Ricky Gervais... Obviously.

RICKY'S BLOG - Read Ricky's thoughts on his upcoming projects, visits to restaurants and round-headed friends.

Week two hundred and four - February 2012

RIP Stan

The beautiful bear rescued from a "bile farm" has died at his sanctuary.

At least he had two lovely years of comfort and freedom after a life of hell. It sickens me that this sort of thing still goes on. I want to take a fucking flame thrower to these places.

As many as 10,000 Asiatic black bears in China are locked in cages the size of their own bodies, and their bile is drained through an excruciatingly painful procedure and sold for use in traditional medicine.

So they can approach the bears without fear of injury, the farmers often mutilate the bears by breaking their teeth and pulling out their claws, sometimes brutally removing whole digits.

This ordeal can last 25 years. CUNTS.

Did a couple of interviews with Karl to promote An Idiot Abroad 2 starting in Australia. This is one of them.

The third episode airs in the US this week and Karl's status as global shaven chimp continues to rise.

He's worried about going round the world with Warwick in the basket of a bike, by the way. (It's strange that I would think that last sentence needed "by the way" at the end of it.)

He said, "what if he goes down and I've got to carry him?"

'Goes down?' Like they're in Nam. I'm looking into having the bike built. Needs to be reinforced and safe obviously.

Oh, another interesting theory of Karl's is that Warwick, even though he is 3ft 6, is actually still the same weight as an average sized person. "He's just been squashed." Yes Karl. Of course he has.

Anyway, we have to have finish the show by the summer as I need Karl for Derek and promo for The Ricky Gervais Show season 3.

That's my year planned.

I should know "you never get anything done by plannin'." But he plans things. Things that other people would never plan.

Jane and I had dinner with Karl and Suzanne last night. He knew what he was going to order two days before. The plan came together for him.

Week two hundred and three - January 2012

Had a very productive weekend I must say. Started planning a European tour, put the final touches to the 3rd season of The Ricky Gervais Show (should have a confirmed TX date next week for you), had a production meeting about AIA3 The Short Way Round (Karl is already trying to get out of it), and went to the Old Vic to see Noises Off. I was blown away. I think it's the best comedy theatre production I've ever seen.

The density and perfection of the writing and choreography is mind boggling. It's the quantum physics of farce.

As you may know my Twitter account is basically made up of Karl quotes, self promotion, animal welfare, stupid pictures, and answering random questions about religion, evolution, and other subjects that comedians are highly qualified in.

The problem is, for every person interested in such pursuits, there's someone who is uncomfortable/angry/threatened/bored/left out. So, what I thought I could do is answer some of the greatest hits on this blog now and then. OK? Good

Dear Ricky...

Is Karl on Twitter?
No Karl is not on Twitter and I don't think he ever will be. He hates it. He hates it nearly as much as fan sites, critics, and public speaking. He hates it more than my cat and Christmas shopping with me. No. Karl is not on Twitter.

Am I a hypocrite if I'm against fur but eat meat?
Well, the main objection to fur isn't simply that it is the skin of a dead animal, but rather what that animal went through for you to wear it. It's one thing a meat eater quickly and painlessly killing an animal that has had a good natural life, and another thing to breed a creature that then spends its whole miserable existence in a tiny prison only to be skinned alive. Basically it's a matter of degrees. In my opinion obviously.

It's my birthday/I bought your DVD/I'm dying, Can I get a re-tweet?
Nooooo.

If we evolved from apes, how come there are still apes around?
Sigh. As unbelievable and depressing as it may be, I really do get asked this question a lot. It's like they think this disproves evolution and therefore proves creationism.
OK. We didn't evolve FROM apes but rather WITH them. We share a common ancestry. Rather like cousins share grandparents. (Also, technically we are apes but most people have chimps in mind when they ask this question.)

The next question is usually...

