Guardian S3E2 (August 29, 2006)

Well,

episode two of season three of the Ricky Gervais Show.

With me, Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant.

Hello there.

And Carl Pilkington.

Hi.

What's been going on?

What's been going on?

I've been to hospital.

I was rushed to hospital, right, emergency and that.

Had a uh tube put on my knob.

You had a tube put up your knob?

Yeah.

What's the story?

Kidney stones.

Oof.

So, shouldn't really be here, to be honest, doing this.

You said rest.

No.

Climbing them stairs on the way in.

To be quite honest, it doesn't look like you're expending a lot of energy at the moment.

It's like at Zookeeper going, oh, that's sloth move today.

Calm down.

Yeah, but I had to get here.

It's been raining.

Yeah.

I had to come up the stairs.

I had to carry the computer.

Yeah.

Well, that's not entirely true because your girlfriend was carrying it.

I saw her outside.

Yeah, but I'm just saying.

And then you handed it to me and said, Steve, carry this.

Christ Almighty.

Yeah, I know.

That's already a lie.

Christ Almighty.

Whinging.

Not whinging.

I'm in show business.

I know loads of people that wake up every day with a sore knob, feeling like they've had their kidneys probed, and

they will say they're unconscious.

So they don't whinge about it.

They get straight back onto it.

A lot of them are on TV now.

Yeah, straight back to hosting game shows.

So, you rest hospital.

So, Teller,

take us through the events, because it does sound quite dramatic.

You started feeling a bit of pain, did you initially?

I felt a bit of pain, and I thought, you know, maybe I've just pulled a muscle or something when I've been wrestling with Ricky and that, because you don't know what damage is being done.

So, I just think, oh, it'll go in a minute.

And then it didn't, it got a bit badder.

It got badder, did it?

So then I thought,

I was crippled.

I was lying on the floor in agony, looking on the internet, looking for sort of still looking up monkey news?

I was just I'd just put in like belly ache and stuff and they were saying it can be loads of different things.

And I what I used to do when I was a kid, I used to always just get a cold ashtray and put that on my belly.

And the coldness used to get rid of the badness.

Amazing.

The coldness got rid of it.

Like a witch doctor.

This is like...

A witch doctor happens to work in a pub.

it's like some sort of fifth-century remedy written in mud.

Coldness doth get away with the badness.

Why specifically an ashtray?

Just because they were they're sort of old cold.

They're old cold.

I don't know what this is.

I love this idea that he's he uh he's uh at the operation and he comes round and they're talking to him and uh his his girlfriend gets a phone call and go and and they say, Uh, Mr Pilkerden's got maybe complications, he's just talking rubbish

old good yeah he's back to his old self yeah

what what what as it why specifically an ashtray sorry because it's old cold I understand it's old cold yeah we understand we understand everyone who's done a medical degree understands old cold but but uh

old old cold belly madness if you want to buy that book old cold belly madness it's uh uh the history of abdominal surgery by carl pilkington no it just you know if so but can you put it in the freezer or something for You can do it if you want, but they're normally cold anyway.

Sort of thick glass, and that holds the cold.

But we're not smoking our house, so I had to use a plate.

Oh, well, that's madness.

A plate's not going to work.

Famously, a plate doesn't work.

God, no!

So

you put a plate on your belly, but that didn't do any work.

That didn't work.

So

I called Suzanne and said, Oh, I'm in agony here.

She said, Go to the doctor's then.

Good advice.

A lot of people have done that straight away as opposed to going through the plate.

So he went to hospital one day.

He went to the hospital and he said, have you got an ashtray?

They went to an ashtray.

This is no smoking.

So anyway, so then we get in a cab and whatever you go there.

I have an x-ray.

His voice is even more boring than usual.

Extraordinary, isn't it?

Fuck me.

And they put me on a drip and everything.

Give me some morphine stuff.

And found out that I had kidney stones.

So that's why I was in hospital.

And they get them out by.

I can't even.

I don't know what's going on, to be honest.

I've got some tube inside me from my kidney to my bladder.

That's helping me stuff get about.

And so there's a little tube up the end of your knob into your.

Yeah, it's not there now.

