The Ricky Gervais Show

For the past few years Ricky Gervais,

Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington

have been meeting regularly

for a series of pointless conversations.

This is one of them.

- Testing. - Is that all right?

Hello and welcome to "The Ricky Gervais Show"

with me, Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant...

- Hello. - ...And the little round-headed buffoon

that is Karl Pilkington.

Hi.

Karl, I've got a couple of little facts for ya,

just to try and inflame your imagination.

Go on.

Sharks are immune to cancer.

- Are they? - Yep.

So what...

How have they found that out?

Well, I don't know but...

But I've never heard of any fish having cancer though.

I haven't heard of a cod being ill.

So why are we focusing on that one?

Good point. Okay.

Stroking a spider can cause its hair to fall out.

What, because... It doesn't like it and it gets stressed out

or is it just that some people are rubbing too hard?

No, I don't think it's they're rubbing too hard.

I think it's somewhat to do with...

I mean, what sort of maniac is stroking a spider anyway?

- Me mom did it once. - Really?

- Yeah, not to a spider. - Right.

It was a... Just a little bee.

She'd been out... um, sunny day and that.

Uh, got the washing off the washing line.

She was bringing it in. A little bee sat on the top

of, like, the bed sheet or whatever it was.

And, uh, she's in the kitchen with it and she goes "look at that."

Little bee there, she's like sort of stroking its head.

It loved it.

How did it make it clear that it loved it?

Well, it wasn't struggling. It was just sat there like...

'Cause it must have been a bit dozy. They get a bit dozy,

don't they, uh, in the heat and that?

And it just stayed there on the sheet and she'd sort of stroked his head for a bit.

And she had to put it out. It didn't go out. It didn't try and escape.

It's like "you had enough now."

That was that. She sent it out.

She loved all that.

She loved little flies and stuff. We had Harry the housefly.

- What? - Harry the housefly.

- What do you mean? - It's just a fly

that always seemed to knock about in one corner of the room.

Right, it's the same fly, was it?

- It was the same fly. - How do you know it was the same fly?

So whenever she saw a fly, she went, "oh look, it's back."

We weren't letting -em in. It's just that it stayed in.

Karl, what makes you think

it was a pet housefly as opposed to a different fly every day?

'Cause it was always in the same place in the corner.

But it could have been that something about that particular place

that attracted flies, rather than it was the same fly.

I never worried about it. It's not... it wasn't harming us.

It was just... it just always hung about.

But how do you know it was the same fly? How do you recognize it?

We weren't worried about it. It doesn't matter, does it,

if like we're thinking another fly's getting a bit of free rent or something?

We just let it stay. I don't understand why...

but why now... No, I... Right, okay.

You're in a house, right? There's flies, okay?

- Not flies... fly. - But why do you think it was the same fly

for all those years?

Just because we haven't got loads of other flies.

At no point was there a crossover period where there's two

and it's like, hang on a minute, he's trying it on here.

That's what I mean. It was always just one on its own.

We just thought, "leave it. It's all right."

I don't know why... Why are you suspicious?

Why you always think someone's out to do you?

It's one fly.

I don't know why you assumed when you see a fly

every now and again, that it's exactly the same fly.

- It just was. - In fact, it's Harry.

- The one in our house was the same one. - How do you know?

Well, all right, I don't, but at no point did I feel suspicious.

Speaking of flies though and whatnot, um...

They've... they've got one, right?

I was out with Rick, right, and he was reading the paper.

There was a story there about a fly

that its eyesight was bad or something.

And they've made it a pair of glasses and it had a picture

- of a housefly wearing... - Okay, this is incredible, Steve.

- Can I take over? - Hang on, let me just... just need to finish

a couple of questions from that. So he's got...

There's a small fly and they've made it a pair of glasses?

- Yeah. - So it can see better?

- Yeah. - And your concern is what?

Well again, it's just that thing of

we're looking after everything now, aren't we?

- Sorry, I've gotta come in here, Steve. - All right.

- I showed you the story... - You saw it, you saw it.

It was a picture of a housefly with a pair of glasses on.

It was about a one-sentence thing.

- It was about how far technology's come. - Yeah.

