Guardian S3E3 (September 5, 2006)

Hello, welcome to number three in the third series of the Ricky Gervais Show with me, Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant. Hello there, and of course, Carl Pilkington.
Alright. Had a good week, Carl?

Alright, just boring. It's a boring week.
It's that sort of kidney operation I've had.

It's just affected my life in a big way.

How are you now, Carly? Are you both?

Better, better than what was last week. Because last week you really were not putting the effort in, were you? And it's your own fault.
You know, you've got kidney sores, you don't drink enough water.

Yeah, no, that's that's what I've been doing this week. Just drinking.
That's I mean, you said what what sort of week have you, what have you been up to? That's what I've done, I've drank water.

That's all I've been doing. If there's a water shortage in London,

it's because of that.

Honestly, just that's what you have to do. Can't it's sort It's just boring.
Just like a basking shark. Just sort of.

With its mouth open, just going through the water.

Sick of it. Oh, he's led the life of plankton for one week.

Have you been able to do anything, or have you just been resting?

It's best to rest

just because your body's still in shock, even though in the head, physically, I thought it was alright.

The body sort of just acts in weird ways. Brilliant.

You know, it's it's a weird thing, isn't it? Like I said last week, you you don't think about your body until there's something up with it. And then you panic a bit.

And you go, right, I'm going to look after it from now on. I've been given a second chance here.

As I said before, this was not a life-threatening illness or operation. No, but it's it's that same thing.
The last time I had it was when I nearly choked to death on the Mr. Freeze pop.
Right.

Where I had that sort of

what do they call it when you have like a second coming? Do you know what I mean? It's that sort of thing where you're. I don't think you're the second coming.
No, but that thing goes.

I I don't think you are, we're all screwed. That'll be the second chance.
Yeah, it's a second chance now. The way your life flashes before you, yeah, but you get

you suddenly feel kinder.

Do you know what I mean? Really? Yeah, you sort of go, right, you know, that was a bit of a warning. Because

you're good to people and stuff. Yeah, a little bit.
I think it's normal. So are you now a nicer person? Are you giving more generously to charity and the like?

Well, I haven't been out, so I can't do anything. I can't help anyone.
You can go online. But maybe,

you know, once. You've made some money, all this cash you're in.
No, I've given enough money away. Sick of it.

So he hasn't changed at all then, no. But you've also got to be careful as well, because there's that thing of you can drown yourself

by having too much water. Yeah.
So it's just getting that balance right of not having too much and filling yourself up.

Well, yeah, it's that balance right of not dehydrating and

becoming like a desert jellyfish, like a little crisp, and drowning yourself. You're right, it is a balance.
That's exactly what you've got to do. I don't know how you've managed it, Carl.

It's very complicated. Yeah.

No, but I. What I do is I um, when I'm thirsty, I drink, and when I'm not thirsty, I don't.
Yeah, but that's the problem with me.

Uh, whatever it is that's in your head that says you should have a drink, I don't really have one.

It's called a brain. It's called a brain.
It's the brain that tells you.

But the brain's never thirsty.

I only think of drinking when I'm eating. And I'm not eating as much because my kidneys weird.

I don't want to put any pressure on it, so I don't drink. So now, if they have it in front of me all the time, I go, right, I've got to have that.

So, yeah, so I feel, you know, feel a bit better. Good.
Just it's just been a long week. Because when you don't do much, it's just, you know, time doesn't whiz by the way.

And normally your weeks are packed, as we know, with visits to the cobblers. Yeah.
Well, it's just, like they say, innit, they say.

Following, following an ant. Exactly, yeah.
You've already got a hectic schedule. I know.
I don't know how you fit it all in. But, you know, because I was close to death and everything.

You weren't close to death. I've been thinking about, you know, other people who have been in that situation where they're dying and what have you.
And it's weird how, like,

in a way, do you know, like, you say before you die, things to do.

Yeah.

I've never heard that sentence before. I don't know if they say.
Well, I've extrapolated from that. What you mean is there are certain things you should do before you die.
Swim with dolphins, etc.

Yeah. But in a way, because I've had such a boring week, it's been a long week.

So if I was dying, don't go swim with dolphins, because you'll love it, and the time will whiz by, and you go, Oh, there's another day gone.

Whereas I've been sat at home watching, you know, the price is right and stuff, and it's just like, oh, it's only four o'clock. Oh, this is dragging.

So, if I was dying, I'd go, Yeah, it's dragging, but I've got ages more left to live.

Yeah, what's the point? But it's really about quality of existence, isn't it, when you're dying? No, but anyway, I'm just saying

it's been a boring week. But what I've been doing is going on the internet, sort of learning stuff, watching more documentaries about stuff.
Yeah.

Okay, tell me something you watched on the internet then.

Uh the thing that stands out the most, uh there's this spider right that a fella got, um, popped it in like a little sort of bottle

and uh chucked in eighty ants.

And the spider, right,

just went mental.

And uh I don't know if do spiders eat ants?

