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.
Steve: Exactly. Well I think I will be…
Ricky: It’s something to do with West Country breeding and... you haven’t… I don’t know, no he hasn’t got normal, sort of… barriers to sort of, flu and cold.
Claire: So his immune system is all shot…
Ricky: Claire, look at him.
Steve: I am… I’m quite a weak child.
Claire: Yeah, I know.
Steve: I’ll probably die in a garret, having written some bloody brilliant poetry.
Ricky and Claire laugh.
Steve: And then I’ll die of consumption.
Ricky: Yeah… of consumption, yeah.
Steve: But anyway, so I got online to check out what exactly the symptoms of the SARS virus were. And, ah…
Claire: Seriously?
Steve: Seriously, I did. I was so panicked and I went straight online and it was exactly what I had. It’s a, ah…
Ricky: Well it is a strain of flu, that’s why.