Free The World of Karl Pilkington by Karl Pilkington, Stephen Merchant, Ricky Gervais Page B

every species? You actually believe that as fact, do you?
    Karl: Well, it’s out there in book form.
    Ricky: Brilliant.
    Steve: You haven’t answered the question that we started with. How did you meet Suzanne?
    Karl: Just at work.
    Steve: Thanks.

     

 

‘I know, but even if it is in a box …’
     
    Steve: Questions for Karl – Karl, if you could talk to any animal, which one would it be and what would you say to it?
    Karl: There’s a lot of stuff out there, in’t there. I would probably go for the tortoise.
    Ricky: Because it would take a long time to walk away from you while you were talking? Most animals would be off straightaway.
    Steve: Yeah.
    Karl: Just because they live for ages so they’ll have loads of stories. They’ve lived through a lot. Through wars and stuff. If you get, like, an old one …
    Ricky: Well, most of them have lived in a box in a garden for fifty-odd years.
    Karl: I know, but even if it is in a box …
    Ricky: Oh yeah, they’ve really travelled have they. Some of them have experienced more than you, they have broadened their horizons much more than you. They could probably teach you a thing or two, yeah.
 

    Steve: And what would you hope to learn from them?
    Karl: Just history.
    Ricky laughs .

    Steve: Right. From their very specific tortoise perspective? Other questions. If you had a time machine, Karl, what event in your childhood would you travel back to and why?
    Karl: What’s the point in going back to things that …?
    Ricky: Oh Jesus!
    Karl: No, it’s just that it’s never as good is it. It’s like a place you go on holiday and you go back thinking it’ll be as good as the first time – it never is. So I don’t believe in going back to places.

    Ricky: What do you understand by the question? Do you think they are asking, ‘Would you go back like a ghost and spy on things? Would you go back and you’ve got your childhood back, you are that child again? Or you’re in your child body but you’ve got your adult head and experiences?’
    Steve: Rick, I really don’t think Karl was thinking there was any of those variations, let’s be honest.
    Ricky: I think he was thinking of himself, as he is now, in school with a cap on.
    Steve: Yeah, but six foot tall sat on one of those tiny chairs.
    Karl: No I don’t think I would go back. It’s all happened now hasn’t it.
    Steve: Hang on. Let’s clarify one of Ricky’s points. What if you could go back and you could live that moment again? How would you do it differently?
    Karl: There’s been times when I’ve gone, ‘Oh that was a bit out of order’ or whatever, but then you learn from your mistakes, don’t you? So I don’t wanna go back and change stuff, ’cos it’s like that thing that they go on about where they blame the butterfly on an earthquake. You know it’s gonna happen. If it wasn’t that butterfly, it’s another one. So why pass the buck, is what I’m saying?
    Steve: So you’ve got no regrets? There’s nothing in your past you’d want to change or do differently?
    Ricky: What about if you went back and you spied on something like a ghost? You couldn’t change anything but you could have a look at something.

    Karl: Like what?
    Ricky: Like Ebenezer Scrooge does with the ghost of Christmas Past. He goes back and he’s looking at himself dancing and stuff. What would you do? What would you go back and have a look at?
    Karl: Yeah, but you are asking me to change. I don’t wanna change.
    Steve: You’re not changing – you’re just observing.
    Ricky: It’s impossible. It’s not gonna happen. It’s impossible.
    Karl: Alright. I nearly died once didn’t I, on an ice-pop. Now maybe if I would have died I would say let’s go back to that and I won’t have an ice-pop.
    Ricky: You wouldn’t be having this conversation if you’d have died. You wouldn’t be having this question put to you.
    Steve: You’re rewriting history and then you’re going back to change it.
    Ricky: Yeah.
    Steve: