BONUS: Karl's Diary (Compilation)

What I thought I'd start doing is uh

start a diary.

Okay, why?

Just'cause I I thought I've had a bit of time on my hands and that.

Just thought write it down, write write stuff down.

And do you hope that this one day will become one of the great literary documents like Samuel Pepys' diary?

Um I haven't heard of that, is it any good?

You've never heard of Samuel Pepys' diary?

No, that's not the most famous diary uh uh other than probably Anne Franks.

I've heard of Anne Franks and that and I thought if she's sat in a, you know, a loft knocking stuff up, not much going on in her life at that point, yet she was still writing it down.

Yeah, whereas

I would hear it, yeah.

I thought, so there is stuff going on that I can chat about.

Start a diary, sure.

You started a diary, yeah, and what are you gonna do?

You did you did you keep it up every day, yeah.

Just uh, oh, can I read it, please?

Well, a diary is meant to be sort of please, can I read some out on this podcast?

I, Carl, some of it, though, is only relevant to me.

It's sort of like, oh, this is please give me it.

Oh, my God.

I mean, this isn't.

I am just.

Look how big it is!

It's a desk diary.

It's huge.

It's about a foot long.

And it's mat.

Oh, that is amazing.

Imagine if Anne Franks have been like that.

As she got out,

right.

Everyone would have heard it clang down on the desk.

Yeah, but my writing's quite big, isn't it?

Oh, look, give us that.

Give us that.

Do you know about joined up writing?

Have you ever seen it?

Listen about it.

It's amazing.

Sometimes you can't read it, can you?

So it's mine.

Oh, my God.

It starts on the first day.

This is wonderful.

Going on holiday to Grand Canaria today, woke up to the news that Tony Banks had died.

There was a piece on the news about how everyone was shocked.

Got me thinking about an invention.

That would be good.

Right.

A watch that counted down your life.

If it says you've got three days left, go to the doctors.

Told Suzanne about invention.

She said she wouldn't buy one.

But she said that about the iPod.

And how would this device work, this watch?

I mean,

how would you know when you were about to die?

Is that a concern again, not for you to worry about, presumably the Boffins and the stuff?

No, all I was thinking is that Tony Banks fella, you know, he died and everyone was shocked about it.

But if you had like a little watch on.

But how does it work?

You can't just say, wouldn't it be good?

How would this work?

Yeah, um I imagine you're in the patent office going, got an idea, they go, oh certainly, Miss Boggleton, what's your idea?

Watch that counting down your life.

Oh, how does that work?

Just pop it on your wrist.

No, no, no, no, what do you mean?

Just pop it on your wrist.

How does it work?

Just pop it on your wrist.

Brilliant.

You're an idiot.

Well, it's interesting that he goes on.

The flight to Grand Canary was a bit bumpy.

I thought about the clock that counts down your life again, and I wondered if it would know if you were going to die in a disaster.

No, he's querying his own.

He's wondering if it would know.

He's invented this.

A fellow on the plane was reading Koi Mag.

It was a fishing magazine.

I glanced over and noticed he was reading the the Pond of the Month article.

Don't think they could make it into a weekly magazine.

Well, to be fair to you, because I remember seeing a guy on the train once reading Carp Monthly, a magazine dedicated entirely to Carp, and it had Carp of the Month.

And I just thought, you know, once you're like three months in, the editor must be stressing.

Have we got any more Carp?

Have we got a Carp that's actually done anything?

I reckon if they use the same one twice, there wouldn't be many companies.

No, I wouldn't be noticing.

No, that's the carp they used two years ago.

There was a really fat bloke on the plane.

He was playing on his PSP.

While I waited to go to the toilet, I looked at what game he was playing.

It was Darts.

He's that fat and lazy, he can't even face playing a more active game on a Games console.

Me and Suzanne got off the coach along with a couple of old people.

One of them was in a wheelchair.

I don't think it was wise of them to come to a volcanic island with a wheelchair.

Everywhere's pretty rough, paved, and slopey.

Guess I'll keep an eye on it as the weeks go on.

Day two in Grand Canaria.

Brilliant, we're only at day two.

The hotel's a bit odd.

I've never seen as many cross-eyed people in one location.

So often.

That's amazing.

Well, you might let me read on a bit more about it.

But this is amazing.

This is a brilliant diary.

This might be the best diary ever written.

Oh.

While I sat listening to the kinks on my iPod, I wondered if everybody thinks in their accent.

I know I do.

What's this?

What are you talking about?

Just

that.

You know, when I've been sat there lying on the lounger, right, and I was thinking about stuff.

How do you know you think in your accent?

Tell me a typical thought.

Because what I mean is, say say if I was like if I saw something, right?

Do you know how I say like, oh, that's a bit weird, isn't it?

No, but that wasn't.

I don't have to.

But

when you think, I don't think the sentence is like I'm saying it.

It's just a thought.

The thought appears.

It's conceptual and it's already there.

It's not like I go, Rick, what?

Just looking at a fellow over there, were you?

Yeah, I I was, yeah.

I was thinking it was a bit weird.

So was I.

I don't think out whole sentences.

Whereas you have, Carl, Carl, look, Carl, stop listening to the kinks for a minute.

Look over there.

More cross-eyed people.

No, well, that's.

Yeah, that's.

Is that how your mind works?

In a way, yeah.

And that's when

I was like, it's great that you have to think out whole sentences.

Because I thought, that's weird, isn't it?

I didn't think, that's weird, isn't it?

And I thought, I actually think in my accent.

And then I thought, does Stephen Hawking, does he, when he's doing his maths and that, is he, I don't know where he's from, so I don't know what his accent will be like.

I think he's from uh

Kent or Cambridge or Oxford.

Right, so so you think he might think in his in his in his voice, in that in that voice.

Had lunch inside today due to shite weather.

Sat next to an old fella.

Old men's ears and noses carry on growing as they get older.

Suzanne noticed his fingers were fat too.

Maybe they continued to grow.

Suzanne didn't laugh when I said her arse had the same problem.

Day three, cloudy start of the day.

Had pie and chips in a cafe.

Had a bit of an argument with Suzanne because I thought it was daff that we were paying for food when we were on an all-inclusive holiday.

Changed my mind when I saw the they sold pie, though.

The cafe was called Tattoos.

The fellow who owned it didn't have any tattoos, but we never saw his wife.

Oh, Bridium.

Had a drink in a bar.

Everyone sat and watched one of the local cats lick its bollocks.

It's the greatest holiday in the world.

A bit of entertainment in that town.

Went back to the hotel, Lull asleep before tea.

I love the fact you're like, you're tomorrow about old people, but you're just as bad.

You've done nothing so far.

He's a lot of people.

Oh, God, God.

Woke up to news about ducks being badly treated.

There was a really ugly one with bent legs.

I'm gonna die.

I'm gonna die.

Why does he write this down?

Oh god.

There is a fat bloke from Bolton who is in the pool as I write this.

He's got a big tattoo on his back, but I can't work out what it is.

Dot, dot, dot.

He just got out of the pool and burped.

You just felt like you had to keep us abreast of that.

Everything's in the diary.

I just seen it.

I get to the point where you're going, breathed in.

Yeah.

Breathed out again.

There was a big fat fellow in the sea who kept his t-shirt on.

If you're big and fat, is there more chance of you getting burnt because there's more of you on show?

I asked Suzanne and she said she didn't know in that sort of not listening kind of way.

I wanted to hang about to see if the fat fellow was going to get in the kayak.

But

Suzanne said we had a head back.

I just let him wait in to see if he's going to

capsize.

We got home today, so we got up early to get the last bit of cloud.

No, it's just that it wasn't

that sunny all the time.

I mean, I was sat in weather that, if it was like that here, there's no way I'd be sat in the garden.

But because you're on holiday, it's like, well, we've got to sit in it, put your coat on.

So, are you going to continue to write this diary?

Every single day.

It's amazing.

Keep this diary up.

It's amazing.

No, I will.

I will keep it up because what I find as well is, I think think earlier on before I went away, I think I did learn something.

And because I wrote it down,

I I remembered it a bit um

better.

So what was that?

I just was thinking then, I've forgot it now.

But I remembered looking back at it and not having to read it all, because I remembered the end of it before I read it, if you know what I mean.

I've no idea what you're talking about.

Um it's a regular feature now

when uh we read from Carl's diary.

Carl decided to keep a diary.

He's gone through with it.

I can see it there.

It's massive.

It's a huge desk diary that he has to carry around with him.

And

the pages are getting fuller.

You're really keeping to this.

Right, this is extracts from Carl's diary.

Did podcast and went for an Italian with Ricky and Steve.

Italian place is good.

We've been there a few times.

I always have the same thing, spaghetti.

Can't remember what everyone else had.

Last time we went there, Steve had little octopuses with pasta.

You could see that they were octopuses.

They hadn't been cut up or anything.

My rule is that I only eat stuff that looks looks nice when it's alive.

A cow, a chicken, some fish.

An octopus is an odd-looking thing alive.

Even worse when it's dead and limp.

It looks like it just shouldn't have been sat in the spaghet.

Yeah, I agree.

I agree with that.

Ricky drew another picture of my head.

We've given a few of them away as prizes, but he draws so many of them that they won't be worth as much anymore.

Everyone will eventually have one.

Like those pictures of a boy crying that caused houses to burn down in the 1980s.

What does that mean?

What are you talking about?

Don't you remember the.

I mean, if you're listening in America, they might not have made it over there.

Is it

sort of like the sugary ones with kids?

Is it Techikov or something?

It's just some kid.

My auntie Noah had one, and it was just like a kid.

with like a blue jumper on and he's it's like a painting not a phone yeah exactly yeah and he's just crying in a chocolate box really awful sort of sugary And what happened is they found out that a load of houses were being set on fire or burst into flames, whatever.

And the weird thing was.

Oh, it's bollocks.

Every house that burnt down had that phone.

Yeah, because every house had that picture in the fucking 70s and 80s.

Idiot.

It's like we're linking it to sinks.

Every house that's ever burnt down had a sink.

You're talking shit again.

Carry on.

Wednesday.

Saw a homeless bloke.

I'm surprised that no companies have thought about sponsoring the homeless.

Something like a clothing company.

Give them some clothes that have an advert on the back.

Everyone's a winner.

Good idea.

Not bad, is it?

Got on the tube to Camden.

Read in a free newspaper that hedgehogs could be gone by 2025.

I think I've seen more dead hedgehogs than alive ones anyway, so I don't think I'll miss them.

Went round to Ricky's house and had a game of pool.

It should have been nice and relaxing, but Jane gave me some cake and Ricky said, I can't play Paul if my hands are all sticky for me.

It was the sugar.

And it wasn't that either.

After he'd finished it, they weren't just sticky.

He was licking his fingers, sucking his fingers off, and then was going to pick up pork cues and touch things.

And I was thinking, Go and wash your hands after licking your hands.

You're not a cat.

This turned into an argument when I said I didn't want to wash my hands.

Why didn't he?

He goes for a piss all the time without washing his hands and then squeezes my head.

I know I'd prefer to have lemon cake crumbs on my head than knob juice.

I was gonna do a crossword, but I'm tired and have learnt enough today.

What have you learned?

Well, the stuff about hedgehogs hedgehogs and that.

Oh, God.

I was on my way to my mates, and I got on a train.

Got close to a station, but realised I needed a Wii.

Was about to go in a cubicle when a blind man with a dog who was bumbling his way through the walkway came around.

I said, Are you after the toilet?

He said, Yeah.

I said, It's on your right.

I shouldn't have let him go first, as he took ages, and it would be my stop soon.

The dog waited outside the cubicle.

I was going to stroke it, but then I remembered someone telling me that you shouldn't.

Don't know why that is.

Because something to do with the owner should be the only one who sort of deals with that dog.

And you shouldn't.

Well, you shouldn't stroke it because you'll cover it in fucking lemon cake.

No, but just because, you know, if you stroke it and that, it might like me and want to go off with me and he'll come out and be lost and stuff.

Yeah.

I'm not totally sure, but I just thought.

Wayne did the podcast.

We had a meeting after.

I don't like meetings as I can't keep focused on what people are talking about.

I think Ricky has the same problem as after 25 minutes he was trying to wrestle me.

I tried to do what spiders do and stayed still as if I was dead.

Ricky just stayed on top of me, not moving.

A bit like when you see one of them big snakes swallowing a sheep.

Ricky got bored and released me.

I went home thinking, why had I left my old job for this?

A homeless man asked me for some money, but I didn't feel like I should treat him as I felt that he probably had a better day than me.

Oh God.

Suzanne called me to say she'd gone for a haircut and that she'd meet me in the supermarket.

I went to the supermarket but she wasn't there.

I called her and she said she was near the fruit aisle.

I went to the fruit aisle and she wasn't there.

Turns out she was in a different supermarket on the other side of town.

And if I'd listened to her properly, I'd have known that.

I didn't want to say like...

Well, you just went to the first supermarket you thought of.

As opposed to listening to what supermarket...

I'm in the supermarket.

Alright, bye.

I didn't want to say that I hadn't heard her properly because my ears were ringing a bit from the wrestling from earlier.

25 minutes later, I met up with Suzanne.

Her haircut wasn't that bad.

Normally, her haircuts are followed by an argument between us, as she pays over the odds for some daft haircut that's the latest style.

I wish she'd take a picture out of a magazine or ask for a style rather than letting the hairdresser do what she wants.

I said I only tell her to do this as she's got a square head and a close-cut hairdo makes it look squarer.

She said, What do you think of this cut?

I said it looked alright, as I couldn't be bothered bothered arguing about it.

It's weird writing a diary.

I don't know who thought of doing one of these first.

The last time I did one was at school.

They used to get you to do it so they could keep an eye on whatever you were up to.

My diary used to say the same thing every night.

Got home, went to the shop to get potatoes, bread, milk, went home, watched Telly, went to bed.

I think I might have gone to Twiggy's Dance Club just so I had something different to write.

You've not told us about Twiggy's Dance Club.

It's just uh you know, I sort of when I was a kid I sort of gave uh everything a bit of a go.

I did boxing and that, didn't I?

Did I gave that a go?

About 45 minutes.

And yeah, a mate sort of said, Oh, you know, you're into your dancing, your robotics and that.

You're doing your body popping, right?

Body popping and that.

He said, You ought to come to Twiggy's.

And I went there,

but I didn't go in.

It was shut.

They were just having loads of toilet rolls delivered.

I think

they were using it as a storage place for toilet rolls and that.

So I said, Oh, I've come to have a dance.

And he's like, Oh, not tonight.

Come back tomorrow.

I never went back.

brilliant

what a waste of an electron

brilliant just to recap you're convinced then that the teachers are asking you to keep diaries so they can keep tabs on you

and then to continue the diary as there were more problems happening on the estate they started to add Saturday and Sundays to the school diary to keep an eye on what we were doing at the weekend I struggled to fill it on a Sunday as the shop I got potatoes and bread from was shot on a Sunday

I had to go over to Shepherd's Bush to meet someone I got the tube.

There was a badly burnt man on the tube.

It's amazing how the body can continue through quite a lot of bad stuff.

It got me thinking about how much stuff you could remove in your body one by one without dying if it was a competition the cockroach would win as it can live for a week without a head.

I just mean like say if you know they're running out of ideas for TV programmes and that right?

They get someone who isn't well.

They go, look, do you mind if we make a programme on you?

And what they do, they sit him in the bed and they go, right, what we're going to do now is take out the heart, but replace it with a pacemaker.

Right.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Sorry.

People with pacemakers don't have their heart taken out and a pacemaker popped in.

All right, then.

Some sort of machine.

What I'm getting to is...

Have you been playing operations?

What I mean is...

What I mean is the big finale would just be a head chatting with loads of wires going into it.

And it's like, look what we can do with science.

That's what the programme's called.

And it's it's the same every week.

The volunteer was just ahead with loads of wires going out.

Look at what we can do with science.

And he's going out.

Goodbye.

Got some posts delivered to me today.

It was.

Oh, this is.

This makes it in the diary.

Got some posts delivered to me today.

It was addressed to Mr.

Dilkington.

I got a post delivered to me today.

It was addressed to Mr.

Dilkington.

I opened it and the first sentence read, Dear Mr.

K.

Dilkington,

you are one of our most valuable customers.

I put it in the bin.

Thought I would learn some new words.

As Steve always says, I don't use enough different words.

I read in the Fortean Times that the word wiu means an ugly female ghost with drooping breasts.

What do you mean?

Is that how am I pronouncing that word?

Who is in that word?

Who is using that word?

It was just W-E-W-A.

Let's call it a woo.

An ugly female ghost with drooping breasts.

I think I'm right when I say there are too many words in the world.

I don't think I will ever get round to using the word woo.

Watched a health programme.

Wasn't watching it properly, but heard some doctor say that we only get so many heartbeats in a lifetime, so don't do too much exercise.

I told Suzanne and she said I probably hadn't heard it right.

We got talking about death.

Suzanne said she didn't like thinking about it.

I said she might end up being a woo.

I was chuffed as I'd managed to use my new word.

I went to the supermarket to get tonight's tea.

On the way I stopped and looked in the fishmongers at all the different fish they had in the window.

It's like a child in one of those kids' TV shows.

I know!

Mr.

Filkington went to to the fishmonger.

He stopped and looked at all the fish in the window.

Hello, Mr.

Dilkington, they said.

There was a newspaper clipping stuck on the glass about a two-headed fish that they've made in Taiwan.

I don't see the point in doing this, as a fish having two heads ain't going to solve the world's hunger problems, as the head is the bit you throw away.

Invent a fish with two bodies, and I'd say well done.

Good point, all right.

Suzanne watched one of her favourite TV programmes.

I've told her the tally only goes on if there's something she wants to watch.

If there's nothing on, she has to talk to me about stuff I've learnt.

Like Descartes.

Watched a programme on him the other day.

He is the one who said something like, I know I'm about cause I dream.

Doesn't work for everything because ants don't sleep.

I don't know if I'd like that or not.

Sunday, got up.

Sunny day, so I went for a walk in the park.

There was a bloke walking down the street who was whistling some kind of annoying tune.

He seemed quite happy with himself.

Do people only whistle when they're happy?

I don't whistle very much.

It's a good point.

I'm whistling is so unnamed to me.

But yeah,

it's sort of like going, I'm I'm I'm content.

I'm uh it it really is that thing.

That if they go uh you go, well, um Mr.

Mellows, I'm afraid uh I've got some bad news.

Not only is your wife died, but you've lost the house.

Thanks, Doctor.

Won't happen, won't it?

No, you don't whistle when you're sad.

The other place you hear, of course, is is changing rooms.

And that's men going,

I'm whistling, so I'm not looking at your cock.

How could I be?

I'm concentrating, I'm whistling.

The lake was frozen over where I was walking.

The ducks looked worried.

They were sat on the edge of the lake, waiting for it to melt.

Were they, Carl?

Yeah, they were just sat there looking, sort of going, oh, what's going on?

I don't know

how how long is a duck's memory?

'Cause I wondered whether they're going, this doesn't seem right, but I don't know why.

I asked Suzanne why ducks don't use their wings much.

They seem to walk and swim more and don't bother using their wings.

Suzanne said she had to call her mum and dad, so I never got an answer.

The old excuse!

Suzanne, oh, I can't talk now, Carl.

Can I phone my mum?

There was a marathon-type run going on in the park.

It reminded me of the time when we were moving flat.

It was the day of the London Marathon.

Me and Suzanne were walking down the middle of the road taking some stuff to our new flat.

I was carrying a lamp and a kitchen bin.

People were clapping me, thinking I was doing some kind of fun run.

Why were you walking on the same route?

Because it was when we lived on the Docklands.

Oh,

there was no other route.

The flat was just about 100 yards down the road.

They're going, look at the bloke with the bald wig.

He's carrying a lamp and a bin.

Took a bag of old clothes to Oxfam.

It was just old t-shirts and a couple of jumpers with holes in it.

I don't think anyone will buy them.

But the Oxfam is closer to the flat than the wheelie bin is.

On the tube on the way back home, I saw an advert for a book about a woman who works in a funeral home.

She went into work one day, she goes to work on a body, she takes the sheet off of one of the bodies, and it looks exactly like her.

This is called a doppelganger.

What name doppelganger to you?

It's the thing I read about in ages ago where someone was

walking down the street.

Yeah.

And he sees someone who looked a bit like him.

And no, this was weirder than that.

Go on.

He remembers going down that street as a kid on his bike whistling.

Yeah.

And then he sort of is walking down the street, going to get some milk or whatever from the shop.

Little bike comes whizzing past.

He hears the whistling, he goes, That's weird.

Looks for that.

It was him when he was a kid.

So it's like a time thing.

What do you mean it was him as a kid?

This is like a different form of doppelganger.

It's just it's impossible, it's rubbish.

Some sort of time thing, isn't it?

No, no, it's not impossible.

