21 September 2002/Transcript
This is a transcription of the 21 September 2002 episode, from Xfm Series 2
Inarticulate Brain-Damaged Old Drunk
Ricky: Feeder, “Come Back Around” on XFM, 104.9. You’re listening to Ricky Gervais.
Steve: Yeah. I’m with him as well, Steve Merchant.
Ricky: Thinking of dropping that.
Steve: What?
Ricky: Thinking of dropping that. Just going- cause it’s just too- it's all that, “I’m Ricky Gervais, with me, Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington.” Too--
Ricky snaps fingers
Ricky: You know what I mean, get to the music. “Hi, I’m Ricky Gervais. This is XFM!”
Steve: Sure.
Ricky: “Here’s Radiohead!”
Steve: Yeah.
Ricky: Something like- coming out of, “That was Radiohead. XFM. I’m Ricky Gervais. Tony Blair, what’s he all about?”
Steve: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ricky: That sort of--
Steve: Snappier.
Ricky: I want it fast. Cause I quite- on a serious note and you’ve always been saying it, um, I listened to an old show cause when Karl was compiling those things, I listened to an old show. And I listened to me and I’m-I’m really concentrating now because I sounded like the most inarticulate, brain damaged old drunk--
Steve chuckles
Ricky: I’ve ever heard giving a show.
Steve: Yeah.
Ricky: I mean, I was shocked. Not finishing sentences, leaving out words, slurring, just doing noises that you understand cause you know me.
Steve: Yeah.
Ricky: So I’m really going to make an effort for the listener.
Steve: Yeah. It’s not going to happen, is it? You’re going to give up after about three records.
Ricky: But I thought you were joking. And I thought it was like, “Oh, he’s taking the”- there. Did it then, you see?
Steve: Again. I don’t know quite what that sentence meant.
Ricky: No, but--
Steve: Of course, I’ve got also your body language and your facial gestures, but obviously the listeners have got nothing. They’ve just got the voice.
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: They’ve just got the voice, Rick. That’s all they’ve got. That’s all they can rely on.
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: And, uh, and when Karl Pilkington is the man holding the show together, that’s quite damning.
Ricky: When he’s the most articulate.
Steve: Exactly. Exactly.
Karl: How did I come across?
Ricky: You came across as lovely. I mean, I-I did an interview yesterday, alright, and I was trying to describe you to this journalist and I was going, “It’s like a cat can talk”.
Steve: Mmm.
Ricky: Cause the things you say, I just want to know what your world is. You know when a cat comes in, you go, “Where have you been?” and it looks at you like, you know, it can nearly understand you. And you went, “Oh, wonderful. I’d love to know what that cat thinks” and with you, it’s almost like we’ve got one.
Steve: Yeah. Yeah.
Ricky: Did you like that?
Steve: You can also lick your own testicles, I think, can’t you?
Ricky giggles
Steve: So, you know.
Ricky: Should we play the Doves?
Song: Doves- Caught by the River
Ordinance Survey Map
Ricky: Doves, “Caught by the River” on XFM 104.9. You’re listening to Ricky Gervais.
Steve chuckles
Ricky: Welcome. Are we having a lovely Saturday?
Steve: Were you asked to appear on “Celebrity Fat Club”?
Ricky: No. I- uh, no I wasn’t.
Steve: Was there any- was-was there, seriously. Did an invite come in?
Ricky: No, I don’t think they did. I-I knew about it and I was waiting for the call.
Steve: Yeah.
Ricky: And I was going to be insulted, but it didn’t come.
Steve: Didn’t come. How much are you looking forward to it? I’m quite excited about it. I really am.
Ricky: I am excited about it, yeah.
Steve: I don’t think people know- are you aware of this, Karl? It’s this “Celebrity Fat Club”. It’s a new, uh, one of those reality shows. It’s ten celebrities, I think. They’re all overweight, uh, and they’ve got to lose weight over the course of the series.
Ricky: And they’re, um, and they’re celebrities.
Steve: And they’re celebrities.
Ricky: That’s why they call it that.
