Guardian S5E3 (September 15, 2008)

So, welcome to episode three of this final Ricky Gervais show series with me, Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant,

and Carl Pilkinton.

All right.

Have you heard this thing they're doing?

The schools have got together.

They're tired of obesity being a problem in England.

It's a big problem in England.

Basically, everyone's overweight, particularly kids.

There's kids that are like, you know, ten stone going to infant school and stuff and junior school.

It's getting ridiculous.

And so now the teachers are allowed to weigh the kids.

They're going to weigh the kids.

Okay.

Yeah.

Get them in there and go, right, right, get on the scale.

And then they're going to send a letter to the parent saying,

please be aware.

your child is obese.

Now, I don't know what good that's going to do because a teacher will send a letter to a parent and go, Dear Mr.

and Mrs.

Barnes,

we weighed little Johnny today at school and he's overweight.

He's a big fat pig.

And they're going to go, Yeah, we know.

We have to push him out the door to get him to school.

He makes a popping sound.

We know he's fat.

He eats too much.

We know he's fat because we have to buy him pairs of trousers every two weeks.

Yeah, well, we know he's fat because we're a couple of fat bastards.

Always.

I love that when they say about our child obesity, they show you a picture of a kid and his face is nearly closed up.

It is just closed, right?

There's no eyes anymore.

He's just got little slits for eyes where his cheeks and his forehead are meeting.

Do you know what I mean?

And then you see the parents, they go, well, yeah, we can't do anything.

And you won't, no, look at you.

Yeah.

No, I saw a couple the other day.

I saw a dad, giant arse.

Yeah.

And then I was walking behind them and two kids, exactly the same giant asses.

Yeah.

Now, I don't, I can't believe that that's.

Well, they eat the same things.

You can't.

Like a couple of bison, it won't.

Yeah, if they're, if they're, yeah, if the parents are just eating, they can't say to the kid, you've had enough.

They're going,

fuck, look at you.

I saw them in Tesco supermarket.

You know, they've got like cafes in there now.

Have they?

Big fat family in there.

The fat family buying food and they're having a break from buying food to eat food.

To eat food.

It made them a bit peckish, didn't it?

I mean, don't forget, that is the only exercise they get, pushing a trolley round.

They get home and then they wedge themselves in that three-piece suite and they're watching ITV1 for the rest of the night.

Yeah.

And eating cakes and things, microwavable stuff.

Well, they're actually watching X Factor, but they're only watching X Factor waiting for the adverts for Pringles

Pizza.

Exactly.

That's what they're looking forward to.

They could do that.

They could make it a bit harder to shop, couldn't they?

If you walk through the door, it goes ding, ding, ding, and you go, go.

And for fat people, the shopping moves around a bit.

It's constantly moving away.

Yeah, exactly.

You're putting it on a string.

You want the pie, and you have to at at least get up a bit of a sweat.

Well, they're on the conveyor belts, like in a sushi restaurant.

Exactly.

And then you just got to chase after them.

Oven-fried chips.

Unbelievable.

Or is there some kind of cattle grid device that only fattened...

Is there anything that we could put?

Oh, you can only get to this.

You can only get to the thin door.

If you can get through this.

Right, yeah.

That's a good point, yeah.

So the really fattening stuff is through a thin door.

Or just, yeah, or one of those kind of

sort of

tubes that soldiers you see have to crawl through when they're doing their training.

And that's to pies.

Recalorification.

To the halorophilic section.

Yeah.

The shop is full of salads.

You can go around, you can even eat as you go around.

You can forest of salads.

Exactly.

You can graze and you can buy.

But if you want to get to the pies and cakes and all that, you've got to get through a little tube.

Crawl through a little tube.

Yeah.

It would just be forever going, dude, fat bloke stuck in aisle three.

They'd have to keep getting them out.

Well, I was stuck behind one on the tube.

It got out of the tube.

on the escalators.

And you know, like on escalators, you're meant to stand to the right so people can get past.

Yeah.

Waste waste of time him standing on the right, yeah, yeah, checking up the full thing.

Uh, he had a track suit on, like you always do, you know.

Never seen a track in its life that without a track suit, and uh, so I stayed behind him because he had no option.

You saw everyone behind me sort of going, What's the old up here?

Like a convoy of people going, What's up in the front?

What's happening here?