I don't know I don't know if they do, uh but uh he wasn't happy with them, that they were there, and he was just whizzing around, um,

sort of biting them,

not eating them, just giving them a bite, and the ants would sort of just lie there, dead. And uh

spider had this system of sort of going, right, I'm gonna put the dead ones over there and it was biting them, dragging them across, putting them in a pile, killing another one, popping it in the pile, and by the end of it it made like a little pile of dead ants and he was just there sort of breathing heavily.

And that that that was amazing because I'd never witnessed that before.

But you don't see that happening, do you, Normie?

So you think that if people are unfortunately passing away, instead of visiting Disneyland or whatever, they should they should just learn stuff, just get on the internet and watch the world is amazing.

Attacking ants.

And just that thing of you know, you last week you were saying how good ants were and how they're brainy and they work hard and everything.

Yet none of them sort of they didn't know what they were doing. There's panic going on

you watch them again going backwards and forwards and I remember like seeing a program about ants where

the men are sort of work together as a team and if they climb up a person's leg

that person stood on their house say yeah and they're all like oh there's a signal and they all bite

at once now if that had done that on that spider

They sort of all go on it and when they're all in position, one of them sort of goes, no, and it bites, and then it would it would do some damage, but there was none of that.

And but you've seen things like the Towering Inferno, where even humans panic crazily and jump out of windows and things until Steve McQueen comes along and saves the day. So

Yeah, but you at the end of the day, when you're in a towering inferno, you were there relaxing on holiday.

So of course you're going to be relaxed and it's the shock of it's going to make you go, Oh, I wasn't ready for that. I was sat in my trunks.

Where's that ant? Ants should always be alert. Well, yeah.
Any insect's life should always be

so for a human scooping up 80 of them, putting them in a bottle with a giant spider. Yeah, but I'm just saying that's what insects do.

Their life, they never relax. That's what's weird with an insect.
There's no downtime, is there? It's you wake up, you go and get the food, you build your house.

That's what you do, so you're always alert. They shouldn't be sort of running around going, oh, what do we do now?

That should be innocent.

You're annoyed, annoyed. Poor ants that were bitten to death.
But also, they say they're clever. I was looking at it.
If I was an ant, I would have just crawled under the pile of dead ones.

Just sit under there, wait for the spider to go. None of them were doing that.
They were all staying on one side and the dead ones on the other. So

I'm just saying that you're always sticking up for insects, saying you know what they're doing. They don't.

Where's this come from? When have I ever stuck up for insects? It's you that's follow them saying they're brilliant and that, and ladybirds are right-handed, and Christ knows what.

No, but you know, so I'd learnt that. Brilliant.

There's nothing to learn from this. There's nothing you learned from that.

Something about

jellyfish.

And what else was there?

There was this fella, there was a programme on the telly about survival.

And a fella who

looks after elephants.

And he's in this little anglider looking for an elephant that he's looking after. He has to keep a track on where it's it's going and all that.

And one day he's saying, Oh, I haven't seen the elephant today. And the fellow's like, Look for it tomorrow.

He's like, No, it's best if we're going to look for it now because it might go further away or something. He said, Oh, we should leave it, you know, till tomorrow.

So straight away, you're going, Oh, this is trouble. So he's going out in his glider, sort of at night.

He's looking for a glider. It's doubted.

It's a glider with an engine.

Yeah. So he gets in that on his own.
He's wandering about in the air, looking down.

Like I say, it's loads of land. He's looking for one elephant.
He's not having much luck. Anyway, I think he gets to the point when he goes, Oh, I'm having no luck.
I might as well go home.

Goes to turn round.

Something happens. The glider falls to the floor, crashes.

Yeah, that crashes. He gets out.
He's broke his legs,

done his backing,

hurt his hands. I mean, he's in a bad way.

And

he looks at the plane, and

that's a wreck. Petrol's coming out of it.
He's thinking that's not going to fly again. And

he has to lie there, doesn't he, for like 48 hours or something?

And in that time, everything's being chucked at him. He has a lion wandering around him.

Scorpion walks over his leg. Some sort of dangerous snake went in his shoe.

What else is he out there? Some sort of bad ants.

Just everything that's there that could cause a problem. He had it all in his life.

I haven't seen this, but I suspect there's a lot of conjecture

in this telling of bad ants, bad ants, and no, just anything that you could think of that's out there to cause you a bit of a problem. Camels.
He got hot. He got so hot, his lips fell off.

No, because you have to have a lot of juice to keep your lips sort of how they are. Right.

So that's the sort of state he was in. Yeah.
48 hours. And yet he survived in the end.
Someone came and found him. And you thought you were bored doing nothing.

Yeah, no, he didn't even have the internet. Yeah, but he had a lot of insects.
What would you do then if you landed? If you landed, right?

Supposing

we all land, right? We're shipwrecked, okay? There's no food around.

But there's a chance we might be saved in a few days. We've just got to stay alive just for a few days.
Okay.

Steve offers up

his penis.

For what purpose? Well, it's already

torn it in the car in the plane crash, anyway. It's just hanging off.
You go, okay, listen, look, lads, let's eat this.

This will go three ways. I should be so lucky.

Okay, fine, yeah.

I'll look for someone else.

because we're surrounded by water. Why are we eating knob? There's loads of fish and everything.
There's more fish in the sea than there is stuff on land.