It's right, it's high up.

Right.

So it's high up between me kidney and my bladder.

But why don't you have the thing where they go inside?

You had the choice to.

Because I said to the doctor, I said, I'm not a doctor.

I said, what do you mean?

He went, stop putting yourself down, Carl.

We need you in the operating theatre now.

He just said, you know, I said to him, what should I have done?

Because he said, if you want, go home

and we'll get you in again or something.

Something like that.

And I said, no, I might as well have it done properly.

Have it done now whilst I'm here.

Sorry, the choice was have it done properly or go home?

It was something like that.

He said, there's something you can do.

And I said, oh.

Flash it out.

No, because it's too big.

It's something like seven millimetres.

And it was basically because you don't drink enough water.

Yeah.

So, uh, anyway, I said, what do you think I should have done?

And he said, tube up the knob.

And I said, hmm, not my favourite one of the choice.

But

if that's what you think.

So he said, yeah, have that.

He did me little diagrams, which didn't help.

He was like showing.

How big did he draw your knob?

Sort of normal size.

Yeah, was it?

It was all right.

You weren't offended by it.

Well, he wanted to detail, it's just, you know, more the tube and stuff in your water and your kids.

What was your ball bag like?

Did he draw that?

He didn't do that bit, he left that bit out.

Okay.

But um but he said I we'll just pop that up there

and uh

and then that's when Ricky turned up to visit.

He came in laughing at me'cause we sat there in like my underpants and stockings.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Why were we because he was there, not he wasn't in bed, he was sort of out of bed with his little drip right.

He had his little box of shorts on, just sat there, right?

In his pants, right?

And he had stockings on.

Yeah,'cause they stop clots or something.

They put them on your legs.

It's like, you know, when people have got big veins and they go on a plane.

Right.

You said you're not a doctor.

No, but I've I've seen it'cause Suzanne's man did it and it was she put them on ridiculously early, like three days before we were going away and

I'd never been away before and everything was like over the top.

Do you know what I mean?

She was like I best put them on.

And

so so I put them on and they like I don't know what it is, it's something when you're in when you're under, your blood doesn't move about the same, right?

And it can clot up in your leg.

So, you wear these tight tights.

And I came in to cheer him up, didn't I?

Yeah, and was that a nice, cheery experience, him coming in?

Uh, I had a headache at the time.

I think I was a bit stressed out.

And he's just the man you want at that at that point.

Yeah, uh, he reassured you, I imagine.

Well, it's weird how it suddenly all happened quick.

It was like as soon as he came in, it's like they got the finger out, and when I said that,

suddenly I was being rushed down to, you know, have me stuff done.

And I woke up, and it was an Irish woman over me going, Are you alright?

Are you alright?

And I said, Oh, it's stinging a bit.

She said, I'll give you some more morphine.

And I sort of put my head up to have a look at my tackle because I wanted to see

what was attached to it.

Do you know what I mean?

Because they said something about they might leave some string hanging out of it so they can pull the tube out.

It makes you talk.

So

I had a look for that, couldn't see any of that.

Yeah.

But as she put the the morphine in, all the muscles in your body go funny.

My head just collapsed.

Your head collapsed?

Yeah, I sort of looked up to look at my stuff, but then she said, Oh, you just need a little bit of morphine.

And she put that in, and I just sort of went.

And then they sent me home about two hours after.

But I'm in agony now.

And

are you in agony right now as we speak?

Yeah.

It's hurting.

Now, are you a man who's had this kind of hospital experience before?

Is this your whole first time?

I don't go do her to hospitals and stuff because I don't like'em messing about.

Uh but it does make you think now, do you know what I mean?

Like

life and everything.

From I mean, it's weird how it's all happened in the last month from seeing that bee sort of die.

No, no, not really.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

This is not a near-death experience.

You had a routine operation to remove kidney stones because you don't drink enough water.

No, I know, but this is not a shark attack.

Yeah, but it's all it's all life-threatening.

Otherwise, you won't have to fill out forms, would you?

Saying if everything goes wrong, Suzanne can have the house or whatever.

And then you find out more about the body as well, which has been sort of doomy-heading a bit.

