.

Steve: But you can print off your e-mail, can’t you, and then you’ve got it in hard copy.

Ricky: Well, I don‘t know.

Steve: It’s sort of instant.

Ricky: I don’t look at the e-mails. A fax comes out, it’s there. It goes- it’s like someone putting a little Post-it on your face. D’you know what I mean? You go, “Oh, yeah. I’ll read that.”

Steve: Yeah.

Ricky: Whereas e-mail, you’ve got e-mail. “Ugh.” You know what I mean?

Steve: Yeah. No, I- but what worries me is whether fax- I’m assuming fax machines are just- I mean, I don’t know if there’s anyone listening who works, maybe, for a fax machine--

Ricky: 08700 800 1234! If you’re in the fax industry, give us a call! Tell us, uh, you know, what sort of, sort of figures.

Steve: Yeah.

Ricky: You know.

Steve: Exactly, yeah.

Ricky: We want “down seventeen percent,” something like that.

Steve: (laughing) Something like that. That’s good stats.

Ricky: “In the southwest.”

Steve: Exactly.

Ricky: Yeah.

Steve: Those are the kind of stats--

Ricky: Um, but, uh, you’ve got a- do you have fax machines yet in the north, Karl?

Karl: Yeah, yeah.

Ricky: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, do- you’re loving it, innit ya?

Karl: I like getting letters.

Ricky quietly laughs

Steve: Well, no one sends letters anymore, do they?

Ricky: You like getting a scroll from a man on a horse.

Steve: Yeah.

Ricky: Saying you’re--

Steve: When do you get letters?

Karl: To- me mam still sends me the odd letter.

Steve: Sure.

Karl: Even though I call, she’ll still- she-she likes sitting down at a table and--

Ricky: Yeah. So what, you call and ask some questions. There’s no reply and then you get a letter a day letter, going--

Steve: (laughing) Yeah, about three weeks later.

Ricky: “Question one: yes, I am well!”

Steve: Yeah.

Ricky: “Question two: yes, your father’s well.”

Steve: Yeah.

Karl: No, it’s nice, though, innit?

Ricky: Yeah, a letter’s nice.

Steve: It’s nice to receive a letter, yeah. It’s always nice to receive a letter.

Ricky: Particularly if, like, you know, you're on a, sort of, expedition.

Steve: Ha!

Karl: But--

Ricky: Innit?

Steve: Yeah.

Karl: What does annoy me, though. You-you were looking at ‘em the other day. You know, you were talking about the pictures on ‘em. Postcards.

Steve: Yes.

Karl: Don’t like them.

Steve: You don’t like, you don’t like postcards?

Karl: No, they annoy me.

Steve laughs

Karl: And just-just because there’s never anything of any interest and the fact that, even though it’s been sent to you, you’re the last one to read it.

Ricky: I just- whenever I used to send my mum a postcard, uh, everyday I, uh- every time I sent her one, I’d horrify her by putting on it, “Having a lovely time. Um, does that pig of a postman still read all your letters?”

Steve laughs

Ricky: And she’d just be horrified. Just be terrified--

Steve: Nice.

Ricky: He’d looked at it or something.

Steve: This is what worries me. I’ve always assumed that people would read a postcard. If I was a postman, I’d definitely read a- every single postcard.

Ricky: Yeah.

Steve: So if you’re on holiday, you know--

Ricky: What do you mean? How- you wouldn’t have a lot of time left if you read every postcard.

Steve: No, but af- as you’re posting them, as you were posting them through the letter box, you’d have a quick look, wouldn’t you, to see what was- what they’re up to. Because that’s why I never used to write anything of any interest on a postcard, cause I didn’t wanna, you know, I didn’t want anyone to, sort of, know what I was up to. Let’s say I was on a bawdy lads holiday, you know.

Ricky: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Steve: I’d just write some, you know, “Nice. Sunny. You know, got meself a lovely pair of shorts.”

Ricky: Yeah!

Steve: Something like that. You know, I would- I’d keep the truth, Rick!

Ricky: Yeah.

Steve: For when I got home.

Ricky: Well, he’s looking forward to going on holiday now, Karl. Cause he’s got some prescription lens sunglasses, which we’ll be talking about that after the break.

Steve laughs

Karl: Bit of Darkness--

Steve: Look forward to that!

Ricky: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. An amusing story about a man wearing glasses!

Song: The Darkness- Growing on Me