So that's it.

What's that kind of time thing, Rick?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, somebody you read again on the internet or as a short story or something someone told you.

On my walk back from the tube, I saw a jogger who was pushing a pram at the same time.

The kid looked terrified.

Got me science book out.

It said that the static you get on the telly when a channel isn't tuned in properly is radiation that is still knocking about from when the Big Bang happened.

I thought about the Big Bang and wondered if it was really a Big Bang, or did it just sound louder as there was no other noise to drown it out?

Good point, aren't it?

Carl's Diary, Rick, never ceases to amaze.

More from that next week.

Well, that's the jingle that signals it's time for more extracts from Carl's diary, and we'll lunge straight into it.

Wandered down Carnary Street.

There was a happy, homeless fella.

I gave him £1.50.

I thought of a tongue twister after giving him the money.

It goes, If you can't treat a cheerful tramp, what sort of tramp can you treat?

It's good there.

If you can't treat a cheerful tramp, what sort of tramp can you treat?

Yeah, good, all right.

Good that, yeah.

You've got too much time on your hands, Carl.

Learned some famous quotes to see if they are as good as my sayings.

Number one, treat every day as if it's your last.

Very famous saying.

Now, is that something you do, Carl?

But you know, my problem with that one is that if it was your last, you wouldn't want to be doing much.

That's the only problem I've got with that.

I wouldn't want to, you know, go to a fairground or whatever because you're going, oh, it's my last day, what am I going to do?

And I think you'd spend so much time worrying about what you're going to do that you'd end up staying in.

I think you're right.

You've taken some of the poetry out of it.

I think it means live life to the fullest.

I like the fact that you were amusing on the idea that if it was your last day you'd go to the fair.

It's getting such a 19th century way of spending your final day.

I know, yeah.

Well, the thing is, the other thing is that

the only thing that people get depressed about in terms of sort of like, you know, life and death is

not the knowledge that they're going to die, but more the knowledge that they know they're going to die when they're dying.

If someone told you

no one ever knows when they're going to die, no one ever gets an illness, no one ever gets hit by a truck, everyone passes away peacefully in their sleep, dreaming they're riding a big marshmallow, right?

Then you wouldn't care about anything.

It wouldn't matter if you died tomorrow or in 30 years' time.

You'd just live life to the full.

You'd have it.

Every day would be great.

You'd go out, you'd come back, you'd fall asleep.

That would be amazing.

There'd be no stress.

There'd be no angsty, we're all going to die stress,'cause it wouldn't matter,'cause it would just be your life.

Wouldn't it be amazing if someone guaranteed you, Carl, you're gonna die in your sleep?

I'm not gonna tell you when.

Yeah, but some people do, don't they?

Well, exactly.

But we never know we're going to,'cause we we stress, what if we get a dreadful illness?

What if we, you know,

but but we're almost not letting people die naturally any more, are we?

'Cause we're always bodging stuff up.

What do you mean?

Well, someone who might naturally die in the sleep aren't allowed to naturally die in the sleep because they wake'em up up with those electric things and get them going again

and pop in a new lung or whatever whilst they're at it.

That's what I'm saying.

They don't just na you never hear it anymore, do you?

Frank peacefully died in his sleep.

No, he died on the operating table whilst we were putting in a new lung.

They never they don't die naturally anymore.

Frank died peacefully with 40,000 volts going through them and a couple of people going, Clear,

Claire,

rushing about today, gotta get a lot done as I'm flying to Malaga tomorrow to see my mum and dad.

Don't like flying.

I'd be happy if they'd give you a parachute instead of a life jacket.

They say Da Vinci invented the parachute as well as the helicopter.

He never got round to making them though'cause he only drew them on some paper.

Got up at 5 a.m.

as I had to get to Heathrow to get on the plane to see Mum and Dad in Malaga.

Went out for a drink with a cousin who lives in Spain.

Ain't seen her for twenty seven years.

Oh that must have been tricky making conversation.

I didn't really bother.

'Cause where do you start?

I might as well go up to anyone in in the street and start having a chat.

You have to go further back than did you want Chantal to win, Big Brother.

Yeah.

My dad and me talked about history.

I said we shouldn't go on about things that happened ages ago, because I bet something similar has happened more recently.

Brilliant.

Read about an island in the Indian Ocean where there are tribesmen still living like they're cavemen.

A helicopter tried to land and the tribesmen chucked spears at them.

This is what I meant about not having to talk about things that happened ages ago.

We have got new cavemen now, so why why do we talk about the old ones?

People could have lived before, but computers and all that blew up, and books got burnt, so all they had left was what these tribesmen have got left.

Rambling

of a maniac.

I mean, that's just a few hours before you go crazy with a gun.

No, but what I mean there is, right, say if all this has happened before, right?

Podcasting's been happening years ago.

Something happens.

Again, a lot of your information from the planet of the apes.

Something happens.

World ends, right?

We come back again somehow.

Yeah.

It's the detail you leave out that makes you intriguing.

Just like the watch that you can wear that tells you when you're going to die.

How does it work?

Pop it on your wrist.

That's all the detail you need.

So the world happened.

We came back.

Have you seen the pictures?

Forget it then if you don't get it.

It's interesting that you had all those profound thoughts about this period into the past when they all lived, but you still

found it appropriate to include at the end of that.

It says the tribesmen wave their knobs about when they've had enough of having visitors.

That's what's what it said in the paper.

That's what happens.

They quite actively.

What paper is this that you're reading?

It was in a paper a couple of days ago.

It said

they don't mind having visitors if they're bringing them coconuts and stuff that they can eat.

Once they've got everything they need, they start waving the tackle about, and that means like right leave now.

Which you would, wouldn't you?

Yeah, at a dinner party.

My grandfather used to do that.

Got a book sent to me called Freaks.

It's a bit heavy, but it's got some interesting pictures in it.

Read a bit about the two-headed nightingale.

She slash they was on tour in London years and years ago.

It cost two shillings to have a front row seat.

She slash they had two heads slash two arms and four legs.

They are called Siamese twins because the first twins that were born stuck together were Siamese.

On one of the pictures they are playing chess against a doctor.

That hardly seems fair.

Two heads are better than one.

So it's two heads, two arms and four legs.

That's just two women in one dress.

Yeah, that's two women with an arm missing.

Spoke to Ricky and his friend Glynn about art.

I just don't get it.

Ricky had some odd pictures on his walls.

I don't have any pictures up in my flat because of the mirrored wall.

But I can't say I'm bothered.

The mirrored wall, we should just explain what that is.

When you moved into your flat, there was an enormous mirror on one wall.

Was that right?

We just got this flat, and

you know, it's not a big flat, so I think the people who had it before us, he was a gay fella, right?

Which was a bit like, oh, so you've been doing with that mirror and that.

But

what?

No, just, you know.

What?

What?

What has he been doing with the mirror?

What's he going to do with the mirror?

No, it's just because they're quite sort of experimental in it, aren't they?

I don't know.

What do you mean?

What do they do?

Well, I wouldn't know anything about it, but God.

What do you want?

No, I don't.

Experimental?

I mean, what do you mean experimental?

I just mean, you know, they'd be doing stuff

of whatever they're doing.

Chemistry.

I have a chemistry set out.

They'd be doing experiments.

What?

No, just doing what I am.

Singing I am what I am and just checking out their dialogue.

I'm not having a go at anyone, but I'm just saying, like, they're doing what they're doing.

Which

way?

I'm not.

Why are you worried about what a little gay fella was doing in your flat before you got it in front of a mirror?

I wasn't worried about it.

Why are you thinking about what he's doing?

Why are you fantasising what a little gay fella was doing in front of your mirror in your...

I'm not bothered.

I'm just telling you why it was a bit odd that he had a mirror in there, right?

But forget the history.

But you've got a mirror in there now, haven't you?

No, because what I did was, I tried, I was going to take it down, and I thought, oh, it's a bit dangerous.

You know, it could crack and because it's the size of the whole wall, isn't it?

It took up a whole wall, right?

So, like, when he's moving about everywhere, he's got a good view of it and that.

But he's got this full wall of mirror, and I thought, I can't take that down.

And I thought, what can I do?

So I've just put wallpaper on it.

Brilliant.

And it looks alright, you wouldn't know, what have you.

But it means that I can't put any pictures up.

That's all I'm saying.

Because if I put a nail in it.

And what don't you understand about art?

What about art don't you understand?

The concept, specifics?

Just

the way some people like.

You know, the ones you've got, it's just like a block of colour on a bit of canvas.

It's like, what's that?

It's abstract.

It's just abstract.

It's, you know, it's vibrancy of colour.

It's an attack on the senses.

Or

there could be something in there that you might see, you might not see first time around or it could be you know yeah but there's loads of stuff to look at without having to do that but you've got windows I can understand if you had a cell and there's no windows and you want a better colour but you've got a window to look out of and and you've got like just a big block of but I was explaining this to you that the the photograph where people before um you know the art was photography it was realistic with realistic and uh you know they had to make it look like the subject but then when cameras came in that's when people started doing surreal stuff and

otherwise there was no point to it.

They had to find a new way to represent things that uh photography couldn't do as such.

No, I I that's that's like when we when we were in London having a shop around at Christmas and there's that picture of fruit for 700 quid.

Like we'll just get some fruit.

You know what I mean?

You can get some real fruit for three quid.

Yeah.

I understand that, but there's nothing wrong with like having a

well we'll get don't don't invent cameras then, one or the other.

Do you know what I mean?

That's what annoys me.

Someone invents something and then they go, we've got to invent something else.

Like the abstract thing.

Why is someone gone, Oh, I can't have paintings anymore?

because was it the Dali going

melting clocks and stuff?

I mean, the first one was all right when he did the first clock, but then all the time he's just like, Oh, I'll draw something and it's got a melting clock on it.

I'll do a sheep, put put one of them on it.

Have you seen his lobster telephone?

That annoys me.

Why?

Because it's it's just it's not it's not I mean, what I think what annoyed me more with that is when he heard about how it happened, um,

he had some artist mate round, right?

And

I don't know what happened.

I think a hell of an anecdote.

No, no, but they were eating.

They were eating some food and what have you.

Lobsters.

And

yeah, they were eating lobster.

And

I don't know, the other artist, whoever it was, sort of

started saying, Oh, you and your clocks and all that, right?

And

they started arguing.

Yeah.

And he chucked some of the lobster.

Bollocks.

And it landed on the the phone.

He bounced off his mate's head, went on the phone, and they both looked at each other like,

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

And they brought out that phone as a bit of art.

Things like that annoy me because it was then just messing about.

That didn't happen.

Just telling you what I know.

I saw his work.

Each to their own, if that's what he's doing.

I'm just saying I'm not putting my stamp of approval on it.

Heaven forbid.

Well, you know, as you mentioned in your diary, your favourite artist is Larry.

Because you can look at them for ages and see someone different every time you look at it.

All I'm saying is

art should be there to tell a story, not just to have a splash of colour.

We know colour's out there, there's loads of colour.

We don't need to be reminded of it.

But colour's part of our evolution, and so

it does something to us.

Just like sounds, just like sounds.

Yeah, but I'm saying do a picture, smells, colour it in.

Still use the colours, but draw something with it rather than just going a bit of yellow, a bit of red.

Like that when you've got just red and black.

What's that meant to do?

Well, it does something.

What?

Well, I like it.

I enjoy it.

So it does something.

Yeah, you have it then.

I'm just saying I prefer it if it was something.

And so you.

And let me just get this right.

You had a mirror on one wall, so you padded that wall.

It's just something.

So you've padded the others.

It's just sort of wallpaper on it.

Right.

And there's no other art in there.

No, it's just an empty cell.

Was Suzanne wife like some art?

Suzanne's not allowed to watch telly unless it's a favourite thing, otherwise, she's got to talk to me about stuff.

There's no art, there's no point, just wallpaper.

I'm just saying we've got three windows we can look out of.

Right.

Right?

Stop looking at the walls, look out the window.

Some new words have been introduced into the dictionary.

Too many words.

We should have some system where we can get rid of words if they aren't used a certain number of times.

Well, that we do.

They do die out, don't they, eventually?

Like what?

You don't have to use them.

No, but they don't, do they?

They keep adding them.

And I just worry about,

you know, this is the problem with, like, your head can only hold so much,

can't it?

Yeah.

It all very well when Adam and Eve was knocking about, there's no history, they don't have to remember anything.

All I'm saying is, fine, bring out a new word, but once you bring out a new one, bin another one.

The dictionary is getting bigger and bigger.

No one's keeping an eye on it.

Well, I think they are.

They're not, they just keep adding.

It doesn't grow.

They don't just dig it up one day.

It's got bigger.

What have you done?

So you left it out.

You're happy for them to stick in iPod, let's say.

But we can pride ourselves on having more words in the English language than the other language.

I think we've got twice as many as the second.

I think maybe Russian.

I'm not sure about that.

Someone saw someone email emails.

But we don't talk the most, so there's a lot of clutter there.

What do you mean we don't talk the most?

Well, you'd have to.

Nothing as expressive as the English language.

Yeah, no, because we've got a word for everything.

I'm just saying that I don't use all these words that are coming out.

And I just think, like I say, keep an eye on it.

Some sort of.

I don't know how it can be controlled.

But Shakespeare invented words.

I think Shakespeare invented about 1,200 words.

Yeah, and we're probably still using a lot of is.

So why not keep sticking more in the pot?

Right.

Stop using loads of words.

People are panicking in New York about the snow they're getting.

It's two foot deep.

They're saying it's to do with global warming.

I don't get it.

Two days ago they were saying the world's getting warmer and the ice is melting on one of the poles where the polar bears are.

As long as we get snow on the world, does it matter where it goes?

Read on the internet that heads are bigger now than they were years ago.

Brains are getting bigger, apparently.

This is because we're being told too much information.

We are told too much stuff about things that we wouldn't have known about years ago.

You've just made that leap, haven't you?

Presume maybe bur heads and brains are getting larger, but the fact that it's because there's too much information cramming in them wherever you're.

Well, it is, as time goes on, isn't it?

It's that thing of um

we're being taught more and more every day.

As the time goes on, something's happening every day.

You've got to remember that.

No, you haven't.

You have.

It's the same like I said, you know, with the Adam and Eve thing.

They didn't have that much to remember.

They come on the world, they go

what happened yesterday.

Oh, not not much.

My mom phoned and said that my auntie Nora oh the classic auntie Nora wanted me to look on the internet to find out what the weather will be like in Spain at the end of November.

I don't know where she gets her money from.

Two months ago she was asking my dad how much it would be to get her back garden astro turfed'cause she's sick and tired of the grass getting out of the way.

What does she want to do?

Start a football team?

What does she want a bang out of an astro turn?

She likes the sort of green look, but she doesn't like the headache that comes with it, so she's just looking into getting that false grass put in there.

Brilliant.

Don't know how much it is.

Went round to Ricky's and had some chicken curry that Ricky's girlfriend Jane had made.

Ricky and Jane were going on holiday for a few days and had arranged for Glynn to come in and make sure the cat was okay while they were away.

I'm sick of that cat.

I was surprised that they hadn't paid for the little shit to go away with them on first class.

Flimme getting a bit vitriolic in the middle.

Why doesn't he like the fact that I've got a cat and I love the cat?

It's just everything in that house that you've got gets sort of special treatment and it's a cat.

When do you get special treatment?

We put food down for it and sometimes it gets on our lap and we stroke it.

You know what stroke is?

You massassage it.

You massage it's back.

You go, no, are you stressed out?

Well, no, no, it's good.

No, I'm not saying you stressed out.

At no point did I say you stressed out.

You said, what the fuck are you doing for?

Is it stressed out or something?

I like touching my cat.

To be honest with you, I look like Ricky's cat.

Oh, I can't believe it.

Every time I go around there, it comes straight from the coolies.

Yeah, it's immediately.

Yeah, he'd probably seen you in the sea and thought, well, if he's waving it about, I'll have a bit of that.

But it's like the lizard thing you've got.

It just sat there.

You've bought it a big box, right, to be in.

Right, one, it's a salamander, so it's an amphibian.

It's not a box, it's a big vivarium.

Yeah, but what I'm saying is...

And if you're going to criticise someone for just sitting there, having a round head and doing nothing with its life, and people who live in glass houses, we've done this once.

Do you know what gets me though, right, Steve?

When I was there, I was looking at it and I thought, is it dead?

Right?

'Cause he's just sat there like that.

And then it was thinking exactly the same fucking thing.

It just sat there, not moving, right?

And then on the top of the box is like a box full of crickets and stuff.

That's it's it's it's food.

Yeah.

But they were more active than the thing that it was going to feed.

Get rid of the lizards.

Keep them in there.

More entertaining.

Don't understand it.

A few months back, a girl who was having a kid showed me one of them scans of the kid that was in her.

That science god mad, in it.

I couldn't think of anything nice to say as it looked like a frog.

Do you know why we've got to that point?

Why have we got to see something that young?

Why?

Because people can keep an eye on the progress of the baby in the womb.

Yeah, but why are they printing it out and stuff?

Surely that's for a doctor to see.

Well, that's just an added bonus for people who are interested in such things.

But that's not saying why do you take pictures of anything?

No, because normally pictures are like, you know, you're in Brazil, sat in the sea or whatever.

You'd go, oh, yeah, I remember that day.

It was a good day or whatever.

But

it's just kind of like, why have you got to see something...

You might as well take it.

Well, you just

listen.

Why have you got to see something that small?

So why would you take a picture of Steve in the sea?

No, but what I mean is, why.

At what point are we going to stop?

Are we going to start sort of x-raying the fellas' testicles and saying, well, there it is at a really young age?

Well,

where are we going to stop?

It's just porses for courses, isn't it?

Some people like to have a record of their baby in the womb.

They like to show the village.

They're excited about it.

They sit down and they show the friends the slideshow.

That's the birth.

Oh, that's the conception.

Oh, look, Ron's going a bit mad there, isn't he?

But why do I need to see this?

This is what I'm saying.

It was an awkward situation because she was happy with it.

I was like, oh, God.

You know what I mean?

It was an odd-looking thing.

I couldn't say, oh, it looks like you, because that would be a diss.

Oh, Christ.

Met Suzanne at Euston Station.

I said I would sort out the tea tonight, so I called the curry house.

The fellow couldn't understand me.

I asked for two poppadoms.

He kept saying, How many?

I kept saying, two.

He still couldn't understand.

I said, one more than one.

He understood.

When we picked up the food and took it home, there were five poppadoms in the bag.

Oh, God!

Oh, God.

There is a restaurant somewhere that sells knobs to eat.

No, there's not.

There is.

No, there's not.

No, there is.

It says that women can't eat too many of them, and if you want a seals knob for dinner, you have to book in advance.

Right, it's gobbardy-goop.

This is the ramblings of a madman.

It's a trend, he writes.

It won't last long.

It'll be like hummus.

But hummus, when did that happen?

What do you mean?

It's still going.

It's a Greek traditional food.

I know, but there's one down there.

There's a restaurant down the road that that's all they do.

That isn't a proper.

That's a side order, isn't it?

That's like having a restaurant just flogging tomato ketchup.

Hummus isn't a meal.

They don't even try and kid you and get you in to flog you just hummus.

They actually say it to hummus today.

Not going to work, be shut down within a month.

Called Ricky and asked what the difference is between the mind and the brain.

Yeah, that's a hell of a phone call.

Yeah, unbelievable.

Unbelievable.

Ricky did explain, but I can't remember what he said.

I wondered at what age you are when the mind kicks in.

Okay.

Ricky changed the subject and said there is an island called Spider Island.

There's nothing but spiders on it.

A bloke went to visit the island and said there was a thousand types of spider in one tree.

Yeah.

I didn't tell you that.

No, I locked her up after talking to you.

Oh, right.

Is that true?

Yeah, they just said there's loads of them.

What do you think about that?

What is it on an island that's just full of spiders?

It's a bit

daft, isn't it?

What do you think they should do then?

Um

I don't know because y you need spiders.

I I don't know what they do, but they say a world without spiders like wouldn't wouldn't be good.

Who says that?

I don't know, someone.

But but they sort of do they do something.

There's something about if you did get rid of them all, it would have an effect.

Well of course it would.

Get rid of anything, it would have an effect.

Not everything though.

Like I've said, you know, jellyfish and what have you,

the world wouldn't change.

Well, it would.

No, it wouldn't.

Well, it would, because it's part of an ecosystem, so

they're something's food, aren't they?

No, but

it's 97% water or something.

Yeah.

So how much are they doing?

Just give them another 3%, make them water.

That's more useful.

Give them another 3%

and make them water.

Oh, God.

The rain ain't stopped.

The old woman with the bent neck.

Now, we've not heard about the old woman with the bent neck.

Before she was a neck.

She had a bent neck.

Cause this incredible.

She's really old.

And she's got a bent neck, yeah.

But tell us something else.