You're more aware of stuff in your body, which I don't like knowing about.

They keep checking your heartbeats and stuff and your blood pressure.

I don't like knowing about that.

I just like, leave it.

It's happening.

Don't be messing with it.

Stop measuring it.

Stop measuring it.

No, do you know what I mean?

That's the same with the novel.

It's that thing of life.

That's what the eunuchist was doing when you were under, wasn't it?

He was comparing the diagram to the actual thing.

Oh, God.

The fella across the way from me had had the same thing as me, but he'd had it a couple of days ago when he was in agony.

So that doesn't help when he's saying, Oh, I've been to Ellen back.

Like, don't tell me that.

Sure.

I don't want to know.

Just say it was it was all right and stuff.

So, uh, it just that the whole thing of a hospital is stressful.

Do you know what I mean?

They wake you up like every half an hour in the night saying, How do you feel?

Like, what you know, it's half past three.

What are you doing?

I've got to have it done again in a couple of weeks.

Because

what they've done now, they've popped that straw up, but the stone's still in there because they didn't have the laser team in with them.

Blast the stone,

and then

that time they're probably going to leave a little bit of string out at the end.

Then they have to go about three days later and they pull it out.

Tell you what, though, when you are sort of because when you're in hospital, you've got a lot of time just to sit there and think about stuff.

And

what I was thinking about is:

what is the closest thing

to sort of living?

That's nothing.

I don't know what you mean.

What?

What's like the closest...

Like, do you know, at some point, something's gone from nothing to something?

No, I don't, no, I don't understand what you mean.

Something...

At some point, people were nothing.

And then something happened, and they were something.

Do you know what I mean?

But they were never nothing, were they?

Do you mean what is the first and lowest and most primitive and most simple form of life?

He's right here in this room, Rick.

Say, like, when you look at a stick insect, you go, right, there's a slight crossover there from a stick to a living thing.

No, it's not.

It didn't used to be a stick.

No, no, no, no, it's not.

There's no biological relationship between it and a stick.

But there isn't much difference between the two, is what I'm afraid of.

Of course, there is.

They just sit there looking like a stick.

That's their skill.

Yes, but there's nothing to do with being a stick.

It's like camouflage.

That's like saying when a soldier puts on combat gear,

you're saying he's a cross between a human and a shrub.

He's not a cross between a human and a shrub.

No, but that's.

But that's man.

From a distance, you can't see him.

That's the same as the stick in it.

But that that isn't what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is, have you seen them weird things that just look like

they sort of look like a leaf?

Yeah, they're insects

that have evolved to look like a leaf.

So a bird thinks, oh,

there's no tea there.

No, that's not a juicy insect.

It says leaf.

I don't eat leaves for it.

At no point, something has had it away with a leaf.

No!

At no point has something had it away with a leaf.

No, to make it look that much nice.

No!

At no point did a beetle shag a leaf.

There's nothing on a genetic level or a molecular level uh an i anything to do with it having anything to do with a stick or a leaf.

It's superficial.

It's the way it looks.

That's all it it that's like saying comedians must have mated with green once.

They are green.

No, but it looks like a leaf.

What I don't understand is it has evolved to blend in perfectly with its surroundings and fall predators.

But then how does it meet r how does it have relationships?

It will be going around sort of having it away with a leaf.

No, it won't, because it doesn't know what it looks like.

It doesn't matter.

They do it with pheromones and attraction.

And

it's not like they,

you know, a stick in tech going to be talking to a stick for ages and going, oh, I've wasted my time here.

This club's dead.

Rude.

I was chatting to her.

She was foxy, but she was giving me nothing.

But, Dave, that's not a stick in tech.

That's a stick.

What are you talking about?

That's a stick.

You've been talking to a stick all night.

I can't believe it.

I just thought she had a great slim figure.

No, no, it's that actually a real stick.

But I've been reading a lot about, you know, I like spiders and stuff, just reading about them.

And there's one, right?

It's got big legs.

Yeah.

Doesn't use them.

It goes around floating in the air on a bit of webbage.

Like a kid.

He just took a gamble then, didn't he?

He took a gamble.

