24 August 2002/Transcript
This is a transcript of the 24 August 2002 episode, from Xfm Series 2
A Licky Boom Boom Down
Steve: Oh, ho, hooooo.
Steve laughs
Ricky: That’s Feeder and “Come Back Around.” It’s a new leaf, Steve of - I’m goin' to, to, do properly now I’m not gonna be slufelin’, I’m sittin’ up straight you see-
Steve: Yep
Ricky: -and it’s jus’ gonna be a proper DJing, cos I figure… Coming up soon some great tracks including a new one from Abs and an old one from Snow “Infoooormer.”
Steve laughs
Steve mumbles incorrect lyrics to Snow “Informer”
Steve: A licky boom boom dooooown.
Ricky: I’m joking of course. We’ve got some fantastic tracks-
Steve: Good stuff, yeah
Ricky: -some great chat, we’ve got Karl who’s-
Steve: Some great chat.
Ricky: -Steve, I’m Ricky Gervais on Xfm 104.9.
Steve: There he is indeed with him Steve Merchant and uh Karl Pilkington of course. Say hello, Karl.
Karl: Alright.
Steve: Yeah, nice. And uh, you you say you were in-
Ricky: The beginning of a radio show is very much your wears, your shop window laying out your stall. I don’t think you can choose a better track than The Only Ones “Another Girl Another Planet.”
Steve: I’d love to hear it.
The Only Ones - Another Girl Another Planet
Croque-Monsieur
Ricky: One of my favourite intos, that.
Steve: Amazing.
Ricky: Oh that was dangerous. Cos I once heard on Capital radio, um, “This has got to be the greatest rock intro of all time,” and they played “Money for Nothing” by Dire Straights.
Steve: Brilliant.
Ricky: Yeah, I can just imagine them putting their head down-
Steve: I remember a friend of mine at uh, when I was at school, he he just bought a car and he took me outside to show off the stereo system. “Money for Nothing” just uh, just played that. I’d never heard the song before. Just played that for its entire 4 or 5 minute duration-
Ricky: It is a good song for uh
Steve: -to show off the uh sound system.
Ricky: Yeah it’s a good song for showing off intros and sound systems.
Steve: Exactly.
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: You said you were driving along earlier you saw someone uh-
Ricky: Are you, are you uh yeah pl- yeah it was one of those souped up sort of um, uh, sporty saloons.
Steve: Nice.
Ricky: You know that people put out like a Mondale or something one of the big- and uh, it was blaring out and the bloke in it was sorta like- I could tell he was 24 but already going bald.
Steve: Ssss, yeah.
Ricky: From from like obviously his estate agency job.
Steve: Yeah.
Ricky: But he’s made a bit of money and he’s got uh, and the stereo system was ridiculous-
Steve: Yeah.
Ricky: -I mean so loud and it was going through Common Garden. He was playing Snow “Informer.”
Steve: Ha. Awwww. I just, do people remember “Informer” by Snow? It was a big tune back in-
Ricky: I don’t. I don’t know. It’s, it’s great I, I always enjoy it.
Steve: Can I bring that in next week? Can we play Snow next week?
Ricky: No. We can play a tiny little bit of it.
Steve: Tiny little bit of Snow before-
Ricky: Yeah, I’m-
Steve: Do you remember Snow, Karl?
Karl: uh yeah uh loved it-
Steve: You know, a big tune
Ricky: Loved it. Oh did ya?
Steve: Big tune from the 90’s.
Ricky: Yeah.
Karl: Happy song, innit?
Steve: Rick, you were saying that you’ve turned over a new leaf-
Ricky: Yeah, yeah.
Steve: Is that in all aspects of your life or is that just in your broadcasting career. Because uh, the reason I bring that up is because, do you wanna describe what you were eating just now when we came in? Cos you’re a forty- you’re a forty year old man and you’ve put on-
Ricky: No now listen-
Steve: -a little bit of weight so presumably you’re watching what you eat.
Ricky: Well, no but it sounded exotic-
Steve: Can I- go on.
Ricky: -I went into a café, and I didn’t- they didn’t have a cheese sandwich-
Steve: Right.
Ricky: And uh-
Steve: Can I describe what it looked like to me?
Ricky laughs
Steve: Right, it looked to me like a big slab of cheese you’ve just got them to just cut off a big block of cheese like the size of a CD case-
Ricky laughs
Steve: -that, one of those double albums, alright, of cheese, right. And just lightly melt that for me-
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: -so it drips over my hand and-
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: -it gets really greasy in the bag. But just lay some strips of bacon on the top.
Ricky: Yeah, but listen you’ve embarrassed yourself-
Steve: Is that what it was?