Steve: “Celebrity Fat Club”.
Karl: So who’ve they got?
Steve: Well, I’ve very excited because one of them is- you know that guy who was in “Pop Idol”, but didn’t win in the end. That really big, fat guy. Rick Waller. Fats Waller, as I call him. And, uh, I was reading about him on the, in the, on the web, earlier. Um, it says, uh, he’s been told to lose seventeen stone cause they reckon he might be dead by the age forty if he doesn’t lose weight, seriously.
Ricky: How old is he now?
Steve: I don’t know how old he is. He’s only in his twenties, isn’t he?
Ricky: Well, that’s still a good twenty years of cake eating!
Steve: But it says, uh, “He was shocked to learn he weighed thirty-one stone when he stepped on the scales at the start of the show”.
Ricky: Thirty-one stone!?
Steve: Thirty-one stone. But I like the fact--
Ricky: That’s really big.
Steve: I like the fact that he said he was shocked to find he weighed it.
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: “I had no inclination!”
Ricky: “I had got-got-got- kept my eye off the ball, there.”
Steve chuckles
Steve: Exactly.
Ricky: “That must be all those breakfasts.”
Steve: “I haven’t stood on the scales for years and I didn’t know how much I weighed,” Rick told The Sun.
Ricky: Thirty-one stone, right? That is having- that is, that is having a man on your back and carrying a man in your- just, basically two men going everywhere--
Steve: It is obscene. Cause he looks- have you seen him? He looks like one of those people that are wearing one of those inflatable Sumo outfits.
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: He’s just a little head and, like, a sort of- oh.
Ricky: We’re not, we're not having a go at, um, fat people.
Steve: I’m having a go at him, Rick.
Ricky: Cause it might be glandular. It’s not. It’s greed.
Steve: Exactly.
Ricky: Do you know what? I- this is true. When I- I did that “Room 101” and I did one they cut out completely. I don’t think they cut it out on taste, I think it was just too long. Um, and I- one of the ones I put in was fat people who say it’s glandular. Right? And they’d done the research and two percent of obese people can claim it’s glandular. The rest, they just eat too much.
Steve: Yeah. But the thing about Waller is he was going on there, going on the telly going, “It’s good- What a wonderful role model I am for people who don’t conform to the usual pop star, sort of, stereotype.” No, you’re not a role model for anyone! You are a fat, pig of a man. I’m sorry, mate.
Ricky: Hold on.
Steve: No, Rick. It is obscene.
Ricky: It’s not his weight that disturbs me more, it’s his gums.
Steve: Well.
Ricky: They are- have they been through a lot?
Steve: Yeah.
Ricky: Haven’t they? They have been through a lot.
Steve: The weight does concern me slightly. Did you- do you remember when he did his version of “I Will Always Love You”?
Karl: Yeah, but--
Steve: I thought he was just singing it at a buffet, or something.
Ricky laughs
Ricky: Yeah, outside a chip shop.
Steve: Yeah.
Ricky: “Go away, Mr. Waller!”
Steve: Yeah. “Just-just let me watch the kebab rotate once more.”
Ricky: “No!” “Can I lick the fat off the floor?” “No, you can‘t!”
Steve laughs
Ricky: I just imagine those people who run all you can eat buffets, when they hear him coming they shut the door.
Steve: It’s like one of those nineteen-twenty’s speakeasy. The front changes into a launderette.
Ricky laughs
Steve: “Just move on, Fats. It’s not--” “I can smell chip fat!” “No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Move on. On you go.”
Ricky: But, um, I mean, we’re not Olympic fat Brits. There are also fat- thirty-one stone is, sort of, quite big, but the American- that one, did you see that one? Seriously, we’ve talked about it before. That one on Jerry Springer and he was seventy-five stone. Did you see it?
Steve: Seventy-five stone?
Ricky: He was in his bed. Honestly, it looked like a, it looked like a, um, I don’t know. Sort of, molten lava.
Steve: Yeah.
