Well, the Guardian news alerted us this morning to tell us the second Ricky Gervais podcast is now available to download. Quite how that constitutes a news flash we're not sure - fancy using your trusted news service to plug your own commercial ventures - never catch us doing that. Anyway, the other Gervais podcast related story is that the first of his twelve programmes for the Guardian is apparently the number one podcast in both the UK and US, having been downloaded 180,000 times last week.
As previously reported, the Guardian will release twelve podcast programmes bringing back together Gervais with his Xfm co-hosts Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington. Commenting on being number one, Gervais told the paper: "When I heard that we were the number one podcast, my first thought was that it wasn't a fair fight as The Office is shown in over 80 countries around the world. Steve's first thought was 'why aren't we charging for it?', and Karl's first thought was, 'Is a chimp allowed to win the lottery?'."
Emily Bell of Guardian Unlimited added: "We are delighted to have the Christmas number one on both sides of the Atlantic. The spread of Ricky and Stephen and particularly Karl's popularity throughout the English speaking world is as pleasing as it is inevitable."
Other podcasts faring well in the UK just now include Chris Moyles Radio 1 podcast (formerly number one in the chart), Chris Evans' Radio 2 show and podcasts from Stuff magazine, New Scientist and Kerrang!