The World of Karl Pilkington (17 page)

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:
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.

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?

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.’

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.