Ricky: In his bed. And it was really- it was actually sad. And I was really sad cause he was, you know, he was in tears and he was going, “This is it. I’m going to do it.” and Jerry Springer took the wall down and they got him. They had to get him in a special ambulance and everything. But my point is this, right? When he got to, say, fifty stones, didn’t he go, “That’s a lot, innit?”?
Steve: “I’ve got to be careful.”
Ricky: “For a human.”
Steve: Exactly.
Ricky: You know? For someone that lives on land--
Steve: Yeah.
Ricky: That is, that is big. I’ll tell you- what the- I mean, the fact is they have to have special weighing equipments. So wasn’t that a clue?
Steve: That must have been.
Ricky: The fact that they had to get in someone from next door to lift it up a bit and tell him how much he weighed.
Steve: Yeah, yeah. The fact that he was listed on the Ordnance Survey map should have been a clue.
Ricky laughs
Steve: That it’s time--
Ricky: We’ve given you your own mayor.
Steve: Yeah. You are- yes.
Ricky: Stop--
Ricky and Steve: Eating!
Ricky: Oh…
Steve: Oh, man alive.
Song: Sugar- If I Can’t Change Your Mind
It Was the Cakes Again
Steve: Always amazing to hear that, isn't it Rick? It’s Sugar.
Ricky: That’s fantastic.
Steve: “If I Can’t Change Your Mind”
Ricky: That’s such a great tune.
Steve: I was listening to “Copper Blue”, the album from which that’s taken, again. It’s just fantastic. It really is.
Ricky: Old moldy.
Steve: Old moldy.
Ricky: Moldy old dough, as I call it.
Steve: Yeah, oh, exactly. Bob.
Ricky: You’ve got a real problem with Rick Waller, haven’t you?
Steve: I just- he-he turns my stomach.
Ricky: I know, but don’t-don’t--
Steve: Cause he’s arrogant, as well, though.
Ricky: Exactly.
Steve: That’s the problem.
Ricky: Explain to people that, you know--
Steve: No, he is a bit arrogant.
Ricky: It’s his whole thing that you- it's the whole package, so to speak, that you don’t like.
Steve: Yeah. Well, there’s another thing in his quite--
Ricky: It’s not just the fact that he eats too much.
Steve: He, uh, he-he tried, apparently, to lose some weight and, uh, it says, he said, “The first month I lost eleven pounds. The next, I lost a stone, but in the third my body did somersaults and I put on nine pounds. I had a slip up. I can’t say when, why or how, but it just sneaked up on me.”
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: I don’t believe it.
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: Don’t believe it just sneaked up on him.
Ricky: That body’s never done a somersault in its life.
Steve: No. It just sneaked up on him.
Ricky: Yeah. I don’t--
Steve: It was the cakes again.
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: It was the same old cakes as before. Exactly the same problem.
Ricky: Sleep eating, it’s called.
Steve: It was the KFC bucket again. The family-size KFC bucket.
Ricky: Oh, dear.
Steve: For breakfast.
Ricky: Poor man. The other thing is that the- I don’t think that’s a very good shock tactic for a doctor to tell a twenty-something, “Well, to be honest, you’ve got twenty years to live.”
Steve: Yeah. It doesn’t mean anything when you’re twenty.
Ricky: When I was twenty, the thought of dying at forty was fine.
Steve: Yeah.
Ricky: I didn’t want to live to forty. I just thought, “Oh, what can you do when you’re forty?”
Steve: Yeah.
Ricky: Just laying around, doing nothing.
Ricky and Steve: Eating cheese.
Steve: And then you got there and you discovered the dream came true.
Ricky: No, but someone sent me- Sophie, here, sent me something and she said, “I realize you’re not Graham Norton, but I had to send you this” and she sent me the top of a little cream cheesy thing and it’s-it’s, the brand name is Gervais.
Steve: How odd that is! They’ve named a cheese after you.
Ricky: I think it’s a big French company and this is from the Czech Republic. It’s all over Europe and so--
Steve: That would be a dream come true, wouldn’t it, if they named a cheese after you?
Ricky: No, I think it’s, I think it’s, uh, probably, you know, ancestors and so I’ve- cheese is in my blood.