Why have they stopped evolving?
It's so hard not to be sarcastic and say something like "they got lazy once they secured the PG tips adverts." (Irony doesn't really work on Twitter though)
Nothing has stopped evolving. I'm afraid it's a very gradual process. I guess if you believe that making the earth and all the animals in six days is possible, then evolution is a bit slow for you. "I've been watching these chimps for ages and not one of them has had a shave and started talking yet." I know what you're thinking... Why the hell am I even trying to answer such questions on fucking Twitter? It's a good point. I don't know. I should just say... "Oh read a fucking book for fuck's sake." Maybe I will next time.

Why do you delete tweets?
I delete tweets that are part of a thread that don't make sense unless you've been part of the entire conversation. I leave the ones that are self contained as they make sense even if you read them a day late. This is because I was reading comments that related to part of a conversation I'd had ages ago and I didn't know what the fuck was going on. Also as I tweet a lot, a spring clean on the timeline makes the more timeless tweets more impactful.

Thanks for following.

Spent the day filming with Karl.

It was meant to be for a little online feature for AOL but we ended up talking for about 2 hours. One of the funniest things we've done. Even Karl was laughing all the time which is fucking rare. Science Channel might use some of the stuff on air.

He came up with some proper news classics. A lovely new word, an anecdote about a bloke who looked into his family tree and found out he was related to God, and a piece of role playing where I literally couldn't breathe. We then did a photo shoot in a medical warehouse. Amazing. Karl was in such a great mood and up for everything. I couldn't annoy him. I tried but he enjoyed it. Either he's happier or I'm less annoying. Either way it could mean the end of both our careers.

If you're in the US this Saturday, the second episode of An Idiot Abroad 2 sees Karl in Russia and China. Science Channel, 10pm.

Oh and not long to wait for my other little friend...
EXCLUSIVE...

Someone tweeted me this from The Sun...

I love the fact that the photo of me is one they printed last week and thought it was hilarious.

Bit of careful cropping and hey presto suddenly those faces denote disability.

Also, it's amazing that even though Ofcom cleared it because within the routine I actually explain that I wasn't using the word mong to mean Down's Syndrome, most reports fail to mention that. They usually say something like "Gervais said SuBo looked like a mong, a term sometimes used to describe people with Down's Syndrome." It's also funny how all the people that jumped on the bandwagon, and were so vocal at the time, haven't been so noisy about the verdict. Still, mustn't grumble.

Thanks for making An Idiot Abroad 2 such a hit in the US.

Karl was over the moon. He said "Good that". Yeh... quite a reaction.

In other Monkey News, Karl and I are recording an exclusive video chat for AOL tomorrow. I'll let you know when it's available.

We also had a little meeting about The Short Way Round today. He's annoyed that Warwick's getting the easy end of the deal. Ha ha.
He also actually believes that Warwick is the same weight as an average sized person but denser. Yes. He actually said that. Amazing.

HBO have finished the key artwork for the Life's Too Short posters by the way. They look great and they've secured some of the biggest fucking billboards I've ever seen.

Sorry America... You may have to drive past this face on your way to work in a couple of weeks.

Week two hundred and two - January 2012

The flight from New York to London was delightful. Apart from the last hour when I went to the toilet to violently throw up, but quickly realised I was concentrating on the wrong end.

Food poisoning. I felt rough for the rest of the day but am completely fine now, thanks for asking. To be honest, if I had to make the choice, the arse-pissing, was preferable to the nose-vomiting any day. In case you were wondering.

At least I've got a day or two off now. Although sitting around trying not to work is hard for me. I get bored very easily.

I did this for a laugh. It's the evolution of a fan site condensed. It works for TV, Film, Music, Comedy, whatever. Enjoy. Or get angry if you recognise yourself. Ha ha.

A cunning plan...

I had a dream about the movie The Man Who Fell To Earth last night. I haven't seen it for years but it's basically about an alien who comes to this planet to save his own.

His planet has run out of water and so he has to make a shit-load of money as fast as possible to transport fresh supplies from Earth.

It gave me an idea.