I don't know what's up with her, but her head sort of comes out of here.

It's radio.

They can't see what you're doing.

It comes out of a chest.

So from behind, it looks like she hasn't got an head.

It's really weird, right?

I mean, she's old, and I don't know what's happened.

Just Suzanne said it's sad and her bones have sort of bent up or something, or maybe she carried something heavy when she was younger.

On her head.

And, you know, I don't know, it's sad and everything.

Yeah.

But she's just, she, she's wandering up and down the street, always looks fed up.

But you can see of her, you have to sort of bend down a little bit.

But her head's just, I thought, I thought I'd told you about her.

She finds a lot of change.

I said, yeah.

Well, as you write in the diary, the old woman with the bent neck is struggling in the weather.

The rain must be running down her back.

Don't know why she went out in this weather.

Me back's doing me heading today.

It does this every time the weather turns a bit grim.

Ever since I tried to kick me height.

Oh, I remember that?

We've heard this before.

Kicked me height and landed on me arse.

Was going to treat Suzanne to a trip to the pictures to see Break Back Mountain, but then remembered there is a programme on about two-headed kid tonight.

A band from the Conga have won the best newcomers in a Radio 3 competition.

They use pots and pans for instruments.

It says that the Conga is a poor, sad place.

So why do people do that happy dance at the end of parties called the Conga?

Right, one is the Congo.

There's no place called the Conga.

They come from a place called the Congo.

Where do you come from?

Okeehoki.

It's a terrible place.

We don't know whether we'll put our left leg in or a right leg in.

Sometimes we shake it all about.

We're not sure if we should.

But.

Conga!

Fucking ow, you're such a.

Went into the gadget shop today.

It's full of stuff that we don't need.

Gadget used to be a good word that made you think of James Bond with all his gadgets.

The best thing I could find in the shop was a clock that ran on potatoes.

We are definitely going backwards.

I agree.

What's the who cares about that?

A little electrical impulse.

So what?

Had a night out with old schoolmate.

Found out about more of the other lads I went to school with.

One is living underground.

What do you mean?

He's living underground.

Not like a mole.

Do you mean he's got a basement, or do you mean he digs a hole every night?

My mate went to visit him and he said it's all like it had been raining really heavily and that, and it's all the rain's running in.

What do you mean he went to visit him?

He went down here.

What was that?

That's an hole in the ground.

Yeah, come in.

He just said, oh, come round and see us.

And he's living underground.

What do you mean he's living underground?

He liked to be in the army, but was turned away, and that's the closest thing you can sort of.

How is that similar to to the army?

How do you say the army, yeah, yeah, where they teach you trades and

engineering and flying?

He's happy down there.

He said it was really muddy and what have you, so you won't be going back to visit him.

What's he got down there?

Just stuff, just like a sleeping bag, a lamp.

He's dug himself a subterranean cave.

Near my old infant school.

He knocked it down because it was like a wreck.

You'd be in the class and you could lean on the wall.

Yeah, so

you would go through it and stuff.

And they they knocked it all down and I think that's when he was at his most happy this bloke I believe this though I believe someone he went to school with now lives in a hole that doesn't shock me when the tales I've heard of horses in houses and big-headed kids with webbed hands and feet and you know and him

I believe that someone he went to school with now lives in a hole that isn't bizarre to me that's that's you've spent far too long with him if that now you're just happy to accept I totally accept that I I'd I'd be surprised if I walked around where he lived that there weren't more people living in holes.

His dad wanted to throw his budgie on the fire.

True.

His budgie died.

His dad said, let's throw it on the fire.

I mean, his mum, what did your mum do when your budgie died?

She just was worried about the other bird that was left, so she made it a bit of company by getting a rock, getting a feather off the dead budgie, sticking it on the rock, putting it in the cage.

So a man living in a hole is not that bizarre.

All right, carry on.

I read my science magazine.

Some things I learned from the science magazine.

Number one, space is running out of space.

We should stay out of the sea because shark attacks are up.

Yeah.

Probably four a year now.

Well, he just says, yeah, we should just stop going in the sea.

There's no need for it.

Exactly.

Why is there no need for going in the sea?

Just because there isn't now, is there?

We've got loads of land.

So it's just, you know, one or the other.

We walked out of the sea.

This is what I mean about going backwards.

Getting back in it again.

We came from the sea originally.

Now we're going back in it.

Don't go in it.

Unless you're in a boat.

The rules.

The rules according to Carl Pilgrim.

The rules of Carfilington.

Oh, God.

Did the podcast and then went for a walk round Manchester Square.

Years ago, a woman lived round there who had a head like a pig.

She was known as the pig woman of Manchester Square.

That made me think if there were other pig-headed women knocking about London.

Do you know what I mean?

Why was she nicknamed that?

Why not just the pig-headed woman?

That suggests to me that there were loads of pig-headed women, and that's the one of Manchester Square.

Right.

Well, no, it was more to do with identifying her, not amongst other pig-headed women, but go, have you seen the pig woman of Manchester Square?

i.e., go down there and see the pig woman as in Manchester Square.

What happens if she's walked off from there though?

And you go, well, no, but I saw one on New Cavendish Street.

No,

she'll always come back if you rattle the feed.

Watched a film about Hitler.

Didn't watch all of it as it was subtitled.

Can't be dealing with that.

Asked Suzanne if cinemas are full of deaf people when they're showing subtitled films.

She said, shh, I'm trying trying to watch it.

I said, what do you mean, shh?

It's subtitled.

I can make as much noise as I want.

Yeah.

She's a lucky, lucky woman.

You must be a joy to watch a subtitle film.

I mean, the concentration is up there already.

I mean, it is hard to concentrate.

It's not as easy as when you're hearing it because you read things, but you know, it's possible.

If you had a buffoon going, I'm just going to sit here and make as much noise as I want, what's the point of that?

What is the point of that?

I mean, it's possible.

Well, why do you do that in a cinema?

Just walk into a subtitle film and go, right, everybody,

let's all do the congo.

Well, yeah, or during ballet.

You know, I mean, ballet, they're just dancing.

You don't need to listen to the words.

Just have a conversation.

We're having our bathroom done.

The bathroom man was around at nine this morning.

We weren't allowed to use the shower because it all had to be bone-dry before we could use his waterproof filler.

Not that waterproof, then.

Went for a brew with Ricky.

We talked about monkeys and how they are closer to humans than they are to apes, and how bees will drink cider to get off their heads.

Now and again, there is a bee that lets the drinking get in the way of the work, and other bees sting it to death.

Yeah, well,

there are bees, they love a drink.

And

they can just

drink pure alcohol.

They drink owner, they drink ethanol.

I don't know why.

They love getting off it, and they fall down and they're drunk.

A bee can take in the equivalent of 20 litres of wine, right?

But some bees get addicted in the same sort of percentage as human addiction, like 10% of bees, they can't get enough of it.

They take ethanol, they take cider apples, and that.

And then, when they get back to the hive, they go in a bit pissed, and they've got guard bees, and they go, Come on, we've all had a trainers.

Yeah, they sort of are right.

And they push them away, and they push them away again.

Then the next time they go, right, I've had enough, and they give it a good hiding.

And Carl couldn't get over this.

I saw his face, but I knew that he was thinking of that bee with sort of like eyes rolling around in his head, a little bit belligerent with his jacket on backwards.

Yeah.

You know, and the bouncer going, come on, come on, son.

We've all had enough.

laugh, let's move away.

Move away.

You're not coming in, right?

You're wearing trainers.

Yeah, you know, you're wearing three pairs of trainers, and

I'm sick of it.

But what I did find out because I went home and went on the computer trying to find out about drunk bees knocking about.

They're not actually meant to fly.

It's only because they don't fly.

Well, no, but

if they were told that you're not actually designed to fly, they wouldn't bother.

No,

this is that thing that goes around that aerodynamically

on the face of it, looking at the size of the wings

and the body proportions and everything,

it's a surprise that they can fly.

It's not that no one's ever told them they can't.

And as soon as someone tells me we're not meant to fly, they all fall out of the sky going, oh, what are we doing?

Like in a cartoon.

No, but it's something about the confidence and that.

At the moment, nobody's saying.

That's nothing to do with the confidence.

There is no such thing as confidence in bees.

A bee never loses its nerve.

That's not why it drinks.

Because Because what are you drinking for?

I'm just not confident anymore.

Was nobody turned to the bottle.

I can't go up there again.

You're an idiot.

Suzanne said today can be my day because she has been a bit of a pain with her illness and that.

So she said I can do what I want today.

We went for a walk around Green Park.

Loads of tourists were about looking at the Queen's house.

She was in because the flag was up.

I wouldn't want to live there.

Why wouldn't you want to live there?

Just because it's right in the centre of town.

It's just not in a good place, is it?

It's got a roundabout outside and that.

Really busy.

It's pretty good.

I went for a pee in the toilets.

When I came out, a pigeon had shout on Suzanne's coat.

She was in a bit of a mood about it.

A bird shout on my ear once.

I left it for about ten to fifteen minutes until I got home.

I washed it off, and in that ten to fifteen minutes, it had corroded me ear.

You he's had a lot of problem with ears.

Um he told me the other day he uh he got up,

um, washed, had a bath, had some breakfast, went to the shops

to get a newspaper and had a chat with a woman in the corner shop, got home, put her in around, looked in the mirror, he had a cotton bud sticking out of his ear.

He went what annoyed me was she didn't say anything.

Like it's her responsibility.

No, but she knows me well enough to sort of, you know, go, you know, you've got a cotton bud in your ear.

No, she knows you well enough to go.

Carl's got a cotton bud in his ear.

I've seen worse.

When you're waiting you've got a cotton bud in your ear.

What interrupt did you think Suzanne called or my dad called or something and then because I was running a little bit late because I've been talking to them, the earbud was in.

I just put my coat on and went to the shop.

Carl, you got a toothbrush in your mouth.

Oh, walk through Covent Garden.

There were five of them mimes knocking about.

I don't understand why people take pictures of mimes.

Everyone looks like a mime in a picture.

That's so true.

That's really true.

If the point is

they're staying still, if that's their skill, a picture won't tell that story.

That's absolutely true.

My dad took the cat to be put down today because it kept bumping into things since losing its sight.

My mum said she's not going to get another one.

She said the parrot is looking worried as it's seen the budgie and the cat go in the space of three months.

Your mum said the parrot's looking worried.

What's the what what what happened to the cat then?

It it it gets into a lot of fights.

It lost one eye and uh then it got into another fight and lost another.

And it was just walking around bumping into stuff.

I mean, the vet sort of said, oh, we can do stuff to keep it alive and all that, but it's a bit out of order, isn't it?

Because it costs a fortune.

He shouldn't tell you.

But.

Mum and Dad can't afford to have eyes put on it and stuff.

No, you can't have eyes put on a cat anyway.

No, but he said, oh, we can do something here.

We can have its eyes sorted out.

But it w

I don't think you should be allowed cats.

Why?

Not the Pilkington family.

Why not?

They have good lives.

Yeah, I know, but they have good lives whilst they're still knocking about.

It's just that we get through them.

It's a good job you're not going to have kids.

Oh, God almighty.

I can't believe it.

The cat that kept throwing up.

So his mum shaved it.

Unbelievable.

Dry wipe cat.

A mate sent me a story on email about a bloke in China who has this weird illness that means he can't have his picture taken.

That's not the weird bit.

If he tries, his body doesn't appear in the photo.

Don't talk shit.

He has had group pictures taken and everyone appeared apart from him.

Don't talk shit.

The story had a picture next to it of a family photo and it said he was stood at the back, but you couldn't see him.

Right.

He wasn't in the picture.

He was in the picture?

No, he wasn't in the picture.

He's done loads of tests and stuff.

No, I haven't done loads of tests.

This is bollocks.

There's no way this is scientifically possible.

What's his want?

Yeah, now he's wanted.

Just a white bit of paper up on the police wall.

Have you seen this man?

What man?

If you see him, tell us.

You're talking shit.

Suzanne watched the film You've Got Mail tonight for about the 14th time.

I don't think you could properly fancy someone without seeing them unless you're blind.

I think it's odd when blind people have affairs.

Why is that odd?

Just because most stuff is based on looks, isn't it?

So you think once they've found someone they're happy with them.

Stick with them.

But no, it's not true.

I mean, most most things are based on looks.

What I mean is when you first

meet someone and that.

Well, and initially it's only looks because you don't know them.

So that's what I'm saying.

That's a ridiculous thing to say, isn't it?

Well, no, it's just what I think.

I'm not saying that that's like facts or anything.

I'm just thinking, if you're blind, why mess about?

You're still basing on it if it's only looks that people find what?

Yeah, I'm just saying, so why is a blind person messing about having an affair?

Because I'm saying that presumably that blind person isn't basing anything on looks.

I just, all right.

I mean, maybe that's not.

I mean, more like.

Should I want to cross it out?

Shall I cross it out?

It's just the same way.

I think I put how, you know, people.

I read something in a Sunday paper once with some bloke who was going out with some woman.

He ended up going out with a sister who was a twin.

If you're going to have a change, have a change.

Spoke to Ricky about trips to the moon.

He was up for going just to see what the world looks like.

I came up with the idea of a giant mirror on the moon that would reflect the world back.

He had a few questions, but but I had the answers.

Yeah.

He changed the subject.

I won.

Right.

My first question was, How would you get it up there?

He said, bit by bit.

That would be a good mirror then, wouldn't it?

I said, how big would it be?

He went, you'd still need a telescope.

I said,

How would you get it on the right side of the moon, always facing the right?

He went, What?

He went, Does the moon move then?

I went, yes.

And if we don't like the mirror on the moon, we can always warp her over it.

It's Suzanne's birthday tomorrow, so I've got to get her something.

I sometimes think it would be best if we didn't celebrate birthdays.

I think people would live a bit longer if they didn't know how old they were.

Age puts restrictions on things.

She said something about wanting one of them posh badges to put on her coat.

I will look for one later.

I love the fact that around the time that you've got to buy buy Suzanne her birthday present,

you think that birthday presents are a bad idea.

Got up early, Suzanne's birthday, gave her the card and present.

She was well happy with her posh badge.

She wore it to work.

It's quite nice.

Quite nice to hear a moment where she was actually happy for once in your company.

They always say when you get someone a present you should buy them something they wouldn't buy themselves.

Daft rule.

I want something I would buy myself if I had the money.

When I was young me auntie Nora got me a present I wouldn't buy myself.

It was a t-shirt with her face on.

Looked at what's been going on in the world.

Someone has found some people who live in an old town somewhere where they are so old-fashioned they still walk on all fours.

There is a picture of them and they use shoes on their hands.

That's not old-fashioned.

Why is that old-fashioned?

That's some kind of regressive evolution.

Yeah.

Really old-fashioned.

Yeah.

But it's not true, is it?

It is true.

It's somewhere in well I believe there are they have found a group of people that are living and walking around on all fours, but I don't believe they're wearing shoes on their heads.

And I don't believe it's they haven't evolved to standing up.

No, they just haven't seen other people walking on two feet.

Don't talk shit all your life.

That's all it's about, though, isn't it?

You copy.

When you're a baby, if you were stuck in a room, you'd wander about on all fours'cause that's that's the way that's an easy way of getting about.

So you only walk on two feet'cause you see everyone else doing it.

Well, I don't believe that is the case because, as I understand it, some of the family are walking on two feet.

So I don't know what the ins and outs of it are.

I know know there's a forthcoming documentary on the BBC, so maybe we should watch that, and then we'll all know what's going on

instead of just leaping to conclusions because you read half of it on the internet and then skipped on to something else.

What I'm saying is, though, you would wear shoes on your hands if you're roaming about like that.

So, I mean, you just confess there that

you leapt from fact to fiction, did you, in the space of one diary entry?

It's just that I saw a little picture, and you assumed that they'd be wearing shoes on their feet.

If they've got shoes on their feet, they might as well have them on their hands because their hands are doing the same as the feet.

If you're not going to wear them on your hands, don't put them on your feet then.

I'm beginning to think some monkey news was bollocks.

Treated Suzanne to her tea, went and got her a curry from the shop opposite.

While I waited for the food, I read a story in the Metro newspaper about an alien gang that kept appearing in someone's garden.

The bloke moved, but when he used to pass the house at night, he would still see the aliens knocking about, hiding underneath his old shed.

There was other alien stuff, but I had to go as the food was ready.

Brilliant.

It's a bit annoying, though.

Yeah, load of bollocks again.

Went and did some shopping for stuff as it was my turn.

Suzanne moaned a bit because I forgot orange juice and bought some cheap toilet paper.

She always buys the expensive toilet paper.

I don't know why they make toilet paper with pretty patterns on it.

That made it into the diary.

Up and out at nine o'clock to go to the Cotswolds.

Now, I think this was a gift for your girlfriend, wasn't it?

For her breastfeeding.

I just went for one night.

Got the car and headed off.

We stopped at a service station to get some breakfast.

We had fried toast with an egg on it, one sausage and beans twice.

Cost us £13.85.

They sell everything separate, so it seems cheap.

At that price, we must have been charged for each bean.

We found the BB, but they wouldn't let us in the room because we were early.

We went for a walk.

There was not much around the BB, so we had a quick walk around the car park

and went back in.

Happy birthday!

The room was now ready.

It's an alright room.

Free biscuits.

So I ate ate them straight away.

Like a child.

Like a dog.

He runs in, jumps on the bed.

No, no, no, come on, come on.

Get off the bed.

Not on the furniture.

The room overlooked the car park that we'd already been ranked.

You're staring at that window.

Remember when we went there?

We'll always have the car park.

Oh, God.

The room had posh coat hangers in the wardrobe with sponge on them.

So I ate the sponge

Don't think they are needed

We went and booked a table for Sunday dinner and went on another walk.

There was a field that was there just for birds to live on.

We couldn't see any so we went to the pub.

Headed back to where we were staying for our dinner.

I had beef.

It was nice enough but there was a family of thirteen behind us.

I don't see the point in going out in large numbers.

They annoyed me.

One of the family asked for sorbet before his next course.

It was only about 11.

He thought he was it.

I said to Suzanne, I've had enough and needed a kip.

Watch Planet Earth on BBC One.

They filmed a panda for four weeks, and all it did was sit in its cave.

It did nout.

If I was Fiat, I wouldn't name one of my cars after them as it suggests it won't work or go very far.

It'd be like bringing out a Ford Sloaf.

No one would buy it.

A Ford Sloaf!

I would love that I'd come faith.

Oh, that's amazing.

Oh god.

The new Vauxhall slug.

We had a look around the local village.

There wasn't much to it.

We did the usual thing and had a look around the church graveyard to see how old the dead people are.

Suzanne's on there.

We've talked so far.

She's gone to the cotswalls.

the room wasn't ready, she's seen the car park and empty fields, and now, let's go and play how old the dead people are.

I like the fact that you mentioned we did the usual thing of having a look round the church grave.

Do you make a do better before you go away?

I like the fact.

I want to know what she did for two hours when you slept.

Did she just like she went to a club?

I don't know why I was talking.

No, she just looked out at the car park, just like memories.

But

that's what you do, though, innit, when you go to these places.

There's nothing else.

Unless you want fudge.

fudge.

Or uh

you know, you you walk round a church graveyard

and have a look.

There's nothing we went home.

It took three hours to drive back.

People say they go to the country to see the wildlife.

I saw rabbits, pheasants and a fox on the way home.

They were all dead in the road.

Talking I was just intrigued to know, because Rob from Britain on Trent has sent this in, and he wants to know that because he's just started seeing someone, and he wants to know what your advice, Carl, is on how to keep her happy.

You know, he's just started a relationship with someone.

He wants to know what your advice would be to keep her happy.

Because, you know, I mean, he won't have heard that you took Suzanne on that wonderful trip to the Cotswolds.

So, what's your sort of advice, really, for someone who's perhaps just started a relationship?

I mean, you've been with Suzanne for what, nine years?

Ages.

I don't think you should

have to go out of your way to please them because then it's not the right person.

I think you should just do what you want, and then if they like it, then they're the right ones for you.

So don't go out of your way too much.

I mean, I got the posh badge for a birthday, that's once a year.

Rest of the time, it's kind of like you know,

I like weird stuff, I like watching weird stuff and all that.

Now and again, I won't make her watch it, I'll tape it.

It's amazing advice.

But sometimes

you just say, No, come on, the bloke with the two heads on, I want to watch it live.

So, give and take is what you're saying there.

That's all, it shouldn't be hard.

As soon as it's hard, it's not right.

So, just uh

just go about your business.

See if she joins in.

Brilliant, another quote for the book.

Welcome up to the Commonwealth Games on the radio.

Now, what are you making of the Commonwealth Games?

Is that something that interests you?

Are you a sports fan?

I'm not really.

I mean, Suzanne's sort of been getting up early, especially to watch it.

You know how I feel about a lot of it.

Um

it's just seems to be sort of wasted.

