Sync by honeybunny www.addic7ed.com
Announcer: For the past few years Ricky Gervais,
Stephen merchant, and Karl Pilkington
have been meeting regularly
for a series of pointless conversations.
This is one of them.
- Testing. - Is that all right?
( Dings )
Hello and welcome to "The Ricky Gervais Show"
with me, Ricky Gervais, Stephen merchant...
- Hello. - ...And the little round-headed buffoon
that is Karl Pilkington.
Hi.
( Theme music playing )
We've been away filming in a sweltering London.
Got a heat wave here
in the capital city, haven't we, Karl?
- It's been hot, right. - It's been up to 100°,
record-breaking temperatures.
- Yeah. - What you been doing though?
Getting to see the place, having loads of walks.
And I like to have walks, you know, watching what people do.
- Like a dog. - ( Laughs ) Yeah.
When he jumps off the couch
and starts scratching against the door,
Suzanne thinks, "It's time for a little walk."
It's just good thinking time though, isn't it, as well... having a walk?
You've got no other clutter going on around you.
You can just think about a lot of stuff.
And, you know, like say with the weather being hot and stuff,
a lot of insects knocking about.
- Right. - So I've just been watching them.
So... so while we've been filming, you've been watching insects.
Karl: Yeah, just seeing... 'cause everybody knows
insects are out there, but no one's keeping an eye on them.
Ricky: What are they up to? What are you worried about?
Loads. Steve, you wouldn't be laughing like that if you'd watch them,
'cause they do some weird stuff and that is what I mean.
What sort of stuff? Any examples?
Uh...
I saw a bee have a heart attack.
( Both laughing )
- You saw a bee have a heart attack? - Yeah.
How were you sure it was a heart attack?
'Cause what happened, I've been in...
Did it clutch its chest with all six legs?
Were there some other little bee paramedics?
No no, I'd just been out in the park anyway,
just looking at, you know, caterpillars knocking about,
butterflies and stuff. So I was sort of aware...
So when Suzanne goes to work, she goes,
"Karl, don't you waste the day.
I want you to do some constructive stuff."
But the thing is... So I'd been in the park
and I was aware of the insects that are around us
more than like most of the time.
And I come out of the park, just crossing
like sort of a busy road and what have you.
And I saw this bee to the right of me sort of in the air.
And it was a big one. And I was a bit like,
"Oh, let's watch that."
And, um, it just fell.
It fell from the air in front of me.
And it was on the pavement. And I thought, "Oh, what's going on here?"
And I looked at it for a bit. And it was really still.
Gave it a little kick just to see if there was any movement.
Nothing. Stone sort of...
What's the saying? Stone cold dead.
( Ricky laughs ) Yeah.
Stone cold bee dead.
- Karl: So uh, that was... - Yeah.
I love the fact that this bee
suddenly saw Karl and had a heart attack.
It had never seen anything that round before.
It just thought... It approached him
because he thought it was a sunflower.
Stephen: My God, it's a giant walking orange.
Every dream has come true... Argh!
( Ricky laughing )
No, but it just summed up life for me. I thought that
that's like us, isn't it, at the end of the day?
They have heart attacks. Stress.
You put it down to stress, do you?
Well, it was in London, isn't it?
You know, everything has stresses from living here.
Ricky: And they are bald, aren't they? They've got fur all over,
- but they lose their... - And always overweight.
( Laughing )
It was a fat bald bee. Oh.
So what did you... It fell to the floor
and you instantly, you just kicked it?
You didn't attempt to revive it?
No, I waited a second and just looked at it
to see if there was any, you know, leg movement or wing.
And there was nothing. And then when I sort of kicked it,
it was sort of hard. It had hardened already. It was just...
- Rigor mortis had set in. - Rigor mortis had set in.
Did it put you in a bad mood for the day?
'Cause I know things like that can just send you over the edge for the day.
Uh, death and that does a bit.
Suzanne doesn't like me talking about death.
What riveting conversations do you come up with?
No, just things like...
One of our mates has had a baby recently
and I just was saying, "Oh, when that's sort of our age,
- we'll nearly be dead. - Stephen: Think of that.
That's the first thing he says as a new life is brought into the world.
- I know. - "But when he's our age, we'll be dead."
Yeah. Maybe they'll let you do the speech at the christening.
Well yeah, I've been watching loads of stuff.
I've been watching ants. You mentioned ants.
Uh, I've had a lot of moths in the house.
They're sort of...
I mean, you say it like there was a garden party.