Ricky: No it’s a croque-monsieur so it’s French.
Steve: It’s a what?
Ricky: A croque-monsieur.
Steve: A croque-monsieur.
Ricky: Yeah, and so I got- I thought, ooo.
Steve: I’ve never heard of a croque-monsieur-
Ricky: You’re having a l- see you’ve embarrassed yourself.
Steve: Is that how it’s pronounced?
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: Or is it croque-monsieur?
Pause
Steve: Oooooh.
Ricky laughs
Steve: Eh, eh? You didn’t expect me to be bringing out the French, eh?
Ricky laughs
Steve: Tu aimes la musique pop? Oui, Je t'aime la musique pop!
Ricky: La plume de ma tante.
Steve: Ou est le syndicat d'initiative?
Ricky: That means… my aunt’s pen.
Steve: So wh-what was it then, a croque- it was a croque-monsieur?
Ricky: Yeah, and it was just too greasy and it was just too- and it was all wobbly, I-I-I-I when I like toast I like it to be crisp.
Steve: Sure.
Ricky: It’s the thing with like, wh-wh- this is rubbish. Play Coldplay.
Coldplay - In My Place
Planes, Trains and Awfulmobiles
Ricky: Coldplay that’s alright, innit?
Steve: Yeah it’s not bad.
Ricky: Yeah. Nice, a nice little track. Well Steve, um, we’ve been away now for what 12, 13, 14 weeks.
Steve: Is it r-really?
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: Wow.
Ricky: I just, been looking forward to coming back. It’s great, it’s great to be back.
Steve: Ha. Yep, yep.
Ricky: And, uh.
Steve: Yeah we’ve had uh some-some-some laughs some tears in the- in the interim, I imagine.
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: Uh, we’ve had a few ups and downs whilest we’ve been working on the, TV show The Office, BAFTA winning.
Ricky laughs
Steve: Uh, coming soon to BBC2. But uh we’ve-
Ricky: Thirteenth- thirteenth of September
Steve: But Rick I just need- I just want to mention something quickly to you. Um-
Ricky: Go on.
Steve: When did I last see you? I saw you yesterday, didn’t I?
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: Um, cause we went up to Edinburgh yesterday we were- we were very nicely uh invited to go talk at the uh Edinburgh International Television Festival-
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: It was quite a big deal we went up there and we were interviewed and Ricky chose to go on the train cause it takes like 4. Is it 4 and a half hours or something on the train?
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: But it’s quite leisurely-
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: -it’s quite sort of gentlemanly thing to do.
Ricky: Yeah yeah.
Steve: I opted to go for the plane option, and fly up there.
Ricky: Yeah, more modern.
Steve: Exactly and they-they bankrolled that they paid for it all and-
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: -and that was all um very nice and as I recall when I last saw you uh, we got a cab didn’t we? And-and you asked if you could get the cab to drop you off at the train station.
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: And they took me on to the airport.
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: Um, did I- now that was- that was before I- the last time I saw you was before I got to the airport and missed my flight wasn’t it?
Pause
Steve: Because I- because I had to drop you off in the center of town.
Ricky: That’s not true.
Steve: Yeah, tha- that was- so that was just before I had to pay a hundred and sixty five pounds to upgrade to another ticket.
Ricky: How did you not tell me that in the last hour?
Steve: A hundred and sixty five pounds, Ricky, I had to pay because we dropped you off at the train station. So I mean do you want to go halfs on that or what d’you wanna- how do you wanna deal with that- how d’you wanna sort that whole- that whole mess out?
Ricky: Why were you late?
Steve: Well, why was I late? Because we dropped you off in the center of Edinburgh and do you know how hard it is to get out of Edinburgh in rush hour traffic?
Ricky: But it was only- it was only 3 minutes away so you’d have missed it anyway.
Steve: No no because if we’d have gone the other direction it’d have been 20 minutes it took me like an hour to get to the tr- to the airport. And I got there and the plane had already left and the cabby was just laughing. He was saying, “We’re never gonna make it.” He goes, “You were a religious man you had better start praying.” I thought he was being facetious. He was absolutely right. A hundred and sixty five pounds.
Ricky: But hold on why didn’t he tell you that when he wh- when he picked us up, what at, quarter past four?
Steve: Well it makes you wonder. So obviously a lit- I’m a little bit annoyed. Cause you know I’m not a man who likes to sort of spend unnecessarily.
Ricky: But wait, but wh- this is not my fault cause you were there when we made that decision. I didn’t impose this on you we both decided that I’d i- it’s both our fault. I mean it’s n-no one’s fault
Steve: It’s both our fault it’s that- fair enough it’s all I wanted to hear. It’s both our fault therefore it’s both our financial obligation.