And it's him sort of blocking it.

He gets to the bit, you know, where you have to put your ticket in or your oyster card and swipe it.

He had to go through the bit for trolleys.

How embarrassing is that?

But that's when you know, innit?

That's when you go, you know what?

Exactly.

But I don't think there's enough stigma.

I think, because, you know, political correctness now and, you know, and the fact that food is so refined, there's no stigma anymore.

I laugh about being fat.

I should be ashamed.

I should walk down the street.

People go, fatty.

That's what I want to get me out of there.

I get up in the morning, I look in the mirror, I go, oh, you fucking fat bastard.

But nobody.

I think the same every time I see you.

I know.

But look how successful I am.

But you're right.

You know, there should be, you know.

People look up to you, Rick.

That's a problem.

You're a role model.

They've got pictures of you on their wall.

I often

have a lot of role model for people who want to be.

Now, maybe they don't mean they want to make a successful sitcom and be rich and famous.

Maybe they mean I want to eat as much as I want and no one's saying anything about it.

The number of times I've seen you on one of those, the ideal dinner guest.

I know.

I'm not the ideal dinner guest.

Well, firstly, there'd be nothing else to go around for anyone else.

And I'm always early.

Right.

So by the time anyone, that'd be it, yeah, yeah.

The ideal dinner guest.

As long as he comes halfway through the meal.

And I think they mean, oh, it'd be funny because he'd be very witty and charming.

No, he's just be stuffing his face for two hours.

Wouldn't he be talking?

I wouldn't be talking.

If there's food there, I'll just listen.

I can listen.

I mean, I can't really hear because when I chow down, some of it gets in my ears.

Sure, yeah.

I will go deep into a pasta.

Yeah, the face is in the bowl.

I'm actually deaf and blind for four minutes that I'm eating.

It's like when a horse bolts, they can't see or hear anything.

They just bolt.

But, you know, I don't know what we could do, really.

I mean,

I think we should be clear here.

We're not saying, you know, we don't want to encourage people to be able to do that.

We're not saying fat people are all right.

We're saying they're wrong.

Well, yeah, but

I want to make an important point here, which is that

we're not talking about how.

Listen, what?

This is an important point.

There's a lot of young people, you know, and they don't eat and stuff because they want to try and look like Victoria Beck and all that stuff.

We're not talking about that.

We're not talking about just being, you know, a respectable size, a little bit curvy, whatever.

You haven't got to be like a size zero.

We're not talking about that debate.

Definitely not.

We're talking about the crazy obesity that's going on.

Five foot two, you're weighing 14 stone.

It's a time to probably stop going to the all-you-can-eat buffet, which is not a competition, incidentally.

But, you know, it's because, like you said, though, you're not allowed to stick fatty anymore.

Like,

when I was at school, if he was a fat kid,

he did get, you know, sort of being picked on on that isn't good.

Isn't it fat tall?

But he'd sort of be chased to be beaten up, so at least he got to run.

Whereas now, kids aren't allowed to pick on little fat kids.

No, I know.

So he's not running anywhere, and it gets worse.

See, maybe that's it's is that a good thing?

If you pick on a fat kid and steal his lunch money, is that being is that cruel to be kind?

Do you know what I mean?

Survival of the fittest again, isn't it?

But I mean, you know, they go, uh, they go, they go, okay, Jobson, you picked on a little fatty again and nicked his lunch money.

You go, yeah, I thought he was eating too much and I'm worried about his heart.

They go, oh, well done, Jobson.

Yeah.

Go and pick on some more fat people, people.

Nick all their lunch.

I don't know what the rules are.

I mean

it's all gone crazy.

I mean I think I'm allowed to call people fat because I am a bit fat.

You're reclaiming the word.

It's like our black people can say the N-word.

I can say the F-word.

I can say I can say fatty because I am fat.

It is remarkable.

I mean you've seen pictures of Ricky Shawley Carl in his youth.

I mean you know a kind of David Bowie like face you know very

strong but anyone who's ever seen that to me has said I don't understand.

They've just genuinely baffled.

I mean it is weird.

It's really I don't understand Rick how you've gone from that.

People should look you up on the web, and it doesn't make any sense.

Doesn't Jane get annoyed?

Doesn't she feel like she's been ripped off?

No, no, well, I was 20.

I didn't notice.