If people are running fast, use it.

Do you know what I mean?

Rather than just try to beat your own record or someone else's, do something where you do have to run.

If you're a good swimmer, be a lifeguard.

Don't be messing about going up and down.

Went home and looked up Freud on the internet, didn't find him that interesting, so looked at some other philosophers instead.

Socrates, Aristotle.

Why have you just listed some philosophers?

Just to show that I'm learning.

Well, that's not learning.

That's just learning their names.

That's a list.

You might as well write one to a hundred.

Yeah, but if someone says, oh, what's your favourite philosopher?

I'll go, hang on a minute.

And I've got them written down.

But why have you learned that?

Wait a minute.

I'll go and get my enormous diary out.

Yeah, yeah.

Get a wheelbarrow, bring in my workings, and say one of the names I've written down.

When they say, well, why do you like him?

Yeah, why do you just run away?

I noticed you put Socrates first.

Why is it your favourite philosopher?

You throw the diary at them and leg it.

And then you go on to say, it's weird how names have changed, but then there's no other point there.

It just is, isn't it?

When you think about like Socrates,

I've never heard that on anyone who I know

is what I mean.

It's just in a way.

But you're not Greek, are you?

But how did that go about back then?

I mean, when, say, if you were phoning someone up and they said, I'm booking the table for two, the old name, Socrates, did he ever go, Cheers, without going, Can you spell that for me?

But I don't know what else point you're making.

I'm just saying it's it's a name that's awkward.

You're always gonna have to go, Can you spell that for me?

You go, and it's not just him, look at all them other names that are on that list.

But they're from a different country and a different era.

Yeah, I know, but the names I've been to Rome and stuff, and you sort of go ancient Rome, just Rome.

It hasn't changed, has it, Rome.

So it can be ancient Rome or Rome in 2006.

It's the same buildings.

I used to love Nero going around in his feet at Punto.

Lao Tzu from years ago came up with some good stuff.

One,

he who knows does not speak.

He who speaks does not know.

Not entirely true.

To lead people, walk behind them.

Yeah.

And of course, the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

Yeah, did that.

Just favourites.

Maybe this is why people are at the start line spectating at the Commonwealth Games.

Well, no, it's just that I've never understood why in Olympics and stuff like that,

if you're going to watch, don't stand around the start line, go to the end where you see the winner.

But because of that saying, it actually makes sense, doesn't it?

It's like, well, every step starts with a step or whatever.

Say it again.

Every race, you know, you've got to start

with a step.

Yeah.

So,

which is to who am I talking to now, you or your brain?

Well, I was thinking about it a bit, so I think I was in control of it a bit more.

So, and what have you come up with?

Just just if you want to stay at the start line, do

what does that mean?

I'm just saying if if you're into ra I'm not I wouldn't watch a race, right?

Okay, is this you or your brain I'm talking to now?

This is me.

Okay,

I wouldn't watch it.

Are you using are you gonna are you gonna bring the brain into it or is it there's no

let's just see what happens.

Okay, but all I'm saying is right if I was to watch a race,

I wouldn't hang about the start line'cause because

every race starts with the step line.

No, but I wouldn't normally

watch any race.

Your brain definitely hasn't been used to it.

Is this you or your brain you're talking about now?

I'm just saying about me.

If I was on holiday

and Suzanne said there's a race going on down the road, I'd go, Well, let's go keep going down the road and stand at the finish line.

Okay, but now

I'd say, Well, hang on a minute.

Every s race starts with a single step.

Yeah.

How many people are on the start line?

Is there more room there?

She goes, Yeah.

I'll go, Let's go there then.

It's less busy.

Right.

And what would you see there then?

I'd see people starting the race, but I wouldn't be that impressed with them because I'd go, Well, I don't know if any of these are any good.

So would you start at the start or the end then?

I'd I if it was down to me, I I'd just probably

stay at the finish line.

Okay, so you wouldn't want to see the first step then.

So what do you think of Lazoo now then?

It's not what but I wrote down three of his.

That one isn't my favourite, that was the third.

I preferred the leading people from behind.

Okay, and what would you do to lead someone now then?

Um well if you're behind, you don't have to take responsibility, do you?

You can go, well I didn't send you where you went there.

That's not really leading them though, is it?

Yeah, because I've made them think.

I've gone.

Uh

they'd go, Oh, I've just walked into a big hole.

I'd go, Oh, should have been looking where you're going.

I haven't led them in that hole, but they've learnt a lesson.

They won't go in a hole again.

We went to the park and had a brew.

Suzanne read the paper while I played with the ladybird.

I mean it's like a child isn't it?

It is like what a child is.

Suzanne read the paper while I played with the ladybird.

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.

Add a bit of a to-do with Suzanne because she wanted a lion today.

I ate 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 lions, so we shouldn't.

What are you upset?

I'm an insect.

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 because we're a bit insect-heavy.

But at the end of the day,

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 don't.

You haven't studied them, he thinks he's like Darwin.

But you just slagged him off again.

Don't you think insects are doing stuff?

They're not.

It goes there, then it goes back again.

The ant was.

The ant was messing about, but only that one, the others were carrying stuff.

That's what I'm saying.

These snidey ones in everything.

In everything in the world, you get a hierarchy.

Oh, no words!

The bookshelf was dusty, so Suzanne asked me to dust it if I get a minute.

I ended up looking at every book.

Just the spine.

Just for a few seconds each.

Yeah.

Didn't open them.

I looked in the dictionary to see if the word dictionary would be in the dictionary.

I didn't think they would bother with it being on the front page, but it was in the book as well.

It's a good point now, isn't it?

No, it's not a good point.

Because

you didn't tell us anything.

Dictionary is in the dictionary.

Well, of course it is.

Well, why?

If if you go, how do you spell dictionary?

You look at the spine and you go, oh, there it is, D-I-C-C-C.

So what does dictionary mean?

It's a book full of words, isn't it?

That's what it means.

All books are full of words, you idiot.

How to spell them.

And if you don't know what to say.

No, it's not how to spell them.

Alright, then we'll...

No, no, no, no, no.

It's not a book full of words to title.

No.

It's the meaning.

Give us the definition of dictionary.

It's a book full of words if you want to know what the meanings are.

But if you didn't know that.

Well, sorry, what was that sentence?

Yeah, but what I'm saying is if you didn't know that, then you wouldn't be looking in it because you wouldn't know the book is about that.

So if you don't know the word dictionary and what it means, you won't be looking at the dictionary.

You'd be looking at an A to Z.

Why leave it out though?

Just because there's so many words in the world, I would have thought they wanted to cram as much as they can on a page.

And if dictionary is already on the front.

Is that why you suddenly use the word hierarchy for the first time ever?

Did you find that in there?

Did you look at did you see hierarchy in the dictionary?

I feel that that big word has pushed out about twenty-six other more useful ones.

Yeah, well, Suzanne's been going on about me learning another language.

But I sort of think your brain has only got so much room on it.

And the rest of it's filled with lard.

So

if I've got to learn everything I know again, but in a different language, it's taking up space, isn't it?

You don't learn everything.

Oh, God.

It's all storage, isn't it?

But you don't have to learn it again.

You don't have to learn the concepts again.

You're merely using

moves there are in the human brain.

You really you don't worry, you won't use them all up.

I feel that he has reached his capacity though.

Yeah.

Well you need a another sort of you need an update.

You need some more memory.

Woke up to some interesting news.

It's good when this happens because it sets 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.

Fuck it out, Moore 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 UK 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.

What do you mean?

Does it mean there are two new flies?

There are different 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?

But say call it A and fly B, right?

Yeah.

Fly A,

I don't know.

Let's say that's orange.

This is just big.

This is painful.

I'm just making it easy.

Yeah, fine.

Now, they found the orange one.

I 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, oh, keep your pen, Andy.

Look at this one.

It's got a hat on.

So then they they found them both within the same distance.

I don't know why that sentence keeps going.

Keep going, keep going, keep going.

They found them both within the same distance.

Without interrupting him, let him finish this now.

Let me just make one thing clear.

Kyle Pilkins 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, what I mean is

they weren't knocking about with other normal house flies because they were probably sort of going, oh, he's a bit weird.

Leave it.

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 of it as like

two little um uh

new kids in school.

They they find out they're both new and they they've got some alien, they're both goths, so they try to hang out.

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 ninety percent wrong.

Bit Bit tired today, because didn't get to sleep as early as I'd wanted due to a moth getting in the bedroom.

I got it in a glass and looked at it for a bit and then let it go because 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?

Fella.

Well, no, there wasn't around when dinosaurs were then.

Just a bit after.

Right, fine.

A lot after, yeah, go on.

I think any hominid, anything that could even be linked to anything that may become man, is only about a million years old.

And I think Homo sapien is probably only about 150,000 years old.

Dinosaurs are about 150 million to 250 million.

Yeah, yeah, no, 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.

Right.

And yet he was worried about his hairstyle.

Right, but that's definitely not true either.

This is unbelievable.

Well, there was a man on the radio doing poetry, says Carl in his diary.

I thought he'd have a go at doing a poem about today.

Not really.

He hadn't 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 me.

He wouldn't interrupt T.S.

Elliot.

Okay, okay okay okay

Oh okay

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.

Right, it may be the greatest poem ever written.

Just, you know, dissecting it briefly, you attempt to rhyme in the first four lines, but abandon the rhyming system in the last three.

Is there a creative?

Can we have Carl read that?

By all means.

Just you read it as you would like to.

So this is.

Imagine this, right?

Okay.

This is going out all over the world, this podcast.

And now

Carl Pilgrim, a new poet from Manchester, now living in uh London, England, would like to read uh 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 air 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.

We have bacon and egg on toast.

I'm eager to get through the brown sauce, as the bottle is too big to go in any cupboard, so it has to be left on the sideboard.

So I had about four dollarops of the stuff.

I love the because, you know, that's made into the diary.

He's concerned about the fact that the brown sauce is too big, so he's rushing through it.

I know, but I'm just saying the kitchen isn't that big, and it looks messy when you leave stuff out, doesn't it?

And we've got this giant brown sauce bottle,

and I don't want to chuck it away because that'd be a waste.

So you're having brown sauce and everything, your cornflakes in your tea.

A wasp wasp got in the flat.

You know trouble's brewing.

It was massive.

The biggest wasp ever.

Suzanne asked me to get it out, but I wanted to take a picture of it first.

I was getting my phone ready when it flew at me.

I reckon the sting on it could have killed a kitten.

So specific.

It ended up flying out the window on its own.

Karma inverted.

Oh, God.

We went out for tea.

You're always in a calf.

That's all.

This diary, you're all you spend so much time in a cafe.

There were loads of flying ants.

I kept kicking the table because I could feed them on my legs.

I wouldn't be that jumpy normally, but I still had flashbacks of the giant wasp from the morning.

Suzanne told me to stop being stupid because I was ruining her night out.

A night out in a calf?

Quite.

What was it, her birthday?

And flashbacks from an incident.

Like some sort of like war veteran.

What is it?

It was the wasp.

It could have killed a kitten.

Bought some wallpaper.

We got back and got on with it.

The wall that we've papered before has got a big mirror under it.

We papered on top of it again.

I ended up reading the phrase book while Suzanne did the rest of the tidying up.

Now, what's your phrase book?

This is just you trying to master English, is it?

It's just a book that tells you little sayings and how they came about.

An interesting phrase is pot luck.

It came about when all people ate is stews.

They used to chuck all sorts of stuff into the stew.

You stuck your spoon in, and sometimes you got something nice like beef, or you could end up with a bit of frog.

It's pot luck.

Good pino.

That's what it said in the book, didn't it?

A bit of frog.

Got up and checked the wallpaper out.

There are loads of air bumps, and it's buckled on the joints.

I wish we'd never done it.

Suzanne said the washer was broke and it's out of its warranty.

She called up the people who made it and they said it will cost £150 to fix.

I don't know how they know that when they haven't even seen it.

I want to smash it to bits and see what they can do.

So much anger.

I want to smash it to bits.

That'd be great, wouldn't it?

£150, you sure?

Come out.

And

it's just like a cube.

It's basically one of those car crushers.

150 quid, that's 150 quid.

Fix it.

I watched the news and calmed down a bit because there was a story about some Siamese twins who are having an operation.

They've got two heads, four arms, two legs, one liver.

The doctor said they will have one leg each.

I felt bad worrying about the washer when people have bigger problems like the Siamese twins.

Ricky and Steve asked me to do a poem about one day a week, so I thought I'd do one today.

I can't obviously do it justice, so I should let the master read it.

You've done another poem?

Yeah, you said, you know, just do one.

If you have a day where you've had a lot of emotions.

Well, I love the poem, and so did the listeners, and I knew they would.

So if you can do that every week, that'd be a joy.

You can't force a poem, though.

No, I know.

The sky is easy to do because you just write down

what you're doing.

But you've got to have some really meaty subject matter to be able to write a poem, Rick, as you'll discover.

I know.

Right, so you know, you've heard what problems I had that day.

Go on then.

Bubbled wallpaper.

What a mess.

Washer dry and knackered.

What a mess.

Siamese twins separated.

One leg less.

There was an animal in the paper today that I've never before seen.

It's called an alpaca.

They are gormless looking.

The fellow who breeds them said they are easy to look after because they're used to harsh conditions because they normally live in the mountains.

The problem with this is they will turn useless eventually, and then if we try to bung it back on the Andes, they won't like it.

It's like how people win these live like a star for a week competitions.

They're not good for anyone.

Okay.

Do you know what I mean?

If something's living somewhere, and it's not good for them, but why are we going to bug it back?

He's presumably breathing them for something else.

Yeah, but say if eventually, you know, the world's getting busy, there's hardly any room, and we go, right, what can we shift here?

What's getting in our way that we can shift?

Well, those funny-looking things came from the Andes, bung them back.

All right, then let's put them back.

And they go, Oh, they don't like it, they're not surviving, they're dying out.

Why did we bring them here?

Oh, it was closer.

Yeah, but look, we've died out now.

So, this is not like that.

This isn't happening.

They're not angry about it like it just happened and you're sick of it.

None of this has happened, you know.

Just looking at how it will happen.

Leave them where they were.

But you're you're getting angry about things that you're speculating on now.

It's absurd, Carl.

Not once have I read here about your anger about terrorism or international, you know, political injustice.

Not once have you written about that, only about the fact we may send animals back to the Andes.

I know, but just because it it just annoyed me, that's all.

They brought them here, some fellas getting a load of praise because they brought this weird animal into the country.

And yet, it's like, well,

they were on the Andes for a reason.

Leave them there.

It was happier there.

I mean, I feel guilty when I open a bag and a fly flies out of it, and I think, where's that come from?

What bag are you opening with bat flies?

What bag?

No, just when, like, you know, the bag I took the computer home in, a fly flew out of it, and I thought, when did that get in that bag?

Wherever brought that from?

And it's the same thing, it doesn't want to be somewhere else, it was where it was.

And that's the same with this placo, whatever.

Oh, God!

It's amazing!

It really is the ramblings of a madman, isn't it?

Some new sea thing has been found.

There's no 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?

What do you mean?

It was it was someone's found some sort of shell with a thing living in it.

Right.

Um

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 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, I I'll all I was saying is I wouldn't want want one.

If you don't know how to, if it's a new creature, you don't know what makes it happy.

When you get a kitten, you go, stroke its head, loves it.

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 and 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 might sound, it wouldn't be long before you got annoyed with it because it wouldn't eat the food you gave it.

That's what I'm saying but I couldn't have a go at it because it might not like pasta.

It might not.

Got up and put the radio on.

I listened to the story that the vicar read on radio 2.

Yeah that could be good.

He was saying how Jesus was 33 when he when he died.

He said he was more into the idea of doing a lot in your life than living for ages.

This was linked to the news about the doctor who's come up with some stuff that he's been injecting himself and his wife with that makes you age better.

I looked it up on the internet.

It wasn't worth them doing it because they are already old looking.

I don't know why people want to stay looking young.

You can wear a bold head better if you're old because hairs are replaced by wrinkles.

That's drivel.

No, it's not drivel.

A pointless entry to a diary, that it's not because that could be

an important bit in like world history.

What?

The fact that...

That people, that someone's trying to make people not age.

Age is good, isn't it?

When you see an old person...

Person going

What has?

People trying to age better.

No, but he's talking about if you're 90, he wants people to look like they're 30.

And that's not good because how would the world run when that's going on?

Well, I agree.

But again, it's not a revelation.

If I like chatting to old people because they know a lot of stuff.

So if I'm sat on a train and someone's old, I'm happier.

talking to them about they get up and move after about 10 minutes.

they have to stay there and listen to this one but yeah even that even that means that they're getting more out of life in a way because they don't move about as much so they have more thinking time it is weird how that happens to you as you get closer to death jesus you know you're not working as much because you're resting and you can think back about your life and you can think have i had a good one actually it's not been that bad whereas if but you must have started that now because you've been doing nothing for the past three months yeah but i'm just well that's like i'm saying it is a good thing for you to do to sort of think about what you've been doing with your days and your weeks.

And how do you assess your life so far?

With all this spare time bad and moping around and moaning about your illness and just sitting around, right?

You've been introspecting, have you?

Yeah.

Go on.

What have you come up with?

I haven't come up with anything.

I'm just,

you know, I have an alright life and things are changing.

Oh,

keep saying that.

No, but you don't know how much they are changing.

To the point of, I don't know if I mentioned the squirrel eating Mars bars, but from

from from from that happening to monkeys opening bottles with lids on them to

it's just it's it's mental out there

it's madness what is going on and all I'm saying is old people need to be old people you need oldness you need to see old people you need to go right they might have a solution they've been on the earth longer quick we need an answer how old are you I'm 32.

Well, you look 78.

I don't know what you're saying.

I don't know who that conversation was was with.

Why you got angry, and I think you made the opposite point that you were making at the beginning.

If you say you're 32, you look 78.

No, you were saying about it'd be a problem if you were 78 and look 32.

I don't know what you're saying.

You came down on the wrong side then.

You did that whole thing and you bollocksed it up again in your brain.

I'm just saying, either way, you need to have people who look old.

Otherwise, who's in charge?

I don't know what you mean.

So you say, even if...

So you're saying it'd be alright to make 78-year-olds year olds look thirty two as long as there were some thirty two year olds that look seventy eight, as long as you've got old looking people.

No, but say can I tear this page out?

Because it's worthless.

What I mean is, when I went to the doctor's, I saw the specialist, all right, about the kidney stones and I was I was asking him all the straight questions.

Is it life threatening?

You know, how long am I going to be out?

All of this.

Right.

Now.

As it turned out, it is life threatening and you've been out for three months whinging about the fucking thing.

Strange.

Now, he was quite old.

He looked about 55.

And that reassured me in a way.

In a way, it didn't, because he's one of them doctors who didn't open his eyes much.

And I kind of thought, I hope you don't know what he's doing.

I don't know what you're talking about.

What do you mean?

What?

What do you mean he didn't open his eyes much?

One of those sort of doctors who's either that overworked, that he does that, you know, and he's like, he's tired, so he's going, right, what we're going to do is...

And he's doing that with his eyes shut.

He's doing that.

But this is radio.

I know, but I'm telling you, so you can see.

But people are meant to be listening to this.

But if they can't imagine me with my eyes shut.

Well, tell him you've got your eyes shut.

Just say he had his eyes shut.

Yeah, he had his eyes shut.

Had he been reading this?

Bored, stupid, I imagine.

He's just trying to get a...

Well, do you know what I mean?

Or I don't know if it's because he's tired or if he's that educated that some people know so much they don't even have to look at it.

You don't know what you're talking about.

Intelligent people.

Who is so educated that they don't need to open their eyes?

Who's that bloke of though?

Is he blind?

No, he's been reading too much.

He doesn't have his eyes anymore.

Doesn't he?

Old people who you see wearing tweed and what have you and they really posh and they talk and whenever they talk their eyes are shut and they're not.

I don't know what this observation is.

I don't understand why he's never seen that.

I have never seen an old educated man wearing tweed who doesn't bother opening his fucking eyes.

I don't know what you're talking about.

Steve, have you seen so do you know what I mean when people don't sort of open their eyes when they're talking to you?

And it can be quite annoying.

Because it's like they're saying, I'm not interested about you sat there.

I'm not bothered if you're listening or not.

I'm saying what I'm saying because I say what I say.

And it can be quite annoying.

If he has got got his eyes good, he's probably just trying to absorb what you're saying and think carefully about it so he doesn't miss diagnosis.

I'm not having a go at it.

I was just saying he was 50 odd, and I was happy that he was there telling me.

I don't know why you were watching his eyes when he was telling you about your insides.

Because you can tell a lot by people's eyes.

That's what I said about jellyfish.

But, you know, just lines in a face.

Tell a few stories, and I don't think we should get rid of them lines.

Looks like the world's fattest man is having an operation to get rid of some of the fat.

