The World of Karl Pilkington

by Pilkington, Karl

  Karl: It’s just that even if me girlfriend, Suzanne, is out at work and that, I’m not happy walking about with everything out, because you never know what’s gonna happen.

  Ricky: What, you mean like getting it trapped in the microwave?

  Karl: I just mean you never know when someone is going to turn up.

  Ricky: Yes, I always pop some pants on, or a towel.

  Karl: Not always.

  Ricky laughs.

  Karl: I’ve knocked on your door and you’ve been stood there with no pants on.

  ‘Most of them in there was

  that Stalin bloke.’

  Ricky: I was shopping with Karl before Christmas and we went round Piccadilly and St James’s and those really beautiful shops around there. I went in one shop. We had to ring a bell to enter. They came down and it’s a shop that sells things from churches, nearly all Russian sixteenth century pieces. There are beautiful carvings and paintings and statues and everything, and I was wowed by it and the owner clearly loved his work, and he was enthusing to me about this stuff. ‘This is from the sixteenth century. This is Russian’ and I went ‘Oh it’s beautiful’ and as I was looking round I heard Karl sidle up to the bloke and go, ‘What’s the newest thing you’ve got here?’

  Steve: Sure, that’s his first thought.

  Ricky: I mean that is the wrong question to ask of a man who is clearly into antiques, proud of the fact that he has got sixteenth century Russian icon stuff. It’s wrong to ask, ‘What’s the newest thing you’ve got here?’ I mean what sort of question is that? ‘Oh I don’t know. Probably the door bell. Probably my shirt.’ What were you thinking?

  Karl: I don’t know, I was just making chat with him ’cos it’s the sort of place that I don’t think many people go in. When you go up to this shop, right, he’s not sat in there. You have to ring a bell. He’s getting on with his life upstairs. He lives upstairs, right. You ring the bell to say, ‘I want to come in your shop.’ He pops down, stands there watching you look around. So it’s not a natural way to shop.

  Steve: Sure.

  Karl: You know it’s not nice, having a bloke stood there, watching you look at all this old stuff and that, so I was kind of making friendly chat, and I think it’s an alright question, ’cos he was saying there was loads of old stuff in there. And he kept going on about the old stuff. So I thought what shall I say? ‘What’s the newest thing you’ve got.’

  Ricky: Do you know the other question that he asked him? He said, ‘How often do you get new stuff in?’ and the bloke went ‘Erm … every day.’ And I said to Karl, ‘Why did you ask that?’ and he said, ‘Well I was thinking, if you’ve got antiques and you sell them all, what’s left? Because they’re not making any new antiques.’

  Karl: But I know for a fact no one is ever gonna go in there and buy the lot anyway. I mean I’ve never seen anything like it. Not at any point in my life will I go, ‘I need some old Russian wood.’

  Ricky: It was brilliant, Steve, it was beautiful. It’s amazing stuff. Carvings from the sixteenth century of saints and monks …

  Karl: There’s loads of it. It’s just all piled up. No one’s interested. If I was him I would go, ‘D’you know what, I’m into this but no one else is. Close shop.’ Because seriously it’s just piled up. Piles on piles of old bits of wood with pictures on it and that.

  Ricky: Just think of the men 400 years ago that carved these beautiful things.

  Karl: Nobody wants it do they? I’ve never heard anyone say, ‘You know it’s my birthday coming up. I tell you what I’d love – a bit of old Russian wood.’ It doesn’t happen. I have never overheard someone saying, ‘You don’t know where the Russian wood shop is do you?’ And this is in London where the rates are high. There was loads of bits of wood with, like, them old drawings like. Most of them in there was that Stalin bloke.

  Ricky: Right, can I just stop you there. It was Lenin.

  Karl: Alright then. So he was on all these bits of wood and stuff. But I saw this other little face, right. Little fella with a beard. So, I said, ‘Who’s this bloke here?’ He said, ‘Oh the story there is this little fella who went a bit mad’ or something. He got mugged back in Russia.

  Ricky laughs.

  Ricky: Imagine that on a sixteenth century Russian carving! ‘Oh no I’ve been happy slapped.’

