The World of Karl Pilkington

by Pilkington, Karl

  You go down all these aisles and there’s just too much. So anyway I said, ‘No come on. Come with me.’ She was like, ‘I’ve got this fever. I’m hot and everything.’ So I said, ‘Well come to the supermarket and you go on the frozen aisle, cool yourself down.’ And she did and she said it made it worse. She was ill for another three days.

  Steve: How would you go about chatting up a woman in a bar? What tips could you give?

  Karl: I’ve never worked like that. It’s always been a friend of a friend and all that, and just happened to meet them and then you have a chat.

  Ricky: How did you meet Suzanne?

  Karl: That was when I was working with her and she gave me 20p for the hot chocolate machine. She never asked for it back. I thought, ‘She’s alright.’ That was eleven years ago, so it works.

  Steve: You’ve never given her that 20p back?

  Karl: She’s never asked for it back.

  Steve: And did you return the favour? Perhaps on the next date? Did you buy her a KitKat or something?

  Karl: No, I don’t think I did. I think word got out that she liked me and I think I did some work for her. I did some editing for her to sort of show off me skills and that, and she was like, ‘Oh you’re good at this aren’t you.’ I was like, ‘Yeah,’ and I think she got us another drink ’cos I was doing that editing for her in me own time.

  Ricky: So you’re up on the deal aren’t you because I know for a fact that you’ve not spent any money on her in eleven years, so you’re 40p up.

  Steve: At least.

  ‘No, but nobody likes being watched and that’s what I’m saying.’

  Steve: ‘Migrant workers in South China are wearing adult diapers on packed trains heading home for the New Year holiday because they have got no access to the toilet. Many supermarkets in this particular part of China have reported a fifty percent increase in sales of adult nappies for the train trip.’ Now what do you make of that, Karl? You’re on a long, long train journey, three hours, four hours …

  Ricky: You know there’s no toilet. You know you are gonna need to go.

  Karl: Why isn’t there any toilets?

  Ricky: There just aren’t, on these trains.

  Karl: And they’re on a really long journey?

  Ricky: Yeah.

  Karl: How long?

  Ricky: Hours.

  Steve: Very long in China. It’s a big country.

  Karl: I wouldn’t. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t do it. I’d have to hold it in or something. I mean when I was a young kid – I don’t know how young you are when you wear a nappy and that – but I remember that I didn’t like it, doing it in a pair of pants like that, a pair of nappies and that, and I used to have to. Even when I was too small to sort of get up on the toilet, because you’d fall in, me mam knew that I didn’t like nappies and I used to just go in the corner, just near the kitchen, in this thing like a litter tray. Like cats have. It wasn’t like that but that’s the same sort of idea and I’d go there and I’d do me thing and me mam used to say, ‘Oh he’s going there. Don’t look at him.’ Because it put me off. You know, like cats don’t like being watched when they do it.

  Ricky: When they go in their litter tray in the kitchen?

  Karl: No, no, they don’t like it.

  Ricky: What, so you were just like a little feral kid? Just running around and going in the litter tray, covering it up, and then running up the curtain and eating a sweet at the top of the pelmet?

  Karl: No, but nobody likes being watched and that’s what I’m saying. If you’re sat on a train and you’re knocking one out and that and everyone’s looking at you, I don’t think it’ll catch on.

  Ricky: Well it has caught on. They are just sitting there, reading the paper, doing Sudoku, and they’re looking round as they are going and they are thinking, ‘Oh no one knows I’m going.’ Everyone’s thinking that and everyone’s going.

  Steve: It’s partly because there are a hundred and twenty million peasants from China’s vast rural areas who swarm into the cities for work, and so that sheer number of people means that the trains are so overcrowded.

  Karl: I mean what are we getting to? What’s going on in the world that this is happening? I mean people have always had to travel for ages. I just don’t understand why there isn’t a toilet on it. We’re going backwards. We’re going backwards.

  Ricky laughs.

  Karl: Aren’t we? Why isn’t there a toilet on it?