I was 20, and then I stayed like that till I was about 29.

And then I thought, oh, well, then I started feeling out.

Then I was sort of like becoming a normal

when you were about 36 and you were.

Yeah, oh, I was already there.

No, I'd done the eating years then, boy.

No, I went from about, I mean, then those pictures, I was probably like eight and a half stone too thin yeah and then I was like nine and then 30 31 went to ten stone and then about a stone a year I think I was my fattest when

just after yeah

so uh yeah I'm uh I'm like 14 stone now but it's like it's like if you look at it on the web or something compare the two it's like one of those weight watchers before and after but the wrong way around yeah it's really strange yeah so so I feel that I can have a go at fat fat people.

I think I can claim the word I can call fatty.

Like, look, Steve can have a go at, like, you can have a go at bald people, Carl.

You can go, oh, look at that round-headed, bald, twat.

You would never see someone as round-headed and bald as you, but and Steve can go, oh, look, Rick, look at that fucking twattished, goggle-eyed freak over there.

No, no, no.

How often would that happen?

Hang on,

let's slag Ricky off a bit more, can we?

And fatos.

Also, I've got this is how much I've let myself go.

Steve, it's finally happened.

I want you to test my trousers there.

Feel them.

Oh, what is that?

That is some.

Some pajamas.

Are you actually wearing pajamas?

I'm actually wearing it.

It happened today.

That's the first time.

Was it because of speed you had to go to the house?

No, I'll tell you why, right?

Okay, the last couple of years.

I mean, for the last, I'd say, 10 years, I've been wearing comfortable clothes.

I never wear a pair of jeans that are too tight.

I don't wear shoes.

It's just comfort for me.

I mean, you see me fidget when I put a suit on for an award ceremony.

I don't like it.

I never look good in stuff.

You see it on the model in the shop window.

Puts it on you.

Oh, well, okay.

So that's great.

They look like David Beckham.

I put it on, I look like a wallet or something.

Do you know what I mean?

It doesn't look good.

I've been wearing, as you know, sweatpants,

a draw string.

I got a pair of sweatpants recently that are nearly pajamas.

They're so...

I mean, what is the distinction at this point?

I don't know.

It's quite a thin line.

So,

they're nearly pajamas.

Today, they're in the wash.

So, I thought, hold on, though, I might as well just wear my pajamas.

I should point out that it's not a 1950s pair of pajamas that looks a bit like a suit with a little breast pocket.

No, no, you wouldn't necessarily notice.

Until you touch them, you realize there's a kind of lycra.

Yeah, they're very sort of nice and thin.

They look like a tracksuit button, but here's the difference.

I've even done away with a drawstring.

Look, these are just

elasticity.

This is the day I really gave up.

I used to worry about what I looked like, obviously, when there was a, you know, when there was a nice sort of clothes horse to hang nice clothes on, i.e., my body, you know, I did squeeze into jeans.

I did, you know, wear.

I was.

I was, um, I was fashionable, but um.

Did you go?

I can't imagine you going in shops though and looking through racks of clothes.

And did you do all that stuff?

Steve, I look good in anything, mate.

That's the difference.

Now, doesn't matter.

Armani could dress me.

Doesn't matter.

He's not, not that he'd want to.

I can't believe I keep getting offered from people like him and designers

call my agent saying, does he want us to dress him for the

Emmys?

Do I go in clothes?

Well, exactly.

One, I think, why do they want to,

is that going to put sales up?

Is someone going to be watching that and go, hey, yeah, that bloat looks short and fat and sweaty?

Get me Armani on the phone.

Or maybe there's someone from the Emmy committee going, Can you phone up Ricky Gervais and just check that when they say, Can we dress him from the Emmys, we mean can we make sure he's dressed?

Yeah, yeah, can we tuck him in and leave his slippers at the hotel?

Exactly.

Um, but yeah, so I don't do it anyway because I'm mildly embarrassed.

We went around those sort of luxury lounges where they give you things, they give you these like suits, like you know, Armani, Hugo, boss, they're just giving you suits.

I heard about this.

Oh, yeah, when's this going on?

Yeah, when before, like, the Emmys, every

what the fuck I was out there, but no one notified me.

Maybe you didn't get an invite.

What do you mean I didn't get an invite?

Yeah, yeah.

The first one I went to, I was mildly embarrassed.