Ricky: No.
Steve: A hundred and sixty five pounds, just split that in half. Write a check, Rick, write a check, it’s fine I’ll-I- I trust you.
Ricky laughs
Steve: You know?
Ricky: Um phone in uh, I think everyone this-this is-
Steve: You’re clearly responsible.
Ricky: No of course I’m not. If you- if you share a cab and then one person’s lucky enough to not be late and one person is unlucky enough, and that’s what it is, bad luck, I don’t think you share the obligation.
Steve: How about this-
Ricky: It’s a- it’s a moral dilemma this, isn’t it?
Steve: But it’s more than that though isn’t it?
Ricky: Go on.
Steve: Because let’s be honest,
Ricky: What?
Steve: Um even if you have known that it- I was gonna get there late you’d have wanted me to hang around just so you weren’t left around waiting for a train like you were.
Ricky: No cause I got there-
Steve: Cause you get bored sitting there-
Ricky: No cause I’d have-
Steve: So you’d have wanted me at least go in that cab with you.
Ricky: I got there way too early. I actually got there about- I was there about thirty minutes early.
Steve: Oh so you made it fine then that was-
Ricky: Well exactly so I did, I’m-I- I sacrificed me hanging around for half an hour so you could get a quarter past 4. And the other thing is this: you were gonna get in at a quarter past 4 anyway.
Steve: Yeah but I would- if I’d gone the other direction, not dropped you off in the center I would have been there in time.
Ricky: Well would we, would we? Is that true?
Steve: Well yes.
Ricky: Well only God knows.
Steve: Well and the cabby.
Ricky sniggers.
Steve: what I’d mentioned it to.
Ricky laughs
Steve: So-
Ricky: I’ll tell you what’ll cheer you up. I’ll tell you what’s better than 80 quid. I’ll tell you what’s better than that, shall I?
Steve: Go on.
Ricky: Music.
Steve: What you paying the whole hundred and sixty five?
Ricky laughs
Ricky: Listen, no I’ve brought in a little track here um, Bruce Springsteen off the Tunnel of Love album and uh, I know you’re a Springsteen fan.
Steve: I’m a Springsteen fan we should just qualify this cause I know people who listen to Xfm obviously get a bit edgy about Springsteen.
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: They just think he’s this old kind of ludicrous 80’s rocker, the bandana, you know, the fly and the flag, which he never really was.
Ricky: No that- no that was Bon Jovi.
Steve: Exactly.
Ricky: Don’t- don’t confuse them.
Steve: It is Bon Jovi. But seriously no, do you know what I mean he did write some great music in the 70’s.
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: And he just got a little bit kind of pompous in the 80’s but he still turned out, uh some amazing tunes. One of which I imagine is this one, Rick.
Ricky: This one’s called “Brilliant Disguise.”
Bruce Springsteen - “Brilliant Disguise”
Casino Steve
Ricky: Bit of Springsteen there, “Brilliant Disguise” on Xfm 104.9 I think that’s- that’s soothed you a little bit that’s uh that’s-
Steve: Not really.
Ricky: Take the blow, you know I- I ju- I just remembered something as well,
Steve: 80 quid, Rick, 80 quid.
Ricky: You know uh um we finished the talk at about sort of three and we had a couple of hours to kill before we got the, and that- that half two wasn’t it? we had a couple of hours before we got the- the taxi. And uh- and we were eating in this café, and uh a- and Steve said uh, “How long’s your train gonna,” and I said, “About four and a half hours,” and he went, “So you get- what time you get in?” I said, “I get in about ten.” He went, “Half six, me.” Like that, and he was quite smug and I went, “Yeah,” I said, “it is- it’s quite a long time I just gotta sorta relax, and all.” He went, “Yeah see but,” he said, “but I think I’ve come off better here. Cause usually you’ve organized all this stuff,” he said, “But I think you’ve chosen wrong here, I think.” I said, “I think you’re right.” Ha. Didn’t you?
Steve: Yeah. Don’t you think those words weren’t coming back to haunt me as I was handing over a hundred sixty five note.
Ricky laughs
Steve: All I was thinking was Ricky’s gonna be loving it-
Ricky: And I was on the train in first class drinking, uh, John Smith’s.
Steve: Yeah.
Ricky: And listening to my CD walkman.
Steve: Yeah but I handed over my initial card. She said, “A hundred sixty five quid there,” and I went, “Fine.” I handed over my card and, it was a Switch card, she went, “We don’t take Switch.”
Ricky: Don’t they?
Steve: I was thinking how- what am I gonna do then? I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I don’t know where I’m gonna get the money from.