  Steve: Maybe there is but maybe people are thinking that the queue is going to take forever. If you have got 125 million people …

  Karl: Yeah, but not everybody wants to go at once. I mean I know the Chinese and all that are at the forefront of everything that goes on in the world, inventing stuff first, but this isn’t one of the best that they’ve come up with.

  Ricky: What have they invented then, the Chinese?

  Karl: Loads of stuff, haven’t they?

  Ricky: Well I was just asking you. You seem quite educated on the subject.

  Karl: They did them cat mop things that I told you about.

  Ricky: Brilliant.

  Steve: This is where you put mops on the feet of cats? Was that right?

  Karl: Yeah, and they wander about the house, clean up and that. Wash the floor for you whilst they’re pottering about. They’ve done, like, hats with umbrellas on ’em. I mean they are known for coming up with stuff first.

  Ricky: My first thought was gunpowder. But cats with mops is good as well.

  ‘I don’t think they need to do that.’

  Steve: I can’t remember when we were discussing this but we talked about well-known phrases and quotes from the past. Karl, what do you take by the well-known saying, ‘A stitch in time saves nine’?

  Karl: You see, I don’t think I’ve picked up on a lot of these sayings that have been thrown about sort of willy-nillily.

  Ricky: ‘Willy-nillily’?

  Steve: ‘Willy-nillinily’, okay.

  Ricky: ‘Willy-nillily’!

  Ricky laughs.

  Ricky: But what does ‘willy-nilly’ mean?

  Karl: Just sort of like, throwing it about all over the place.

  Ricky: What do you mean? What does the term ‘willy-nilly’ mean?

  Karl: It just sort of means, you know, care free.

  Ricky: That’s right, yeah. So you understood ‘willy-nilly’, you used a phrase. You said ‘willy-nillily’ but you got the gist of it, so what does ‘a stitch in time saves nine’ mean?

  Karl: I don’t know.

  Steve: What do you mean you don’t know?

  Ricky: You must know. Think about it. ‘A stitch in time saves nine.’

  Karl: Is it to do with sewing?

  Ricky: Well yes, sort of.

  Karl: Err … it’s not that clear.

  Ricky: Say if you’ve got a jacket, and the seam starts coming undone. ‘Oh, I’ll leave it. Oh, it’s getting worse and worse’ – soon your sleeve falls off. Initially you just needed one stitch to fix it but if you do it later you need nine stitches. And that, of course, is an analogy to other things. If you leave something that needs attention or repair it’ll get worse, so do it now, do it in time.

  Karl: But it depends if you’re busy at that point, because if you’ve got something else that needs doing, that means that isn’t being done because you’re messing about sorting out a hole in your coat. You can’t always do stuff straightaway, so I don’t know if there’s sort of a middle ground where you don’t have to do it straightaway, ‘a stitch in fifteen’ or whatever. Meaning you don’t have to do it straightaway but just do it before it gets really bad.

  Ricky: Brilliant. Do you think yours is less poetic than ‘a stitch in time saves nine’? This is what you want as a quote: ‘Well, you could do it now but if you’re doing summit else then don’t do it immediately, but do it soon, so it doesn’t get really bad’ – Karl Pilkington.

  Karl: But it’s the same; that’s the way I treat most things in life. It’s like
I never go to the doctors unless it’s really bad.

  Ricky: But that’s why a lot of people die, particularly working class people, because they don’t want to bother the doctor, or they are mildly embarrassed, or they don’t recognise bad symptoms. Go to the doctor if you are not sure about something. Like you were terrified to go and have your prostate examined.

  Karl: Still not been. Not doing it.

  Ricky: Why not?

  Karl: I wish you wouldn’t talk about it ’cos now Suzanne will be reminded and she’ll go, ‘Oh yeah, you haven’t been’ and start dragging it up again.

  Ricky: But why are you worried about a little qualified doctor …

  Karl: I don’t know what they’re doing up there. What year are we in?