Yeah well, but all I'm saying is
I look at more about what its life is like.
'Cause if you watch something long enough, is what I'm saying,
you can see that it's... it's a bit clueless.
It's the same way about ants.
You know, they're hard workers and all that.
I watched one... it's going back and forth all the time.
They go one way and then they stop and go the other way.
They try to look busy in front of the mates. But if you watch one...
- ( Ricky laughing ) - If you watch one long enough,
it's back and forwards and it's like it's done nothing there.
Ricky: I'm gonna carry this twig
back and forth until I can knock off at 4:00.
- Karl: There's a lot of that going on. - Is there?
'Course there's not. There's none of that going on.
There is. No, like I say, the moth...
a depressing little sort of thing.
- ( Laughs ) - Why is it depressing?
It hasn't got eyes, has it?
You just look at it and it doesn't know what's going on.
I think if you haven't got eyes you shouldn't have wings.
( Ricky cackling )
That's a rule? If we could put that into practice, please?
That's a great rule.
- That's a fantastic rule, isn't it? - Yeah.
It hasn't got eyes... It shouldn't have wings.
Oh.
I just was reading something about an octopus that's...
There's like a killer octopus.
And it annoyed me that this was knocking about now.
Because I didn't know. I thought they were quite friendly.
Whenever you see them in cartoons and that,
they're always happy, aren't they? And then suddenly
it sort of brought the whole sort of creature down.
- Do you know what I mean? - No. What do you mean?
Well, just... just, you know,
when you see them in films, they're running about and that
and everybody likes an octopus.
But this one that's on the... It was your fault really,
'cause you told me about that frog that's going about killing people.
- Ricky: No, I didn't say that. - So I looked it up on the Internet
at, like, other creatures and stuff.
- Dot.Com. - And there's
some octopus that's in the sea,
uh, and what it does...
You don't even have to like threaten it.
It just spits in the water.
And if that stuff gets on you,
it does you in.
Again, I'm... hmm.
So in a way it's good knowledge because...
I mean, I don't go in the sea anyway
'cause it's full of stuff like that.
But that's just reassured me that I'm doing the right thing.
If they're knocking about just gozzing everywhere,
uh, you don't en have to be near one.
You don't even know if it's been spitting and stuff.
It can kill you. It just seems unfair.
I haven't harmed it. I haven't gone near it.
Why is it getting annoyed with me?
It doesn't seem right. So that's where knowledge
has... has not helped the octopus out,
because now when you eat them,
I just think, "Yeah, have another one."
Do you know what I mean? "Get rid of 'em."
( Laughing )
Another conversation with himself.
Okay, Karl, I'm just gonna throw an animal at ya.
Tell me how weird it is, what bits annoy you, how you'd change it.
Okay? A crab.
- How would I change it? - Yeah.
Does it annoy you? Do you think it's weird?
Um, they are weird.
But they're at that size where they can get away with it.
( Ricky laughing ) Yeah, it suits 'em. Okay, good.
Um, would I change anything?
Um, in a way, you know,
what you're saying about things not working...
He can't walk forwards.
So why hasn't something happened? Why haven't they said,
"Do you know what? These arms are too clumsy.
We need to have 'em so they can slot away easier
and we can pull 'em out when we need 'em
"instead of clumping around with them."
'Cause they do struggle.
You see them struggling with their arms.
Yet they're still here. They still doing that...
they're still designed that way.
What's the weirdest animal? So you think the octopus
- is the weirdest animal on earth? - Yeah.
Why is it any weirder than a dog?
Because it couldn't be further away from us.
A dog has got human eyes.
( Ricky laughing )
If a jelly... Honestly, if a jellyfish had a pair of eyes like ours,
I probably wouldn't worry about him that much.
But like I said to you, it's that way that they haven't got eyes.
They're floating about. I can handle some fish.
They look... they look like us. They've got eyes.
You can make eye-to-eye contact with them.
- Ricky: When are you making...? - A jellyfish... what are you looking at?
It's a snidey thing, like I've said to you.
You can see... se.
Do you know what I mean? They say, "Don't trust him." "Why?" "It's his eyes."
Jellyfish haven't even got any and I don't trust them.
In terms of, um, design and everything,
uh, if you lined everything up...
Say if I'd come from another planet,
and everything was lined up in a row,
and they said, "Right, we're gonna give you a crash course
in what's knocking about on this planet."
- Yeah. - And you go, "Right, go on then."
And they go, "This is man. Here's woman.