Maybe I should start doing all those things I've turned down for years; commercials, corporates, merchandising, etc., and use the money to build an animal sanctuary.

I can still do all the things I love with integrity, but also amass a secondary fortune from things I couldn't give a fuck about and then live in my own forest with wolves and bears. Even if me doing loads of adverts and flooding the market with tat ruins my career it wont matter. I'll be in the forest with wolves and bears. Wolves and bears! It might be genius. £50 million should be enough.

This time next year i'll be in a forest. With wolves and bears.

I've been so busy lately, making programs and promoting them around the world, that I've hardly had time to do what I enjoy doing most of all...

I also enjoy classical music.

My 21st appearance on David Letterman was possibly my favourite one.
So free and easy, like two grumpy old mates down the pub. I had to keep reminding him we were on the telly.

I'll be back on in April promoting season 3 of The Ricky Gervais Show. But before that I'll be doing a few chat shows in February to plug Life's Too Short. Any excuse to spend time in New York.

And before that of course, An Idiot Abroad 2 starts on Science this Saturday.

I just spoke to Karl actually. He was moaning. No, honestly, he was.
He had read some article that mentioned a fan site. "It's not a fan site," he said. "All they do is slag us off. They don't like anything except the Xfm shows. Nob 'eds."

I said, "Why are you reading forums?"
He said, "Cos it gets me heart going."
I said, "It's probably visited by about 20 teenagers with nothing better to do. Why do you care?"
He said, "It is now, because, when someone new joins and says something nice about us, they get battered and don't visit it again. I want to turn off the internet."

Ha ha. He's got a point.

Phew! Thank fuck that's over. I had a blast actually. It was by far my favourite of the three hosting stints. I've told my agent to never let me be persuaded to do it again though. It's like a parachute jump. You can only really enjoy it in retrospect when you realise you didn't die and it was quite an amazing thing to do.

The crowd were great this year too. I think they finally worked out that my gags only seemed rude and nasty but were actually not too scary at all. Or they were just drunker. Either way, it was fun but I'm glad to say I'm off to New York to chill out a bit. Ahhhhhh. And relax.

Week two hundred and one - January 2012

Popped in on my old pals Conan and Ellen to do what everyone does with friends; plug new TV shows coming up, right?

But then other things happened...

[Conan clip] | [Ellen clip]

Made a very useful new friend too...

So along with this guy, I'm not scared of bumping into annoyed celebs after the Globes.

The DVD of An Idiot Abroad was released on DVD today in the US and Canada. Thank you to everyone who rushed out and bought it.

Or If you can't be bothered leaving your house, just order it online.

HBO set the premiere for Life's Too Short...

If you can't be bothered to open that link... it's 10.30pm on Sunday 19th Feb. Watch it then. You don't need to leave the house for that either.

And in case you are sitting too far away from the TV, or the remote control is slightly out of reach, here's a couple of adverts that NBC are running for my little gig this Sunday.

Ricky Gervais... making life easy for fat, lazy people...

Week two hundred - January 2012

Happy Birthday David Bowie.

The Thin White Duke with the Short Fat Duck.

I sent him that photo today with the message: "Happy Birthday. You may look better than me, but at least I've still got my own teeth."

He wrote back: "And me mine. Bottom drawer." Ha ha.

Here he is performing his greatest work. He wrote the music but another British iconic genius wrote the lyrics...

In fact, here's another masterpiece by that unnamed lyricist.

In my opinion he could've been bigger than Mr Jones but I heard he went into comedy. Some would disagree.

Did some filming with Matt Lauer for NBC today. They flew to all the way to London and flew back the same day!

The least I could do was go out of my way a bit too. So I agreed to get dressed, come downstairs and do the interview in my lounge. Only fair.

I really enjoyed it. I think the first piece goes out Friday on the Today Show then there's a piece on Nightline next week.

It was meant to be about the Golden Globes but we went off road a bit. Not literally, obviously. We sat on comfy chairs by the fire.

