The World of Karl Pilkington

The World of Karl Pilkington Karl Pilkington Ricky Gervais Stephen Merchant A collection of the best moments from the record-breaking ‘Ricky Gervais Show’ podcasts with additional musings and original drawings by Karl Pilkington, the show’s unlikely star.Karl Pilkington, the Confucian-like savant of the ‘Ricky Gervais Show’, has led an extraordinary and curiously individual life. As a kid growing up in Manchester he regularly missed school to accompany his parents on caravanning holidays and left without collecting his exam results: his family weaned him well.Pilkington’s is a brilliant mind, locked inside a perfectly round head, and uncluttered by the unhelpful constraints of logic or common sense; factors that have led him to such dazzling insights as ‘you never see old men eating Twix bars’ or that the ‘Diary of Anne Frank’ was ‘an Adrian Mole sort of thing’.In this pithy and hilarious book, Karl is in conversation with (the often bewildered) Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, the writers and stars of ‘The Office’ and ‘Extras’, outwitting even these comedy Goliaths with his take on such contentious issues as charity, the lack of Chinese homeless people, reincarnation, the rights of monkeys and favourite superpowers.Featuring Karl's original illustrations, imaginative scribblings, full-colour pictures sent in by fans, and the best conversations of the first twelve podcasts, this is a unique trip into the world of one of our most innovative thinkers, visionaries and prophets, or as Gervais and Merchant know him, ‘the funniest man alive in Britain today’. Ricky Gervais presents The World of Karl Pilkington by Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington All drawings by Karl Pilkington Dedication (#u708ecdba-8f76-5a97-b2a5-d39d670b4f9a) For Suzanne, Mum and Dad Contents Title Page (#u6e45ce2c-1689-54c3-a020-2a5fa4108e17)Dedication (#u61c788c6-ded9-5a09-8d0f-0cfdc20aca8d)Foreword (#u3ed89737-04d0-5613-9528-99cacf06f68d)‘Must of nicked it from somewhere.’ (#u6748c676-4cb7-5e68-8413-ca2a3428d4d7)‘Look, if you don’t wanna do it, we won’t do it!’ (#u06b7ec20-6945-5155-bc3c-d04d93cfeab2)‘D’you know what, I’m sure summit’s died in here.’ (#u017868e8-ea38-535c-8bae-d020d2a0e553)‘I don’t know the detail on that bit but ...’ (#u27c2489b-d944-5ab5-8d32-b7ceed207648)‘She was sort of mental homeless’ (#u88f84874-5712-5593-a787-f1a701dc000a)‘I could eat a knob at night.’ (#u86034659-6245-55aa-9d50-a23cdf829906)‘Let me just tell you the ending ...’ (#u995f392a-3d1c-50e2-bab7-a2171e434bfc)‘And you’ve got the goat going “What am I doing here?”’ (#litres_trial_promo)‘Err ...’ (#litres_trial_promo)‘The menu is like a book now, innit?’ (#litres_trial_promo)‘Things like that always get me thinking ...’ (#litres_trial_promo)‘You mention it once, suddenly it’s the talk of the town.’ (#litres_trial_promo)‘What d’you mean about eyes facing forward?’ (#litres_trial_promo)‘He just liked boats and stuff.’ (#litres_trial_promo)‘Would you say he’s a bright bloke?’ (#litres_trial_promo)‘That’s what codes are all about, innit?’ (#litres_trial_promo)‘So the rocket goes off, right ...’ (#litres_trial_promo)‘Well, it’s out there in book form.’ (#litres_trial_promo)‘I know, but even if it is in a box …’ (#litres_trial_promo)‘I said, “Look, why are you getting involved?”’ (#litres_trial_promo)‘So what happened to him with the beetle?’ (#litres_trial_promo)‘It’s blind and it hasn’t got a mouth.’ (#litres_trial_promo)‘You see that annoys me a bit.’ (#litres_trial_promo)‘She’s never asked for it back.’ (#litres_trial_promo)‘No, but nobody likes being watched and that’s what I’m saying.’ (#litres_trial_promo)‘I don’t Think They Need To Do that.’ (#litres_trial_promo)‘You don’t go floating about, d’you? You stay in your seat.’ (#litres_trial_promo)‘Most of them in there was that Stalin bloke.’ (#litres_trial_promo)‘So he was a bit of a hoarder?’ (#litres_trial_promo)‘No, no I was looking at another one.’ (#litres_trial_promo)‘So anyway they said, “Well how are we gonna get up there?”’ (#litres_trial_promo)‘Do we need ’em?’ (#litres_trial_promo)‘Well it did happen. It was in a science magazine.’ (#litres_trial_promo)‘I’ll start a diary’ (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo) Foreword (#u708ecdba-8f76-5a97-b2a5-d39d670b4f9a) How is it that a man who holds the beliefs that ‘the Chinese don’t age well’ and that ‘gays go out too late’ can be so likeable? Because he’s an idiot. He says what he thinks without malice – it’s just that he doesn’t think before he says it. Received wisdom says there’s a fine line between a genius and an idiot. Not true. Karl’s an idiot, plain and simple. Very simple. Some people have proclaimed him a genius, but they’re idiots. I first met Karl when Steve and I were hosting a radio show. We needed someone to press the buttons and they gave us Karl. The first time he opened his mouth it was like we’d discovered a magic lamp. If you rubbed it, magical twaddle came out. (I never rubbed it, although I did squeeze its head in between records. It was the roundest head I’d ever seen and still is.) This book contains some of the beliefs and theories that have cropped up in conversations between myself, Steve Merchant and Karl over the years. Is Karl an idiot? I’ll keep out of it. You make your own mind up. But if you think he’s a genius, you’re an idiot. Ricky Gervais London, June 2006 Karl by Ricky ‘Must of nicked it from somewhere.’ (#u708ecdba-8f76-5a97-b2a5-d39d670b4f9a) Steve: What do you make of the first genetically modified baby? Are you worried about this? Karl: Do you know what they do? Ricky: Isn’t it just choosing the eye colour or something? Steve: Well this is the concern, isn’t it, that in the future you will be able to decide whether it’s a boy or a girl, how intelligent it is, what it looks like, is it handsome, is it ugly? Obviously no one would choose an ugly baby and so on and so on. So where will it end? Are you concerned? Karl: We’ve talked about the cloning thing a bit before, ain’t we, and how it’s a bit weird? Ricky: Yes. Karl: I don’t think it matters because at the end of the day you might look like some other kid but it’s the way that you’re brought up that will change your features and your personality. Ricky: If you lie you get a long nose, don’t you? Karl: No, but listen, right, ’cos I remember when I was growing up on the estate … Ricky: This is gonna be good. Karl: So I’m growing up on this estate and there was this woman about four houses down who was a bit rough. Ricky: Go on … Karl: They didn’t clean up much right, and even if you haven’t got a lot of money you can still try and make the place look nice. Ricky: Get some Jif, yeah. Karl: Right, but she didn’t. Her kid used to take a horse into the house. Ricky: Sorry? Steve: Woah woah woah. Ricky: Woah, Neddy, woah. What do you mean, ‘her kid used to take a horse into the house’? Where did they get the horse? Karl: Must of nicked it from somewhere. Steve: What, from outside the saloon round the corner? Ricky: Did ‘Big Jake’ come looking for it? Steve: So let me get this right. Was this before the lynching or after? Ricky: Where did he get a horse from? What do you mean, ‘he must of nicked it’? His mum is saying, ‘Where did you get that from?’, he says, ‘I’ve bought it’, she goes, ‘Oh alright then, but keep it out of the kitchen.’ Steve: ‘And I don’t want you going cattle rustling …’ Ricky: Where did he get a horse from and how long did he have it for? Was he leading it or riding it? ‘Mam, quick, open the door, I can’t stop, looks like we’ve got us a runaway …’ What do you mean? Karl: I’m just saying I don’t think they could of afforded to buy one ’cos they’re not cheap, so I’m just guessing. Maybe that’s wrong of me. Steve: He had a horse! That’s why the family didn’t have any money. They had a horse! Karl: I was in the car with me dad coming into the avenue and he used to have to drive down it to turn round … Ricky: You had the traditional method of transport. Karl: … And the horse was in the lounge. And I went in there once because I tried to earn myself some money by flogging little flowers in plastic cups. Ricky: This is genius, it just keeps coming. What do you mean, ‘you tried flogging little flowers’? This story is getting deeper and deeper. It’s like an onion. Steve: We’ve created a whole world here where there’s a man living with a horse. I come from the West Country and I never heard anything like that. Ricky: I just think of a big orange carpet, a Rediffusion telly and this horse going, ‘I’m fed up in here’ Steve: Exactly, saying, ‘I am not taking the rubbish out again.’ Ricky: Little flowers in pots? What do you mean? Let’s just go back. What did this woman look like? Karl: Er … bit like – and no disrespect to her – bit like Pauline Quirke. Steve: Sure. Karl: They did this thing at school about raising money for some local charity and they said you can do anything to raise money and they came up with all these ideas. And I thought, ‘That’s good. Forget the charity. I’m the charity.’ So I asked me mam for some flowers ’cos she had a lot of ’em around the house. I said, ‘Can I just take some snippings of them and I’ll go and buy some plastic cups and get some soil out of the garden’. Planted the bits of plants in them, got a tray, had about 25 plants on it, selling ’em for around 25 pence each. Sold loads. Ricky: You didn’t just cut the flowers off and stick them in the pots? Karl: Yeah, they wouldn’t of survived. But I think people sort of thought, ‘good on him for trying’. But anyway, I went round to the house with the horse ’cos I thought their house could do with a bit of colour and brightening up and that. Ricky: The horse went, ‘Thank God for that – breakfast! They’ve been feeding me Kit-e-kat.’ Karl: So I go up to the door and they open the door and it’s one of them houses where there’s no carpet … Steve: And a horse in the living room. We’ve all been there. Karl: And the horse was walking round the living room. And it looked quite happy and everything because … Ricky: Black Beauty was on? Karl: But think about it right; if you were a horse, where would you rather be? In a little wooden hut with a load of hay? Or in a house with a three-piece suite and a telly and that? Ricky: A telly and that. Karl: I was saying this the other day. I was walking through London the other day with Suzanne and do you know how homeless people always have dogs? She said, ‘Oh I hope they look after it’ and I said, ‘What you on about? That dog is happier than most dogs because people always walk past and give it a pat on the head; it’s with its owner all the time; it’s out in the open not locked up in the house.’ Steve: ‘It doesn’t eat, but other than that …’ Karl: No it does eat. They’re always alright. So that’s what I was saying, I think this horse was doing alright for itself. Ricky: Well, yes, not many horses have got their own house for a start. Karl: But anyway, that’s not what we were talking about. We were talking about … Steve: … Genetically modified kids. Karl: Yeah. What I’m saying is, you could have a baby, right, Steve, and Ricky could see it and say, ‘God, I want one that looks like that.’ Steve: It could happen Rick, come on, work with him. Karl: So you take it to the doctors and … I don’t know what they do with it, they inject it with summit or whatever… Steve: Yep, that’s how it’s done. Karl: And you get a little baby and there it is – it looks the same. Now you both go off and do your own things, right. Steve, you look after your baby, you treat it well, you give it good food and that. Steve: Yes, well I’m a good dad. Karl: But Ricky just gives his cheese. So it changes its looks, it goes a bit fat, it gets tired easily. Now this family… Ricky: Why am I just feeding a baby cheese? Karl: Now this family who had a horse in the house, they had a little baby and me mam went round and came back and said, ‘You’re not gonna believe this but it’s a beautiful little baby.’ And the weird thing was it was a good looking kid but as time went on they didn’t really look after it – I’m not saying they abused it – but it used to run around and play out ’til ten at night, it used to chase cars … Steve: Right. Did it have hooves? Ricky: It used to chase cars? What sort of kid chases cars? Was it called ‘Rover’? Did it fetch sticks? Karl: The weird thing is, it was a good looking kid but as time went on and all that not eating properly, its hair was all patchy and it became an ugly kid. And that’s what I’m saying, right; you can clone all you like but at the end of the day, it’s how you’re brought up. Steve: Man alive, that was one hell of a point. Karl: But am I right? Ricky: Er … you’re always right, Karl. ‘Look, if you don’t wanna do it, we won’t do it!’ (#u708ecdba-8f76-5a97-b2a5-d39d670b4f9a) Karl: No, but my thing with iPods is – do we need ’em? We’re living in that era now where we’ve invented most of the stuff that we need, and now we’re just messing about. Ricky: They said that in 1900. Someone actually said, ‘Everything to be invented has already been invented.’ They said that in 1900, and how wrong were they? Karl: No, but what did they invent in 1900 that made ’em go, ‘We’ve done it all now?’ Ricky: Well think what happened in the twentieth century. Karl: Go on. Ricky: Cars, planes. Karl: Yeah, but is that a good thing, planes and that? Do you need a plane really? Wouldn’t it have been better if we were all stuck where we should be, instead of travelling about? Ricky: Why? Karl: War. War’s happening innit, because everyone’s saying, ‘Well now we can fly, we’ll go over there and invade that lot.’ Steve: So there were no wars prior to the invention of the aeroplane? Karl: Not like there is today. What I’m saying is, the world has got smaller, hasn’t it? Everyone is saying that. I was saying to you the other day how we now go to places where we shouldn’t go. People go on holiday to places where you’ve got to have an injection before you go there. Forget it then. That’s a warning. Don’t go there! Ricky: I am with you on that. I don’t want to enter a country where I have to have an injection to stop me from dying while I am in that country. I totally agree with you on that. Karl: So what happened is, so they invented a plane and it’s like, ‘Oh let’s go on holiday’ and then they go, ‘You’ll die though’, ‘Oh, well you’ve got to invent summit.’ ‘Let’s invent an injection’ and then it’s like ‘Right, what else do we need to go to that place?’ There’s a lot of faffing. Steve and Ricky laugh. Karl: What I’m saying is, you know Steve’s travelled more than I have. You’ve been to, like, dangerous places. Steve: I have been to places where you need injections, yeah. Karl: Yeah but why? Steve: Because it’s fascinating. Do you not believe in the idea that travel broadens the mind? It makes you experience other ways of life, other ways of thinking. It enriches you as a human being. That’s the whole reason people go travelling. Karl: But since the invention of the telly you don’t have to go that far. Steve: You’re absolutely right. Ricky: So there you go then. The telly was invented in the twentieth century wasn’t it? Karl: Yeah, it’s pretty good. Steve: Where would you stop then? Would you stop inventing stuff right now or do you think we could carry on for another five years – see what comes up and then just draw a line under it all? Karl: We are just messing about. Ricky: But there’s still things to do – a cure for cancer, a cure for AIDS. Karl: Yeah but should we mess with that? Ricky: What d’you mean? Karl: Because there’s too many people in the world as it is, in’t there? So that’s a way of controlling it. You know, look at London, right, it’s over-populated. Rent keeps going up because there’s more and more people surviving. If you let ’em die, it’s gonna even itself out. I was saying to someone the other day about maybe we should look at – if we are going to invent something – forget like the traditional way of people having kids, right, the way they have it away and that, you know … Ricky: What do you mean? Karl: You know, the way that we have kids and stuff. It’d be good if what happened was, to control it, a man and woman, right, they’re born and that, they enjoy their life, they learn a lot. They live to be about seventy-eight by that point. Ricky: So specific. Karl: I think by seventy-eight I reckon you’ve sort of got to that point where you go, ‘D’you know what, I’ve done everything I’m gonna do.’ If you haven’t bungy jumped by the time you’re seventy-eight you’re not gonna do it. Ricky: No, your hips come off. Karl: You’ve done it all now. So I’ve had my innings, I live to be seventy-eight, but then, just as you die, you have a little baby inside you and, as you die, your life carries on. Steve: How is this happening? Ricky: Sorry – are you mental? I have never heard such drivel. Karl: You’re saying that but if Newton said it you’d go, ‘Hmm, interesting.’ That’s what annoys me. Steve: Karl, he never would. He would never say it and that’s the point. Ricky: I don’t understand what you’re talking about. How is there a little baby in a seventy-eight-year-old? Karl: No, what I’m saying is – it’s like an apple, where the apple grows and it’s got its little baby pips in it and the apple goes and the seeds are planted and a new one’s born. Ricky: But that’s what happens now. Steve: That’s what reproduction is. Karl: But with my way, babies aren’t being born left, right and centre. It’s controlled so that as someone dies, someone’s born. Steve: But Karl. Stop. Whose responsibility is this? Karl: Look, if you don’t wanna do it, we won’t do it! Steve: Has Nature got to develop humans so that we live that way or is this a scientific experiment? Ricky: What I like is, he said to you then, ‘Look if you don’t want to do it, we don’t need to do it.’ As though, if you were up for it, we’ll sort it out. Steve: We’ll have a whip round and do the research. Karl: I just think at the end of the day we’ve got to do something. Is anyone keeping an eye on this and looking at what we can do next to control the population thing? It does my head in that I’ve got to live in London for work and there’s loads of people here and you know, forget going out on a Saturday night – it’s too busy. Steve: So your solution is that seventy-eight-year-old women have little babies inside them and as they slip away into death, the little babies are born? Ricky: And who looks after the baby, because it is a pretty good system having a baby while you are young enough to look after that baby and make sure it lives to reproductive age itself. Steve: I mean that system has been working for years. But wait a minute Nature, put that on hold, ’cos Karl Pilkington’s got an idea. Karl: That’s what it was. Just an idea. Steve: Yeah, it was nonsense, but thank you for it. Ricky: It was the ramblings of someone you’d find by themselves, in a hospital, eating flies. Steve: Yeah, this is the sort of thing you’d find in the diary of a psychopath who went on a rampage and then turned the gun on themselves. They’d go through his possessions and find he’s drawn weird drawings, women with knives in their face, and written this kind of gobbledegook. Ricky: I saw a similar sort of theory written out on a wall, but it was written in shit. Karl: No, all I’m saying is, when people die normally, everyone’s fed up about it, aren’t they, and a bit down, but if when you pass away, you go, ‘Oh we’re going to miss Gladys’ or whatever, but then there’s this new life brought in. It’s almost like a bad news/good news. Ricky: But you’re talking about it like someone could pick this idea up and run with it; like you’ve given them enough information to do it. How is this possible? Where does she get the baby from? How does it grow? Why grow it in Gladys’s belly? Why not have it in a drawer? Just add water. Steve: Who looks after ‘Son of Gladys’? Ricky: There is no theory here. It’s the ramblings of a madman. Karl: What I’m saying is the body is always changing innit – from caveman to now, or whatever, and they’re always finding out more and more. Like d’you know how they say people have six senses? Ricky: Yes. Karl: Well there’s loads more than that. Ricky and Steve laugh. Ricky: Okay, show me that you’ve got just one. Karl: No, right, there’s this one that’s knocking about and what it is – say if I’m in a pub, right, and I’m just doing a crossword or whatever … Steve: … Unlikely, but go on … Karl: And there’s some woman who’s walked in, right, and she’s staring at me. I know she’s looking at me and I look up and she’s looking at me. They’re saying that’s a new sense that they’ve found out from doing tests and what have you. Ricky: Yeah, it’s rubbish. Karl: And they are saying that’s been around since like man and dinosaurs was knocking about. Ricky: But it could be peripheral vision. Karl: No they’ve explained it. Steve: I think it’s safe to assume that, with your perfectly round head, people are always stopping and looking at you. Karl: No, but they explained it. They said it’s from the time when caveman was wandering about and he would go, ‘Hang on a minute’ and he would look round and there’s a dinosaur there or whatever, and he’d leg it. Ricky: Right, this is nonsense. ‘When caveman was wandering round’. Cavemen and dinosaurs, oh they used to live together, yeah sure. Oh that’s the same era. What have you been watching, Raquel Welch in One Million Years BC? Karl: What d’you mean? Ricky: What do you mean, ‘caveman wandering about, knocking around with a dinosaur?’ Steve: You do know The Flintstones is only partly based on fact? Ricky laughs. Steve: Dinosaurs and man did not co-exist. Dinosaurs had long gone before man arrived. Extinct, kaput. Karl: Hmm. Steve: What, you don’t believe us because you saw that film where they took pictures of lizards and magnified them and put them next to men so they looked like they were fighting each other? Karl: No but why couldn’t that have happened? Why wasn’t there dinosaurs back then? Just like we have dogs now. Ricky: He has been watching The Flintstones. You know cavemen didn’t mix concrete in a pelican? Karl: I just think that there must have been a crossover point. Ricky Why do you think there must have been a crossover point? Karl: Because if nothing was knocking about at any point, how did anything carry on? Ricky: I know, exactly. Why didn’t Hitler meet Nero? It’s weird, there must have been a crossover, they must have met at a party somewhere. I mean are you telling me that Ken Dodd has never met Genghis Khan? They must have bumped into each other, I can’t believe it! Karl: Oh forget it. ‘D’you know what, I’m sure summit’s died in here.’ (#u708ecdba-8f76-5a97-b2a5-d39d670b4f9a) Karl: D’you know how you don’t believe in scary stuff, like ghosts? Ricky: I believe in scary stuff. I don’t believe in anything totally illogical. Karl: Vampires? Ricky: No. Anything made up by man. Karl: Well there was summit in the paper the other day about a vampire, how they found one. They dug summit up, found a body in a coffin with a bit of wood through its heart and a knife in its mouth. Ricky: It was a vampire pirate? Steve: That’s definitely proof of a vampire, of course, and not just some grotesque murder. That’s definitely proof of a vampire. As far as I’m aware when you’ve put the stake through the heart they just turn into dust. Ricky: And all their victims get their lives back. Karl: Right and there was a second bit. Somebody had dug it up, got the heart, blended it, burnt it, popped it in some water, drank it and they’re in prison now. Now if it wasn’t dodgy stuff why are they in prison? Ricky: Because they’re mental. Because they dug up a body, liquidised its heart, burnt it and drank it. Both: That’s why they’re in prison! Karl: But anyway I met Derek Acorah the other week, right. Steve: Is he a medium that can contact the dead? Is that right? Karl: Yeah, he just chats to ’em and that. Passes messages on. Steve: Nice of him. Karl: So I said, ‘Tell us summit a bit weird and that.’ So he said, ‘What do you want to know?’ and I said, ‘Just summit weird.’ So he goes, ‘Alright then, here’s one for you. There’s this pub out in the country and there’s this mug.’ You know them old mugs that they have, where they used to leave their own cup knocking about, a tankard thing. So there was one of them mugs in there right, and everybody … Steve: Tankard, let’s call it a tankard. Karl: Tankard, yeah. Ricky: ’Cos you’re the only mug in this story. Karl: So this tankard’s knocking about, right, and everyone who’s running the pub keeps going, ‘Oh I wish they’d stop leaving this tankard about’ right and they pick it up … Steve: It must be a pain, having a small tankard in a pub – that must be a real grind. Karl: So they picked it up and they said, ‘We’ll have to wash that’ and they popped it on a different sideboard. Next thing you know, that person who’s touched it died. Steve: Sure. Karl: So they kept getting new staff and they thought ‘What’s the connection here?’, right. Steve and Ricky laugh. Karl: So someone notices, and they go, ‘Yeah, it’s a bit weird. It’s that cup, right.’ Steve: Tankard. Karl: ‘It’s that tankard’ and that. So they get a vicar in and they go, ‘Look, there’s a lot of weird stuff going on here. This tankard – every time someone touches it, they die.’ So he said, ‘Leave it with me.’ He gets his special water out, he comes round, does a little prayer, sprinkles it. He goes, ‘Right, not a problem, don’t worry about it.’ And he picks it up and chucks it in the bin. Guess what … Ricky: What? Karl: He dies in a crash on the way home. Because he picked it up. Ricky: But Karl, you’re telling me this like it’s fact. Karl: Derek Acorah, he told me. Ricky: But Karl, I have no opinion of that story, other than I am pretty sure there was absolutely no connection between touching the tankard and him dying. That’s all I am sure of. I’m not gonna even contest the chain of events. All I’m saying is: there is no connection possible because I believe in logic and the laws of the universe. So when you’re telling me about miracles and strange things you may as well be telling me about the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny. It’s absolutely ludicrous. Karl: So what would it take, though, for you to go, ‘Oh I’m actually a believer now?’ Ricky: I can’t answer that question because I would have to base my beliefs on some of your premises, which I can’t do. It’s like you saying, ‘But what if you found out that two and two equalled five?’ I can’t. It’s a necessary truth. I would have to go back and fundamentally disagree with what I think ‘two-ism’ and ‘five-ness’ is. Karl: You’ve never been in a situation where you’ve gone, ‘This room feels a bit weird?’ I mean like if you’ve been to Cornwall on holiday, and stayed somewhere and you’ve gone, ‘D’you know what, I’m sure summit’s died in here.’ Ricky: I’m sure something has died everywhere. Karl: I’ve got a mate, right, who is staying in this big stately home, right, and I mean it’s bigger than Buckingham Palace this place, right. I went down there and from outside you go ‘Oh this is brilliant’. It’s like summit out of To the Manor Born. But then when you get in, it’s a wreck. No one’s doing any vaccing-up or anything, and there’s like rat poison everywhere, windows are smashed. Doors kicked in. I think they’re going to have it done up, but it’s going to cost like ?80 million. I have got a little torch and we’re wandering around looking in all these different rooms, right, and I’m asking him ‘How’s it got in this state?’ And he was saying how it was a mental home at one point. And a place for drug addicts. Have you ever been in a hospital when it’s been shut down or a school when there’s no kids in it and it’s got that sort of bad atmosphere of weirdness? Steve: Yes, for the sake of argument. Karl: So we’re wandering about and I say, ‘What’s in this room?’ And we go in and all the floors are a wreck and rotten and stuff. And I looked at the wall and there was a little piece of paper stuck on the wall right, and I said, ‘What’s this here?’ And so I wandered over, right, got right up close to it and someone had wroted … Steve: Somebody had ‘wroted’? Karl: So there is a little sign there and it says ‘Flies’, with an arrow. I thought, ‘That’s a bit weird.’ So I follow the arrow, which goes to this corner, where there’s a shelf with about three thousand dead flies on it. And a condom stuck on the top! That’s weird innit? Ricky: That is weird. Karl: Then I see there’s loads of bits of paper on the floor. I picked up this bit of paper right, and it had written on it, ‘Need nappies, dummy, blankets’ – and I turned it over, right, and it said, ‘None of this now needed – baby dead’. Now that’s weird innit? That’s what I’m talking about when you get a bad vibe. Steve: I don’t actually understand what point you’re trying to make, Karl. Didn’t you just tell us that it was once occupied by ‘drug addicts and mentals’, so haven’t you put two and two together and thought that was probably who wrote it? That doesn’t mean it’s paranormal. You walk into a building, it’s a big, terrifying empty house. It’s terrifying in as much as it’s cold, and dark and draughty. It doesn’t mean that you’ve got some paranormal sense. ‘I’m Karl Pilkington and just like Derek Acorah, I have sensed something strange and evil in this room. Wait a minute, there’s some flies and a condom. I was right all along.’ Ricky: Flies and a condom was weird, but the note … I just think of his face when he saw that. By torchlight … You must have been terrified. Karl: It’s a bit odd, innit? ‘I don’t know the detail on that bit but ...’ (#u708ecdba-8f76-5a97-b2a5-d39d670b4f9a) Karl: This is one of the first Monkey News that I did and I think it’s worth hearing again, just in case you forgot about it, ’cos it’s sort of classic Monkey News. It’s about this monkey that was knocking about called Ollie. It was called Oliver, and it was in this zoo, and it was the only monkey in there, right. Ricky: Oh, this is the one they think was the missing link. They thought it was half human, half ape because it had a bald head and looked like you, which doesn’t mean it’s half anything. Karl: What happened is, it was in the zoo and stuff and it was getting a bit lonely ’cos it was sharing its time with an elephant and a giraffe and they didn’t really get on that well. Ricky: No, no, no, no, no. Wait. They do not put chimpanzees in with the other animals. Karl: But let me tell you … Ricky: Well it’s not true. Steve: Gervais, it was obviously some kind of flat share. They put an advert in the Students’ Union. ‘We’ve got two rooms to let …’ Ricky: ‘African mammal wanted.’ Karl: What I’m saying is, there was other elephants for elephants to knock about with and that. The monkey, it was the only one there. So what happened is, the zookeeper felt a bit sorry for him. He was like, ‘Oh look, he’s looking all fed up and that.’ And like you say, I think he went a bit bald because he was bored and all that. So the zookeeper started to get pally with him and so at lunch time, when the zookeeper was sat on the wall having his ham butties or whatever, he would sort of go, ‘You alright, yeah?’ And Ollie used to come over, closer and closer, right. Anyway, within a month, he was sat on the wall having his lunch with him, right. Ricky: What wall? Karl: Just a little wall in the zoo. Ricky: So he let the monkey out? The monkey could just wander about? He had his own door key? Steve: These blinking latch-key monkeys. Karl: You’re picking up on little things that aren’t important. It doesn’t matter. So anyway, zookeeper’s sat there, and as time goes on he’s sort of sat with him most of the day. Monkey’s walking round with him, helping him feed the other animals and that. Ricky: This is rubbish. Karl: But then what happened is the zookeeper, at the end of the night when he’s locking up and stuff, he’d feel bad because he’d be leaving the zoo and Ollie’s sat there and he’s like, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow’ and the monkey’s like, ‘Yeah, alright, see you later.’ Ollie is looking all fed up because the zoo keeper has got a home to go to and Ollie’s still stuck in his – well, where he is basically working every day. He’s never going home, right. So anyway the zookeeper goes home, says to his wife, ‘Look Ollie’s having a bit of a time at the moment.’ She says, ‘Oh yeah, what’s going on?’ He said, ‘Well he’s looking a bit fed up. You know, he’s sick of it.’ She said, ‘Bring him home.’ He said, ‘Well I did want to ask, but I didn’t want to force it …’ Ricky: This conversation didn’t happen. Karl: So anyway … Steve: Such detail! Ricky: No it didn’t happen. This is in your head. Karl: So anyway, she said, ‘Yeah, bring it home tonight.’ So anyway, the zookeeper is looking forward to going into work and that. He sees Ollie. He doesn’t tell him straightaway. Ricky: Like it’s a surprise. Oh God! Karl: So they go through the day, you know usual stuff, feeding the elephants and all that. It gets to the end of the day and Ollie’s there. He’s looking at the zookeeper as if to say, ‘Well there you go, another busy day over, see you tomorrow and stuff …’ Steve: Sure. Little does he know … Karl: Anyway the zookeeper is like, ‘Get your coat …’ Ricky: Coat? What do you mean, ‘Get your coat?’ Karl: Whatever the equivalent is, whatever you say to a monkey. It was kind of like, ‘You’re coming with me.’ So Ollie’s going ‘Oh brilliant.’ Ricky: No he’s not. Steve: So Ollie gets his hat and coat … Karl: He can’t believe his luck right. He goes back to the zookeeper’s house. Everything’s going well for about a week and a half, right. Steve: Has he got his own room? Karl: He still goes to work and stuff … Steve: To the zoo, yeah. Karl: To the zoo. Ricky: He doesn’t work there! Karl: And then he comes back with the zookeeper at night. Anyway, what ended up happening is … he’s back at the house and it’s going well for about a week and a half, he’s sat there, you know he’s having a brandy at night before he goes to bed. The zookeeper noticed that when he took it back to work it was kind of getting flashbacks of not having a good time in the zoo, right. So, it was like, ‘this isn’t helping him out. He’s happy when he’s at home with the brandy and the fags and that, but when he comes back here, he’s starting to look a bit fed up.’ So he said to his wife, ‘Look, you’re at home all day right. I’m going to work. I’ll leave him with you.’ So Ollie stays at home. Anyway as time goes on there’s a little bit of trouble. Whilst the fella’s busy at work, grafting, paying the bills for Ollie at home, Ollie starts getting a little bit cheeky – tries it on with the missus. Steve: Whoa! How does a monkey ‘try it on with the missus’? Karl: This is classic Monkey News. Steve: How does he try it on? Ricky: He’s a bit drunk. He stinks of smoke. He tries it on with the missus. How does he try it on with her? Karl: I don’t know all the details. Ricky: You don’t know any of the details. Karl: I don’t know the detail on that bit but … Ricky: You don’t know any of the details. Steve: So what happens? While the zookeeper’s away the monkey did play. What happened? Did the zookeeper’s wife reciprocate these affections? Karl: She probably went along with it at first. You know, she’s cooking at home, getting the tea ready, it’s walking past pinching her arse or whatever. And you know, it starts off just like it does with humans. It starts off as a bit of fun, before you know it … Anyway, the zookeeper and his wife split up in the end. I think the monkey stayed with the woman. Ricky: Honestly, your imagination. Karl: Just put in ‘monkey/chimp/Ollie’ into the Internet and it’s all there … ‘She was sort of mental homeless’ (#u708ecdba-8f76-5a97-b2a5-d39d670b4f9a) Karl: I give to charity but I feel like I’m being cheated a bit. Ricky: You were conned by a charity weren’t you? Karl: I got stopped and they drag you in by saying, ‘Have you got a gran?’, and I said, ‘No they died and that.’ It’s, ‘Oh did they die of the cold?’ ‘No. Ill.’ ‘What did they have?’ ‘Just old age.’ They said, ‘Well, what happens with a lot of people’s grans is they die in the cold, right.’ So, I says ‘That’s bad innit.’ So she’s chatting and she’s showing me pictures of these old women, who look cold, saying ‘Look at her. That’s Edna. She’s got no family. She can’t pay the bills and all that.’ Ricky: Sure. Karl: Anyway it goes on for about fifteen minutes and you feel bad. You give ’em your bank details, right, and what happens is, every couple of months you get a letter from Edna. Well it’s not from her, it’s typed up and what have you, but there’s a picture of Edna and it’s saying ‘Oh, this December Edna is going to be extra cold. It’s cold outside, she can’t afford to pay the heating’ and what have you. So you keep paying every month like ?5 or whatever. I get another letter a few months later, right, Edna’s sat there – she’s got a tan! Steve: What do you mean, ‘she’s got a tan’? Karl: When they said she needs money because she’s cold I thought they meant for the heating – not to send her on holiday for a month. She’s sat there with a tan. I’m not joking. Steve: Are you sure it wasn’t just a problem in the printing process? Karl: No, no definitely. Ricky: Are you sure it wasn’t liver failure? Steve: This is a terrible thing to say, but when I see those people approaching now, with the clip-boards, I always get my mobile phone out and pretend I am having a conversation. Karl: Yeah, I’ve done that one. Steve: The number of fake conversations I’ve had walking past them now. Karl: I’ll tell you what, we’ve talked about homeless people before and that, and I walked past one the other day. Don’t you think that if you had a company, it’s worth taking them on? Because they never have a lie in. Ricky: Brilliant. Karl: When does it become, like, bad to avoid homeless people? Because some people say you shouldn’t, that they’re people like us who have just had a bit of bad luck. Ricky: Well of course they are. Karl: Yeah, I know but I remember one on our estate and she was a bit – what’s the word that you can use, because I don’t want to offend anyone? She was sort of mental homeless. Is that a term? Ricky: That is the official term. Karl: Well she lived on the estate and what have you … Ricky: How was she homeless if she lived on the estate? Karl: Well, she sort of decided to stay round there, because I think people on the estate spoke to her more than people who had money. Ricky: Really? Karl: So anyway. This mental homeless woman on the estate, what she used to do, right, she acted quite normal and she used to always push a pram around with her, right. And she was dead happy; every day she was walking up and down the road. Anyway one day she walked past me, right, and I turned round and looked in the pram – and there’s a bucket with a face on it! ‘I could eat a knob at night.’ (#u708ecdba-8f76-5a97-b2a5-d39d670b4f9a) Ricky: Jilly Goolden – now she … Steve: What’s she been up to? Ricky: Well you saw her in I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here? Steve: I haven’t been watching it. Ricky: She popped a little kangaroo knob in her mouth, chewed it up. Steve: What, it was just lying around? Ricky: No, it was just one of the things she had to eat. Carol Thatcher, the daughter of one of our leaders, she popped a couple of bollocks in her mouth, chewed them up, swallowed them – and Jilly Goolden had to eat a dried kangaroo penis. It was so tough she couldn’t even get through it. Steve: What, it was like a Peperami? Ricky: Yes. What do you think of that Karl? Karl: What, eating that sort of stuff? Ricky: Yeah. Karl: I mean I watch it, I like those little trial bits, right, but what I don’t think people realise is, right, it is hard eating a little kangaroo knob. Steve: Really, how do you know? Karl: No, it’s just, you think about it and you go, ‘Oh I couldn’t do that,’ but what they never mention on the TV programme – which I think takes it to the next level, right – is that they’re eating that stuff at, like, half past seven in the morning – which is worse, innit? If I was there and Ant and Dec said, ‘Right Karl, eat the knob’ I’d go, ‘Hang on a minute. Give us a few hours. Let me get some rice and that in me belly and just sort of fill myself up a little bit more. I’ll pop back at about half six this evening – have it ready.’ And I’d be happier then. Steve: You don’t want to eat animals’ private parts on an empty stomach? Ricky: So what are you saying? Karl: I’m saying I could eat a knob at night. Ricky: Just cut that there. We’ll loop that. If any DJs are listening, just take that quote ‘I could eat a knob at night’ by Karl Pilkington and maybe do a dance remix. Steve: Yes, maybe you are a house music producer and you could maybe get some high energy beat going and then we could send that out to some of the gay clubs. I’m sure it would be really popular. Karl: No, but d’you know what I mean though? Ricky: I could not do it. I couldn’t pop a kangaroo testicle in my mouth and chew it. It was disgusting to watch. Good on them because they were doing it but then again I think, ‘Well, they wanted to go in there.’ On the one hand I think, ‘Is that admirable? Is that showing good British mettle or is it “I’ll do anything to get on telly for a week?”’ Where does it stop? I thought Rebecca Loos went too far when she gave the little pig a tug, but at least she knew where to stop. Steve: I think it’s obvious when you have to stop – the pig tells you that. Ricky: Where is there a kangaroo hopping around without a cock? Karl: Here’s another question right – a bit of a spin off with animals and that. Have you ever, Steve, killed a fly? Steve: Probably, yes. Karl: Right. Well I was watching David Attenborough, right. He makes his money out of flies and that, don’t he. D’you think he’s ever killed one, or does he go, ‘Well I can’t kill that fly or that spider ’cos that’s how I make my money’? Ricky: I don’t know what the question is. Karl: Right, me mam, right, she said, if a fly is knocking about the house, she never kills it. She always catches it and puts it out and that. She said she’d never kill one. Ricky: Who is she, Mr Miyagi? What do you mean, ‘she catches it’? How does she catch it? Steve: With a pair of chopsticks. ‘Let me just tell you the ending ...’ (#u708ecdba-8f76-5a97-b2a5-d39d670b4f9a) Karl: D’you know the other week when I came up with a different idea of how we can make the world run and that. Steve: Can we just have a quick recap of that because I seem to remember it was a load of old arse. Ricky: It was ridiculous. It was saying that the world is over-populated so we should have a system whereby people live until they are seventy-eight – I don’t know how you can enforce that – but when they die they’ve got a little baby in their stomach, like a pip in an apple, and the baby carries on when they die. It wasn’t a theory, it was the ramblings of a mental case. Karl: Anyway listen, right, I’ve been thinking about it, right, and if we can’t do that, right, if it’s a ‘no’ to that idea … Ricky: It is a ‘no’. Karl: … Here’s another idea… Ricky: Ooh, you could win the Nobel prize for this one … Karl: There is a lot of ways in’t there, in the world, that some creatures and that go about sort of moving on, if you know what I mean … Ricky: Not really. Do you mean evolution? Karl: Yes, on that David Attenborough programme he’s always showing, yeah, little insects and what they have got to do. And there was one about a wasp, right, that had to fly about, right, for ages, looking out for a certain type of spider, right. Ricky: Which it lays its eggs in, correct. Karl: It whizzes down, it lands on its back, so it’s got to get that right. I don’t think the spider’s up for anything, the spider isn’t even aware of this. It’s not going, ‘I’ve got to look out for a wasp’, even though all this has got to be perfect timing. So this wasp dived down right, sat on the back of this spider, it injects it or something, with a maggot or something, right – and then that maggot lives off the spider for a bit. The spider knows it’s got a maggot in it. Ricky: No it doesn’t. Karl: It does. Ricky: No it doesn’t. Karl: And it’s making a web for it. It goes, ‘I’ve got something to look after here now. I’ve got responsibilities.’ It makes a web, right. It sort of reverses into it and puts the maggot on the web. The maggot sort of clings on to the web, maggot eats the spider – and then it moves on. Now if I came up with that idea you’d say, ‘That’s never gonna happen.’ Ricky: Wake up! It’s not the fact that you came up with the idea for an old lady dying at seventy-eight with a baby growing in her – even though it’s nonsense, it’s no idea – it’s how could it be enforced. Even if scientists thought that was the best idea in the world how would they make it happen? Who’s gonna go, ‘That’s a good idea, we’ve never thought of that, get in Elsie. Elsie, we wanna try something …’ Karl: Who told the wasp to look out for that spider? To go on its back? Ricky: What do you mean ‘Who told the wasp?’ – It’s evolution, it’s natural selection … Karl: Yeah but say, like, we have a kid at the moment. You don’t just jump on the back of a woman and go ‘There you go love’ and then a baby pops out. Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/karl-pilkington/the-world-of-karl-pilkington/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.