  Karl: And he said, ‘I’ve had enough of this’, right, and he went to live in the woods. Made a little shed, stayed there. People went to visit him and if you’ve got a problem you knock on his door and you go, ‘I’m sick of it’ and he’d say, ‘Yeah I know what you mean. I’ve moved out of the city’ and what have you, and he’d make ’em feel better, and then they go away. Now why has that man got a plaque? If he was around now, there is no way he’d have a bit of wood with his face on it. If someone had got fed up with living in London or New York and they go, ‘I’m gonna go and live in the woods’ people wouldn’t visit him. And he wouldn’t get a piece of wood with his face on. But this man is selling it for about £750 – for this bloke’s head! He’s having a laugh.

  Ricky: Because it is 400 years old and beautifully painted.

  Steve: The chances are that this is either a well known Russian folk tale or it may even be a piece of classic Russian literature.

  Ricky: Or he’s a saint.

  Karl: Everybody was a saint years ago. Who’s a saint now, in this year? Name me one now? Yet this fella lived in the woods in a hut. ‘Oh yeah, that’s Saint John’ or whatever. He’s not a saint. He’s done nothing. If anything he said, ‘I can’t be bothered with living in the city with everyone else. Everyone else has got to put up with it but I can’t put up with it, I’m gonna live in the woods.’ Well if you can’t put up with it, you’re not good enough, are you? You’ve got no stamina. And yet he gets a plaque, is what I’m saying. It’s annoying.

  Steve: Who would you like to see get a plaque in the modern world? Who deserves a plaque in your opinion?

  Karl: Probably like nurses and that, who do a lot of bad things, that I couldn’t do that, like carrying lungs about and all that.

  Ricky and Steve laugh.

  Karl: Me mam wanted me to be a doctor.

  Ricky: What? What was she thinking? When did she start giving up on that dream? At what age did she start going, ‘Karl you don’t need to study your books any more. Go and play with the worms in the garden?’ When did she let you off that dream?

  Steve: Was it the day she caught you with a spoon up your nose?

  Ricky laughs.

  ‘So he was a bit of a

  hoarder?’

  Steve: A reminder of Ben Franklin’s famous mantra ‘waste not, want not’. Karl, do you have any personal mantras you could pass along?

  Karl: Who said that?

  Steve: Ben Franklin.

  Karl: What was he? What did he do? What was his job?

  Steve: Benjamin Franklin was a well-respected American politician from the 1800s. He was a thinker, a philosopher, a scientist. Deeply respected.

  Ricky: He’s on American money.

  Steve: He’s on a dollar bill or something. So he is one of the great American enlightenment thinkers and he came up with the mantra ‘waste not, want not’.

  Karl: What does it mean?

  Steve: You’ve never heard that?

  Ricky: Don’t throw stuff away because you might need it and you won’t be wanting for anything if you don’t throw it away.

  Karl: So he was a bit of a hoarder?

  Ricky: Yes, he was a bit of a hoarder.

  Steve: For God’s sake.

  Karl: I am just saying, you know, he’s a man in power, is that the best thing he’s ever said?

  Steve: No, I’m sure he came up with many profound things. He did experiments in electricity, in conducting electricity and all sorts.

  Karl: But that impresses me more, inventing electricity, than someone …

  Steve: He didn’t ‘invent electricity’.

  Ricky: Impresses you more than what? />
  Karl: Just saying, ‘waste not, want not’. I don’t think it’s that good. It’s not even catchy. What I don’t understand is why he was the first person to suggest, ‘Look don’t go chucking that out, keep it, you might need it later.’

  Ricky: Say that again. That is brilliant. Now why hasn’t that caught on? That’s poetry. How would you word it?

  Karl: I’d just say, ‘Whoa, whoa, don’t be chucking that out. You might need that later.’

  Ricky: ‘Don’t be chucking that out, you might need that later’, Karl Pilkington, 2005.

  Steve: ‘Waste not, want not’ is perhaps a little more pithy.

  Ricky: We should go through the great sayings and phrases with Karl.