Here's one of the print ads by the way.

Do you think it's a bit "me" heavy? No of course not. Impossible right?

Let the madness begin.

With all my arguing with fundamentalists and fantasising about battering animal abusers, I've neglected my third favourite hobby - of shameless self promotion.
Here are some dates for your diary.

I'm appearing on Ellen

and Conan on Jan 12th.

The Globes are Jan 15th.

I'm doing my 21st Letterman on Jan 17th.

An Idiot Abroad 2 premieres Jan 21st.

And Life's Too Short starts on Feb 19th.

So there you go. OK, plugging over...

This is funny. I actually had to do something for all my other awards. It seems strange to be nominated for not believing in something so obviously ludicrous.
But thank you anyway. I'd love to win. An award is an award! Ha ha.

Week one hundred and ninety-nine- December /January 2011

So 2012 is happening. Things don't seem much different yet. It would've been a different story if that Rapture would've happened. I'm beginning to think this whole religion thing is made up.

On a serious note, why do these fanatics keep making predictions with provable results? They are always going to come unstuck. Just keep to "God does everything and when we die we go to heaven". They can't be "proved" wrong then. It's a meaningless statement of course, because it's equally unprovable that when we die we come back as Gremlins, but still.

There seems to be this weird misconception that it is wrong to disrespect anyone's religious and spiritual beliefs. Some take this so far that they suddenly start seeing it as an infringement of their rights. This is ludicrous.

It is anyone's right to believe in anything, however ridiculous, and anyone else's right to believe they are deluded and laughable. I don't see the problem here.

My belief that you are mental for believing in Thor doesn't affect the truth of Thor's existence. Thor either exists or he doesn't. My belief that he is a concept made up by ancient civilizations to explain things that science hadn't explained yet, doesn't effect that.

Just like telling a child for the first time that the earth goes round the sun doesn't actually affect the earth's orbit. Everyone has the right to believe that the earth doesn't move at all. I think they would be wrong; ridiculous in fact. If this made them cry I would feel bad. If they said that now they had no purpose to live I would want them to feel better.

I could tell them that they were right all along and that the earth is indeed just hovering in space. I would be lying but it wouldn't affect me. I could tell them to seek medical help. Or I could tell them that it doesn't matter what is happening with the earth's orbit because even though we have opposing beliefs we are experiencing exactly the same effects.

Here's the thing though. Even though I can respect someone's right to believe in something I believe is wrong, I cannot respect that belief. It doesn't make sense. I can't respect the belief that 2+2=5. But I can and do respect someone's right to believe that 2+2=5. They can be as bad as they like at maths as far as I'm concerned. As long as their bad maths doesn't affect me obviously.

And so with God. I cannot respect the belief in God. It opposes everything I believe to be true. However, I respect anyone's right to believe in God. And if a regime I was living under outlawed the right to believe in the impossible, the improvable, the illogical or the unprovable, I would speak out and fight for anyone's right to believe in such things, without ever believing in those things myself. Freedom of speech trumps all. As long as those beliefs didn't affect my or anyone else's rights.

Basically it's everyone's right to be wrong.

Back home after a couple of nights with the folks.
Walking in the door was like an Ocado delivery - booze, chocolates, toiletries and pyjamas.

All the kids enjoyed their scratch cards. I'm joking. I didn't get them anything really.

I'm joking again. I got them lots but all they really wanted was a visit from their favourite uncle. That's me. I'm their favourite. (I know that's not for me to say, but none of them said It, so I feel I have to.)

Even the alien dog loves me.

There's no better way to end a year than with a weird camel/lizard-type thing that smells like a pond, showing you affection. Gorgeous little mutt.

And so that was Xmas...

Off to Berkshire to spend a couple of days with my entire family. Contracting the norovirus again seems pretty imminent with about 15 little brats crawling all over me. Ha ha.