He thought, do you know what?

I'm going to go with Webbage.

Don't know if it's a word, not sure, but I could just say Webb, and I'm going to go with Webbage.

I'm going to risk it.

And it didn't pay off, did it?

Webbage!

Webbage!

But that's how it gets about.

It's in the air like a kite, it's just floating about.

I've seen one, yeah.

So that's what I'm saying about weirdness,

the way all that goes on.

This is what I can't get my head round.

You have got your head round,

but do they get ill then?

For those listening at home, he has just bumped his head against the microphone.

Trying to mate with it because it's perfectly round, this microphone.

No, but when I was, like, this is what I'm saying, when I was in hospital and stuff, you do think about how others live, because insects don't have operations.

Are they built better than us?

to survive in this world.

The trap you seem to fall into again and again and again is you cannot conceive of the fact that insects and animals do not have consciousness and personality and communication.

They do not function in the way that humans do.

You've seen so many Disney cartoons, you believe them now to have a life and wear bowl of hats and go to work.

But just in the same way that the cavemen didn't have flintstone-type cars and have a little house,

you can't seem to understand that animals don't work in that way.

But what I mean is, you're saying that no animals or insects know anything.

Yet, when you see them things on nature nature programmes where a load of ants are having a walk, there's always one at the front who's leading it all.

So one of them is first,

or

there are leaders in

yeah, but the other ants are going to follow him.

No, they're not.

They're not.

They're not vocalising that in any sense that you understand.

They don't follow him, but they sort of look as if to sort of say, I'm going this way.

Without a way to go.

Without cognitive reasoning.

It's not made a conscious decision to act in that way.

Yeah, but this is when you're talking about.

If a bird,

if a raindrop falls on a bird's beak and it moves, it moves away because instinctively it's hardwired to be wary of things which drop on its beak in case it's dangerous.

It's not thinking, oh, crumbs, that's.

I better get out of the way.

It just does it because it's somehow hardwired into it to act that way.

But it doesn't stop for a moment and think.

Which we don't really, except we then are able to rationalise our fears and our actions.

Well, I've been watching birds more than insects recently

in the last week, just s because I've sort of looked at the ant and the bee and that.

And

what I've found with pigeons is they've got wings, yet they walk a lot.

That I'd love that to be a thesis, where he got like a a half a million pounds grant from a university.

And I said, well, Pilkington seems to he's done ants and he's done bees.

Um he's he's followed ants.

Apparently they're not doing anything.

Some of them are lazy.

Um he we are granting him another uh half a million pounds.

Um he's been working on it for a year.

Please welcome Carl Pilkington.

Carl, what have you found?

Well, even though pigeons have wings, they walk a lot.

No, but even in times of danger, one was crossing the road and a car was coming, and you think that his head would say, let's start flying.

Yeah, he just walked faster.

Well,

well, what's he doing?

It was doing stuff, wasn't it?

It saved a bit of energy.

Takes a lot to take off, doesn't it?

Yeah, but it's either that or you're going to to get crushed.

It wasn't going to get crushed, did it?

No, I don't think it did.

There you go, they knew what he was doing, didn't it?

Yeah, it just annoyed me.

That's all.

It's got a power, and it's not power.

They're all superpowers.

But that's why he thinks of the stick insect as like that.

You mentioned earlier, that's its power, that's its skill.

Like Spider-Man was bitten by a radioactive spider and now he can solve crimes and

swing with

webbage, using his webbage.

Whereas, yeah, sick insects is not

a superpower.

But say if

everything was at the same size as us, what would be the best thing to be?

Say, like a tarantula.

Yeah.

And a tiger.

What would happen there?

A 15-stone tiger versus a 15-stone tarantula.

Yeah.

Well, I'd imagine the 15-stone tarantula.

Right, so it's just weird that, innit?

It's a good job that they're small.

Yet things are getting bigger because we're messing with the world.

It's a ridiculous thing to say, isn't it?

Because what would it eat?

Fifteen stone.

Well, it wouldn't happen anyway, because insects have a insects and arachnids and just invertebrate arthropods in general, they have

a critical mass because they haven't got lungs, they breathe through things in their side called spiracles.

