The World of Karl Pilkington (16 page)

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:
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 wandered 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?

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.

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

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.