This will surely be reported as my "new celebrity weight loss program for the Golden Globes." It will certainly counter the effects of constant grazing through all the major food groups - cheese, bread, meat, pastry, fags, beer and chocolate. Fruit is illegal.

I will try to get some pictures of my brother putting me to shame with some of the spudded-up faces he can pull. Quite amazing.

Hope you all had a lovely peaceful break.
OK, now back on your heads.

Ricky's Blog continues with Week One Hundred and Ninety-Eight here ...

		Ricky Gervais esq. Esquire has a Q&A with Ricky in this month's issue... Click here for the PDF in a new window.

		Next, The Oscars? Someone thinks Ricky ought to host The Oscars... Read here.

		Ratings Winner An Idiot Abroad 2 tops ratings for US TV channel Science. Watch here.

		Mong's the word Ofcom, the official people who decide whether offended people should be ignored or not, have said Ricky's use of 'mong' on TV was fine... Read here.

		Action on overreaction PopWatch points the finger at people who easily outraged... Read here.

		21 Today... ...appearances on Letterman, that is. Watch here.

		Mail Perspective The Daily Mail gives a blow by blow account of Ricky's gags. Read here.

		Best Bits Shortlist presents a short list of favourite moments from the Globes. Read here.

		"Up to his old quips" USA Today runs through Ricky's one-liners from the Globes. Read here.

		Globes show better than Oscars New York Post says Ricky's hosting of the Golden Globes beats the Oscars hands down. Read here.

		Ricky talks to Esquire Ricky does an extensive Q&A in Esquire. Read here.

		Life's Too Short - US date set The Huffington Post covers Life's Too Short's premiere on HBO in the US - Sunday 19 Feb. Read here.

		Last minute preparations Ricky has posed for some photographs outside a Beverly Hills cosmetic surgery clinic. Read here.

		Repeat Offender Sydney Morning Herald looks forward to Ricky's hosting of the Globes and asks some pertinent questions. Read here.

		No holds barred for Globes Today's Matt Lauer talks to Ricky about next weekend's Golden Globe Awards and gleans that there are no restrictions on Ricky's hosting duties. Read and watch here.

		Vote For Karl An Idiot Abroad has been nominated for a National TV Award. You can vote here.

		Twitten in the Scriptures Ricky has been engaging with some fundamentalists. Read here.

		Global Warm-up In anticipation of Ricky's hosting of the 2012 Golden Globes award show in January, here's a look back at reactions to his last outing. Watch here.

		Outrageous Newspapers have been excited by Ricky's recent tweets. Read here.

		It's a rap Ricky is featured in a track on YouTube. Watch here.

		Friends United Ricky and Karl give their own accounts of how they both first met. Read here.

		Warwick in The Sun Warwick Davis talks about Life's Too Short and the positive side of being short. Read here.

		AOL Anticipates AOL TV looks forwards to Ricky's third outing at the Golden Globes with a spot of guess work on what to expect. Read here.

		AIA2 DVD Out Now An Idiot Abroad is available now on DVD and Bluray. Order via Amazon here.

		Ricky Hosts Golden Globes 2012 Ricky returns for a third time to host the US awards ceremony - watch on TV January 15th. And hear Ricky's thoughts on this year's v. last year's here on YouTube.

		While you wait TV Blend offers a clip from the first episode of Life's Too Short to viewers in the US who'll have to hold on till early next year for its premiere on HBO. Watch here.

		Warwick Davis in Shortlist The star of Ricky's new comedy, Life's Too Short, talks about working with Ricky and Steve. Read here.

		Another Interview The Sun talks to Ricky about Life's Too Short and also revisits "mong". Read here.

		Interview The Guardian asks Ricky about Life's Too Short and revisits "mong". Read here.

		Ricky and Johnny in Life's Too Short The Huff Post has a new clip from Life's Too Short with Johnny Depp facing off with Ricky. Read and watch more here.

		Quality Street SF Gate chooses its 5 favourite celebrity appearances on Sesame Street... Read more here.