Steve: Sure.
Ricky: Quite literally.
Steve: It literally is, yeah. Another heavy Friday night, was it?
Ricky: It comes out of pores like those Play Doh things. I can squeeze out different shapes by--
Steve: “Jane, bring the Stilton in. It’s Friday night.”
Ricky laughs
Steve: Oh, man alive.
Ricky: “This isn’t fried!”
Steve: Exactly.
Ricky: But yeah. So, um, we can’t really have a go at Rick Waller. I-I-I-I eat too much, but--
Steve: Yeah, but you’re not big and then one of the other contestants on that, on the, uh, “Fat Club, Celebrity Fat Club”--
Ricky: Oh, he is doing it?
Steve: Is Jono, Jono Coleman.
Ricky: Oh, we love Jono.
Steve: Now, Jono is- I don’t know- you know Jono. He’s that guy that does, um, he used to be on TV and I think he does a breakfast show on a rival station, doesn’t he?
Ricky: He’s happy, isn’t he?
Steve: He’s-he’s- So true and he’s a really nice bloke, Jono, but--
Karl: It’s funny, cause he does a breakfast show on Heart, which is-is wreaking his own. There’s a bit of irony.
Ricky and Steve twitter
Ricky: I love Karl.
Steve: Thanks Karl.
Karl: Do you know what I mean?
Ricky: I love you.
Steve: I can see where you’re coming from.
Ricky: Yeah, that’s good.
Steve: But we’ve met Jono a couple of times. We saw him at a couple of, not wishing to show off, but couple of awards dos--
Ricky: Yeah. Like that’s showing off. There’s people wouldn’t be seen dead there.
Steve: Well, yeah, but we--
Steve chuckles
Steve: We went to one where everyone was in, like, tuxedos or suits and ties. Not Jono. Jono was wearing a pair of Bermuda shorts--
Ricky: Big Bermuda shorts.
Steve: And a Hawaiian shirt.
Ricky: Knee length Bermuda shorts with just these little--
Steve: But I saw him again, another time, and he had shorts on, a similar event and I’ve seen him since in the street and he’s- I don’t think- I’m wondering if he can wear trousers. I don’t think he can actually wear trousers. I don’t know if there’s a medical reason for that, whether he’s just, his legs are too fat.
Ricky: I think the material is a waste of money. I think it’s just that you can get shorts that big and they’re comfortable and, uh- I mean, to be quite honest, I don’t want to squeeze into a tuxedo anyway.
Steve: Mmm.
Ricky: So if you can go- I’d love to turn up to those things in Bermuda shorts!
Steve: Well, of course.
Ricky: Flip flops, you know--
Steve: But do you think he started off by wearing- maybe he just had the upper half was a tuxedo with the tie and the thing.
Ricky: And then the shorts for comfort.
Steve: And then the shorts underneath and he would just have to come in, kind of sneak behind a, you know, a sideboard--
Ricky: Potted plant.
Steve: Or potted plant or his kids, bring his kids ahead of him.
Ricky: Yeah.
Steve: You know, “You are wearing trousers, aren’t you?”
Ricky: “Yeah, of course I am! Yeah, yeah.”
Steve: “In you go, in you go”
Ricky: “Kids, move a minute.” “Well, no.”
Steve chuckles
Steve: Exactly.
Ricky: “Of course I’m wearing trousers. Why would I--”
Steve: “Of course I’m wearing trousers!”
Ricky: And then he just thought, though, “This isn’t fooling anyone.”
Steve: “So now I’m going to make a wacky effort to sort of, you know--”
Ricky: The next Sony’s, I’ve heard he’s going in a grass skirt and garland around his- and he’s going to, he’s going to come in limboing.
Steve: But you-you did ask if you could go to The BAFTAs in a dressing gown, didn’t you?
Ricky: Just for ease.
Steve: Yeah.
Ricky: Yeah. Go on then.
Karl: Right. There’s this- talking about diets and stuff, right?
Ricky: Go on.
