The World of Karl Pilkington (8 page)

Ricky:
So the head lands perfectly back on the neck and goes, ‘What d’you wanna know?’

Karl:
Ah, but it said …

Ricky:
So they are asking questions and it’s going, ‘D’you know what – to be quite honest I don’t want to answer your questions. I am a little bit annoyed about the execution still.’

Karl:
Well that was the interesting thing. They said …

Ricky:
No. It didn’t happen, Karl. Oh, don’t talk shit. What are you talking about? These people round in white coats going, ‘Quick, answer the question, you’re bleeding.’

Karl:
Right, so they talked to it for about twenty-five to thirty seconds. The last five seconds it sort of can’t be bothered answering them. But apart from that they were chucking questions at it. I don’t think it spoke. I don’t think it was two and two equals four and stuff. It was more to do with blinking.

Steve:
So blink once for ‘yes’, blink twice for ‘no’?

Ricky:
Oh yeah, so they said to the bloke, ‘Listen, when you die, you are probably not going to be able to talk because your jaw is going to be on the ground, you’re not going to be able to open your mouth. If you do, you’ll fall over backwards and hit your head. So instead, blink once for “yes” and twice for “no”.’ ‘Yeah, alright, yeah. Is the axe nice and shiny?’

Steve:
‘Now you promise to do it?’

Ricky:
‘Yeah I will, yeah, yeah.’ The thing is they wouldn’t be able to do it with you, Karl, because if they cut your head off, it would just roll away because it is perfectly spherical.

Steve:
Plus, whenever you ask Karl anything, it takes about twenty seconds for him to process the question and start to formulate an answer.

Steve:
Sorry, before you say that, Rick, I’m intrigued to know if he’s fully got to grips with this. Just give us your explanation again of what you take it to mean.

Karl:
Well, just don’t be chucking stuff about, really.

Ricky:
If that’s what it means, they would just say that.

Karl:
No, no, but that saying has been around a lot longer than we think. That’s when people probably did live in basic glass houses. What they mean now is …

Ricky:
No no no no, whoa whoa whoa. Sorry, so cavemen went from rock to a nice crystal structure, did they? What you talking about? When do you think we lived in glass houses?

Karl:
Well, when that saying is used now they mean sort of plasma tellies. Or ornaments.

Ricky:
No they don’t.

Karl:
They are saying, ‘Don’t chuck stuff about because you’ll break it.’

Ricky:
No, it’s not about damaging your own property.

Steve:
They don’t mean you shouldn’t throw rocks inside your own ‘glass house’.

Ricky:
It’s a metaphor. It means, ‘Don’t be having a go at people if you yourself have got more to lose.’ Do you know what I mean? Don’t start a war if you could come off bad as well. It’s about how fragile your situation is. If you live in a glass house – metaphorically – don’t throw stones at someone else because when he throws stones back at you, your house is more easily damaged than his. Again, metaphorically.

Steve:
It doesn’t mean that if you’re living in a glass house don’t throw bricks about – because that would be a very specific audience that the phrase was trying to reach.

Ricky:
Okay, I think we have got to the crux of this. Karl, what is an analogy?

Karl:
It’s sort of like a little story told quickly, innit.

Steve:
‘It’s a little story told quickly.’ To what end?

Karl:
Well it depends what the story is.

Ricky:
Give me an analogy.

Karl:
Well I thought of one with the greenhouse, right.

Steve:
Now it’s a greenhouse. Before it was just a glass house.

Karl:
Alright then, a glass house.

Ricky:
That glass house is metaphorical. It’s about the fragility of your situation …

Karl:
You see I just prefer to say what you mean so here’s mine; ‘People who live in a glass house have to answer the door.’

Ricky:
I don’t know what that means. You may be a genius because I don’t get that. ‘People who live in glass houses have to answer the door?’

Steve:
Let’s hear his explanation.

Karl:
Because the people knocking at the door will be able to see you, ’cos it’s a glass house. So don’t pretend you’re not in.

Ricky:
There is no analogy or metaphor for you, is there? You literally mean if you live in a glass house and someone knocks on the door you have to answer it. There is no hidden meaning there, is there?

Steve:
You have to add a number of other caveats, surely? ‘If you live in a glass house don’t walk around naked.’

Karl:
Yeah.

Ricky:
You see these are literal. You could actually make that into quite a nice saying. If someone said that to me and they weren’t a shaved chimp, I would think that means, ‘If you have chosen to be totally open all the time you can’t go back on it. If you wear everything on your sleeve, if you shout about everything, you can’t have any secrets because people can see through you.’