Then I saw like Helen Mirren, the soprano.

Look at Helen Mirren's going around there, and I'm not.

Yeah, yeah.

But

she's got more money than me, she doesn't need to go and get free stuff.

She's the queen, she's the richest woman in the world.

Fucking hell.

Yeah, you've missed out, Steve.

And they measure you and everything.

I've taken this off.

This is insane.

I've taken one suit.

I've taken one suit and I think a jacket.

But usually what I do is I say I have a pair of sunglasses.

I'm like out on John at home.

I've got a drawer full of the best sunglasses in the world.

One-off editions of these beautiful sunglasses where I'm embarrassed not to take something.

They're incredible.

They just give you all these things.

I feel like

the kid in

the Pied Piper.

Remember when the Pie Piper, as revenge, he takes all the kids to a sort of magical land inside a rock where there's just sweets and fun, but the little lady boy could.

He can't get in there.

He's left behind in the rat, formerly rat-infested town.

But yeah, the last laugh, didn't he?

Because he didn't go and get locked in the cave.

Yeah, but he didn't, they weren't locked in.

It was a magical land inside the cave.

He wanted to be in there.

Was it?

Yes, famously.

Or was he a paedophile?

That's got to be, it's got to be better than being stuck in a town with rats and nine people.

At least he gets sweets

and a puppy.

I worried then for a minute.

I thought, oh, that's Lobelus.

The Pied Piper was a paedophile.

Excuse me, it's the Pied Piper here.

We are.

We represent the Pied Piper.

We represent the Pied Fiddler.

The Pied Piper.

The Pied Piper, Pied Pied Piper.

Yeah, I mean,

I used to care about fashion.

But I also had little mistakes.

If you're being creative with clothing, not everything's a winner.

Do you know what I mean?

You can't always look good.

Even when I thought I looked good in everything.

So what was you, just be quickly, what we were talking?

Well,

obviously, student, that's when I sort of did the...

And what was your default look?

New romantic.

I mean, you know, first thing I did when I got to college, dyed my hair.

Blousy shirts.

Blousy shirts, but I dyed it black, sometimes military.

The military was very big then, so you'd have dyed black hair and a bit of eyeliner, but you know, maybe look a bit sort of, you know, gorilla.

Then I got signed when I was in a pop band, a failed pop band, very quickly.

But, you know, I bought designer clothes.

But then it all went, okay?

So the poor years

from when I was about I don't know, 22 to 29,

poor years, starting in 22, you had the high life, yeah,

yeah.

And uh, so uh, we lived in that awful little place where I talk about it live, where you know, there was no toilet, so often I'd wee in the sink.

Um, and so

I thought, well, I didn't have any money at all, and I used to wear a tracksuit all the time then because I used to run round London.

I was on the dole, um, we had 16 quid between us a week to spend, So there was a lot of chili concarni being eaten and rice, just filling up on rice.

And I'd run everywhere.

You'd run everywhere.

Yeah, I'd just run.

I'd get up and I'd run places.

I'd run around the park.

I'd run to visit friends who had jobs.

I'd run to art galleries and I'd run London.

That was like my job.

Why were you running it?

It sounds like it's the life of a smackhead.

I was running everywhere.

I was super fit.

In my 20s, not only sort of like thin, but fit as well.

I'd run at least five to ten miles a day and work out.

I did karate twice a week.

I'd so I'd just, I mean, honestly.

Anything but a job.

Anything but a job, yeah, because I was trying to be a pop star and I told myself, no, I'm an artist.

I can't possibly get a job.

It's bohemian.

I'd just eat rice.

And I was fine.

It was absolutely fine.

I never thought, oh, this is really annoying.

I've got to get a job.

I thought, you know, I haven't got a job.

I'm doing this.

I'm doing a banana.

You were signing on, were you?

Yeah, well, I couldn't.

I couldn't because I hadn't had a job before that.

So I think we got our rent paid, and then we'd split Jane's money that she only got our rent paid.

And we were left with, as I say, I remember it being, it was 16 quid a week, and it was the early 80s, mid-80s.

So

I didn't get new clothes.

So I had some, you know, old ones, and, you know, to go to jumble sales.

It's fine, okay.

But I remember once we were getting new curtains.