And if it gets too big, the surface to volume ratio isn't big enough to allow it enough oxygen.

So the biggest you'll find is like a foot-long beetle or somewhat weird like that.

It's big, though, isn't it?

Yeah, and that's about as big as they get.

He's got a lot of things.

I wouldn't worry about it.

Again, based on nothing, he queries you.

And also, it's not a case that one that will be born too big and can't breathe, it won't happen.

That's why they're only that big because

it's like fish, innit?

How they say about a goldfish.

Yeah.

That thing about a woman who went on holiday and stuck it in a bath.

She came back, it was seven foot.

Right, that didn't happen.

No, that's a well-known thing about that.

No, it's not a well-known thing.

I'll tell you why, because a fish will only grow to its surroundings anyway.

So, yeah, that's what I'm saying.

You have to put it in a bigger tank.

Yeah, in a bath.

No, a seven-foot fish in a bath.

It just fit the bath exactly, did it?

When she got back off holiday, don't talk shit.

What was it eating?

What was it eating?

How long was she gone for?

Two million years?

Yeah, yeah.

She went to Mars and that.

It's just that fish are weird, aren't they?

Well, though, there's a go.

That's a Bollock story, once again.

I don't know where you've heard it or read it.

It's a well-known story.

Of seven-foot goldfish in your bath.

But no, fish are weird.

Ted, you're not going to believe this.

Come up here.

How many fish do you see that have naturally died?

That's the weird thing.

What do you mean?

Just ping-ponging around these ideas in your mind.

You just never see fish sort of just floating about in the water and you go, oh, died of old age.

It's always been caught by a man, or a shark set it.

You don't just see dead fish washed up, do you?

When you think of the amount of fish, no, when you think of the amount of fish that are in the sea, there's loads of them, and yet you never

that's what I'm saying, though.

Are they eaten when they're dead, or are they just being eaten?

Well, most things don't die of old age.

Yeah, that's weird, though, isn't it?

Well, no, because it's a

you know, it's a jungle out there.

Yeah, no, that's why I said I wouldn't wouldn't want to live in the sea.

Are you sure you're not on morphine?

As we speak,

no, but you have

in the sea, you've got to be constantly sort of alert, haven't you?

Yeah, but

that's true of all animals.

No, worse than the sea.

The sea is like full of you've got an enemy around every rock.

I love it!

I love it.

I love it.

It's like a warning to crabs and young squid.

It's like the policeman that comes into your school.

What advice would you give?

Okay, then.

What advice would you give

some plankton?

Then, what advice would you give

a two-week-old octopus?

And what am I?

Am I an octopus?

No,

you're you.

We've set it up that it can understand you with some sort of one of your inventions to talk to the animals.

One of your brilliant inventions, it's just a watch you strap on its tentacle and it can understand human talk.

But you know, I'm sure you'll come up with that one day.

What do you say to it?

What would you say to an octopus, a young octopus, who wants to set out by himself in the sea?

Stay close to the rocks.

And just let it know about the thing about it.

It can get into a small space.

You know, if you look at an hole, don't go, oh, I can't get in there.

And sort of squash it and show itself.

Or I can roll it into a ball and sort of say, look at that.

Is that hurting?

I love the fact that the drugs make no difference.

If it's like, there's no difference.

Oh, God.

Because that's the only thing that that's got in it.

It's boneless.

That's its special power.

That's what it can do.

You can roll it up.

As long as it knows that.

But that's the problem with a lot of powers, isn't it?

That's the same thing about how people say say don't have a go at bees because they're not like wasps, they don't sting you.

Because once they sting you, they die.

That doesn't know that, does it?

It's also not true, but yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

It doesn't know.

So it's not like the bees going around going, I'm not going to sting you because I'll die if I do.

What's your point there?

I don't understand.

I'm just saying

we shouldn't

dislike bees.

Well, how do these creatures know what to do?

Instinct.

I suppose it's like that story you told me about the scorpion, isn't it?

It's that, innit?

What the scorpion and the frog?

Yeah.

What the fable?

Yeah.

What was it?

It was a frog.