And a group of scientists using microscopy, right,

and, uh, um, uh, laser tools had, as an exhibition,

shown that they could make a pair of glasses small enough to fit on...

They put it on there and they've taken a picture of it and it's on... that's right... display.

At no point was it actually 'cause the fly had bad eyesight.

The fly was presumably dead. It was purely

an art installation or a show of technology.

I thought you were gonna say, Rick, that you'd drawn the glasses on there.

And he'd believed it like, "there's a bearded lady in this paper!"

No. "My God, Tony Blair looks like Adolf Hitler."

- No. - What do you think of that then?

But they did it as an experiment.

Yeah, but all things start as an experiment.

But why would they make a pair of glasses for a fly?

How would they know he had short... bad eyesight?

- How would they know it was the same... - Bumping into stuff.

- I don't know. - Bumping into stuff?

It's just that thing, isn't it, of human nature is...

Something's wrong with something, let's fix it.

And they try and help people out all the time, don't they?

- No. - When you... we are.

We're always doing it. We're always trying to help people out,

instead of just going, "you've been dealt

a duff card. Cope with it."

I came up with a good idea.

We'll be the judge of that.

I'll do it now. It's not a good idea.

- Okay. - Okay.

I'm sticking my neck out here,

but, uh, I think this isn't gonna be a good idea.

- Okay. - Thoughts?

I'm gonna agree with you. I'm gonna second that motion.

Okay, let's see. Let's see if we're both right.

See-through skin.

High-five, Rick.

We've had a few emails about the old shows.

People came into them late in the season.

Did I not tell you this? We've had an email from an Inuit.

- Really? - Yeah yeah, I thought I'd mentioned this.

- Have we not mentioned this before? - No.

It was an email from a guy who said... Well, I don't think he lives...

He lives in Canada, I think, or somewhere else.

Apologies for... if I'm getting that wrong.

But I think he said he was a half Inuit and he listens to the show.

- Half Inuit? - Mmm.

See, that's interesting because I think of them as so remote.

I know I'm probably wrong now, but I think of them as just so remote

that I can't think where they're meeting

- people who aren't Inuit. - That aren't also Inuit.

And who's going... Other societies are going are you saying,

"I'm fed up. There's no action here. I'm going to the frozen tundra.

I'm bound to meet someone there."

- Do they do online dating? - Probably a lot of online stuff.

What do you put as hobbies? Fishing?

- Yeah. - Skinning stuff.

- Skinning stuff, yeah. - "What all stuff do you skin?"

"Oh, you know, seals. " "Seals? Yeah sure."

- That's about it, isn't it? - Why are they hanging about?

Why aren't seals going, "do you know what? It's cold.

I'm sick of it here. It's windy all the time, what have you,

and I'm getting a club on the head."

Do you know what I mean?

Because they're meant to be quite bright in terms of

- animals and that, aren't they? - Yeah.

So why are they knocking about them parts?

- I don't know. - Say like if seals

died out, all right?

- Would... would that be a problem? - We've done this.

We've been through this before, Karl.

Everything has a knock-on effect.

Even a seal? They're sort of in-between something already.

It's between a fish and a dog, isn't it?

I knew you were gonna say dog.

It's not between a fish and a dog.

What do you think evolution does?

- Do you... a fish to dog. - I'll never understand it.

What do you mean it's between a fish and a dog?

- I'm just saying it's so... - It was a perfectly evolved mammal

that re-entered the water, I imagine,

and then got streamlined and it...

I mean, it's between a fish and a dog.

But why not have one and the other...

Why not have, like, you know, you've got a dog, you got a fish,

- and it's in the middle. - No, it's not between a fish and a dog.

It's not between a fish and a dog.

I don't know what "between" means.

- I don't know what... - This is again about saving everything all the time.

What is it doing? What's it doing?

Everyone's feeling sorry for them all the time.

"Save the seal" and all that, what's it doing?

Why are we saving it? Let's just ask that question, "what's it doing?"

I don't know what to say.

It's between a fish and a dog.

Out of all the people in the world

to have a chat with, do you know...

What was his face? That German doctor?

Which one? The guy that displays the human body?