And the old ones that were in this flat were like sort of a chintzy,

sort of goldish, sort of larvae with a thread in them, with sort of a leafy pattern, very sort of thick.

What kind of late 70s style?

Yeah, exactly.

And Jane was going to take the old ones down.

I went, don't throw them away.

I'll make a suit out of those.

Yeah, of course.

So, sort of, Jane just sort of nodded and went, okay, and she went to work.

So, I thought, wow, okay, let's have a go off.

I've never made a suit before, but how hard can it be?

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

I used to.

That would be my first thought.

I used to make everything.

I used to make.

I remember I made shelves once.

I found three bits of wood in a skip, okay?

And I sort of put two

vertically and put one across the top, right?

So it was like, you know, a goal post, right?

I thought it was shelf.

I didn't put a nail in each side.

It sort of wobbled.

I put it against the wall and it wouldn't stand up.

It sort of like

leaned like I made a parallelogram.

So what I did...

I put another nail in it and I tied a bit of string to it and pulled the string tight.

I pulled it across the room and put another nail in the windowsill.

And so now there's this shelf that wants to fall over but can't because it's tied to another wall.

So that was.

So you spent most of this the 80s running around London and collecting debris and making your home out of it.

You sound like a womble.

Yeah, but I wasn't shaped like one until I was 32.

And you and this is kind of the you were making everything except a living.

Yeah, exactly right.

So I thought, right, how do I make a suit?

I thought, well, I used to go to the library and learn, I don't know, I can make a suit.

I don't want to do it like other people.

I'll do it differently.

So my method for making this made-to-measure suit

was I got one of the sets of curtains and laid them on the floor.

I laid down on the curtain and drew round my legs.

Okay.

Hang on, so you were making the trousers first?

Yeah.

So I thought, hold on, that's just one side of the trouser.

So I laid down another curtain and drew around my legs again.

And I thought, right, I cut those out.

So now I've cut out two leg-shaped curtain pieces, right?

I put them together, sewed them up.

Of course, it was nowhere big enough because I'd left no room, right?

So I tried to squeeze into them.

I mean, they look like jodpers.

They look like tights, okay?

So I thought, oh, this is really hard, right?

I pulled them off again, right?

I thought, how am I going to make the jacket?

I didn't.

I just used one of the curtains as a cape.

So I thought, I mean, I look like a gay Hamlet.

I mean, it's ridiculous, right?

So what I did was,

did you squeeze into the trousers?

You wore the trousers?

I sort of squeezed it.

I couldn't wear them, though.

I swear.

So what I did was,

I rolled it up and shoved it under the chair.

You rolled up what, sorry?

The suit I made.

Jane came in about a few days later, and what's that?

I said, that's where I had to go at the suit.

And she pulled it out and, you know, died laughing.

The idea that that this this man sat down and drew round his legs some eggs and trousers.

It's like well firstly why did you not just throw it away?

Why did you stash it under the I don't know because I thought you were watching TV on the sofa and she was a foot higher than you and I thought what's going on here and there is a suit stuffed I mean why not just throw it away I don't understand I don't know that's what you do isn't it you think oh Maybe

again we were talking before about the fact that you used to be very thin and now you're very fat and this seems like two different people now.

Very fat.

Well, most people would say you are.

But um we're in black.

It seems as though you were also an idiot when you were younger.

I mean like a pro'cause you're a smart man now.

I don't know.

Why did it not occur to you that you couldn't make your own soup?

Because I've always thought I can do anything.

I've always thought, well, I can make a suit.

Of course I can make a soup.

I'll be brilliant at that.

I'll make a soup.

And it it took me it took me getting fat to realize the world doesn't lay down to you.

Yeah.

I I thought, well I'll never be fat.

I will never be fat.

Look at me.

Look at me.

And even as you were getting fatter, that must be the mirror.

James, run with the mirror.

No, at least I can put eyes on myself.

As soon as I started getting fat, I started saying I was fat before I was fat.

Because when you've been really thin, you know,

I mean, I couldn't get anywhere near those curtains now.

No, I couldn't.

They wouldn't go past my ankle now.

You kept them.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

And you said, of course, if someone comes to the door and you can't be bothered to reach for your pajamas, maybe just wrap the curtain round you.

I'd just pop the curtain round me, yeah.

I could probably make a pair of pants out of them.

I mean, soon I will be in nappies, which would be easy to make.

