31 August 2002/Transcript
This is a transcription of the 31 August 2002 episode, from Xfm Series 2
In the Beginning
Ricky: Back to form there - Oasis and Little By Little. This is Xfm 104.9, I'm Ricky Gervais, who are you?
Steve: Er, my name's Steve Merchant, good to see you.
Ricky: Thanks. Er, with us, er, the producer in the studio is Karl Pilkington. And he'll be doing the m-buttons...
Steve: Yeah? You made a good effort there...
Ricky laughs
Steve: But er, once again...
Ricky: Got bored.
Steve: Words are your enemy Rick, and they defeated you once again.
Ricky laughs
Steve: Just ran out of steam with the sentences.
Ricky: Ohh, every week I think right, I'm really gonna make an effort now.
Steve: Yeah.
Ricky: I'm gonna, I've, I've chosen some records...
Steve: Yeah.
Ricky: That's it.
Steve: That's it. That's as far as it goes isn't it?
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: Maybe you should write out what you're gonna say at the top of the show?
Ricky laughs
Steve: Write that out. Get a nice big crayon.
Ricky: No, I like to keep a little bit of...
Ricky clicks his fingers
Ricky: You know.
Steve: Little bit of sumin'. Little bit of spark. Little bit of liveliness to it, sure.
Ricky: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Steve: Sure, sure, sure, sure.
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: How are you? Good, good to see you
Ricky: Yeah, great. It's great to be er...
Steve: It's great to be out
Ricky laughs
Steve: Out of the house again.
Ricky: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Just, erm, I was going to say because we've been doing this for a long time now with a little break, erm, but XFM are bringing new listeners all the time. I've heard four or five a week.
Steve: Really?
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: Wow, man alive.
Ricky: New listeners tune in to XFM 104.9.
Steve: Radio 1 beware!
Ricky laughs
Ricky: Yeah, yeah. And, uh, we might take it for granted that people that know who we are, know who you are, know who Karl is.
Steve: Sure.
Ricky: Um.
Steve: Old listeners, certainly.
Ricky: Now, if, if, if you, you know, if you're a regular then you know exactly who we are. But, erm, for those of you who don't, uh, I'll say I'm, I'm Ricky Gervais.
Steve: Ricky Gervais, BAFTA-award winning actor and, uh--
Ricky: Yeah, yeah.
Steve: And writer.
Ricky: Steve Merchant, erm, all those.
Steve: Friend of yours.
Ricky: Yeah, yeah. And, this is the important thing, Karl Pilkington.
Steve: Absolutely.
Ricky: Our, erm, produ-- I say producer. He was the bloke who was lumbered with the job. When I said, "Listen--" See I used to run the desk in the old days when I was working for XFM, I used to press the buttons and run the desk and everything. And then I said, "Listen, I've been on the telly, I do not press my own buttons." And Karl said, "Well, I don't really work weekends." And they went, "Well, you do if you want to keep your job."
Steve: Absolutely.
Ricky: And we were lumbered with him. And then we discovered that he's not just a, a little, like a little dork. A little Manc-y, sort of, idiot.
Steve: Sure. Sure.
Ricky: He's got, he's got a nice shirt. He's got, you know what I mean? He's got something else.
Steve: Absolutely. He brings another dimension, yeah.
Ricky: Yeah. And, uh, he, he started having a little chat and we discovered--
Steve: We both love him.
Ricky: That he had quite a lot to say.
Steve: Mm. Well I, I think you're absolutely right and I think, um- I was wondering maybe we should maybe play another tune. But after that, I just think we should refamiliarize our radio audience with Karl.
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: And any new listeners, just get- let, somehow, kind of let them get to know the real Karl again.
Ricky: Well if you are new, you'll, you'll find that we like some old songs, some new songs, some chitter-chat. Uh, we get serious sometimes.
Steve: Oh yeah.
Ricky: There's some tears and some laughter.
Steve: Yeah.
Ricky: We kicked off with Oasis's new one, "Little by Little". We're going to go back in time now to Iggy Pop and his Stooges with "I'm Bored."
Song: Iggy Pop - I'm Bored
Q & A
Ricky: Iggy Pop, "I'm Bored" on XFM 104.9. I'm Ricky Gervais.
Steve: Steve Merchant here.
Ricky: Yeah. Little Karl Pilkington. Well, to reintroduce or introduce people to the first time to Karl, um, I think we should have a--
Steve: Yeah, maybe sort of a, kind of, a quick Q&A Karl, and we don't need, sort of, lengthy answers from you. We don't need lots of detail. Uh, you know, it can be a, just a couple of sentences--
Ricky: Just to get a flavor of who you are.
Steve: To answer these questions. Yeah, so firstly, name obviously Karl Pilkington. Age, Karl?
Karl: I'll be, uh, I'll be thirty next month.
Steve: Really?
Karl: This month. No next, wha- where are we?
Ricky and Steve burst into laughter
Steve: I don't think we need to ask any more questions.
Ricky: I, I don't- I think we've done it.
Steve: That's it.
Ricky: I think we've done it there.
Steve: Welcome to the world of Karl Pilkington.
Ricky chuckles
Ricky: I think- Oh, I thought it would take three or four questions--
Steve: I thought it was going to at least--
Ricky: To really explain what Karl is about.
Steve: Yeah, that was, that was the first question.
