Ricky Gervais is back podcasting for free at the Guardian, for three seasonal specials: Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. His initial free podcasts, of material written with The Office cowriter Stephen Marchant, were so successful he was able to take them to a site where he could charge per download, and the free specials are his way of saying thank you to the fans that made that success possible. (And a canny marketing plug for the pay-as-you-play podcasts).
The Halloween special goes up on Oct 31, British time. If by that they mean midnight their time, that will be 12 noon in ESummerT states, and 11am in EStandardT states here in Oz.
If they mean brekky time their time, it won’t be available for download until dindins here. It’s up now. [link]
(And I’m up this early because the cat woke me up by deciding to kill a toy. A squeaky toy. That had to be disciplined all along the hallway.)



Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!
Big time thrill except my ipod is dead as an ipod whose battery stopped working after less than a year.
Hopefully I will still be able to download.
I tried to download the earlier Ricky poddies via can’t remember but I had to pay (starts with A…Audible) and it didn’t work.
Ricky rules.
Hey Darlene, love the blog. Just one thing, though. Are you seeking treatment for that lipsynch problem or is that, you know, a Melbourne thing?
Grauniad…
That takes me back. Private Eye mag, circa 1984?
That’s about right. Of course, since they switched to electronic typesetting the beloved typos of yore are few and far between.
Oh, it’s a very chic Melbourne thing.
It’s the new black.
In other words, I don’t know how to fix it.
Oh, and Ricky’s co-writer/director is Stephen Merchant, not Stephen Marchant.
Third comment in row…Merchant has even got his own myspace site.
I think I’ll send him a message and see if he responds. After all, Barnaby Joyce did.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=59746169
When I downloaded it I inadvertently clicked on the mp3 option instead of mp4a.
They sounded like the Chipmunks.
The sad thing is I listened for a minute and a half before deciding it wasn’t deliberate.