But when I'm older and Joan goes, just off to work.

There's pillowcases.

Doesn't matter.

Doesn't matter.

I need changing.

God.

Food's too nice, though, isn't it?

That's where

the problem is.

Well, yeah, some food.

Well, no, a lot of food.

More food's nice now.

I find that I eat because I go, that's nice, rather than I'm hungry.

Oh, yeah.

I stopped eating when I was hungry when I was about 29.

Yeah.

I used to, oh, I've got to eat now.

I've got other stuff to do.

We've got to eat, yeah, shove it in, right?

And then that, I've never, I've never only ate because I was hungry for many, many years.

But it's not just that either, is it?

Like, we've got mates who've had a kid now.

And that's eating stuff.

That seriously, I'm not joking.

That is having stuff that I've never had.

And it hasn't even got teeth yet

i mean what sort of things are you talking about mango i only have that i had mango about a year and a half ago and it's all right i mean it's not one of my favorite is it fruit yeah but there's so much other fruit that's that's better go on i think what's better than the mango the banana springs to mind the strawberry just i i like i like the ones that you can just go i'm nipping out what can i take with me I'll have an apple.

Well, the banana's the best because it's got its own little carry case.

Yeah, that's all right.

But they're saying that.

You see, this is why we've got more fat people in supermarkets now you can buy cut up apple in a bag.

Really?

That's lazy innit?

That is lazy.

Again I've got to confess that I have my portions of fruit first thing in the morning liquidised.

Yeah.

I have a smoothie.

I put all the fruit in there.

I drink it.

I'm not chewing.

You want me to eat fruit.

I'm not chewing it.

At the end of the day food's nice.

Yeah.

There's loads of it.

Well.

No, there is.

In the Western world there is.

That's what I'm saying.

In the Western world there's not.

But this is the whole point, isn't it?

About the gluttonous West, is that we are indulging ourselves.

If we were scrabbling around starving like a third world country, we wouldn't be in that situation.

Well, there's only drinking the fizzy lemonade.

Exactly, there's loads of it.

And now, every time I buy something, it's a two-for-one.

So you end up buying more than you need, and then Suzanne's always saying, Eat this ham, will you?

It's going off.

I don't even know why.

Why is she buying so much ham?

Because it's a two-for-one offer.

We don't need two lots, but the person at the till goes, you know, this is two-for-one, you go on nit back and and get one.

I know what you mean, though.

I mean,

yeah, they never do half price, they do two for one.

Exactly.

They did that with a meal once.

We were in LA, and we had a meal, and they said, you know, it's happy out, it's two for one.

So I went, well, can we just have one each?

And we've got to give it to you.

And they brought two meals for everyone.

It was ridiculous.

That's mad.

I am.

Of course you.

I'll tell you another problem that I've worked out.

It might make a slight difference on fat people.

Don't put a light in a fridge.

Because that's just at night when they get peckish.

They can see everything that's in there.

Don't put the light there.

You don't need a light in a fridge.

There's no lights in other cupboards.

Yet, where there's food, it's like fat is getting up at four in the morning.

What can it have?

What's that at the back?

Get rid of the light, they'd eat less.

There might be some logic in there.

That's interesting.

Well, what's it there for?

Tell me what that light is there for.

They say turn off your standby light, yet you've got a light in your fridge.

No, no, it's turned showing you where tomatoes is.

The light's not on when the door's not open.

Yes, but a fat person who's always got the fridge door open.

So, what are you saying, in a way, is that the free market, capitalism being what it is, which has allowed companies, food manufacturers to make them full of more salt, more fat, in order to attract you, in order to make more profits, it's actually resulting in obesity.

I was in a cafe, right?

I normally like to go in there and I might have beans on toast,

cheese on toast.

I might have a bit of cheese.

Yeah, cheddar on top.

Only if the offer, I sometimes sort of think I shouldn't have it, so I'll only have it if they say you want cheese.

Oh, okay.

And then it's down to their problem.

Do you know what I mean?

It's kind of like they made me have that.

So, anyway, I'm sat in there.

Look how Ricky's glazed over just thinking about cheese on toast now.

I'm sat in there.

This little fella, I'd say he was from like Africa or something,

came in, had a little top hat on,

suitcase, and red jeans.

Dead happy, he was.

I think he'd just turned up to London.