  Ricky: What are you talking about? They just pop their finger up and …

  Karl: That’s what I mean though. It’s 2006. Why are they still using the index finger?

  Steve: Would you prefer the forefinger or the thumb?

  Karl: No.

  Ricky laughs.

  Steve: A thumb on a stick? Some kind of thumb on a stick? A mechanical thumb? A robot thumb?

  Karl: Why isn’t it just a little camera?

  Steve: Well, they put the camera up if they initially discover something.

  Karl: Just put the camera up straightaway.

  Ricky: No. They don’t need to. They pop the finger up, feel that the prostate isn’t swollen, and wiggle it about a little bit up your back passage.

  Karl: I don’t think they need to do that.

  Ricky: Are you embarrassed? Are you embarrassed about being in a room with your trousers round your ankles and a little fella popping his …

  Karl: A little bit, yeah.

  Ricky: Why?

  Karl: And the other thing is, it’s not just that, is it? You have got to go there. You’re sat on the bus, stressing out, thinking, ‘Oh in less than half an hour I am going to have a finger up me arse.’

  Ricky: What is the problem though?

  Karl: And you go in. They check your heart, and probably check your testicles and that …

  Ricky: What’s up with that? They check your testicles, yeah.

  Karl: Yeah, but it’s all building up, and you’re sat there going, ‘Oh soon that’ll be happening’, and that’s what puts me off.

  Ricky: So you’d be happy if they just came round when you were asleep? Suzanne lets them in and whispers ‘He’s over there’. And they creep up and go bang! You’d go, ‘WHAT YOU DOING!?’

  Karl: I just don’t understand why they don’t teach you how to do it yourself.

  Ricky: How can they? Imagine you, squatting in a corner with one hand on your bollocks and the other finger up your arse going, ‘That seems to be alright.’

  Steve: Karl, you don’t understand the phrase ‘a stitch in time saves nine’. I don’t think you should be doing any kind of invasive medical research inside your own body.

  Karl: But … but …

  Steve: Who knows what trouble you’re gonna cause?

  Ricky: You would get stuck.

  Steve: When Suzanne came home, your fist would be up your own arse.

  Ricky laughs.

  ‘You don’t go floating about, d’you? You stay in your seat.’

  Steve: Have you seen this? Virgin are plugging ‘Virgin Galactic’. I think it’s something like £200,000 and you’ll get a chance to go in a space shuttle into space. Now I don’t know what your feelings are, Rick, I know you’ve got a bit of cash in the bank.

  Ricky: A trip into space? I don’t know about that. There are things that I would spend £200,000 on as a little folly. An individual jet pack for example. I’d do that, I would like to see the earth from a couple of hundred miles up. The other thing is safety because I’m worried. I want to see a lot of people go up there first. I wouldn’t have been the first bloke to go on an aeroplane. I would want to see a few pioneers go, ‘It’s really safe’ before I got on.

  Steve: Well, I believe the actress Victoria Principal is volunteering herself. I think she used to be in Dynasty or Dallas.

  Ricky: Well, I’ll see what happens to her.

  Steve: Yeah, if Vicky P comes back alright – rather than those monkeys they sent up years ago – then we’ll all be a lot more relaxed.

  Ricky: Exactly. If they put electrodes on her and it all works out fine I’m interested.

  Steve: There’ll be a banana chute issuing bananas and there’ll be buttons, ‘press left’, ‘press right’.

  Ricky: Karl, thoughts?

  Karl: Go into space? It’s not worth it.

  Steve: Wouldn’t it be a fascinating experience, to go into space and look back at the earth?

  Karl: There’s nowt there though, is they?

  Steve: ‘There’s nowt there though, is they?’ Say that again.

  Karl: Well there’s nowt there though, is they?

  Steve: Right.

  Karl: At what point are you meant to be happy? You’re floating about up there but you don’t get out, do you?

  Steve: What, you mean to do some duty-free shopping?

  Karl: You don’t go floating about, d’you? You stay in your seat.