  Steve: Firstly, does he know what they mean? And secondly, can he improve them?

  Ricky: Winston Churchill: ‘Never have so few done so much for so many.’ What do you think of that? Do you know what that means?

  Steve: It’s with regard to the Battle of Britain and the pilots that gave their lives.

  Karl: If I was one of them men who gave up his life, right, I’d want a name check. I don’t want to be bungled in with everyone else in this ‘A load of blokes gave their lives, well done and that, see you later.’

  Steve: Did you just say, ‘Bungled in’?

  Karl: Yeah, bungled in, yeah.

  Ricky: You made up a word. That’s it you see. We’ve been looking for that. That’s original, that’s Karl Pilkington. ‘I don’t wanna be bungled in.’

  ‘No, no I was looking at

  another one.’

  Ricky: Karl, you hate nudists, don’t you?

  Karl: Nudists. I don’t understand what it’s all about at the end of the day – and here’s something, right – do you ever get any bloke nudists who have a small knob?

  Ricky: I don’t understand the question.

  Karl: Are there any blokes who are knocking about who just have a normal size knob – or maybe a bit smaller than a normal – who are happy wandering about showing off what they haven’t got … if you know what I mean.

  Ricky: I don’t think nudists are just doing it because they are proud of their knobs.

  Karl: No, but there’s got to be a little bit of that in it, in’t there? You know Jonathan Ross, right, and he’s always happy getting his knob out, ’cos he’s known to have this big knob, right.

  Ricky: What do you mean, ‘he’s known?’ Why is Jonathan Ross known to have this big knob?

  Karl: No, he just talks about it a lot, doesn’t he? He’s always saying, ‘Oh I bet you’d like this wouldn’t you’, and all that.

  Steve: But that’s like me saying I’m known for being a great lover. I say it a lot, it’s clearly not the case. What evidence have you got that he’s got a big knob?

  Karl: I saw it … Well, no, he did get it out but I wasn’t looking …

  Ricky: What do you mean ‘You weren’t looking’? How would you know it was out?

  Karl: Just because he was sort of moving it about and that, and I could sort of see. No, I wasn’t looking though. It was that sort of thing when you can see something moving about but you’re like, ‘I’m not looking at it.’

  Ricky: What, like an owl seeing a mouse?

  Karl: It doesn’t matter. All I’m saying is …

  Ricky: No no no, let’s get back to you remembering, vividly, Jonathan Ross’s penis.

  Karl: No. I don’t mean that.

  Ricky: Why were you looking at his penis …?

  Karl: I wasn’t looking.

  Ricky: … When it was clearly not meant to be looked at.

  Karl: I’m just saying, most blokes who are nudists, they must be pretty confident in themselves to get it out. And I wasn’t looking, it is just that … I mean I looked once.

  Steve: What, sorry, you looked at Jonathan’s once?

  Karl: No, no I was looking at another one.

  Ricky: What, at the same time? Why are you looking at loads of men’s penises?

  Steve: What’s going on – where are you hanging out?

  Karl: It’s not unusual. It’s natural, that’s what I’m saying.

  Ricky: What do you mean? What are you looking at? ‘Karl takes a sneaky look at men’s-cocks.com’

  Karl: No, what I’m saying is – it’s natural.

  Steve: Where was this happening? So you were in a gym, a lot of guys were getting changed and you were just checking out their knobs?

  Ricky: No, you were at your bedroom window with a pair of binoculars and there was a little fella across the road getting changed?

  Karl: No, I was at some night out once, right, and some people come running on the stage, right. Some music started coming on and these four people ran out. There’s two women and two blokes.

  Steve: So you were at a gay strip club?

  Karl: It wasn’t gay. It was just a normal night out. Well you know, some sort of party night out. These people come running on. You got two women. You got two blokes. They whipped their knickers off and the fellas whipped their undies off.

  Ricky: At the same time?

  Karl: Yeah, all at the same time.

  Ricky: Was it like a choreographed thing?

  Karl: Like, whatsit, erm …

  Steve: The Chippendales?

  Karl: No, you know – Cheryl Baker was in it.