He has to have an iron bed because that's the only thing that can hold his weight.

There's also a man whose skull has fell out.

He's in hospital somewhere.

I hate that.

It would make me panic.

The hospital is busy with people coming in to look at their head.

What are you talking about there?

That tells us nothing.

Right, it's impossible for a skull to fall out.

How are scholars in 10,000 years going to be what are they going to decipher from that?

They can sort of go out.

There's not enough incident detail.

But how did his skull fall out?

Circulation problems.

Answer the question, how did his skull fall out?

Fall out of what?

He was at home,

and I don't know if he was combing his hair or something, but it came off.

What did?

His skull.

What do you mean, his skull?

Do you know what the skull is?

It's a part of the head.

Well, no,

it's the structure of the head.

It's the bone.

Do you mean the top of the skull?

This is only useful if you have all the salient facts.

Then it would be of interest to us.

Well,

I couldn't tap that on.

I'm busy.

I'm not going to start looking into stuff in depth.

Just get the details on.

You're such an idiot.

You are the best

idiot in the world.

Well, I don't want to be premature, but that entry is followed by, I injured my toe the other day by dropping the toaster.

Instead of letting it hit the floor, I tried to catch it with my foot.

I didn't think I'd done any harm, but my nail looks like it could fall off.

I might show it to the doctor when I get my kidney stones out.

We could easily get by without nails on the feet.

They are more trouble than they're worth.

You're so wrong.

You're so wrong.

I think on the days when cavemen without shoes and animals need nails, I don't think we need them now.

I honestly, because you hear about ingrowing toenails, right?

So that's a problem.

You've got to cut them.

Stuff gets under there and gets infected.

Get rid of them, you won't have any of that.

As long as you wear shoes.

No, you'd have unprotected toes and fingers, wouldn't you?

I didn't say on the fingers, just on the toes.

So, why do you need them on the fingers and not the toes?

Because

you

use your hands to do stuff.

I've said about toenail out, it'd be good to have it growing on the head.

What?

Just having like a sheet of it, just like a nail on the forehead.

It wouldn't look weird because we'd all have it.

I'm not saying.

What are you talking about now?

I'm just saying

I don't want to go on about evolution and stuff because we've done it all.

What do you think the skull is for?

No, but I mean on the outside so that when you bang your head, it's a little bit more protection.

Like people, I mean, you're looking at me like that.

Why do you wear a helmet on a bike then?

Because

the bike wasn't meant to be invented.

We weren't meant to whizz along at 70 miles an hour with evolution.

But because life's changing, like you've said, let's change it.

But you can't go, let's evolve, let's re-evolve.

Okay, let's assume we've got this nail on our head that's growing out of our forehead.

So we look like one big thumb.

Yeah.

Which, weirdly, Carl, kind of, I mean, you can almost imagine it looking at Carl now.

You can imagine a big nail.

Does the nail continue to grow?

Do we have to trim the head nail?

Yeah, in the same way you get a haircut.

Why is that preferable in your mind to just wearing a crash helmet in instances where you might have something hit your head?

Just because

for a start, helmets, you have to carry them around with you.

That's one thing that's put me off on the motorbike.

Whenever you see someone on a motorbike, it's all like the clothes they've got to wear.

And it's like a big upheaval innit it's it's you know if you have a car you can get in with your shorts on your flip-flops on a motorbike it's like it's like you're an astronaut or something you're only nipping down the road for some milk do you know what i mean so get rid what i'm saying is get rid of does it annoy you having to put shoes on every day and underpants and a vest and a i don't know no but once they're on i'm not carrying them they're on me If I had to then take the shorts off for whatever reason and walk around holding them, I'd go, I can't be bothered.

I don't like holding a bag.

I don't like bags.

We carry too much around with us now.

I don't like carrying stuff.

It's just a hassle, isn't it?

It's just endless things he doesn't want to do.

He doesn't like doing it.

He doesn't like carrying bags.

Who the hell has a gripe about carrying bags?

Why is that a concern?

Because it's stuff that's on.

I love the way that he wouldn't mind having a nail going out of his fucking head, but he doesn't want to carry a bag.

What's good with it is everybody's got one of these.

But it's not going to happen.

And the most important thing in your body, apart from the heart, is your brain.

So protect that, not the toes.

The toes we can get by without the people.

But your head's important, and it there's a lot of stuff in your head.

And I know all this just after seeing the body works thing.

I went to see the

show on where there's a load of like dead bodies and that.

And

you can see how much stuff's in the body.

And there's loads of stuff.

There's nothing in there that you don't need.

It's all doing stuff.

Everything in your body.

We've been telling you that.

But you reckon they don't need need the toenails.

Yeah, that's on the outside.

I'm saying everything that's on the inside of your body, right?

You don't need the appendix.

No, but it that doesn't that depend on what what lifestyle you have?

Well, it's uh it's a hangover of when we uh probably ate a lot more cellulose and it's it's yeah well they they might come back.

Things are always coming back, aren't they?

So if people start eating them again.

What about male nipples?

Uh sort of looks alright though, doesn't it?

Because the chest is quite plain so with nothing on it, you'd go, what's this?

It just balances it out.

I think it looks alright, I think it works.

So leave it.

But what we were talking about.

But wouldn't you rather have

maybe a little like a rib cage around the testicles?

Because you get a whack in them and it...

Oh.

Yeah, that's pretty good.

Not an invention, Carl.

It's not an invention, and we can't do it, but.

But would you be able to sit down still?

Because that's the good thing with them at the moment, is movement

so it sort of works.

But don't they say um

they said something about testicles, the body works thing.

Well, they're on the outside.

Put yours away, Carl.

You're not what we exhibit.

They're on the outside because they have to be a few degrees below body temperature for the I think the Satoni cells to

so that's that's an odd design

that they had to go there because it is a it's a bit of an odd place to have them.

Where would you suggest?

Dangling from the throat?

Um, sort of.

I want to redesign you, right?

You can possibly do this now.

This is something you can actually do, probably.

You could probably have your testicles anywhere.

So where would you want them?

You've got a giant forehead nail.

Yeah.

You could have that.

It probably wouldn't grow, but we could certainly have that.

I just mean like, because if all it's about is temperature, you don't want to get them too hot.

Yeah.

Well, they're getting hot down there, because you're wearing pants and what have you.

So have them nearer to the outside of

the body.

But they are near the outside of the body.

No, but we wear pants over them.

So you wear pants over them because they're testicles, and polite society suggests that you don't show your trousers.

Yeah, but that's the odd thing, isn't it?

That's what's happened somehow, that we've said testicles shouldn't be seen.

Well, then just cut a hole, cut a pair of hole in your trousers.

If it's only about

keeping them cool, because they're too hot, why don't you just hang them out your shorts?

Because there's too many sort of seats that are shared these days, isn't there?

But what I'm saying is.

But what are you saying?

Where would you put them?

Somewhere like

sort of under the ears.

So it sort of just looks like lobes.

So you would redesign your body to have a pair of testicles hanging from your ears.

And when people are sometimes talking, they do sort of mess with their ears and they're always saying check for lumps.

It's more handy.

Had a late night last night because I stayed up to watch a programme about monkeys.

It's already good.

It's already good.

Now before I read on, I mean, is this not some kind of monkey news?

Is this not a late return to monkey news?

Uh well it's not it's not that good.

Is it not?

Whereas the other monkey news is...

Oh, Chimpati, that's some more shit!

This is what he says.

This is what he gleaned from the programme about monkeys.

It sat on a bridge and wanted stuff off people to walk over the bridge.

What?

So it was acting as some kind of toll booster.

This is ridiculous.

No, it was a bridge in in like the jungle.

Oh shut the fuck up.

And it's a monkey that's sat on a bridge and a lot of tourists go through the area.

No, it's a monkey

who realised that if he sits there, it gets stuff because it looks like it's a cute little chimbeggin.

No, but every time.

Yeah, because you give a monkey...

Oh, I'm bad as him now.

If you give a chimpanzee a banana

and he starts realising that humans have things to give.

Squirrels learn that.

You don't go, oh, you wouldn't say it all went to the park, the squirrels waiting at the gate.

You have to give them a toll to go in.

They're going to give them a nuts.

They come up to you every time.

You fucking idiot.

Went to bed after watching it and fell asleep thinking about it on the bridge right now.

It's a bit bad, really, because the monkey should work harder for its food.

It made me remember the slug I saw yesterday that was eating bird poo.

Nobody would ever help a slug with food like they do with ducks and monkeys.

A slug's life is pretty bad.

The only time they come out of their den is when it's raining.

Den.

So even their days out are depressing.

Do you know what I mean?

No.

It is like it's a horrible thing to be in it.

A slug.

Love him talking about what it is like to be a slug.

No, just because, like, the monkey, even though it's been quite aggressive, everyone was like, oh, give it some water.

And it was, it was well kitted out.

It had, like, you know, chocolate bars, bottled water, some like, you know, fizzy stuff, and all that.

And iPod it was listening to monkey knees.

It could have had one if it wanted one.

It was getting away with murder on that bridge.

And that's just because it was furry.

Yeah, if that was like a blob, like a slug, there's no way people would be that friendly towards it.

And it just annoys me how you get this pecking order for, like, no matter what creature you are, favouritism.

And that slug was only eating that bird poo because it wasn't being offered stuff.

If it was offered toffies or whatever.

Well, it's just sad, isn't it?

It's come to that.

That's what its life has come to.

Yeah, but it's not as molluscs down on its fucking life.

He didn't live in a big country house and his wife left it the kids went and started eating the bottle.

And I kind of thought, and look, they do only come out in the rain and it's depressing and it'll probably get killed in a bit.

And that was its last meal.

I just.

Last meal?

People wouldn't care.

I prefer steak and chips, Carl.

It doesn't.

It must like a leaf or a...

You know, at the end of the day, it's an insect.

They love it.

It's not an insect.

Well, it's part of that gang.

It's part of that gang.

No, it's part of that gang.

They hang out together.

They hang out together.

Why do you think it's part of that gang?

Because it knocks about in the woods in the same place as a spider does.

But

what I'm saying is, they're eating boring stuff because that is what's

not boring stuff to them.

I have no opinion of it at all.

They take in sustenance.

No, but where you are is what you eat.

When I'm in London, I'll have beans on toast for lunch.

On holiday, what?

Tap ask, go on, I'll have a bit.

So it's whatever you eat, what's in that area.

Suzanne went off to work and I went to the shop to buy some envelopes.

The shop was empty, but the fellow behind the counter was on the phone and just kept talking, talking even though he could see I was waiting.

I started to count backwards from 20.

When I got to six he hung up and served me.

I won't use the shop again.

Question, why count backwards from 20?

So he's thinking what's going to happen at one.

If I start counting from one he's going, well let him carry on.

What out loud?

Not really loud but like more of a mouth action so he could see I was doing it.

Do you know what I mean?

Sorry, you

just started miming counting backwards to a man in a shop.

He's on the phone.

The shop is empty.

I thought he'd like me custom.

He could have served me and stayed on the phone.

Even though I don't like that, at least he's still doing what he needs to do.

I would have said, sorry, can I just get these, please?

Yeah.

Well, I stood there and I thought it's annoying me now.

My kidneys aching and I started to get a bit of a sweat on.

So I thought, right, I'm going to give him 20 seconds.

And if he hasn't got off the phone, I'm leaving.

And

when I got to about six,

he served me.

What's wrong with that?

Again,

one of the strangest people.

It's just giving yourself a thing.

I could have been stood there for ages.

He's one of the strangest people who's free to walk

in the streets.

No, I set myself a little target and I thought I don't want to waste another 30 seconds in here.

I'll give him 20.

It worked.

He served me at 6.

But it didn't work.

Yeah, but did he do it because you were doing that or did he finish his phone call?

I don't know.

I was busy counting.

Looked at what's been going on in the world.

There was a human head attached to a seagull's body in a jar.

Is that all it says?

This is the sort of weird stuff that goes on behind surgery doors.

I doubt it ever flew because the head would have been too heavy.

Well, of course it wasn't written.

It didn't happen.

It wasn't live.

No, but they try this stuff, don't they?

That's like that programme I watched with a

who has ever tried to put a human head on a seagull's body?

They've done loads of stuff like that.

It's part of us moving on, isn't it?

What are you talking about?

I'm not going to get into an argument about

it because it's all behind

shit.

How do you think we can change a heart now from another body?

You have to try things out.

It's trial and error.

All sorts of weird stuff goes on in hospitals, but we let it happen because it's to help us out in the long run.

But what are they aiming towards when they're going to find out if you can put a head on a seagull's body?

What do they want to learn, and

how do they want to apply that knowledge?

A new heart is obviously for a reason, it saves a life.

What is this to save money on transport?

Instead of getting a bus pass, you go,

could I pop a head on the seagull's body?

I go, well, it won't work.

Well, try it.

Yeah, but there is odd things like that.

Like,

I saw a fish the other day, right?

And honestly, it's the weirdest thing.

It was just like a blob with a face.

Now, I would never have said, yeah, let that swim about.

I'd have killed it from day dot.

I would have been get rid of it.

Oh, God.

Under what circumstances would you have killed that from day dot?

I'm just saying, looking at it, I'd say that does not work.

And it looked sad.

It looked like it didn't want to be about.

Have you got a number

now?

Of course, for those of you who have not been keeping abreast of Carl's medical complaints, just brings up the speed, Carl.

You had to go into hospital this week because previously you'd had to.

I've been in and out, honestly, I've been in and out of that hospital just with kidney problems,

really painful and what have you.

And yeah, kidney stones are all

seriously.

Monday.

I had a bit of a lion today because I have have to get up early for me operation tomorrow.

Not only have I got to have tubes shoved up me knob, but I also have to get up at five fifty.

Suzanne said I could have what I want for my last dinner.

It's not your last dinner, you're going for operation.

Yeah, but y you you can't take things for granted these days.

I had Shepherd's Pie and Peas.

Suzanne made it from scratch.

As nice as it was, it was annoying.

'Cause making stuff from scratch means loads of pots, and it's my job to do the washing up.

So much as the food was nice, there was loads of pans and that.

People who get their last dinner on death row don't have to wash up.

Got up at 5:55.

You were supposed to be getting up at 5.50 on the other page.

You were five minutes late getting up.

He's often late.

Often late.

No, just because I needed to have water.

Before six o'clock, they said, Don't have anything after six.

Well, get up at 5.50 then, like you planned to.

Don't you have to?

Well, why did you say 5.50 in the first place?

Because then it tricks me ahead, doesn't it?

Going, oh, I had an extra five minutes.

Tricks me head.

Because then it tricks me head.

It

Got to the hospital and had to wait in the waiting room.

There was another nine people in there waiting to be sorted.

I got called in.

They sat me on a bed and took all my details down.

Five minutes later I'd been knocked out.

I got woke up when they were ripping a pipe out of my throat.

I felt more rough this time.

The doctor came to see me and said he couldn't find a stone, so I must have passed it.

I said, Are you sure?

He said, Yeah, we filled your kidney with water and expanded it, and there was no hiding place.

I sat in the recovery room for an hour while they found me a bed.

One of the fellows who was sat in the room with me this morning got wheeled in.

They couldn't wake him up.

All the nurses were laughing because he didn't want to wake up.

I bet they were laughing at me when I was in the theatre.

Someone told me they totally strip you when they're operating.

I would have looked like the alien on the Boswell incident.

Boswell!

Boswell!

It's quite a nice analogy if it weren't for the fact that you said Boswell.

It's the Roswell incident.

Didn't sleep much through the night because there was a 60-year-old fella shouting at the nurse about his pillows.

I don't think I slept through a full hour with one thing or another going on.

My bed was next to the toilet, so I kept hearing the flush.

How do they sleep in hospitals, though?

They wake you up to give you fucking sleeping pills and things, don't they?

How do you sleep in there?

It's always hot.

It's always like 90 degrees.

There's no air.

Is that to make you drink water?

I don't know what it is.

There's no air.

There's an old fella across from me who kept breaking wind.

He didn't even try and cover it.

It was just of that age where he didn't care.

Just like, that's what I do.

I'm in a hospital, leave me alone.

What do you mean?

Just, I don't know what was wrong with him.

He's uh, I talked to him because at first I felt sorry for him.

I was a little bit like, you know, he's had no visitors, no one's calling him up, so I'll talk to him.

But then he got that familiar with me that he'd just be doing it whilst I'm chatting to him.

Just like he's my granddad or something.

It's just like, oh, that's what he does.

It's like, well, I'm ill as well.

Stop doing that.

Honestly, unbelievable.

He didn't even try and cover it with a cough.

It was just like us.

With a cough!

How would you cover it with a cough?

Just non-stop.

Got home and sat down.

My pains are coming back, but the doctor said this would happen, that my insides are still in shock, so I need to take it easy.

It's nine o'clock.

I'm in agony.

I can't do the diary for the rest of the day.

Jesus.

So you may as well just tell us then what happened.

Right.

Well, yeah, after that,

went back in.

Suzanne just got frustrated with me because I was rolling about on the floor and she was trying to watch Arthur.

right?

So that was on the other night.

I was with your lodger.

And she said, look, if you're in pain, do something.

She said, you know.

You went and got a cold plate.

Yeah.

No, use an ashtray.

Plates are for liver damage.

She said, right, come on.

Let's.

I can't put up with this.

It was like two o'clock in the morning.

So we left the flat or what have you.

Got in a taxi.

He filled up on the way, which was annoying.

He did it.

No, he's cheeky.

Really?

I mean, it's a good idea.

On the way to the hospital.

Because

I was in that sort of thing where you just can't be bothered.

Do you know what I mean?

I was in a sweat and sweat.

He came back with a scratch card and some barbecue briquettes.

So anyway, he gets us there and he doesn't charge us, which is pretty decent enough.

That's right, yeah.

So I go in, and there's like I don't know if you've been in like A and E at like

two in the morning, it's just depressing.

Fluorescent light doesn't help because it makes everyone look iller than they actually are.

So,

in there, there was a woman who was just sat there crying.

She wasn't holding onto any part of her body, she was just sat there whinging.

And when you're feeling bad, you've got that going on.

So, you just want to tell her to shut up.

There was a fella who was like moped over in a wheelchair that someone had just chucked in.

Moped over.

It looked like somebody had just sort of found him and wheeled him in.

Nurse, who's the guy who moped over?

So, this gay fella came through.

How did you know he was gay?

Just the way he was.

I'm not having a go.

He was a good fella.

Do you know what I mean?

He was a doctor, you mean?

No,

he was a nurse.

Right.

And he came through and just sort of went, Oh, how are you?

And I was like, oh, I've had better days.

So he came through.

As you mentioned in the diary, I remembered the first time when I came here, they said the nurse might put a tablet at my arse.

I thought the chances of that happening had just increased.

Oh, God.

Yeah, but I would have let him do it.

Honestly, I was that sort of out of it.

Of course, you'd let him do it.

He's a qualified nurse.

No, but the way I am now, say if it was just a tablet for sorting out my blood pressure, and I walked in there and he went, oh, hello.

And he said, yeah, let's pop that.

I'd go, hang on a minute.

But what I mean is that night, I would have just let him put three up.

Honestly.

It's just weird, isn't it?

How your body just goes, let them get on with it, and you let you trust anyone, don't you?

When you're in that much pain and you need

a qualified nurse, yes.

They

gave me some morphine, and we sort of had caved in again, like last time.

And then the pain went.

But anyway, um just turns out that I I'd had a load of like blood clots in the bit from my kidney to my bladder and that was acting as a sort of a stone again.

So that's just a scarf, isn't it, where it's securing it, so no, but all the work, when they blew up the kidney, they blew up the kidney four times its normal size.

So there was no hiding place for the stone.

Yeah.

So when they did that, it caused a lot of blood, it must have ripped the sides of it and stuff.

And then that blood was in the kidney and it went down the pipe and blocked it up a little bit.

And that's the pain that I had.

It was sort of had problems getting through all this thick blood that they caused.

So uh

the weirdest thing that happened when I was in there, right, uh the the morning like after I'd had the morphine and what have you, right, I slept pretty well.

But I woke up and the you have like a telly for your own bed that you that you're allowed to use if you pay for it, right?

So so the glow from that woke me up because they come on at about ten past seven and the telly's in front of your head.

So you're getting this glow, and you're going, Oh, what's that now?

And I looked at it, and all it had written on it is Carl

received bad news about your father.

Right?

And I was like,

Is this what they do now?

Because it's such a big hospital, that they just text you sort of news to your bed.

And I was kind of like,

like I say, it was early, it was ten past seven or whatever.

What's going on?

I didn't have my mobile, Suzanne took that.

And I was looking at it, I read it again.

I thought it might come up with more, like, what's up with him?

Turns out it's just a review for Neighbours.

It just tells you.

It tells you what's on the telly that day.

And there's some fella in Neighbours who's called Carl whose dad went bad.