  Steve: You want to get out into space?

  Karl: Yes, but that’s what I’m saying. When you go on holiday, the flight bit isn’t the best bit of the holiday, is it? That’s the bit you’ve got to do. So what I’msaying is, you’ve got to stay on the spaceship and then you go back home. So you don’t take any luggage. I don’t see the point.

  Steve: You think they’ll make you sit in the same clothes for the whole time?

  Karl: What is the point?

  Ricky: I think it’s two things. I think it’s the view and being able to be part of an exclusive club. ‘I went into space.’ It’s all that about man conquering nature and you’re one of that elite few that manage to pop up, see the world from a distance that no one else can see it from and then pop down.

  Karl: So all that way, just for the view?

  Ricky: Yes.

  Karl: Is it worth it? I mean there’s a lot of other places I haven’t seen before I think about that. I haven’t been to Scotland yet. I’m not being funny but d’you know what I mean? So just have a look in your back garden before you go looking in someone else’s.

  Steve: Karl, if you did go into space what would make the trip worthwhile for you?

  Ricky: I know the answer, Steve. He’s thinking, ‘I’d like to meet some aliens that can talk like I do and I can understand ’em and they can tell me summit like “Oh, we met God, He was all right”.’ That’s what he’s gonna say. He’d like them to look like monkeys in spacesuits. That’d be his ideal thing. He’d like to go to the Planet of the Apes.

  Karl: Yeah.

  Ricky: What d’you mean, ‘Yes’?

  Karl: Well yeah, that’ll be brilliant.

  Ricky: What would be brilliant?

  Karl: Seeing a little alien and that, and having a chat with him, find out what’s been going on.

  Ricky: ‘What’s been going on’?

  Karl: No, no, but I mean if you bought me that as a present, right, either of you, I wouldn’t be that happy.

  Ricky: Well that’s annoying because we have got you a trip into space – and a goat.

  Karl: D’you know I am interested in going on another planet …

  Ricky: Karl, you are on another planet, mate.

  Karl: No, no, but d’you know what I mean. It would be quite sort of interesting.

  Ricky: How do you think you’d get there?

  Karl: Well yeah, you’d go on a rocket and stuff but what I’m saying is, at least you know when you get there you’re getting out, you’re having a bit of a wander. I wouldn’t be happy on just the journey bit of it, that’s all I’m saying. I was reading about the ‘Virgin Galactic’ thing and in 1971 three of ’em went up there. I can’t remember their names. Wasn’t the main one. Wasn’t like the Buzz and the Armstrong one and that – another three blokes went up. Two wander
ed off, had a walk about, seeing what rocks they can find and that, and the other bloke who was left in the rocket, right, he was the loneliest man ever in the world.

  Ricky: I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if that is some sort of profound poetry, or …

  Steve: No, stop for a moment because I just want to recapture that moment. Just say that sentence again.

  Karl: Right. The other two had gone off picking up rocks, right. He’s sat on his own in the rocket and he was the loneliest man in the world.

  Ricky: Okay, I know what he’s trying to say. He’s trying to say he was the human furthest away from all other humans.

  Karl: Yeah, that’s what I said.

  Ricky: No, you said ‘loneliest’. ‘Loneliest’ evokes the emotion.

  Steve: Yeah, it sounds like you meant he started crying and writing poetry and listening to Morrissey records.

  Ricky: You mean he was the most remote man in the solar system.

  Karl: Well yeah, it was saying how, like, he is on the rocket on his own and I think it turned out that the other two spacemen, picking rocks and that, were two and a half thousand miles away from him, right. So they were miles away.

  Steve: Two and a half thousand miles, yes.

  Ricky: But they had each other?

  Karl: They had each other. He was on his own. That’s weird innit? And when I hear about a weird thing that has gone on, I always think, ‘What would I do?’ And I was thinking about it, right; do you think that when he got up in a morning, he still bothered to put his clothes on?

  Steve: That’s the first thing that came into your mind?