Here's a dog. Here's a cat.
Here's an octopus. Here's a... "
I'd go, "Hang on a minute. What is this?"
( Ricky and Stephen laughing )
Say if... if everything
was at the same size as us,
what would be the best thing to be?
Say like a tarantula...
Yeah.
And a tiger... What would happen there?
A 15-stone tiger versus a 15-stone tarantula?
- Yeah. - Well, I would imagine the 15-stone tarantula.
Right, so it's just weird, isn't it?
It's a good job that they're small,
yet things are getting bigger 'cause we're messing with the world.
That's a ridiculous thing to say, isn't it? 'Cause what would it eat...
15-stone?
The biggest you'll find is like a foot-long beetle.
- It's big, though, isn't it? - Yeah, and that's about as big as they get.
- I wouldn't worry about it. - Hmm.
( Chuckles ) Again, based on nothing, he queries you.
But it's like fish, isn't it... How they say about goldfish?
- Yeah. - That thing about a woman
who went on holiday and stuck it in a bath.
She came back... It was 7'.
- Right. That didn't happen. - No, that's a well-known thing about goldfish.
No, it's not a well-known thing. I'll tell you why.
Because a fish will only grow to its surroundings anyway.
- So... - Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
- You'd have to put it in a bigger tank. - Yeah, in a bath.
No, a 7' fish in a bath?
It just fit the bath exactly, did it?
When she got back off holiday...
- Don't talk shit. - It's a well-known...
What was it eating? What was it eating?
How long was she gone for? Two million years?
( Laughing ) Yeah yeah.
She... she went to Mars and back.
Ted, you're not gonna believe this. Come up here.
Well, how many fish do you see that have naturally died?
It's always been caught by a man or a shark's ate it.
( Both laugh )
You don't just see dead fish washed up, do you?
Well, most things don't die of old age.
Yeah, that's weird though, isn't it?
Well, no, 'cause it's a...
You know, it's a jungle out there.
No, worse in the sea.
The sea is like full of...
You've got an enemy round every rock.
( Ricky laughing ) I love it.
I love it. It's like a warning to crabs...
Exactly.
And young squid.
He's like the policeman that comes into your school.
Yeah yeah.
Karl, have you ever seen the program, "Inside the Actors Studio"?
Uh, no.
James Lipton interviews famous actors
and gets words of advice about,
you know, how they work and how they act.
But at the end he always asks a series of questions,
which is based on a French series of questions
that a guy called Bernard pivot
used to give people when he interviewed them.
So I'm gonna ask you some of these questions.
I'm just interested to see what your response is.
And answer them quickly. You don't have to think about them too much.
What is your favorite curse word?
Uh,
I don't think I've got one.
Uh, knobhead.
That sums everything up. And I think it's...
Ricky: But you wouldn't call your nan a knobhead, would you?
What would you call your nan?
Well, knobhead's all right, isn't it?
'Cause she sort of gets it.
It's one of them things that everybody understands,
- but it's not too offensive. - Right.
- What a knobhead. - ( Laughs )
What would you do, though, if you were swimming, right?
It was a nice little... You're on holiday, right?
And there's this octopus there. And you're going around, right?
And you just see it start spitting at you... poison. What would you say to it?
Yeah, well, it's too late then, isn't it?
- I'd kick it. - ( Laughing )
And I'd say, "you knobhead!"
I would... but what's the point?
What's the point in getting annoyed now, 'cause it's done...
It's done its stuff, hasn't it?
I love how you'd kick it
and call it a knobhead under the water.
What is this octopus thinking?
Oh God. Oh.
I'd go, "You fucking eight-legged shit!
- You... !" - "I'm not bothered. I'm not bothered.
I don't know what you're saying."
"You... you fucking... fucking cunt of a mollusk."
It'd just spit at you again. It's not bothered.
You slimy little fucking boneless wanker!
This is why the face is good.
Are you still talking to the octopus?
( Laughing )
Oh, I don't believe it! He's only gone and written it down!
( Jingle plays )
That jingle of course signifies
another reading from Karl Pilkington's diary.
"We went to the park and had a brew.
Suzanne read the paper while I played with a ladybird."
( Laughing )
I mean, it's like a child, isn't it?
It is like what a child would write.
"Suzanne read the paper while I played with a ladybird."
Oh.
Oh, his only friend is a beetle.
"It climbed up my arm. It struggled on me hairs."
- This is in detail then. - Yeah yeah yeah yeah.
