The World of Karl Pilkington

Dedication

For Suzanne, Mum and Dad

Contents

Title Page Dedication Foreword ‘Must of nicked it from somewhere.’ ‘Look, if you don’t wanna do it, we won’t do it!’ ‘D’you know what, I’m sure summit’s died in here.’ ‘I don’t know the detail on that bit but ...’ ‘She was sort of mental homeless’ ‘I could eat a knob at night.’ ‘Let me just tell you the ending ...’ ‘And you’ve got the goat going “What am I doing here?”’ ‘Err ...’ ‘The menu is like a book now, innit?’ ‘Things like that always get me thinking ...’ ‘You mention it once, suddenly it’s the talk of the town.’ ‘What d’you mean about eyes facing forward?’ ‘He just liked boats and stuff.’ ‘Would you say he’s a bright bloke?’ ‘That’s what codes are all about, innit?’ ‘So the rocket goes off, right ...’ ‘Well, it’s out there in book form.’ ‘I know, but even if it is in a box …’ ‘I said, “Look, why are you getting involved?”’ ‘So what happened to him with the beetle?’ ‘It’s blind and it hasn’t got a mouth.’ ‘You see that annoys me a bit.’ ‘She’s never asked for it back.’ ‘No, but nobody likes being watched and that’s what I’m saying.’ ‘I don’t Think They Need To Do that.’ ‘You don’t go floating about, d’you? You stay in your seat.’ ‘Most of them in there was that Stalin bloke.’ ‘So he was a bit of a hoarder?’ ‘No, no I was looking at another one.’ ‘So anyway they said, “Well how are we gonna get up there?”’ ‘Do we need ’em?’ ‘Well it did happen. It was in a science magazine.’ ‘I’ll start a diary’ Copyright About the Publisher

Foreword

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.’

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.

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