So that sort of woke me up with it.

I had a bit of a shock then.

It was kind of like, so I was wide awake at like quarter past seven in the morning because my heart went a bit fast because I thought something had happened to my dad.

Carl, of course, has written a poem about the experience entitled My Ward.

All I've done here, I've been through a, you know, I don't know what the word is, a bad experience.

Trauma.

A trauma, yeah, I've been through a load of trauma.

So I'm just finishing it off with a little sort of picture for people

in my ward.

I know it's called my ward.

Me, a Chinese fella, and an old bloke who looked like Mr.

Burns from The Simpsons.

Don't know what was wrong with him, but breaking wind was the symptoms.

No one visited him or called called him.

He seemed quite lost to me.

As well as wind problems, he had a colostomy.

When I left, I said see you to the old man.

Turned out the other fellow wasn't Chinese, he was from Japan.

I never found out what was up with him.

You've got a little picture there, haven't you, of me sat in my ward and sat there with that fella who I didn't talk to, the old fellow who had wind problems, and that's what a poem is, innit?

But the detail about you thought he was Chinese and he turned out to be Japanese.

How is that evocative?

That's just a piece of misinformation.

It's just

I imagine a lot of people make it digression.

I like it, because you know why?

It's like he even makes digressions within his poem.

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

It's like he could have gone back and erased that, but he didn't.

He left that digression in.

And I think that's great.

Let's be honest.

Yeah.

So, you know, you've done quite a few bits there from the diary.

The other week you were saying a diary to sort of be famous and what have you, it's got to have a big event in it.

That's a big event in my life, right?

Pepys did a diary that had big events in it.

You said about the fire on pudding lane.

I had a kidney stone here.

You write about puddings you've had.

So is that now, is that as big as is that a proper diary thing?

It's a proper diary anyway.

I think personally, the five or six pages you've written about your ill health are genuinely interesting, and I'm sure in years to come, people it will be an interesting evocation of the NHS in this modern age and how it is, what it's like to be in hospital.

What other diaries are out there?

Well, a lot of them are fictional, of course.

Bridget Jones and the like.

There are lots of memoirs, but I publish a whole diary.

I mean, you can't.

Well, the two most famous diaries, I would have thought, was Peeps and Anne Frank.

But Kenneth Williams' diaries were published after his death.

Many celebrity diaries have been published, Alec Guinness, people like that.

And is that just their last year, or did they do it when they were doing a lot?

Because if they're old and sort of not working well, a diary

isn't that good.

Well, often the moments prior to their passing are some of the most interesting.

You see, their final thoughts and final days.

Yeah, but you say different things when you're ill.

When I was on that table about to go under and you're thinking this might be it, different thoughts on the world.

Do you know what I mean?

Different priorities.

What's the most profound thing that you thought that you know it was because of your illness?

Um, just as I went under, the last thing I said to this woman was, Oh, you look different with a hat on.

And

oh, you look different with a hat on.

Yeah, it was a woman who gave me the injection, and she'd been round to the bed beforehand, sort of saying, Right, you're allergic to this.

Can you eat strawberries?

And I was a bit like, Why are you asking me that?

And she went, Well, no, a lot of people are allergic to strawberries.

And I was saying, But is there any trace of strawberries in the stuff?

And she's like, No, it's just that a lot of people are.

And I said, Well, no, I I eat'em And then she's like, What about fish?

and I said, I like some, I b I haven't had'em all.

And uh and then she turned to Suzanne at that point and said, But w do you know of anything you can't eat?

She sort of like like turning to the mother, yeah, when the child can answer.

And but she she was this was this woman and she didn't have a hat on or anything.

And then when I went down there, I didn't realise it was the same woman until I was lying there and she started to inject me and I just said, Oh, you look different with that on And then I went out and uh and I when I woke up, the woman sort of came round and just sort of said, oh, it's weird.

That was the last thing, like you said.

And that made me think that could have been my last, you know, like fighting on the beaches or whatever.

That could have been my little thing.

You look different with a hat on, Carl Pilkington.

Oh, God.

In its own way, it is quite wise.

People do look different with hats on.

I think his last words would be something like, Can this kill you?

Yeah.

Suzanne, Suzanne, can you drink bleach?

Me ma'am called me to ask me to like

Fammy, you're right.

That like, look, that should be.

Me ma'am called me to ask me to look in some of the magazine shops in London for a magazine that she can't find.

It's called UFO Data.

I said, I ain't heard of it.

She said she's seen an advert for it in one of her ghost magazines.

I love the fact that she can't even find the magazine about unidentified fine objects.

So we get we get a clue.

She thinks I think I saw something but I don't know whether it was a magazine or not.

So we get we get a clue there as to why you you

give any credence to this crap.

Yeah, well it's you know I mean Mama Pilkington's into the same shit.

There's a lot of space out there, isn't there?

She said that this magazine has got news story about how Aldrin, brackets astronaut, has got some evidence that aliens exist.

I told her that I found out today that the days are about 36 minutes longer on Mars.

We chatted about how this is how they are more advanced than us.

Do you mean the Martians?

Yeah, if they've got a longer day, that's more time that they're awake working on stuff.

Right, yeah, we know that makes no difference at all.

No, it does.

Think about it.

Think about it.

Look, think about it.

Six o'clock here.

Yeah.

People are going, see you tomorrow.

I'm going home.

They'll be going, oh, another half hour.

They've got a longer day.

Productive.

And that's why they're able to fly.

It's probably whizzing around

Christ Almighty, what drivel.

Suzanne got in from work at 11:30.

I told her about the UFOs in Mars.

She said she's too tired to chat.

I said, Does it mean aliens will be more tired than us, or do they get more sleep?

I got no answer.

I love it when Suzanne does it.

She never indulges in.

It just scares her.

Anything with ghosts and UFOs, she sort of

scare her, it bores her, and it freaks her out.

Okay.

I'm knackered today, and the face feels dry and spotty.

Oh god, no, it starts off!

It starts off moaning!

The first thing it does is start moaning!

He wakes up and goes, oh, fuck me, I didn't die.

Oh, God.

I'm knacca today, and the face feels dry and spotty.

I think it's the change in water since being away.

Or it could be all the

Madeira cake I had yesterday.

I'm gonna burst.

But what's the Madeira cake?

The Madeira cake drives you out, does it?

Well, it's just quite fattening, isn't it?

But I like it.

It's one of my little pleasures.

I went for a wander about to try and find the UFO data magazine from a ma'am.

I didn't know which category to look under.

There were too many magazines.

I noticed how, on the rude magazines, the women are being pretty rude on the cover, but on the gay magazines, it's just a fella smiling, showing a bit of arse.

I don't know why gay blokes would buy it.

Blokes have got their own knob to look at if they like knobs.

Why were you looking at the gay magazine?

No, I wasn't.

It's just

studied them.

Yeah, I was looking for UFO data.

I don't know where they put it.

You find evidence where the world

pants.

Yeah, I don't want to boldly go where no man has ever gone before, Carl.

I had no luck trying to find the UFO data magazine.

I will try some other shops.

He writes UFO data magazine every time.

He could just put UFO mag.

It reminds me every time.

If I write stuff down, it means that I remember it more.

Sure.

Still looking for it.

Got some posts from Oxfam.

They're flogging animals for Africa again.

They've got new animals in their catalogue now.

They've got donkeys and alpacas.

Donkeys 50 quid, alpacas £20.

I don't know if this is a special rate or if I could get one from a ma'am.

She's been saying how they've been missing having a pet since they had the cat put down.

Sorry, you don't get it.

If you buy that for someone, you don't get it.

Yeah, but they're not bothered where they're going.

Yes, they do.

Of course, they don't.

They don't deliver them.

It's not like they're in a warehouse wondering,

thinking, I hope people buy this.

They're going to put them out there.

But at the end of the day, 50 quid's 50 quid, and they're not bothered.

If they're buying an alpaca to Africa and I'm saying, can you get one to London?

To them, that is less hassle.

Right.

That don't...

Carl, that's not how it works.

You can't just go and say, oh, I'll have one of them.

They're not bothered.

It's for charity.

Carl, of course they are.

You can't buy an alpaca for 20 quid.

Christ, I'm like, plus posters and packaging.

They're big bastards.

Read about a pub that is getting some stick because they've stopped a horse going in.

It's been the horse's regular for ages.

But there's been some new owners who've taken over the pub and they said they're serving fresh fruit and don't want a horse in there anymore.

She taught me some way to breathe that will relax me.

I wasn't feeling that relaxed, though, because the person behind the counter was banging about making a coffee.

Noise stresses me out.

I wonder if less deaf people die of stress than people with working ears do.

Oh, it's the theories.

It's the theories.

It is such a noisy world, though, isn't it?

London is noisy, very noisy.

I think just everywhere, just noise in general.

They were saying how like every noise

has been used at least five times or something.

What do you mean?

Because there's only so many noises in the world.

I don't know what you're talking about.

I don't know what you're talking about.

No, there's only so many noises.

What do you mean every noise has been used five times?

I don't know what that means.

I don't know what it means.

Because.

I don't know.

I have no idea.

Every noise once has been used at least five times.

There's only so many noises.

It's like a piano, isn't there?

There's only so many notes.

Yeah.

And there's only so many noises.

Right.

But because there's so much stuff, the same noises are being used again.

I don't know what that means.

By whom?

Who's reusing the noise?

By whatever.

So a woodpecker when it's woodpecking.

Yeah, yeah.

Some birds make noises that would sound like a Ford Escort, just because there's only so many noises that people can use.

What is he talking about?

Noises are a by-product.

Outside an instrument, noises are a by-product.

A machine, they don't go, watch me make this noise, make this machine.

It makes the noise it makes when it's doing something.

Why does it make that noise?

Why not pick another noise?

They don't pick the noise.

They're not

A printing press makes the noise because it's the sound of the thing going down.

Yeah, you know, a hammer makes that noise because that's what it does.

No one's going, oh, can we make this make a different noise?

No, it's it's a by-product.

I know, so there's only so many noises.

I don't know what you mean.

You said the by-product is because of something that's happening, right?

But it's the physical action, isn't it?

And the way that that impacts on the uh the surrounding air.

That's what noise, you know, how noises are manufactured.

It's not a choice.

When Stevenson's rocker came and I went,

I went, come out and go,

that's the noise it made.

I know, but then, say, like a new frog comes out.

Oh, what do you mean a new frog comes out?

They find a new type of frog that makes a noise, and they'll go, yeah, I knew it was going to sound like that.

What are you talking about?

Because there's only so many noises.

No animal comes out and makes like a weird noise, and you go, I've never heard that noise before.

They go, oh, that sounds like a chicken, or it sounds like a Ford Escort.

Or

there's only so many noises

you've used Ford Escort twice as an analogy here so you're running out of noises you've come up with chicken and escort so far I can't even but the problem is a Ford Escort sounds a bit like an Osten Allegro so I know yeah yeah and a chicken you're ripping off the turkey you can

I read a bit in the news about people being injured while trying to cut open avocados it's a food that ain't worth injuring yourself for if it's a hassle to get into leave it to the experts I have never bought one.

I have also avoided coconuts and pineapples.

The amount of hassle to get into these things outweighs the joys they give.

It's the same reason I never bought a pair of Dr.

Martin boots.

Too much hassle when it's time to take them off.

Yeah, a lot of my mates used to wear them in like the 80s.

You know, you can't just kick them off, can you?

It's a big upheaval.

You've got to unlace them, you know.

Yeah, I mean,

since I've found shoes with velcro on them, brilliant.

Just the way.

I don't don't understand why lazy.

Is it because you can't tie your laces?

No, I can do it, but it's wasted time.

You're so lazy.

Wasted time.

That gives him more time to sit around and look at insects, eating biscuits.

Take off a pair of boots with a business.

Well, it's ridiculous.

He can't fit his days as it is.

No, but I don't understand how some inventions sort of catch on and other things don't.

But this is what I mean.

He's got too much time on his hands.

Sitting around at home thinking, why are we not using Velcro more?

But there's one Velcro manufacturer going, yes, at last.

He said what needed to be said.

Won't you get it sponsored?

Because you could wear a Velcro toupee.

Because that would be great if we could do that.

If someone could invent a little hair piece for Carl, Velcro's the little bit of fluff he's got on the top of his head, his shiny orange-like head.

Pop a little Velcro toupee on.

I would love that.

I would love to get him wearing a wig.

But why necessarily reduce it to a toupee?

Why not some kind of carrying device?

You know, he could carry goods and things around in there, sandwiches.

Yeah, he doesn't like carrying a bag.

Well, what about that?

A little thing you carried around, a little Velcro thing you carried a pot on your head for for your sort of like keys and trinkets and money and that?

Well no I've I've I've told you about that idea that's out there but hasn't caught on as well the the tie.

Right.

The tie with loads of pockets and stuff in it.

Yeah but you've got to wear a tie.

Yeah but that but that'd be quite nice wouldn't it?

I've never worn a tie because I always think what's the point?

It's just standing there in the way.

Can you imagine this image of Carl walking around in his big Velcro shoes, a tie with an apple stuffed in it, car keys, the iPod?

No but don't you think it's a good idea?

Would you wear it with with a shirt and collar or just a t-shirt?

No, wear it with a shirt.

That's what I'm saying.

It's an invention that will smarten up the world.

Now a tie, what does a tie do exactly?

Yeah.

What does it do?

Nothing.

Right.

So I'm saying make it do something.

But I'm saying don't wear it at all.

Pop your keys in the trouser pocket.

No, but

because the world is getting more and more scruffier, isn't it?

When you look back at it.

I don't know what that means.

I don't know what that means.

When you look back at like Victorian times and everything, everyone wore a hat.

They wore a tie.

They wore a suit.

And it was a nicer looking place to look at.

When you see it on pictures, you go, what a smart world that is.

Well, you can't see cholera and things on pictures, but surely.

No, but I'm just saying it's better to try and cover it up with a bit of, you know, cloth.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The world looks nicer with more cloth.

Whereas now everyone's rowing about scruffily.

So what I'm saying is, if we make the tie more useful and give it a purpose, it might come back and the world will look tidier.

But a tie, its purpose is to look smart, really.

Well, originally, it was because we didn't have buttons, so it kept the collar up at the front.

That was the invention.

It was a useful invention, the tie.

It was called a tie.

It tied together, okay?

So then when we uh we had buttons that we didn't really need to tie, but it was a symbol of of smartness, like saying I've made an effort.

Okay, but now that would go away.

So now you wouldn't look smart with a tie.

They go, oh look, it's like a bag round his net with his with his apples and oranges and his keys and his sticks he's making a nest out of.

So it wouldn't, it would be scruffy.

It would make the tie scruffy, so it would defeat the object.

So now when you're carrying stuff around, I mean crawling on all fours because you're shopping so heavy round your neck, they'd go, look at that scruffy fucker on all fours.

Oh look, but look at his lovely head of hair.

It's Valcraft.

It's a hat.

Yeah, well that's the other problem, isn't it?

I can't go back to a wig now.

My theory about reading old news is right.

It's less bad when you know it's old.

It was a story about a weatherman who was fired yesterday for having a nude picture of himself on the internet.

But that happened two days ago.

He's probably got another job by now.

So, old news isn't as shocking.

Well, old news isn't news, though, is it?

It's olds.

What are you doing?

Just reading the olds?

No, but what I mean is, if someone says.

Take the video on of

last week's news, I just want to catch up on the olds.

Yeah, but then it's still news.

If news is something that you don't know, isn't it?

If someone tells you.

That's everything to you.

That's information, Carl, not news.

Yeah, but news is information.

No,

the key with news is the word new.

No, no, no.

I don't think it is, is it?

It's just information.

But they tell you at 10 o'clock at night, it's like what information's gone on.

Bong.

Here's some information.

Yeah, that you didn't know before because you couldn't have because it only happened today.

Bong.

Yeah, but never mind that.

I'll tell you in a couple of days.

It doesn't matter as long as you get the same info.

Bong.

Yeah, we can't call it news, though, because it's misleading.

We get done.

It's called olds.

Bong.

Yeah, but listen to me theory.

What I'm saying is, is that if someone in your family,

you know, I don't want it, it's Christmas and that, I don't want to bring the tone down, but someone dies in your family.

Now, say if you're away on holiday and they don't call you, because they don't want to ruin your holiday, then you come home and they go, Uncle Frank's dead, and you go, Oh, when did that happen?

And they go, two weeks ago.

Now, because everyone else has got over it, it's not as bad for you.

Because part of bad news is the way everyone's walking around moping, going, Oh, have you heard the news?

Frank's dead.

But because everyone's got over it, time is a healer.

That's what I mean about old news.

It's better than new news.

Yeah.

But according to you, the only news that really matters is stuff that affects you.

So it doesn't matter when you.

There was an earthquake.

When was it?

Yesterday.

Phew, that's alright.

Then often the aftermath is worse than the actual event.

Two, you only care about things that actually happen to you.

So the doctor goes, you got a kidney stone.

Oh, when did this happen?

Two weeks ago.

Oh, that's alright then.

Doesn't make sense.

No, but the worst.

Well, you're not upset about dead Uncle Frank just because other people are upset.

You'd be upset personally.

It wouldn't make any difference when they told you.

Yeah, but it is everyone else's emotions that make it worse, I think.

Knocking around people who are miserable.

What about warnings?

What about when they do things like smog warnings?

Or, you know, there may be a.

I don't like it on the news when they sort of say news just in.

I think, oh, what's this?

You think, oh, what's going on?

But it might be useful to know it.

It's important information.

No, it just makes you panic.

Yeah, but sometimes knowing stuff keeps you alive.

Yeah, I don't know if I like it.

Sirens, you say, I don't like sirens, do I?

I've said to you, I think it's a scary noise.

Well, it's meant to be so you get out of the way.

No, no, no, it's not meant to be.

It's a sign to get out of the way.

I'd prefer it if it...

Like I've said.

Hi, could you just move out of the way?

It can be anything, as long as we know.

It can be a chicken noise.

But as long as you know, that chicken freaks people out.

No, but it sort of made you smile, but you go out of escape.

But you're cycling along and you hear what sounds like a giant chicken behind you.

And you smile because you know that even though someone is burning to death,

there's something clucking in my way.

That's probably a guy having a heart attack.

Going to Im and Dad's today.

I'll cut to the chase rick.

They basically, we got about four pages where they drive to his mum and dad's.

Oh, jeez.

I'll skip past that because it takes fucking forever.

Got there, mum and dad, mum made him in some dinner.

The old woman next door, brackets, whose man was a witch, just pop that in brackets.

Just pop that in brackets.

I think we've discussed that before, actually, the old woman whose mum was a witch.

Whose mum was a witch.

The old woman next door has been worrying because she keeps seeing adverts on the telly about changing to digital TV.

She's saying she doesn't want wires drilled into her walls because they'll make a mess.

My dad told her that it doesn't matter because it'll probably won't happen until 2012 and she'll be dead by then.

He didn't say that to her, though, no, he did.

They've got, you know, she's old.

It doesn't, she knows she's going to die.

I mean, it's something we've all got in common.

And he's right, isn't he?

Why is she worrying about it?

Maybe that's sorted it out, put it into perspective for her.

You will be dead when this happens.

Don't be worrying about it.

But everybody worries, don't they?

You've got that little sort of hole in your head that you fill with worries.

You know, everyone's got to fill that little worry hole with worries, and that's a worry hole.

Everyone's got to fill a worry hole.

I've got to assume that there's a worry hole.

A worry hole.

That we feel worry hole.

I learned the fact that

doctors in a million years would dig this up and go, humans used to have a worry hole.

Went to bed around midnight.

Suzanne and I decided to sleep tops and tails because it made me get a bit more room.

My dad had cut a bit off the mattress to fit it between two cupboards.

It's amazing how much of a difference it makes just sawing off a bit of the mattress.

You sort of roll to the edge, but the weight of the blankets keeps you in.

This is like something from a rolled dowel book.

No, it's just, it's just,

you know, you think anything, you can sort of trim anything, can't you?

And it normally works.

But with a mattress, I mean, he only took off, I don't know how long that is, but he's sawn off about that much on the mattress and then has stapled it back together again.

Amazing.

And it just makes so much difference.

Of course it does, because the mattress is a very carefully designed object.

Yeah, you wouldn't think so, though, would you?

Well, you wouldn't if you had a fucking brain, you know.

Someone took his brain out of his worry hole.

Oh, God.

He's sort of matching up.

So we decide to sleep tops and tails.

It just gets strange.

It's so strange.

Why?

He did it to make the room nicer with the cupboards on either side.

So he sorted a mattress in half.

Well, not in half.

Can you imagine how much hard it must be to sort a mattress in half?

What did he use?

What a big electric saw?

Well, it must have been, yeah, because there's a lot of springs and stuff in there.

Jesus.

So, what happens to the springs?

They just spring out the side.