"It kept stopping every now and then"
and was rubbing its head with its right arm.
It did it about four times and always used its right arm.
It rested for about five minutes, then flew off.
Sunday, had a bit of a to-do with Suzanne
'cause she wanted a lie-in today.
I hate this.
Once you're awake you should get up.
I got up and put the radio on really loud.
She eventually got up. I told her
insects don't have lie-ins, so we shouldn't."
Why are you obsessed with insects?
I mean, you must be fucking unbearable to live with.
You must be a nightmare.
No, I've just started... because I've watched insects a lot.
I don't want to keep going on about them 'cause we're a bit insect-heavy.
But at the end of the day, if we...
if we copied insects, we wouldn't go far wrong.
I don't know what you mean though.
One minute you're saying they're great.
Then the next minute you'll slag them off.
Yeah, I'll slag some of them off if I don't know what they're doing.
But because I've studied them a bit longer, I just think they have it right.
- You haven't studied them though. - He thinks he's like Darwin.
But you just slagged them off when you go,
"Don't you think that insects are doing stuff? They're not.
It goes there, then it goes back again."
Yeah, ants. The ant was. The ant was messing about.
But only that one. The others were carrying stuff.
That's what I'm saying. There's snidey ones in everything.
In everything in the world , you get a hierarchy.
- Oh, long words. - Ooh.
"Some new sea thing has been found."
( Both laugh )
That's the headlines on the news?
"It wasn't found by sea experts."
It was found on eBay.
Someone was selling it for a fiver.
"I don't see the point in buying something that you don't know what it is."
What do you mean? It was... it was...?
Someone's found some sort of shell
- with a thing living in it. - Right.
They thought, "Oh, I've never seen one of these before.
I can flog it on eBay."
Someone bought it and then wanted to look after it,
went to some sea expert, and they said,
"Oh, I don't know what that is."
That's... that's the story.
It's just weird how stuff's being found on eBay.
No, it wasn't found on eBay though, was it?
Yeah, but that's where the specialist people
sort of picked up on it. It's just weird that...
I mean, all I was saying is I wouldn't want one.
If you don't know how to... If it's a new creature,
you don't know what... what makes it happy.
When you get a kitten, you go stroke its head.
Loves it, right?
And you can do that, knowing that it's liking it.
If I had a little seashell and you go,
"Does it sit in water?" "I don't know."
Do you know what I mean? You could end up doing more damage.
So that's why I wouldn't want it.
It's nice to have rules, isn't it?
It's nice to know what you're doing with something.
Well, as you write in the diary,
"It's like if an alien landed and wanted to live with you."
As much fun as it might sound,
it wouldn't be long before you got annoyed with it
'cause it wouldn't eat the food you gave it."
That's what I'm saying. I couldn't have a go at it
because it might not like pasta.
Ricky: It might not?
Everyone likes pasta.
Wow. "Woke up to some interesting news.
It's good when this happens 'cause it set me up for the day ahead.
If it's miserable news, it affects my day.
"It said on the news that they have found two new flies."
Fucking hell, more insects.
What have you done? Is that all you've done this summer?
Bong! "Trouble in the Middle East."
Bong! "Two new flies found."
"Ladybird climbs up arm!"
"They were found in the U.K.,
and they were found close to each other.
Maybe this happened because they were different than the other flies
and weren't expected to hang about together.
So that's why they knocked about with each other."
That would happen, wouldn't it?
What do you mean?
- There's two new flies. - Do you mean...
Does it mean there are two new flies that are a different species?
Species, yeah, two new species.
And they found them close to each other, right?
Yeah, but they didn't mean there was one of each.
No, yeah. Yeah, they did.
They found two different ones.
- No. - No, they have, seriously.
I know that that's right. That's a fact. So you've got like...
I don't know the names of them. They give them odd names, don't they?
Say, call it "a," and fly b.
- Right? - Yeah.
Fly a, I don't know, was...
say, that's orange.
- This is just... - Fly b, yeah.
- This is painful. - No, but I'm just making it easy for you.
- Fly b wears a little hat. He's got a little hat. - Yeah, fine.
Now they found the orange one,
and went, "Look at this over here. This is a bit weird."
And they've gone, "Oh, that's a new species. Log it," whatever.
And then the other one went, "Whoa, keep your pen handy.
Look at this one. It's got a hat on."
So then they found them both within the same distance.
- I don't know wt that statement means. - Keep going, keep going.
- They found them both... - No, let him finish.
They found them both within the same distance.