  Ricky: Oh, ‘Making Your Mind Up’ with Bucks Fizz. A larger skirt concealing a smaller skirt. At no point did Bucks Fizz whip their knickers and pants off.

  Steve: When you said Cheryl Baker was in it I was thinking, ‘Didn’t she used to host Record Breakers? I don’t remember that on at tea time on BBC l.’

  Karl: So that happened, and all I’m saying is before I had a look at the women’s bits, right, I just had a little cheeky glance at the fellas’.

  Ricky: Why?

  Steve: Why?

  Karl: Just checking it out. Just seeing if everything is normal down there.

  Steve: Why weren’t your eyes drawn instantly to the ladies’ bits?

  Karl: No, believe me, I had a look at that. All I’m saying is …

  Steve: But you went to the guys’ first?

  Karl: I didn’t know how long the pants were gonna be left off for.

  Steve: And you didn’t want to miss the opportunity? You saw an opportunity to see some men’s bits and you thought, ‘I’d better take it ’cos this may never happen again.’

  Ricky: So what happened? There’s two women, two men, right. I don’t know what sort of event this is where you are all looking at people getting their knickers and pants off. I don’t know why you’re looking at all.

  Karl: Good night out.

  Ricky: So you think, ‘Right, there’s knickers and pants off – let’s check out the knob and testicles first.’

  Karl: You’re telling me when you’ve been in a gym or something you have not just turned your head, had a look and gone ‘Oh, right, yeah that’s alright, yeah.’

  Steve: Sorry, let’s just get this question right. Have we ever been in a gym and just taken a sneaky glance at a man’s genitals? Is that your question to us?

  Karl: Right, for me it’s the same as when you see someone who is a bit odd – two heads or whatever.

  Ricky: Well, I’ll be honest. If I was in a gym and a bloke came in with two heads, I would look. I would get a sneaky glance in the mirror.

  Steve: But would you look at his genitals or his two heads? Or would you sneakily look at the heads and then think, ‘I wonder if he’s got two cocks?’

  Ricky: I tell you what – and I admit it – if I am ever in a gym and a naked man with two heads walks in I would probably check out the genitals as well, just to make sure that he’s got two of everything.

  ‘So anyway they said,

  “Well how are we gonna

  get up there?”’

  Karl: This one’s about a fire that happened. D’you know in New York they have loads of big buildings, don’t they? Really tall ones.

  Ricky: Skyscrapers?

&nbs
p; Karl: And there was a fire in one of them, right. So they did as expected, they called up the fire brigade and that. They turned up, right. Fire engine parked up. It’s like, ‘Right where’s the fire?’ and they said, ‘Oh, it’s on Floor 100’ or whatever, and they said, ‘Oh no. We’ve brought the fire engine with the short ladders.’

  Steve: Stupid mistake, but go on …

  Karl: Right. So anyway the fire’s going and that and they’re saying, ‘Is there anyone in there?’ They go, ‘I don’t know. There might be someone up there but the telecom is not working and stuff.’

  Steve: Who do you think might be up there, Rick?

  Ricky: I dunno.

  Steve: Just a woman I imagine – a woman or a child.

  Ricky: Is there a fireman that could climb up a building without a ladder?

  Steve: I think it’s unlikely, but go on …

  Karl: So anyway they said, ‘Well how are we gonna get up there?’

  Steve: ‘We can’t, we’ve only brought a short ladder.’

  Ricky: ‘No we can’t. Let’s go home.’ Okay, so that was Monkey News …

  Karl: So they said, ‘Well there’s a lot of ‘grippage’.’

  Steve: Because they made up words, the firemen.

  Ricky: There’s a lot of ‘grippage.’

  Karl: … On the side of the building and stuff. So anyway they said, ‘Why don’t we just go and get a monkey?’ right. So they got a monkey.

  Steve: Whoa, that’s a bit of a jump.

  Ricky: Is that policy now, in the New York fire department?

  Karl: Well you know you’ve got to think quick, haven’t you? At the end of the day, if people are up there you don’t start querying if it will work or not, you try everything that you can to help someone out.