Ricky and Steve laugh
Ricky: Oh, oh God!
Steve: Absolutely incredible. But um, but we can't really leave it there cause, um--
Ricky: No.
Steve: Because we haven't got enough else to do to fill up the two hours.
Ricky: No.
Steve: So, um, so let's pursue this line of inquiry.
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: So, um, age? What was the age, Karl? In a couple of--
Ricky: When were you, when were you born?
Karl: I'll be, uh-- '72.
Ricky: Right, what month, what day?
Karl: I'm on the cusp.
Ricky and Steve snigger
Steve: You're on the cusp of a day?
Karl: Um, twenty-third of September.
Steve: Ok.
Karl: '72.
Steve: So anyway-- ok, alright. Good.
Ricky: And there you were talking there about, um, obviously your star sign, were you, on the cusp?
Karl: Yep.
Ricky: You believe in that, do you?
Karl: No.
Ricky: You don't believe in star signs?
Karl: No, not really.
Ricky: But you do believe in ghosts, I understand.
Karl: No, because the star signs--
Ricky: The paranormal.
Karl: Yeah, but the star sign thing, you've got how many, how many different star signs are they?
Ricky: Twelve, innit?
Karl: Right, and then you've got, like, loads of people.
Ricky: Yeah. You do the math.
Karl: So they're saying that, you know, there's only twelve different sorts of people in the world.
Ricky: Exactly. That's exactly right. It's, it's made-up. It's made-up nonsense. It's non-science.
Steve: It's pseudo-science.
Ricky: It's, yes. It's, it's, it's, it's hairy-man and, um, dyed-hair-woman science.
Steve: Yes.
Ricky: Innit?
Steve: Alright?
Karl: Yeah.
Steve: Anyway, back to you, Karl. Where were you born?
Karl: In, uh, in Manchester.
Steve: Okay. What GCSE results did you get?
Ricky sniggers
Karl: I got, uh, was it an E? Got an E in history.
Ricky: You got an E in history. And how did you find out that?
Karl: You found out.
Ricky: Cause you thought you, you didn't, you couldn't remember what you got. You didn't turn up and you thought you'd done about three, one of which wasn't history, and actually--
Karl: I knew, I knew I did art.
Ricky: Yeah, you didn't. I'm telling you didn't cause we checked. You did one. You turned up for history, you did history, you got an E in history.
Karl: No, I definitely did art. I made a little clay man.
Steve laughs
Ricky: Yeah, you've got to register for O-levels. You don't just do it and then phone 'em up and say, "How was that?" And they go--
Steve: "I'm sending you a clay man."
Ricky laughs
Steve: "Send me a grade."
Ricky: Yeah, yeah. There's all things, there's forms to fill out and things like that, Karl.
Steve: Anyway...
Ricky: Yeah, go on.
Ricky sniggers
Steve: Who was your closet childhood friend?
Karl: Closest. At what age?
Steve: Well, when you were young, when you were--
Ricky: Oh, I remember this. It's a fella. Um, someone Makin, innit?
Karl: There's, there's, well he wasn't really a close mate. Darren Buckley was me--
Steve: Darren Buckley?
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: Tell us briefly about Darren. I'd forgotten about Darren.
Karl: He's the one who, um, all the, all the girls liked him.
Steve: Did they?
Karl: He had, uh, he had permed hair. Used to--
Ricky quietly laughs
Karl: Have his hair like a footballer.
Steve: Sure.
Karl: Um--
Steve: Were you jealous of him?
Karl: His dad was a copper.
Steve: Did you hang around with Darren, like, in the hope of getting of, maybe, his, kind of, castoffs?
Karl: Nah. I, I- You see, it's weird with me. I wasn't that bothered about having loads of mates an' that. I sort of--
Steve: Sure.
Karl: I had lots of mates, but I could do without 'em.
Ricky: You had a magpie, didn't you?
Karl: I was happy, I was happy playing with me magpie.
Ricky: Yeah, and what happened to him?
Karl: It, uh, flew away.
Ricky: Yeah.
Karl: But I wasn't bothered because it was giving me grief towards the end, wasn't it. It was--
Ricky laughs
Karl: It was popping me, me Grifter tyres an' that.
Ricky continues to laugh
Steve: Yeah, sure.
Karl: Flying down, pecking me head.
Steve: Sure. Now you went to school with a number or different interesting people. Some of whom are freaks.
Ricky: Two of which, I understand, had big heads and webbed toes.
Steve: Is that right?
Ricky: Yet they were not related to each other and they weren't friends with each other. Why weren't they friends with each other?
Karl: Because that'd be obvious.
Ricky laughs
Steve: Did they, did they wear shoes or did they walk around in their, in their webbed, uh, feet?
Ricky: Were they good at swimming? Were they good at swimming?
Karl: Uh, I don't know. I don't they ever, ever went swimming.
Ricky: Did they ever talk, did they, did they ever look over at each other and think--
Steve: "Yeah, we should hang out more."
Ricky laughs
Karl: I told you something in the week, as well, there was another lad at school- had a pigeon chest.
Steve: He had a what?
Ricky: Can we come back to this?
Steve: He had a pigeon chest?
Ricky: I think we should play a record, Karl. Cause we, I think we've hooked them now. I think, I think--
Steve: Yeah. There's no one switching off now, Rick.
Ricky: No, play a record.
Song: Blur - Coffee & TV