Without interrupting him, let him finish this point.
No, 'cause let me just make one thing clear...
Karl Pilkington just said, "They found them both
within the same distance." Think of that.
Don't know what it means, but go on. Let him finish this point.
So... so what I mean is,
they weren't knocking about with other normal houseflies
because they were probably sort of going,
"Oh, he's a bit weird. Leave it."
( Ricky snickering )
Yet because the other one was also odd,
they're hanging about with each other.
Don't you understand that? Why is that such an odd concept?
'Cause you think...
you think that it's like
- two little new kids in school. - Yeah.
They find out they're both new and they've got some...
They're both goths.
So they start hanging out together.
And this was on the news, was it?
Yeah, just on the radio, yeah.
I know if I looked into that story,
it would be 90% wrong.
"A bit tired today 'cause didn't get to sleep
as early as I'd wanted due to a moth getting in the bedroom."
Fuck me.
"I got it in a glass and looked at it for a bit,
and then let it go 'cause Suzanne wanted to go to sleep."
Looked up some interesting news.
Some people dug up an old body in Ireland.
Turns out, it's well old
and was here when dinosaurs were here.
The really weird bit is it had hair gel in its hair."
- Right, what is it? - A fella.
Well no, it wasn't around when dinosaurs were here then.
- Just a bit after. - Right, fine.
A lot after. Yeah, go on.
It's not the age bit that's amazing.
It's the fact of there's a fella
won't have even had shoes on his feet.
Ricky: Right.
And yet he was worried about his hairstyle.
Right, well, that's definitely not true either.
"There was a man on the radio doing poetry," says Karl in his diary.
"I thought I'd have a go at doing a poem about today."
( Clears throat )
Not really.
Steve, I'm a little bit queasy.
He hasn't really written a poem?
- He's written a small poem. - No, he hasn't really.
Yes. "If moths had eyes..."
Fuck me.
Let me read the poem.
- Okay? - Oh fuck.
You wouldn't interrupt t.S. Eliot.
Okay okay okay okay.
Oh, go.
"If moths had eyes, would they be happier?
How do they know they're not dead?"
( Laughs )
"Cavemen hunting for food,
but not before they style the hair on their head."
( Snickering )
"What would last longer in dinosaur times?"
A blind man didn't stand a chance,
not with all them rocks about.
"I'd rather be a blind moth."
Right.
It may be the greatest poem ever written.
Is there a creative decision for that?
- Can we have Karl read that? Sorry. - By all means, yeah.
Just you read it as you would like to.
So this is... imagine this, right?
Okay, this is going out all over the world.
And now, um, Karl Pilkington,
a new poet from Manchester,
now living in, uh, London, England,
would like to read a poem.
"If moths had eyes, would they be happier?"
How do they know they're not dead?
Cavemen hunting for food,
but not before they style the hair on their head.
What would last longer in dinosaur times?
A blind man didn't stand a chance,
not with all them rocks about.
"I'd rather be a blind moth."
( Ricky laughing )
He said it as though the last bit was gonna rhyme.
He said it like it was gonna rhyme.
Oh God. It's amazing. It's amazing.
- Karl. - No, I think he feels...
I think he feels as though the final line...
"I'd rather be a blind moth"...
is gonna be one of those great, you know... a summation,
that somehow the moth is a metaphor. The caveman...
- I'd rather be a blind moth. - No, but all I'm doing...
There's no metaphor in that. He really does mean...
Both: He'd rather be a blind moth.
Yeah, well, just because I've looked at the day's news...
Are you getting into poetry now properly?
I really like it, yeah. Right, I did two about jellyfish.
- Excellent. - Uh...
"I don't like jellyfish. They're not a fish.
They're just a blob.
They don't have eyes, fins or scales like a cod.
They float about blind, stinging people in the seas.
And no one eats jellyfish with chips and mushy peas.
Get rid of 'em."
Get... ( Laughing )
And then there's just a short one I did about a jellyfish.
Um,
"It would be spiteful to put jellyfish in a trifle."
( Ricky laughing )
Yeah, it certainly would.
So...
That's great.
That's really good. 'Cause it's jelly.
He's telling us this, Steve.
- Yeah yeah yeah yeah. - That's a really good poem.
Can we always do that, Karl?
Can we always find a day, right,
and always sum it up in your thoughts...
- In a poem. - ...A poem, just like that?
"It would be spiteful to put jellyfish in a trifle."
Yeah.
Sync by honeybunny www.addic7ed.com