It was a scorpion needed to get across a river, and it said to a frog, Can you give me a lift?

And the frog said, Well, no, of course not, because you'll sting me.

You're a scorpion.

And he goes, Well, no, why would I do that?

If I sting you and I'm in the water, and you drown, I drown.

And the frog went, Good point.

So the frog gives him a piggyback, going across the river, halfway across, the scorpion stings the frog, and the frog's dying.

And the frog's going, No, I'm going to die, and you're going to die.

So, why did you do that?

And the scorpion said, Because I'm a scorpion.

What do you think that was meant to point out?

Just sort of be careful who you help.

No, it's meant to point out that you are what you are,

you are your nature.

No, but it's also that thing of like

I'm telling you, it's nothing to do with.

If you're you're driving and someone's hitchhiking, don't pick them up.

No, no, it's nothing to do with the mentality or the reasoning or

anything to do with the frog at all.

Well, I don't know.

I think Aesop was thinking a lot about the hitchhiking problem.

It wouldn't happen.

That's the problem with a lot of them fables.

You're putting animals together that wouldn't meet.

Oh, whereas insects go around shagging leaves.

Well, insects are with the leaves.

Whereas I don't know where a scorpion is knocking around with a frog.

I mean, there's that weird one.

I remember

watching.

I remember hearing something about this lizard that sort of gets pally with the scorpions, even though they're not mates, they don't get on.

But they've kind of got this agreement that

the scorpion can live in their house

if they guard it.

And

the local people used to stick their hands down these holes and get the lizards to make slippers out of them.

And the lizards were getting sick of this.

And I think somehow something happened where the lizards thought, Look, enough's enough.

Uh we'll let you sleep in our den if you stand by the door.

So the scorpion used to like stand by the door and stay awake at night whilst the lizards having a kip.

Fella comes along wanting to make some new slippers, puts his hand down the hole, scorpion gets him.

Now that's that's what's weird with that, that two enemies have worked together.

It's called a symbiotic relationship, but at no point did they sit down and go, right, what are we going to do?

I'll tell you what, I'll give you shelter.

You give me that sting in case there's a fellow who wants to make slippers.

Because all this happened way before people were making slippers.

But in it weird, though, because people, there's nothing that happens like that in people, is there?

Of course there is.

What, like that, where you don't get on but you work with them?

Of course there is.

What?

Loads of business relationships.

What do you mean?

No, but normally

what I mean is you stay away.

If someone's being a bit weird.

Loads of examples where you might go, well, I hate to do it, but my only option is to go with X, Y, and Z.

But what I'm saying is, though, let me just finish.

Go on.

I live in an area where, you know, I sort of know a lot of the locals.

And there's a local woman who's a bit mad.

Now, I know her, but I choose to sort of stay away because

it scares you a bit, doesn't it, when something's like that and it's unpredictable.

So,

you know, when I was in the little corner shop,

she came in, right?

She screams a lot, just screams for the sake of it.

And you don't know if she's upset or if she's just doing it for attention, then the scream will go from screaming to laughing.

So you're like, oh, what's going on?

And it was like rush hour.

It was like rush hour time in this shop.

And she chose to go in then.

And she doesn't work.

So it was like, why is she coming in now?

She's had all day to go in, just pick the busy time.

And she was like about three places in front of me, and she was only buying a Yorkie and some earbuds.

A Yorkie and some earbuds.

Yeah, and I thought, what's the rush?

You've come at the wrong time and you bought stuff that could have waited.

You should never have to rush out for a Yorkie or an earbud, is what I'm saying.

And I ended up sort of going, I can't stand this.

And I left.

Now, that was me being like I would expect the scorpion scorpion to be, or the lizard.

I don't know what you're talking about now.

Okay, no, what do you mean?

No, I'm just saying now, like, I chose that that woman could be dangerous, so I'll leave, I'll leave her to it.

And that's that's where nature kicks in.

And you go, I don't want to be here.

I don't know what she's going to do, she's unpredictable.

I'll pop back later.

And then

I'll look out, I can see the shop, I saw her go, and she was like laughing to herself again and trying to climb up some ladders.

And I thought, once she's gone, I'll knit back.