Ricky: What did you do in the end then? Cause did you have cash?
Steve: Well luckily I had another card.
Ricky: Oh right.
Steve: And um, and she managed to accept that one but I- I don’t know what I would’ve done there. I don’t- genuinely don’t know what-
Ricky: You didn’t tell me you had another card.
Steve: Yeah I’ve got two cards.
Ricky: Have you?
Steve: Oh yeah, yeah.
Ricky: Oh yeah yeah yeah, sure sure sure, yeah yeah yeah. Oh that is depressing.
Steve: I was so depressed cause I just kept thinking about what I’d said to you.
Ricky laughs
Steve: I’ve won this time. Cause normally I’m always like legging it for tubes or I’m just generally where I get stuck in the rain or circle.
Ricky: And I just- I just get a driver or something. He goes, “Why didn’t you get me a driver?” I said, “It’s up to you, it’s up to you.” Do you know what I mean, every man for themselves?
Steve: But this time it was four and a half hours and I was just in that forty minutes on the tr- on the plane there’d have been no problem.
Ricky: Yeah, yeah.
Steve: Unbelievable.
Ricky cackles
Steve: I’m so livid. D’you know I got off the- cause I was not very well over, I’m a bit ill at the moment and I got off the- the plane and I thought well I could get a cab from the airport all the way back home but, you know, I’ve already been stung for a hundred and sixty five quid. Got the tube, took me forever.
Ricky: Really?
Steve: I’m not gonna lie to you it took me forever. I got- I got in probably later than you did.
Ricky laughs
Steve: At the eleven o’clock mark.
Ricky: You didn’t really?
Steve: No it wasn’t quite as bad as that.
Ricky: Oh.
Steve: But I was so depre- I’m really depressed, Rick. So I say 50 quid it served me right-
Ricky: Well I know. But I mean Steve does not like to waste money and I- I mean- and by that I mean- I mean-
Steve: I don’t like to spend money.
Ricky: No um. We had- he had to go out and get a shirt for a photo shoot. Got quite an important photo shoot for the- I think the- the Times, alright. He went out he- buying a shirt- buying a shirt went out and planned it, right shirt. Came back four ninety- fourteen ninety nine from Henny’s?
Steve: Henny’s fourteen ninety nine.
Ricky: He knew where he was aiming. He aimed straight for Henny’s he knew- he knew where he could get a bargain. And this is a man-
Steve: But I- it seems to me that at that kind of price you can throw em away after. You don’t even need to wash em really. You could throw em away use em like Kleenex.
Ricky: Have you ever thrown one away?
Steve: Noooo, no no no. Just scrape off the stains and keep on wearing it, Rick.
Ricky: Remember that time when we went to the casino for my birthday and I was like a hundred quid down and some people were a hundred quid up or a hundred quid down, like that. He- after the three hours we were there was down twenty pounds, genuinely depressed.
Steve: I was almost crying.
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: Cause I don’t- what it is is because it’s a- it’s a mug’s game gambling. It really is.
Ricky laughs
Steve: Was that where we- cause I went there- it was one time we went in there where it was our agent’s birthday-
Ricky: Oh that was another time we went, alright. And he was up and he- he’d got a- got a win he was thirty quid up and so I said, “It’s your round then.” And the round was more than thirty quid and he couldn’t believe it. And he sat down and he went, “I can’t believe it.” He said, “And I’ve bought him a present so I was already down.”
Steve: Yeah.
Ricky laughs
Steve: I tell ya I was already down cause I had bought our agent a gift. He didn’t- I didn’t see him buy a round. And you know that thing when you’re buying a round of drinks for people you don’t even know so it’s like what’s the story there why am I suddenly bankrolling you drinks? It’s like, I don’t know you people I’m not gonna get any kind of- I’m not gonna see you again to sort of reap the benefits at a later point.
Ricky: Cause he came in with his three ten pound chips-
Steve: I got- most of you are married or engaged so I’m not even gonna pull from it.
Ricky: It was-
Steve: It was a waste of time.
Ricky: It was like-
Steve: It was just pure generosity.
Ricky: It was something like from Swingers cause you came into the cocktail bar holding three chips up worth ten pounds each.
Steve: Yeah.
Ricky: And went, “Hellooooo,” like that.
Steve: Yeah I was thirty pounds up. That’s a lot of money, Rick, in a, you know, Karl, you know that.
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: Thirty quid you don’t wanna sniff at that.
Ricky: I wh- wh- what song should we play. Let’s- we got uh bring lots of songs in, so I’m-
Karl: Bit of eh, bit of Incubus.
Steve: Ugh, just to make us more depressed.
Incubus - Are You In?