Not a huge fan, but I love this quote of his...'You have the right to be offended, and I have the right to offend you. But no one has the right to never be offended.

and on reaching 50...'I don't know what happiness is but it's definitely NOT just going with the flow. Going with the flow, for Christ sake? Don't ever go with the flow. Stop the flow, go against the flow, start the flow, but don't under any circumstance just go with the flow.'

www.huffingtonpost.com/ricky-gervais/lif...e-flow_b_895005.html

I love The Office, but I'm not really a fan of Gervais, I find him an irritant, but can cope with his character in the programme. I know it sounds odd, but its also the same with the Vicar of Dibley, love the programme, but can't stand Dawn French!

I'm a huge fan of some of his work. The Office was superb but Extras was pure genius-especially the extended film version.

As an actor in other works he doesn't work for me.

I think he's become wildly overrated. He was cynically smart to use the specious argument 'Fawlty Towers only had two series: ergo finishing after two series is proof of real class' to lend lustre to his own shows, but I thought the second series of Extras was a shambles - no logic (essential in a great sitcom), characters allowed to act incoherently and a few guest stars used to cover over the cracks. Before The Office, he's alleged to have asked Stephen Fry why he was so unpopular with his peers. 'It's probably because you're a c*nt,' Fry is said to have replied. I hope he did. Stephen Merchant, on the other hand, seems a far smarter, and likeable, writer and performer.

I was taking a masters degree at Birkbeck College London a few years back. As I was walking downstairs, Gervais was walking up (presumably to the bar - university of London alumni privilages) with a very young blonde floozie on his arm, who was evidently eating out of his hands. As we passed, Gervais had a look at me and then made a snide comment to his bird, at which she naturally became hysterical with laughter.

I guess it's a rare privilage to be the butt of a famous comedian's joke, but sometimes I do wish I had just laid him out there right then.

I think the Bo Selecta take on him was probably very accurate :

youtu.be/QHbUuS9ThPY

'Fury as Ricky Gervais ridicules Down's syndrome children with 'two mongs don't make a right' Twitter posts'

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2050854...ren-sparks-fury.html