Well, some sort of stick out a little bit, but you're not lying on top, are you?

They come out the side.

So he's just got a bit of gaffer tape and a staple gun.

Unbelievable.

Man alive.

It's like.

Does he run it as a hotel?

That's unbelievable.

There are squats with better bedding arrangements.

Well, we've had a bit of a bad thing in our house about mattresses and that, because when we first bought our uh first flat in Salford, you know what it's like when you buy somewhere, you sort of you haven't got any money, have you, to buy extra stuff that you need.

So we bought a bed, right?

But there's that rip-off thing with beds where you buy a bed, but a mattress doesn't come with it, which I've never understood that.

'Cause it's not a bed, is it?

Without that mattress, it's not a bed, it's a car without an engine.

You wouldn't go there, you go, oh, that seems cheap.

There's no engine in it.

So we bought this, we bought this, like, you know, uh, flat and what have you, and we bought the bed.

And then, uh, oh, we haven't got a mattress.

So my dad got one from Uncle Alf.

No, well, from that Uncle Alf fella, because he had one in his van that he used to use now and again.

If he was like travelling round, he'd just keep in the back on this mattress.

Amazing.

A bloke who drove around in a van with a mattress in the back.

So, Uncle Alf.

So, Uncle Alf, right?

Well, tell me about Uncle Alf.

Well, you know about him is the one who slept in a dinghy.

Because his mattress was in his car.

Why didn't he go?

Oh,

Alf, where's the bed?

Left it in the car again.

Oh, blow up the dinghy.

Blow up the dinghy.

I'm not going to go out and get this.

Not at this time of night.

So, anyway, my dad got me his mattress

and it just stunk a diesel.

And Suzanne was like, oh, I'm not happy with this.

And I think she realised sort of what sort of family members.

She got herself into.

Wow, she landed on her feet when she got yourself in.

So now she's always a bit touchy about, you know, mattresses and things.

Unbelievable.

Uncle Alf, of course, sadly passed away when he couldn't escape from his sinking ship.

The fire ages were too late.

No one got out of the way because they were laughing too much.

The mad woman next door saw me and said, Hello, Clive, you live in a nursery rhyme.

The old man down the road, the old woman next door whose mum's a witch, Uncle Alf, who lives in a dinky.

This is

not a real place.

Isn't that fucking holier?

It's the children singing from it.

Unbelievable.

Oh god.

Just all of them there on this broken mattress trying to find the golden ticket.

Oh god.

Oh god.

The old fellow down the road talked to my dad a bit.

He kept bees in the back garden.

Oh for fuck's sake!

Here comes the bee man.

His Yorkie dog was knocking about when he was messing with them and it ended up getting stung 150 times.

Poor little bastard!

What is he doing?

He's not dead, but it costs a lot to get all the stings out.

I don't know why people keep dangerous pets and insects.

The amount of gear he had to wear to play with them is bar me.

I don't think he's playing with them.

He's not playing with them, is he?

Well, what is he doing then?

Well, I don't know, but I think he should get the dog the same protection.

Yeah, but but that's just it, isn't it?

It's like you can't mix your pets.

If you've got a snake, you don't have a mouse.

Do you know what I mean?

They don't get on.

And it's the same with them.

They don't have bees.

I can't imagine one bit of enjoyment.

The only thing he does is the honey.

And it's like, well, how much is that to buy?

It's not worth messing about wearing a big white suit just to get some honey.

There's a shop down the road.

Bees are kept for a very good reason, aren't they?

What?

For honey.

Yeah, I know, but like I say, you can buy honey for next to nothing.

Where do you think?

What do you mean?

But where does the honey come from that you buy?

Yeah, from some proper bee farm.

Let them do it.

All he's doing, he's not making loads of pots of honey.

He's looking after himself.

And the thing with honey is it doesn't go off either.

No, it doesn't, no.

So

get 10 bees, get the honey made, kick them out.

But you eat the honey, that's the point.

Yeah, no, but

you can't eat it, and then it's still there in the jar.

It's not magical.

Maybe in your word,

Uncle Fred had that never-ending jar of honey.

But how much honey do you eat?

What I'm saying is, it's one of them things, innit that you buy, and you can move into a new house, buy some honey, and when you leave that house, that honey is still in the cupboard.

You don't eat that much of it.

So, get 10 bees, get your honey's worth.

10 bees?

Imagine keeping 10 bees.

Well, just get them to do the graft.

If you've got loads of bees, they're not all pulling the weight, are they?

Because they'll go, well, I'm not doing any because I'll leave it to the others.

If you've got 10 bees, you know that none of them are pulling the weight if there's no honey.

That's what I'm saying.

No, it's not a workhouse.

Bees don't knock around saying going, oh,

I've got a bad back.

Anyway, back to this reading from the Twits.

The news covered a story about a fish that knocked about 400 million years ago.

It was 33 feet long and had a jaw strong enough to eat a shark in one go.

All the dangerous stuff seems to die out, and yet things that you think wouldn't stand a chance, like worms, are still here, yet they have no legs or eyes.

I saw a future human in the news article the other month about the future woman.

She had three breasts.

They looked alright.

Well, no, there's not.

I can't see how that's going to ever evolve.

No, what they say about

evolving and that.

I read that

there's going to be ugly people.

People are starting to go ugly.

Yeah, they're still going to have bilateral symmetry, I imagine.

I don't know what that means, but

I'll tell you now, right?

They're talking about like people who are just like, you know, you look at them and you go, look at the state of that, right?

And it'll get to a point when we're all so ugly that no one will have it away, and we're just going to die out.

Well, that's not true either.

That's not true either.

That is the biggest worry.

Well, no, so

as we evolve and we change, our mindset doesn't change.

We're still going to, oh,

I wish we looked like they did a million years ago.

I don't fancy anything.

No, but look at

look how things do change.

But why are we all going to get ugly?

I don't understand.

It's just the air and stuff, isn't it?

It's just the air.

You know, the air that we breathe and stuff and the food we eat.

Everything's changing.

And we're not going to look that healthy.

And

we're just all going to go ugly.

You've only got to look at some stuff that's in the sea and you think, look at the state of that.

And that's what's going to do with the human evolution.

But the stuff is the sea is still propagating.

Yeah, but they've been around longer than us.

But it's still reproducing, so your theory falls down.

But they're deep down, aren't they, in the dark, so they probably can't see what they're having it away with.

If they were up on the outside, they'd have died out ages ago.

Why?

Because they wouldn't have fancy the other stonefish or

something odd-looking.

I can't remember the name.

I think it was a viper or something.

It was just a head.

But Carl, the head.

The fish, that's just a head.

It was well ugly.

Watched a programme about the twins this morning.

It was filmed 16 years ago.

They are mental.

They did everything together, including the backing up.

Phone calls had to happen twice so they could both have the same chat, and they said the same stuff at the same time.

Well weird.

The bloke who I watched it with, I don't know who that is, just some homeless guys that you just invited into the film.

This is someone I've been sort of working with.

Sure, mate of yours.

He said he fantasized about having it away with a pair of twins.

I don't see the point in this.

If you're going to have two of something, I would prefer to have two different.

Have two different women.

If I had two cars, I wouldn't have the same one twice.

Same rule with women.

I don't even normally like buying the same pair of trainers twice in a row.

No, if you're going to have something new,

make a change.

It's like that fella who was going out with a woman and then left her and went out with a twin sister.

Not worth it.

Not worth it.

It's not worth the upheaval, is it?

Because it's exactly the same model.

I watched the final of I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here.

It was between singer Jason Donovan, singer Mylene Klass, and singer Matt out of A Boy Band.

I had the money on Donovan, but Matt won it.

I think it was because of his last task.

He ate a fish eye, some grubs, a big fat insect that they have on every year, a crocodile knob, and a kangaroo anus.

I feel like we've uh we've we've come there, Rick, to where we entered it.

It was this time last year when we first started the podcast that um we were talking about I'm a celebrity, get me out of here, and you coined the famous phrase, I could eat a knob at night.

Yeah, so it's full circles just that the the last series uh

finished recently, and it was astounding that he ate a crocodile knob.

He ate a crocodile eye.

He chewed up and swallowed a kangaroo's anus,

which I,

to be honest, I didn't know was a food stuff.

Could you eat any of that?

If I had to eat any of them, it would have to be the anus.

What really?

Yeah, more than the other stuff.

I couldn't eat anything that's still alive.

No.

I agree.

I couldn't eat any of that.

I don't know under what circumstances I'd have to go, right?

That's it now.

We're not going to survive.

The ship isn't coming.

There is nothing on this island I can eat.

Give me the cat crocodile's penis.

So it wouldn't bother me.

Wouldn't I?

I could eat anything.

I could do almost all of the challenges on that programme, but I couldn't cope in the camp.

I couldn't cope with the lack of food and the uncomfortable bed.

That's all that would do my head.

And I'd drive people spare, whinging and complaining.

I couldn't cope with any aspect of it except the physical challenges.

I couldn't cope with sleeping with people snoring, the

things crawling over you.

Oh, I'm not

so screamish about that, like snakes and things.

That's alright.

But the eating

is ridiculous.

It's out of the question to eat a worm or a grub.

It doesn't concern me.

I don't know why.

I don't see really what the difference in it.

The texture is probably the same as lots of other things.

What would hunger do to you, though, do you think?

Would you think I would change?

Do you think

if it really was a choice, if someone said, and I knew I would die if I didn't eat worms?

I think you would, yes.

I think you'd complain and you'd whinge for a while and you'd try and put it off and you'd hope a ship would turn up, but when it didn't, you'd start chowing down on a bit of uh crocodile anus.

But then where's the rest of the crocodile?

Well, yeah, you've been eating that.

How come I've got this?

You know, you're meant to come, you know, work together as a team in bad time and yet I'm being handed an anus.

Forget it.

Woke up to the news about an elephant in India that had sore feet, so the locals have made it a big pair of slippers.

Tried to look online for a picture, but I couldn't find anything.

Sure they've made it two pairs of slippers.

Uh well I'm only going by the facts in the diary, Rick, and I would have thought that they were absolutely bona fide and fact-checked.

Completely accurate.

I'd be very surprised if there's any mistakes in here.

I'm sure they've done this for an elephant before.

I thought elephants have bad memories.

No,

but fair enough.

I thought elephants have bad memories.

If they have, I'm guessing it's going to keep forgetting where it's it's left them.

I mean, just to get the...

If it's a myth, the myth completely wrong.

Yeah.

Elephants never forget.

That's the saying.

Not they always forget, so you can buy them slippers every year.

Carl says, I haven't had a pair of slippers for years.

He thinks they're dying out.

No, I love slippers.

I love a pair of slippers.

I love a pair of slippers, mate.

Sweat socks?

Slidey on a car.

Slidey on a piece of lino.

I know.

And what about if you, you know, maybe opening a brand new box of thumbtacks?

You drop them all over the floor.

You're trying to pick them up.

Rick, I've got to pop across the road to get some milk.

But it's right opposite.

I'm sure you're not going to go in my socks, though.

But I don't want to put on the shoes.

It's mad.

No, no, no, no.

Pop some slippers on.

Well, perfect, yeah.

Yeah.

But you shouldn't go out in your slippers.

Why not?

Just across the street, mate, to get some milk.

Because they're inside shoes.

You don't go roaming about on tarmac in slippers.

That's basic.

But you don't have any slippers, so you're just tiptoeing across the street, you know,

but you can, you can, you can, you can pop out and get the uh the the paper and, you know, the the bottle of metal, can't you, in the slippers without without any harm done?

No.

apparently not

that'll make it into the diary

tried to have a shower but there was no water.

I love it when he calls me when things go wrong with the flat.

But I like the fact that he tried to have a water, he tried to have a shower but there's no water.

How long did it take you before you realised he was there for 20 minutes?

Yeah, after 20 minutes, he said, Suzanne, should I be dry?

Yeah, I'm freezing cold.

Yeah, no, no, you should, you should be sort of wet and warm.

Right, there's no water then.

Brilliant.

I called the service charge people, but no one was about.

Looked outside, but couldn't see any work going on.

Great, innit?

In India, they can sort out elephants with shoes.

In London, we have no water.

Hung about for a bit, but still no sign of any water.

Brushed my teeth, just using the paste, and use the little bit that was in the kettle to have a wash.

I was pretty chuffed that I thought of using that.

Suzanne was a bit annoyed because she wanted a cup of tea.

She said, go across the the road and buy a big bottle of water.

Not in your socks.

Pop some slippers on.

Go across the road and buy a big bottle of water, she said.

I never thought of that.

You had a wash using the water in the bottom of the kettle.

Yeah, well that's clean, isn't it?

But how much?

There's only a little drop in there.

No, it's a big kettle.

So what did you just wash your face?

Yeah.

So you didn't wash your body or anything?

Your genital swords.

Well, you couldn't cover.

You've got to look at what you can do with the water available.

People in Africa and that shot of water aren't wasting it and saying, oh, the feet are a bit dirty.

They drink it.

What do you mean?

Had a look online to see what's been going on.

Scientists say that Everest, brackets the mountain, just in case you've confused that with any other Everests.

Maybe the uh double glazing people.

You say that peop scientists say that Everest has grown a bit.

The way they were talking about it, you'd have thought it's grown loads.

It's only inches.

No, isn't that

they found out that it's actually a couple of inches taller than they first thought because their methods of measuring are more accurate than they were 20 years ago.

So it's bigger than they thought it was.

It hasn't grown.

No, I just think what's happened is at the bottom, because of like people, people are always climbing up it, aren't they?

Right?

So they're sort of wearing away the soil at the bottom.

It's all rubbish.

So they've also pushed it there.

It's also measured against sea level.

It's not measured about when you get.

Otherwise, they'd just big a big hole, wouldn't they?

And go, right, it's down to here.

If the peak is measured against the sea level, does it matter at the end of the day?

No, but it's just nice to know, isn't it?

Yeah, but that's what I'm saying is we don't need to know that.

It's not going to put anyone off.

Like Brian Blessed, who's always climbing up there for fun.

He's not going to go, oh, I could handle it last year, but two more inches.

Forget that.

Gonna be shattered.

So don't worry about it.

It doesn't matter how big it is.

Something else, though, that's happened since, right?

They were climbing up there and someone got near the top and they were sort of climbing up like that, holding the cliff edge and that.

And they'd forgotten the flag.

Have to go back.

No, their hand hit the bit of rock and it went like dung.

I'm like, what's that?

Dung, dung.

Put another hand up, ding, ding.

Piano under there.

They don't know how it's got there.

Right, you're talking shit again.

Someone's been tipping.

What?

Right up, Everest.

Okay, the council won't even take away your washing machine unless you pay them.

They're not going to sneak up Everest.

No, this is the problem, isn't it?

Because the council won't take anything.

People are going, what can we do with this?

Oh, yeah.

Well, I'll just take away it.

Just sneak up, Everest.

Did I take you nine days?

And you may die.

But just pop it up on Everest.

Well, I know for a fact that

you've confused a few things there because I think the piano being found was actually somewhere in Scotland, some kind of moor in Scotland, and they found a piano up there.

And everyone said, I don't understand, how's the piano doing up here?

And it turned out that some guy, one of these people who tries to break world records, had

dragged a piano up there as some kind kind of feat of endurance, but thought, I'll be damned if I'm going to take it back again, and just left it up there.

It wasn't, you know, Billy Tippin' or aliens or anything.

My dad used to bury things in the garden because the council used to charge for like washing machines and mangles and cookers and pets.

So I'm just thinking in millions of years when they dig that up, they think that dogs used to cook and like do washing up and things.

I love the idea of burying utensils.

I think of the hole big enough to bury a washing machine.

Or a mango.

So whoever kind of bought that house after your

dad, they got a little treat in store.

Yeah, lovely little um themed rockery.

Yeah.

The weather is weird this morning.

One minute it's sunny, then it's thundering, then hailstones, then it's sunny again.

People will be saying it's global warming.

I don't really know what that means.

Everything's changing all the time, innit?

I wonder if years ago when we first came out of the sea and we walked on land upright, did people blame the weather for that?

Good point.

No, it's so stupid.

Yeah, ridiculous.

We didn't come out of the sea and instantly start walking around like humans and go, oh, can you believe it?

We were swimming around, we were having a whale of a time.

Do you know what I blame the weather?

No, but now they would if that happened.

It's the same way, say, like

evolution, right?

We talk about it a lot, right?

Now, years ago, I don't know how it happened, but some whale had legs, right?

Yeah.

This is how it started off.

Before he was a whale, yeah.

Whales started off with legs.

They were rowing about on the beach front, right?

Anyway, it worked out that you know they didn't like it or whatever.

Get back in.

Now,

say

if that happened again now, right?

Say if someone's born and they say, they always say don't they check for lumps and stuff, right?

Make sure you haven't got any lumps.

Now, say.

Sorry, who says this?

And what was the what?

Like magazines and doctors and that.

When you're first born, um,

yeah.

Okay, but

arbitrary decision answer.

But all I mean is now, say, if like our evolution thing is kind of like the next level is for us to have three legs because we're that busy on the world now.

But it didn't work like that.

Why would it work like that?

Because that's nature, innit?

It deals with it.

If people are getting stressed out and getting achy legs a lot, because they're going, well, what you're doing there is you're using two legs like you've got three.

You need another one.

But the problem is,

say if someone grew a leg now, because it's like, well, we need three legs.

Yeah, but

people would go, oh, I found a lump, right?

And the doctor would go, oh, whip that out now that could be a third leg that's growing but Carl evolution doesn't work like that it doesn't work suddenly something isn't born with a perfectly formed third leg that can be passed on I know it's a lump it starts off like a lump and and if you left it alone it would eventually over a bit of time no over many many millions of years but but it grow as another leg but we're not letting that happen anymore

it also wouldn't happen

limbs don't work like that either they do if you keep putting extra pressure on two legs.

Carl, you're.

Honestly, what you imagine the process of evolution and natural selection to be is

beyond me.

No, but it depends

whatever your surroundings are, that's what you change to, isn't it?

Like the well, when you don't change to it, you're either selected or you're not.

So

what happens is there's a genetic throw-up.

So something's born,

you know, a llama's born with a slightly longer neck.

And if that gets, you know, the leaves that are slightly higher up and it survives, it lives longer, it passes on its genetic material.

Soon, if that works now over millions and millions of years, that they're the dominant species, a new species

is thrown up with a slightly longer neck, and so on and so on.

It's gradual, just a slight advancement.

Sometimes it happens quicker than that.

There's been animals that have had eyes and then they go, oh, they don't need them, they go in the space of a fortnight.

No, what are you talking about?

There's a lizard somewhere where it's roaming about in the dark and it used to have eyes.

And they used to be like, why have we got eyes and that?

What's the point in having these?

Because we're keeping them open.

And they were getting more tired.

Because at the end of the day, if your eyes are open,

do you know what I mean?

Blind people can stay up longer than someone with eyes.

Keep going.

I want to follow this through to its natural conclusion.

Keep going.

Keep going.

There is nothing to do.

Right, the first signs of you getting tired, you go, oh, my eyes, I can hardly keep them open.

Yeah.

So, a blind person doesn't get that because they can roam about with them short like that.

So, they never sleep, do they?

Blind people?

Well, they sleep, but not, they don't need as much because their eyes aren't stinging.

All guessing, all guesswork, and all nonsense.

I mean, all nonsense.

Well, hang on, fair enough.

Okay, let's, even if we accept that to be true of blind people, what was happening with the lizards?

The lizards were going, I can't believe this is male.

We don't need our eyes, we're down underground.

What's the point?

Jeff, Bill, let's just no longer use eyes.

Well, they were just like,

in a way, it's better if we keep our eyes shut to keep the soil out and stuff.

And then over a time, they were like, oh, my eyes are stuck.

Like the time.

No, no, no, no.

It's over hundreds of millions of years.

And the other thing is, it's not the case that there's no will to evolution.

What happened was that

a blind one had no disadvantage.

So he was selected

better than one with eyes that maybe would find it irritating or getting in the way.

You know, just like

a snake, it's not a disadvantage for a snake to lose its legs because it it's selected and and then it's an advantage because

they can get into places that they're, you know, legs would get in the way.

Like I've said before, right?

You see like a little fella, like a midget or a dwarf or something, right?

Who's to say that that isn't the way we should be?

Do you mean, how do we know that.

Well, everybody looks at them and goes, Oh, look, little fella.

But really, it doesn't matter.

If we were all like that, the world would be a better place because it's bigger, so there's more to see.

Whereas for us, we're getting bigger all the time.

The world isn't growing, so there's less to see for us.

So, for a midget, the world is brilliant.

So, I'd say it'd be good if we do go backwards as opposed to forwards.

Instead of us getting bigger all the time, a cup of tea.

No, I'm not sure.

