to be a bit in love with Ricky Gervais?!

[potsyandco]

Watching Making of Derek. I love Derek. It's caring, heartfelt, poignant and funny.

Ricky Gervais is funny, clever and caring (yes, I really do think that!) and not bad looking (even more shocking, I know!)

So, AIBU? I presume I'm alone in this one...

:)

[mrsjay]

but he just annoys me seeker I did used to like him but he went all hollywood and smug

[countrykitten]

Loving all the vitriol........still he would probably laugh his head off at some of the ridiculous comments on here 'the chippy boy from Whitley who didn't get in to the grammar school'....WTF?

[countrykitten]

And as for the Cancerian thing....

[seeker]

Sorry- the lovely and sensitive thing was sarcasm......

[mrsjay]

Oh Ok seeker i am not awake yet I am normally on the ball with the sarcasim

[PPT]

I likes him a lot... [guilty pleasure!]

[LaalRatty]

IMO Kerry Godliman is the best thing about Derek. We used to work together and she is so lovely and warmhearted (and bloody hilarious with it). I have no opinion of Ricky.

[MarmaladeTwatkins]

I am back to really liking him after watching Derek. It's so sweet and not what I expected at all. I was expecting him to rip the piss out of people with SN.

It had me in tears more than once. Just so thoughtfully written and endearing.

The mong debacle was not impressive. I think he might have redeemed himself a bit now.

I wouldn't shag him though. His teeth are weird.

[DreamingofSummer]

There is no circle of hell deep, dark and painful enough for Gervais. A prick of the highest order

[countrykitten]

Kerry Goldiman is indeed fabulous - I love her! Glad that she is as lovely in RL as she seems on tv.

[lolaflores]

A creeping fascination has occured in my deepest darkest crevices regarding RG. I went from really wanting to be outraged by Derek, to looking forward to it and feeling militant about the way the elderly are treated today. I don't see any stereotypes in it, in any level. I don't see any losers or tossers (Kev excepted). The bit on the beach scrabblling around in rock pools to me looked like an afternoon chez Gervais, simple and fascinated with those things around us. Yes to the sentimentality but it makes a nice change from cynical and world weary. In the red corner, the Sue Perkins offering was dull, simplistic and underwhelming. So self referential to be embarrassing. silly dotty mum, the closet gay daughter pretending she had a boyfriend and a dead cat in her handbag. not good. hope it improves.

[EllieArroway]

FFS - the "mong" thing.

As far as he was concerned, the word "mong" (which he's been using for a long time) had changed in terms of meaning. Words have a habit of doing this in case you hadn't noticed - be aware next time you use the term "idiot" since it literally means "a mentally deficient person".

He was NOT referring to people with Down's Syndrome & had no idea that the word was ever used in that context today.

When he was confronted with it (a lot) he did what many, many people would be unable to do - he accepted he was wrong and apologised.

There's no justification for shrieking "disablist" every time his name is mentioned. He made a mistake. He's moved on, why don't you?

Jeez.

[seeker]

Wow. A mistake that took him, I think, two weeks to acknowledge. While being very unpleasant to anyone who challenged him

And if you seriously believe that an educated man of his age did not know the derivation of the word "mong" then I've got a lovely tin of striped paint here you can buy......

[CajaDeLaMemoria]

Out of interest, what does everyone think was wrong with An Idiot Abroad?

I've never heard that be bought into a debate about the wrongs and rights of Ricky Gervais before!

[seeker]

It's all lets laugh at the funny foreigners but we can all say we're laughing at what's his name, so if anyone objects we can call them po faced and humourless. Everything he does is like that.

[LottieJenkins]

EllieArroway Of course he knew what he was doing! He even pubished a picture on Twitter of him making a face so he knew damn well what he was doing.first picture on this page Oh and I wont "move on" because i have several friends who have Downs Syndrome and i will stick up for them till the day i die!

[MarmaladeTwatkins]

Oh he knew what it meant alright. He apologised. He hasn't done it since.

Do you beat people with the same shitty stick IRL when they've made an error of judgement?

[hazeyjane]

I just do not understand how the awful 'Mong' debacle can be squared with the idea that Derek is a sensitive portrayal of....what, I'm not sure, is Derek supposed to have special needs? I just find his whole schtick badly thought out and badly acted.

[seeker]

He fought it for, I think, two weeks. He had it explained to him on day 1, but refused to accept it.

[MarmaladeTwatkins]

I think (and I could be wrong) that the reluctance to accept and admit might have been a misjudged way of trying to avoid a massive backlash. That and he was probably embarrassed.

I don't buy that he's an evil wanker like Frankie Boyle, who goes out of his way to be vile to the vulnerable in society.

[hazeyjane]

I think he apologised because when there was an outcry about his use of the word mong, his fans spouted tons of disabilist horseshit about 'drooling mongs in wheelchairs' etc. He then blogged that he had no awareness that the word was still used to describe people with down's syndrome (this despite the word mongoloid being used in this way in Extras). Eventually he did apologise to Nicola Clark (who wrote a very good piece about it pre apology here.

[countrykitten]

Yes to the fact that idiot is not the most pc word in the world if one thinks about it - and pretty much everyone accepts it and uses it often. I understand EllieArroway's point.

[BinksToEnlightenment]

Agreed about the word idiot. I assume all users of it hate people with a low IQ?

Or is that different because it should be perfectly obvious what you actually meant?

[EllieArroway]

What an utterly unbelievable attitude

No, what's more "unbelievable" and depressingly common on Mumsnet is an inability to look at things in context and to shriek about it for years to come.

Who gives a fuck why he apologised. He did & that's that.

He still pulls the stupid faces thing and lots of other people are doing the same. It's got nothing to do with taking the "piss" out of anyone - except himself.

But I suppose the permanently offended (usually on other people's behalf) have to get their validation from somewhere, and this really is the perfect site for that. So carry on talking bullcrap, don't mind me.

seeker He didn't, he said so. I think his reluctance to apologise might have to do with the fact that he was getting tweets hoping he would die of cancer. But this is, in fact, in the past and you have no justification whatsoever in throwing around the term "disablist". By doing so you are demeaning the word in much the same way as people who overuse the word "racist" and "sexist" do.