Karl:
It can mean that as well, yeah.

Steve:
Oh that’s handy. I love the fact that in your head there should be sayings for people who actually live in glass houses. Who is it that is living in a glass house?

Karl:
I didn’t start it. It’s just if everyone else is bringing up about these people who are living in glass houses, let’s get to the real problems we’ve got.

Ricky:
‘People who live in glass houses should live near a glazier.’

Karl:
What? Look, here’s another saying, right, that I learnt recently from a mate, right. ‘There’s an elephant in the room.’

Ricky:
Okay, I haven’t heard that one but explain it to me.

Karl:
It’s like when you … er … when something’s going on in a room, right, but no one is mentioning it because everyone’s a bit too sort of… but in a way it’s better that it’s out. It’s like how whenever we go out for something to eat or a drink or something – normally after about five minutes, the topic gets on to the shape of my head.

Ricky:
Yeah, yeah. Well I can’t resist the shape of your head.

Karl:
Right, so you’re happy talking about it.

Ricky:
It’s not just the shape though, is it? It’s the state of it as well. Outside and in. I mean his head is a fascinating little
objet d’art
. It’s perfectly round. It’s got no hair where it should have and it’s hollow.

Steve:
The features are slightly too small for the face.

Ricky:
Unbelievable.

Karl:
No, but what I’m saying is, I’m the elephant in the room, right. Nobody’s talking about it. You mention it once, suddenly it’s the talk of the town.

Ricky laughs
.

Karl:
What I mean is everybody starts joining in going, ‘Well yeah, it is round, but it does suit you’ and these are people who I don’t even know sometimes, and they’re all dipping in, and that is an ‘elephant in the room’.

Steve:
So you don’t want people to discuss the shape of your head, or the lack of hair? You would feel happier if they didn’t mention it?

Karl:
Sometimes I think it is better that it’s out there. It’s made me a stronger person though. It’s the same way we were talking about religion and that. Samson and Delilah. He got weaker without hair. Whereas with me, it’s made me stronger because it’s almost like it’s treated like a disability. Everybody’s sort of mentioning it, and talking about it. ‘What’s it like having a bald head?’ So it has made me stronger.

Ricky:
But would you ever wear a wig?

Karl:
Erm … Not really.

Ricky:
A long wig so you looked like Samson.

Karl:
Well the only time I wanted a wig was when I did jury duty once, and it was annoying that I was sat on the jury right in front of these criminals, right. Everybody else has got disguises. The judges have them wigs on, right.

Ricky:
That’s not a disguise.

Karl:
That’s a disguise. That’s why judges wear ’em.

Ricky:
No. Why print their name in the paper and have a picture of them? What do you mean, ‘it’s a disguise’?

Karl:
It’s a disguise, innit?

Ricky:
No, if it was a disguise, they’d go in with one of those glasses with a nose and a beard attached. All judges would look like Groucho Marx if it was a disguise.

Karl:
Well I am just saying, that’s what annoyed me when I was sat there on the front row. I couldn’t have been any closer to the criminals. I was sat there and I thought, ‘Why didn’t I just pop a little wig on, or a pair of glasses?’

Ricky laughs

Ricky:
I would have loved to have seen you in the front row at Crown Court.

Steve:
Except in this country you’re not allowed to show pictures of jurors. You can’t take photos in a courtroom. So there’s always these sketch artists that draw drawings and they’re on the news. The idea that we’d have seen a sketch of eleven people and a Krusty the Clown figure would have been amazing.

Ricky:
Yeah, I would have loved to have seen the artist’s drawing of you. Because it would have been carefully drawn people and then just a little round head.

Steve:
Or Charlie Brown.

Ricky laughs
.

Ricky:
Yeah, Charlie Brown sitting on the end.

Ricky:
And so what did you do?

Steve:
You sliced off your thumbs?

Karl:
I just sort of held ’em in and it’s amazing how it took me ages, just having that one thing gone.

Ricky:
It’s part of our evolution, the opposable thumb. Basically that’s when we soared. These are milestones in evolution. The opposable thumb, the forward facing eyes, walking upright. These are massive things that take us out of the animal kingdom.

Steve:
And one day, Karl, you’ll walk upright.

Karl:
What d’you mean about eyes facing forward? D’you mean before we got here there was people whose eyes were looking in their head?