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?