It's his first day out, and he's probably thinking, I can't believe my law.

Look at the choice here.

Anyway,

the difference was.

Poor conjecture.

Yeah.

yes, it's the difference was he went in and he said, Have you got any porridge?

He asked for two bowls for the price of one.

It was a little bit of a

little bit because he couldn't understand why.

You've got loads of porridge, give me two portions.

But

what I found interesting is he didn't want to go for the doughnut or the pastry because in his country they don't have it.

So, food where he's from is for what food is for, innit?

Giving you energy.

Here, it's not about that, is it?

No.

You go, oh, I'd love a little muffin.

So

I just found it interesting.

That's all my point is that he could have anything.

He's come over here, he's in London.

He's got loads of stuff on offer.

He still wanted his porridge.

Do you think that well, firstly, do you think perhaps he had travelled from the past

in some kind of time machine?

But secondly, do you think that now that he'll

have his first taste of a donut

or a pana chocolate?

Do you think you'll get the taste of it next time you see him?

Well, maybe.

That's how you let it say.

I mean, why do I like it?

Next time, they go, hello, usual.

No, shove the porridge.

I want a donut.

That's what happens, isn't it?

You try one.

It's like the people I'm talking about who's had a kid and always giving it mango.

They haven't let it add a burger yet.

That's not any teeth.

Burgers aren't.

I don't mean like a proper beef one.

I mean like a takeaway one that's pretty soft.

It's all about a mixture.

You need a mixture in your body.

You need to have.

like I've said to you before, I get an urge for things that I don't even know about.

Do you know what I mean?

What's what?

Anything.

The one that always surprises me are plums.

Because I shouldn't get an urge for plums.

I don't like them enough, but if I pass them in a supermarket, I go, I want to have them for a bit.

Yeah, I think you need that.

And I'll go mad.

I'll eat a full packet in a day.

I'll eat like six and get bellyache and that.

And I know I shouldn't overdo it with them.

But it's just like your body.

He's like a creature, isn't he?

My body just calls out for stuff.

It doesn't, Carl.

No, he feels that way because I wouldn't normally buy him.

My favourite fruit, I like an apple, love a banana.

I've got into um blackberries, yeah, quite expensive, but a bit of a treat.

People paid money for this podcast.

A man just listing his favourite fruits, yeah.

Graham, not included.

But are you a fan of the gooseberry?

Don't know if I've had them.

You never had a gooseberry.

They're very, very tart.

They are very bizarre.

They're like

Like a green testicle.

They've even got a little hair on it.

A gooseberry is like a really crispy, plump little berry, but it's very, very freaking sour.

I mean, you've got to have it in pies with sugar and stuff.

I bet my godson's had one.

He's only one and a half.

I bet he's already had a gooseberry, and I've never had one in my life.

Right.

He'd never said it before, and he said gooseberry.

He decided that's the way to pronounce it.

Gooseberry.

What's that?

What's a gooseberry?

A gooseberry.

Well, okay.

I'd never heard it before, but I'm going to say it now, but I'm going to say it my way.

Gooseberry.

I've never had one.

You need one?

I don't feel like I need another fruit, that's the thing.

I think there's plenty of fruit out there.

Bananas, apples, oranges.

If you get a little bit sick of oranges.

I'm a big fan of the satsuma.

Easy to peel.

What I don't like is the big oranges.

You have to peel them.

You get it on your...

You know, the ones I eat when I'm in the bath.

So you just dunk under the water afterwards and you're cleaning it.

If I'm going to have a bath,

then that's what you do.

So it's two treats.

It's an orange and a bath.

I mean, that's amazing.

That's an amazing thing to look forward to.

Do you think you've blown that for when you're old, when you're 74?

And I go, I'll tell you what, Carl, lovely treats: a bath and an orange.

Done it!

I did it when I was 36.

We've got plenty of fruit.

They can't get rid of fruit quick enough.

There's loads of stuff we fruit in now.

Shower gel with kiwi in it.

Telling you, they can't get rid of it because it's too much.

So they're just going, what can we do with all this stuff?

We'll stick it in there.

Orange juice.

I had orange juice, sort of cordial.

Yeah.

Tastes a bit weird, isn't it?

Orange?

Sneaked a bit of pineapple in it.

Orange and pineapple.

You can't get rid of the stuff.

What's up with that?