I'm quite quite sure mate i'll leave you to um do you know what i mean though have we got we haven't got any i've only we've only got instant coffee as well no yeah pop out for something but what i mean is they always say like

the body's no thanks mate but tell me when he's finished i'm just saying the body's getting bigger and instead of going forward

no sugar for me thanks do you want milk yeah yeah milk get it

Some scientists have come up with a cure for bird flu.

It's somewhat to do with some stuff in horses.

They gave the flu to a mouse and then injected it and it's well again.

I think we should stop coming up with cures for things as the germs are just getting stronger and stronger.

I reckon by 2020, germs will be so big that we will be able to see them in the air.

They will no longer be little particles.

You wouldn't swallow one.

If you did, it won't be the germ that will kill you.

You'll just choked to death.

I think that's how we'll die in the future.

Choking on enormous, giant germs.

And they'll be like rampaging around the cities.

Will they?

Yeah, I'll tell you what, though, right?

I'm getting worried now because the stuff he believes and thinks of,

I mean, it could be mental.

Do you know what I mean?

Like a proper paranoid sort of one of those people that soon going to live in a loft covered in tin foil.

Yeah.

Right?

And pages of the Bible all the way around the.

And Suzanne's having to put on some sort of spacesuit to come in and give him his beans on toast.

And he's going to have to polish each bean.

That's what scientists do, innit?

They just sort of think ahead of everyone else.

That's what I'm doing.

And the weird thing is, right, Steve,

sometime last week, there was a science piece which was close to what I'd already said.

Yeah, that they've got some germs that like eating sugar, right?

They stick them in a lunchbox with a chocolate bar.

Within an hour, it was gone.

Right?

And they say now these germs love chocolate and sugar.

Did this scientist leave it near this fat scientist that works in the same laboratory?

Anyway, it's unbelievable.

Is it Ted?

You went, what?

Right, I put the chocolate bar in here with the germ.

Okay, it's gone.

That's amazing.

Wow, that's brilliant, that.

Do it again.

What?

Do it again.

Leave another one, see if it happens again.

So in the future, you're running around and germs are...

Eating chocolate.

That's not science, that's Pac-Man.

Went to bed and chatted about food to Suzanne.

I said it would be best if our bodies could be run on something like coal.

That way you wouldn't get fat people because you wouldn't be eating for enjoyment.

You'd just be eating to give you energy.

Suzanne said, Why do you always take the nice things out of life?

Because sometimes to think about the future, you it's not going to be all good, is it?

Look at the way we have to do things now that we sort of go, Oh, I'm sick of this.

But they do it for your own good.

But you try and change the laws of the universe based on arbitrary whims.

No, but we're always eating stuff.

That's one of the things we do now, isn't it?

As as soon as we find a new creature like that frog that's been hidden away for like millions of years, you get someone who goes, I wonder if we can eat that.

Do you know what I mean?

Everything that's walking on the world, they sort of see what powers it's got.

What powers it's got?

No, like if it can jump far,

you know, is it poisonous?

Can you get anything out of it to save people?

And then can we eat it?

They're the three things that they do with a new frog.

What are they?

Can it jump fast?

Yeah, is it poisonous?

Yeah.

Can you eat it?

Because the first three questions anyone asks do they?

It seems to be the way, because you look at menus and that, how they're getting bigger and bigger now, and that's only because we're finding more and more species of stuff.

Is it?

Yeah.

If you look at some stuff on a menu, that octopus you eat,

at some point that would have gone through the list of, right, what does it do?

What's it got in it?

What does that ink do?

What's it taste like?

Can it jump?

Can it whatever?

Well, they've done tests on it, haven't they?

When we said about it being in a getting in a jam jar or something.

So it's all part of it.

Everything's been tested.

Everything.

But I think what the threw is that the first you hear of a new fangled food, do you think that

in ancient civilizations

they didn't do this?

They didn't...

try an oyster or spear a fish or yeah because there wasn't that much other stuff knocking about at that time.

We've got loads of stuff, so why are we messing about with some new frog?

It's all like people just like showing off, don't they?

Leave the frogs, let them get busy and have loads of them, eat the chickens, when we run out of them, move on to the frog or whatever.

But why have all this on the go?

Do you know what I mean?

It just makes it.

I hate going out for a meal now, because it's like, what are you having?

Oh, I'm sick of it.

Look at it all.

And then you're forced into people going, oh, have you had the new frog?

I don't want it.

I was happy with chicken.

That's what I mean.

Yeah.

Unbelievable.

Have you ever been out, Rick, and someone's been trying to force frog on you?

Never.

I've never been forced frog in my life.

Although I did go for a meal once with Carl.

We went there and he had the Oriental d'oeuvres I recommended, right?

And he was trying to get this little oyster, right, off the shell, right?

And he was stuck to its house.

And

I looked round and his eyes were watering and he was choking.

He he was drinking water.

I said, What then?

He said, I ate that and it was a big blob of wasabi.

And I said, Why did you put it all in a went to end?

He said, I thought it was a mushy pea.

Why would they put one mushy pea?

Was it hardcore the wasabi?

It felt like my head was caving in.

That was just Ricky squeezing it, wasn't it?

Between courses.

Trouble with that, though, is you know hot food

Why you get addicted to really hot food is the pain is actually your it's killing taste buds and then endorphins are releasing the brain, like you know, a morphine derivative to

sort of go, so I oh, calm the pain.

So you actually get addicted to that sort of

you know, what

why would you want to kill your taste buds?

But new ones come back.

Well, yeah, I think they, yeah, I think you'd straight away.

Well, I don't know how long it takes.

I don't know, I'm not sure.

No, it's just that the chef sort of going, oh, I'm serving some right rubbish tonight.

Give them some of that kusabi.

Kusabi?

Oh, God, and Tonto.

Oh, God.

Back to the diary.

At lunchtime, I went to a local cafe and had an omelet.

An old woman, who was about 70-ish, was in there eating pizza.

It didn't look right.

No.

I know what you mean there, actually.

Old people eating pizza seems a bit weird.

What about an old Italian lady eating pizza?

Would that be right?

Uh, no, I'd expect her to have lasagna.

Told Suzanne that I had read that we will have spoken to aliens by the year 2025.

Ricky once told me that if a lion could speak English, it still couldn't have a good chat with us because its life is different to ours.

If that's true, we've got no chance with an alien.

I'd be worried it could read my mind.

I had that problem once years ago when I worked in a studio making cassettes.

Some mind-reading woman was having some cassettes made.

She waited while I did them.

She had a small dog.

I knew she was trying to read my mind, so I just thought about the dog.

I thought that would confuse her, because she wouldn't understand why I was thinking about her dog.

There's so many elements in this.

There's a woman who can read

that again.

Read that again.

Okay, we're gonna have an instant replay now.

Any psychologist listening, or psychiatrists, or just well, anyone, listen to this, what Carl was putting in his diary.

Okay, Steve, away you go.

I'd be worried that an alien could read my mind.

I had that problem once years ago when I worked in a studio making cassettes.

Some mind-reading woman was having some cassettes made.

She waited while I did them.

She had a small dog.

I knew she was trying to read my mind, so I just thought about the dog.

I thought that would confuse her because she wouldn't understand why I was thinking about her dog.

That's amazing.

So,

firstly, how did you know she was a mind-reading woman?

Everybody who came in having cassettes done, you'd find out about what the job is.

So, you know, if it's a band or whatever, it might be a police station needing blank cassettes to interview people.

Yeah.

And she had them to sort of use during a thing where they do mind reading and stuff.

So you get a

recording of it.

And she was just there and she was staring at me like that, just looking over.

And a dog was sort of looking worried, and they pick up vibes, don't they?

No.

They do.

And why was it looking worried?

What do you mean?

Pick up vibes.

Depends what you mean by pick up vibes.

Dogs pick up loads of vibes and stuff.

I read the other day how they can tell if someone's got cancer.

Well, they can, well, yeah, that's

one of the things.

But the science behind that, they can smell the different

at a cellular level.

It's a single thing.

it's like 70 times strong but no no no they can't go the the dog wouldn't even know you're an idiot the dog

was sort of looking weird and stuff and then she knew she was looking at me but were they looking i'm not being funny were they looking at the roundness of your head do you think they were just just looking at me and i was sort of panicking a bit and the more that i was thinking she's reading my mind i was thinking she's she knows that i know that she's reading my mind so i just stopped thinking about her reading my mind thought about the dog what were you thinking about the dog running about on the beach

he remembers what he was thinking about.

No, just so she thought, oh, hang on a minute, it's not his mind, it's the dog's mind I'm picking up.

Oh, so you thought she'd go, oh no, I'm getting it all tanged up.

I've got to cross-line it.

So why were you worried that she was reading your mind?

Because you weren't thinking of anything on, you know, unsavoury.

Oh, no, don't, don't.

Oh, please.

No, no, no, I'm just trying to get in his mind.

His reason works.

No, no, no.

No one can read your mind.

No, but what I mean is, even if, you know, let's assume that you thought she could read your mind.

Why did you think that there was anything wrong with finding out what you were thinking?

Because

she'd have known that you knew that she could read minds.

So if she read your mind and all you were thinking was, she can read my mind, she'd think, what?

Of course.

If she really could read your mind, she's going, there's Carl there trying to make me think that it's the dog.

I know he's thinking of the dog.

No, but when you sort of try and think of normal things, you think of mental things, don't you?

So I was like...

Oh, hold on a select.

Go on, go on.

No, I just mean, like, you're going, oh, God, I best not watch what I'm thinking Then, what were you thinking?

Tell me the mental health.

No, there's loads of things that was in there.

There was an old woman who used to annoy me in there, who used to give me socks all the time.

Socks?

Socks.

She used to always make loads of socks, and she'd be bringing them in.

And no matter what I did, no matter how much I sort of said, Lord, I'm sick of your socks.

She kept bringing them in all the time.

And they had, like, pictures on and that.

I didn't want socks to be pictures on.

So, um, so I used to I might have been sort of stood there going, Oh, there she is with her socks.

I'm sick of her.

Now, if she can sense that, she'll go over to her and go, watch him.

She's bringing him socks or whatever.

No one can read minds.

No one can contact the dead.

Say, like me, right?

If I sometimes come in the room and that and I'm fed up, you go, oh, Carl's fed up.

I haven't even said anything.

So it's just that.

And it's because you look like a miserable bastard.

Yeah, and we know what that means.

We're human and we understand facial.

So it's a bit like that.

It's a bit like that.

It's a level down from.

No, no, no, no, no.

She should be able to read your mind if you're locked in a safe and she doesn't know who you are and she doesn't know whether there's someone in there no that's what the double-blind test is never work would it because that means she'd never get arrest

that's like

you're making up the rules you're making up the rules oh no the thing is that's what these people do go oh no i have to hold your hand oh i have to you have to write it down well why why do you it's the same as these mediums that contact the dead they go oh i'm getting someone just ask him who he is just give us his full name and address it's ridiculous i know the fact that these these dead people give him cryptic clues ask him about the toaster.

What's your name?

What's your name?

Can't say my name, might be an uncle.

Just give me a fucking name.

Back to Carl's diary, Friday the 31st.

I read that some fella had been having an affair.

His wife found out, so when he was asleep, she super glued his knob to his stomach, one of his bollocks to his leg, and glued his ass cheeks together, then chucked him out.

If Suzanne did that, I would definitely not get back with her.

Saying that, I would have woke up if someone was putting super glue on me arse.

I'm quite a light sleeper.

Is that what she did, is it?

Yeah, that's why I'm a bit cautious about wearing earbuds every night.

The uh

plunge things.

Earbuds?

Earbuds.

So that's not a cold, right?

Plunge things.

He's like, he wakes up words.

They taught a chimp to talk, and the chimp could had a better grasp of language after about a few years than Carl.

Unbelievable.

Yeah, that's why I won't wear buds and plunge things.

I phoned him up the other day.

He went, oh, I just tried tried out those new earplugs that mould your ear.

You can't hear a thing except your own voice.

And I went, all right, they're good, aren't they?

He went, yeah.

He said, it's weird hearing your own voice, and it because you're hearing it as other people hear it.

I went, no, you're not.

He went, you are.

He said, you don't usually hear your own voice because usually when you talk, you're talking over it.

Woke up at 9:55 a.m.

Soon as I woke up, I looked at Suzanne and she looked at me.

I said, Did I tell you about?

I just think he opened his eyes and look at him.

Okay, alright.

Okay, so

he opens his eyes, he looks at Suzanne, she looks at him.

What question, Rick, do you think he immediately asks his girlfriend?

Go on.

What question do you think?

Have a quick guess.

Am I dreaming?

I woke up, I said to my girlfriend, did I tell you about...

I woke up, I looked at Suzanne, she looked at me.

I said, did I tell you about the immune system?

Did I tell you about the immune system?

Suzanne started laughing.

I said, it's amazing.

She said, not now.

He's springing it into action.

He zips up his eyes alone.

Did I tell you about the immune system?

Oh, shut up.

Oh, God.

Oh, fucking hell.

Was talking to Suzanne about how it's odd that Sundays are meant to be the day of rest.

I thought God was meant to be born on a Sunday.

Or was it the seventh day that he finished making the world?

Imagine how good the world could have been if he'd given it an extra day.

Sometimes it's best to give yourself a deadline, though, so you don't faff about it.

I looked at Suzanne.

She was leaning back on the bench with her eyes shut with the sun on her face.

I never got an answer to my question.

Pretending to be asleep.

I met out with my mate Laurie.

He said he was in a pub at the weekend and saw a bloke whose hands were on the wrong arms.

No!

No!

What do you mean?

Well,

he had his left hand on his right arm and the right hand on the left arm.

I don't think this would be a problem if he's been like that from an early age.

When I was in Ripleys in LA, I saw a bloke whose head was on back to front.

That's more annoying, isn't it, than your hands?

Innit.

Now then, would you walk...

How would you walk?

Would you be walking backwards, Carl, so that you could walk, so you're basically walking forwards?

I reckon I'd walk sideways so nobody would sort of tell the difference.

It just went like,

oh, God!

He solved it again.

He's thought it through.

Got home and read my magazine.

There was a story about a baby that was born that looked like a frog.

What magazine's this?

That made the news.

That was in a proper newspaper in the end.

The story used the description to describe it.

There was a picture.

I think it was a fairly decent description.

It didn't really have a neck or top half of its head.

It would look alright if it it always wore a scarf and a hat.

The world would be a more interesting place if there were loads of different types of humans like there are creatures.

Then some people would be good at certain jobs.

Spider people, ant people, builders.

Cockroach people, dustbin men.

Good idea, right?

I mean, I don't.

Cockroach men, spider men, what are you talking about?

I haven't had a normal conversation with you for a year.

No.

It's getting worse, I think.

I think it's because you've left and you've got too much time on your hands and you live in your your head for sort of like maybe eight hours a day.

And then you offload when someone calls you or when you call me or or Suzanne gets the the brunt of it.

But I mean, I I mean, I I don't know.

I really would like to and a nice, I still think he's brilliant, right?

But I would like to get a little psychiatrist in just to would you mind seeing a psychiatrist?

There's nothing wrong.

These are all ideas, aren't they?

You look at some insects, right?

They don't have machinery.

Yet they're getting by, aren't they?

They have their lives like we do.

They get up, they wander about, they collect food, they tidy up, they fix stuff, they make their own house.

We can't do any of that.

So, what I'm saying is, why aren't we using them?

Why are these cockroaches with all these powers and stuff

going about?

It's all these powers.

How could we use them?

How could we harness them?

I've just told you, dustbin men.

Or whatever they've done.

No, no, you said if they were also men, if they were cockroach men,

you've left a big bit out, but when that one-inch cockroach becomes a six-foot bloke wearing a a jacket.

It's just that we always use insects for like a bit of fun.

You you see flea circuses and all that, which is all very well, but I don't think it's getting the most out of them.

Cockroaches can live without a head.

Could they still sort out the rubbish if they've got no heads?

They could, couldn't they?

Except they if they were because you know you want to use them as builders and dustmen, they couldn't whistle at pretty girls, could they?

No, but they wouldn't be doing that job.

They're just doing the bins.

Okay.

It's ants that are doing the building.

Okay, I'm sorry.

And are they getting up early?

Are they disturbing?

They don't sleep, do they?

But then they get you up even early.

You ain't you when builders get you up at seven, then go for breakfast.

Yeah, but it wouldn't go on as long, would it?

Because the ants would be working hard.

So it'd probably be one day of madness, but then it'd be finished.

As opposed to builders just stood about whistling, doing nothing, going on for months.

And is this ant six foot?

Uh, no, no,

about three.

Three foot.

So how many of them are there?

About uh about thirty of them.

And what do they look like?

Are they just a giant ant with a

on?

Um

just get on with it.

I mean it'd be weird for a bit, but with anything, you get used to seeing it.

But people, again, this isn't an idea, it isn't a theory, you can't put this into practice because it doesn't exist.

No, I'm just saying that.

I mean, you wishing for ant builders is the same as you wishing that you didn't have to do any building and your house was just perfect, or you could just wish for it.

What's the difference?

Why go through this elaborate?

But what I'm saying is that your wish is,

you're not taking shortcuts.

You see, it's the same people who go, oh, I wish I could go back in time and put a thousand pounds on the Grand National.

What you mean is you wish you had a million pounds.

So don't worry about the time travel bit and put in a you wish you were rich.

It's like, so you wish you didn't have to have builders round.

That's what you're wishing for.

So this elaborate thing of getting a three-foot ant with a hard hat.

Today I got an innovations catalogue.

I thought I'd keep it because I like the stuff they sell in it.

Brackets, one big slipper.

What's that?

One big slipper?

Just if you don't go out much.

But you don't like slippers.

No, No, I know, but I think they're a good idea because they're just there to keep your feet warm.

But why one big, why not two smaller ones?

So you can walk around.

Yeah, one big slipper is just making it painful.

It's more sort of roomy, isn't it?

Why do you think that's a good invention?

One big slipper.

How is that better than two smaller slippers?

Because the problem is with slippers, right?

You've already said how you nip across the road in them, right?

So you muck them up and you have to buy some more.

There's no way you'll be nipping to the shops in that one big one.

That will always stay where it should be, by the sofa next to the telly.

And you go, right, right, I'm in for the night now.

Where's my slipper?

But couldn't I just put my feet inside a cushion cover or something?

What?

If you want, but it's only cheap.

Why not get one?

You're right.

They're only cheap.

Why not get one?

But then, Carl, why not get one big glove?

If you're not going out, right?

Just get one big glove.

You don't have to do anything.

Just one big glove.

Pop your hands in one big glove.

I'm not going out with gloves.

You have to go out and touch stuff.

Just one big glove.

Well, yeah, why bother putting trousers on?

You've got to put legs in in both.

Why not just wear a skirt on?

Yeah.

Put a popper skirt on, yeah.

Just put on a lady's skirt or ladies' dress is one piece, isn't it then?

Yeah.

Just pop around in a moment.

One big monocle.

Don't wear glasses.

Wear one big monocle.

I mean it's stupid having two glasses,

two gloves, two slippers is mental.

Anyway, I had a good sleep last night.

So much so that I woke up before my legs did.

I don't know what that means.

This has happened before when I was younger.

We used to have a phone in the bathroom so that if anyone called called and we were on the toilet, you'd still be able to be available.

My bedroom was next to the bathroom and the phone rang one morning.

My mum and dad were at work and brother and sister were out somewhere and the phone woke me up.

So I jumped out of bed to answer it, but the bottom half of my body was still asleep and I fell to the floor.

It's horrible.

Has that ever happened to you?

Well hang on.

I had to crawl for a bit and reached for the phone.

It was a fella selling some bread to my dad for the shop.

By the end of the call, my legs were working again.

It's a weird sensation.

What shop?

My mum and dad used to have a butter shop.

Did they?

But the thing is,

just on the floor, top half, I had to sort of crawl, carrying my weight.

And my legs were just like they weren't there.

It's really, really weird.

Do you mean you woke up with two dead legs, two pins and needles, knee legs?

Are you sure you weren't wearing just one big slipper?

You've mentioned him before, Steve, this Pepys fella.

Yes.

Has he done anything else apart from a diary?

Because

now I've done a book and a diary.

That means you're better than Pepys, is what you're thinking.

Well, I'm not going to say that until I know, but what else did he do?

Well, Pepys wasn't a writer predominantly.

I believe he was, you know, like a bureaucrat or something.

But he kept a diary which has since become a historical landmark.

And what did he say in it?

What did he say in it?

Well, it's again more because it's both well written and it's also an amazing insight.

It's a social document.

It's a social document.

It's a social document on the business.

I mean, yours is a social document, but it sort of revolves around having egg and chips and a calf and seeing a ladybird, which, you know But that's that's today's living.

That's the only thing that's

but his describes the Great Fire of London, which is what it's most described.

We haven't had one of them.

If we had one, I'd write it down.

I'm only writing what's happening.

The ladybird happened, right?

I wrote it down.

He he was just lucky.