I don't know what my point was.

I don't know.

Oh, he's only gotten rid of it down a little round.

That's the jingle for Carl's diary.

We have bacon and egg on toast.

I'm eager to get through the brown sauce, as the bottle is too big to go in any cupboard, so it has to be left on the sideboard.

So I had about four dollars of the stuff.

I love that because you know, that made it into the diary.

He's concerned about the fact that brown sauce is too big, so he's rushing through it.

I know, but I'm just saying the kitchen isn't that big, and it looks messy when you leave stuff out, doesn't it?

And we've got this giant brown sauce bottle, and I don't want to chuck it away because that'd be a waste.

So you're having brown sauce and everything, your corn flakes in your tea.

A wasp got in the flat.

You know, trouble's brewing.

It was massive.

The biggest wasp ever.

Suzanne asked me to get it out, but I wanted to take a picture of it first.

I was getting my phone ready when it flew at me.

I reckon the sting on it could have killed a kitten.

So specific.

It ended up flying out the window on its own.

Drama averted.

Oh god.

We went out for tea.

You're always in a calf.

That's all you this diary, you spend so much time in a cafe.

There were loads of flying ants.

I kept kicking the table because I could feel them on my legs.

I wouldn't be that jumpy normally, but I still had flashbacks of the giant wasp from the morning.

Suzanne told me to stop being stupid'cause I was ruining her night out.

A night out in a cab?

What was it, her birthday?

And flashbacks from an incident.

Yeah.

Like some sort of like war veteran.

What is it?

Who's the wasp?

It could have killed a kitten.

Bought some wallpaper.

We got back and got on with it.

The wall that we've papered before has got a big mirror under it.

We papered on top of it again.

I ended up reading my phrase book while Suzanne did the rest of the tidying up.

Now, what's your phrase book?

This is just you trying to master English, is it?

It's just a book that tells you little sayings and how they came about.

An interesting phrase is pot luck.

It came about when all people ate is stews.

They used to chuck all sorts of stuff into the stew.

You stuck your spoon in, and sometimes you got something nice like beef, or you could end up with a bit of frog.

It's pot luck.

Good point.

That's what it said in the book, didn't it?

A bit of frog.

Got up and checked the wallpaper out.

There are loads of air bumps and it's buffled on the joints.

I wish we'd never done it.

Suzanne said the washer was broke and it's out of its warranty.

She called up the people who made it and they said it will cost £150 to fix.

I don't know how they know that when they haven't even seen it.

I want to smash it to bits and see what they can do for our special secrets.

So much anger.

I want to smash it to bits.

That'd be great, wouldn't it?

150, you sure?

Come out.

And

it's just like a cube that's been through one of those car crushes.

Well, 150 quid, that's 150 quid, fix it.

I watched the news and calmed down a bit, because there was a story about some Siamese twins who are having an operation.

They've got two heads, four arms, two legs, one liver.

The doctor said they would have one leg each.

I felt bad worrying about the washer when people have bigger problems like the Siamese twins.

Ricky and Steve asked me to do a poem about one day a week, so I thought I'd do one today.

I can't obviously do it justice, so I should let the master read it.

You've done another poem?

Yeah, you said, you know, just do one.

If you have a day where you've had a lot of emotions.

Well, I loved the poem, and so did the listeners, and I knew they would.

So if you can do that every week, that would be a joy.

You can't force a poem, though.

No, I know.

Diary is easy to do because you're just writing down Yeah.

What you're doing.

But you've got to have some really meaty subject matter to be able to write a poem, Rick, as you'll discover.

I know.

Right, so you know, you've heard what problems I had that day.

Go on.

Bubbled wallpaper.

What a mess.

Washer dry and knackered.

What a mess.

Siamese twins separated.

One leg less.

I don't know what rhyming scheme that is again.

Oh God.

Fuck me.

Well there you go.

That's the end of episode two of series three of the Ricky Gervais show.

Um more next week.

More drivel, more diary, another poem, I hope.

Maybe.

Just more news and stuff from me, Vicky DeVase,

Stephen Merchant.

Goodbye.

And Carl Pilkerton.