Karl: They’ve come up with a drug that, um, they-they tested it out on a mouse, right? They said it’s a problem. Weight-weight is a big issue in the world and, you know, a lot of people are depressed. Probably, like Rick Waller.
Steve: Well, I’m depressed looking at Rick Waller.
Karl: Well, you know.
Ricky: Ohhh.
Karl: I mean, you could sort out Rick by, you know- Jono is an old man. He’s got loads of money--
Ricky: He’s not old!
Karl: No, but he’s getting on a bit, right?
Ricky: He’s about my age, you--
Karl: No! What I mean is he does his own shopping, right? So, I bet it’s hard--
Ricky: Sorry! What do you mean?
Karl: Because he’s like, uh- how old is he? Thirty-five. He’s got loads of money. He does his own shopping. So when he goes to the supermarket and he passes, you know, the-the sponge cake section, it must be tough when you’ve got loads of money to burn. That you go, “Oh, just one more.”
Steve: Yeah.
Karl: “One more.”
Ricky: No, just- sorry. We are getting close to libel, here, I think.
Karl: No, no, no! I’m saying how it is cause I’ve-I’ve tried, like, losing a little bit of weight.
Ricky: Have ya?
Karl: And it is difficult when you, you know, you’re in Waitrose and you see a little chocolate muffin and think, “Well, one more and I’ll do without.”
Ricky: Do you like a little chocolate muffin now and again?
Karl: Yeah. Right?
Ricky: Is that your favorite thing?
Karl: So the thing is--
Ricky: A chocolate muffin?
Steve: Let him finish his point.
Karl: So the thing is, right? Now with Rick, he lives at home with his mam. So why doesn’t his mam just say, “I’m going to buy less this week and if you eat it all, you’re not getting any more.”
Steve: Yeah.
Karl: That-that sort--
Ricky: Does he live with his mam?
Steve: A short, sharp shop.
Karl: I bet he does. I bet he does.
Steve: So you don’t actually know if this is true or not.
Ricky laughs
Karl: No, but-but anyway, right? So this-this drug they’ve come up with--
Steve: They tested this on mice, haven’t they?
Ricky continues to laugh
Steve: No, I’m just- I’m worried they haven’t test it on mice cause--
Ricky: Thank God for that.
Steve: It’s definitely been tested on mice?
Ricky: Definitely.
Karl: They fed a mouse a load of cake.
Steve: Yeah.
Karl: Right?
Ricky giggles
Karl: And it went a little bit chubby and they said, “Right, stop a minute.”
Ricky laughs
Karl: And then they gave it this drug that makes you lose weight.
Steve: Yeah. Yeah.
Karl: And it’s weight went down, but the only bad side effect was its eyes were popping out.
Ricky howls with laughter
Ricky: Well, that seems, that seems to be fine, then. Let’s give it to Jono!
Steve chuckles
Ricky: There doesn’t seem to be any problem with that!
Steve: Oh, that’s-that’s, uh, yeah. Rick should get some of that.
Ricky: “Eh struth, doc. Look at these!” “Oh Jesus Jono. Your eyes are popping out. That happened to the mice.” “Sorry?” “That happened to the mice!” What do you mean?
Karl: That’s the option.
Steve: What do you mean, that’s the option?
Ricky: So-so- I love the fact that your choices are either be like a fat, happy man who has the occasional sponge cake, or a stick man with eyes on stalks. I mean, Steve’s chosen that.
Steve: Alright, calm down. I thought we were slagging off Rick Waller, fat people.
Ricky: Sorry mate.
Steve: Let’s have a go at the fat people before we start on me, Rick.
Ricky: Yeah, sorry. I didn’t--
Steve: I mean, it’s like--
Ricky: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Steve: Cause I’ve got some issues, body issues--
Ricky: I know.
Steve: But Rick Waller is grotesque, you know.
Ricky: Yeah. Sorry about that.
Steve: I'm just a little weird. I mean, do you know what I mean?
Ricky: Yeah, let’s play a song and--
Steve: Well, I’m a little bit offended. That’s upsetting. That’s upsetting.
Song: Oasis- Little By Little