That was something else that I've read about: about how there's more sea life happening. There's loads more.
What do you mean? Than what?

Than stuff happening on land. Well, yeah, it's a bigger place, isn't it? Yeah, and there's more,

they're all coming further in because it's getting so crowded, everything's being pushed outwards.

So we're going to get to a point where people won't go walking in the sea'cause there'll be something deadly just floating about on the on near the shore. Again, that's no information at all.

I don't know there's no information in that statement at all. Yeah, I said I said how the sea is so overcrowded that everything's been pushed to the edge.
It's not overcrowded. It is.

What's been you mean things that are in the sea are being pushed to the edge of the sea? Yeah, because there's new stuff happening all the time.

There's new creatures being made, they're changing quickly. They were saying how like, like, I don't know, 50 years ago, jellyfish didn't even have a have a sting.
That's rubbish.

Try fifty million and you'll get closer to the truth. But but what I mean is, in terms of like land, we all look the same, don't we? We've had two legs and two arms for ages.

Whereas in the sea, things are changing at a a really fast rate. So, like, jellyfish we're knocking about.
The sea is a much more stable environment than the land, anyway.

What are you on about? Well, I'd have thought

I wouldn't have thought evolution is any faster in the sea than land. Yeah, it is.
Well, no,

what's the evidence for this?

I'm telling you now. I'm telling you how jellyfish have changed.
And look at them. Well, how have they changed then? So 50 years ago they didn't have a sting.
There they have.

Trilbers, they wore trilbers 50 years ago as well. And they just spoke with a much more

slight accent.

Just that. That is quite a lot, though, innit? Because jellyfish are nothing.
But no, you've made that up. That's not a fact.
There's no facts come out of this. That's not that

you haven't said anything.

Jellyfish haven't changed in 50 years. No, they have.
They've changed a lot in terms of.

Well, they haven't changed in hundreds of millions of years, so I don't know what the 60s have to do with anything.

I just don't know what influence the Beatles and Mary Kwan suddenly had on jellyfish, where they haven't changed for hundreds of millions of years.

With all this sort of loose, free sex, you know, free love, people were just going berserk. I don't know yet.
There are no nutritions amongst the jellyfish anymore. Things are changing a lot.

To think that jellyfish, when they first came out, they were nothing. Jellyfish are nothing, aren't they? They're just a blob.

When they first came out,

they were first released new by Ronka.

But what I'm saying is, even though they were nothing, they've grown to have a bit of something.

Just to get by in a busy place.

I don't know what you're talking about. It's all guesswork and conjecture.
Guesswork. I've been

reading all this and watching stuff. Carl, you haven't learnt anything.

Well, that's not entirely true because he's obviously learnt enough to have written a poem about some of these subjects. Oh, I love his poems.
Are you getting into poetry now, properly?

I really like it, yeah.

Is Carl going to read this for me, Steve? If you want him to. I think so.
I did one about my kidneys.

What was it called?

Didn't have a name, he doesn't need it.

Oh, to a nephron. Right, I did two about jellyfish.
Excellent.

I don't like jellyfish. They're not a fish, they're just a blob.

They don't have eyes, fins, or scales like a cod.

They float about blind, stinging people in the seas. And no one eats jellyfish with chips and mushy peas.

Get rid of them.

And then there's just a shorter one I did about a jellyfish. Um it would be spiteful to put jellyfish in a trifle.

That's great. That's really good.
'Cause it's jelly. He's he's he's done us this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a really good poem.
It would be spiteful to put jellyfish in a trifle.

A little half rhyme? Yep.

Do you want the one about my kidneys? Yeah.

Uh

for God's sake, my belly ache. The doctor said it's my kidney.
He said he's got a stick of tube up my knob. I said, you've got to be kidding me.

For God's sake, knob ache.

Oh, God. I'm sort of mildly disappointed that they're quite good.
Yeah, yeah. No poet's ever written about jellyfish and kidneys.
It's great.

Oh, God, I think you might have the market sewn up there.

It would be spiteful to put a a jellyfish in a trifle.

I mean, I'm both impressed and fascinated and worried by Carl's new literary outlook. You know, we've said to him,

we've tried to make him appreciate the arts and poetry and

explaining what metaphor does and symbolism and all that. But I'm worried it'll backfire because what if he becomes clever and erudite and then we lose our little endless well of stupidity?

What if we lose our little shaved monkey? I mean, these podcasts without you know it's almost like you were evolving into a human. I mean, you've actually authored the book.

Well, I have to say, I mean, at the risk of sounding like we're shamelessly promoting it, I've only just looked at the book today because that's the first time I've seen it, The World of Carl Pilkington, and I was very impressed by how legitimate it feels.

It does feel like an actual book. But he's put so much work into it.
I mean, he's not a good person.

He's done drawings, he's done extra thoughts and ideas, and it's very odd to think that that has probably gone now into the British Library, which I think is obligated to take a copy of every book.

It's incredible. I mean, let's be honest, it's not going to really, it's not going to be on anyone's bookshelf, it'll be on their lavatory cistern, possibly next to their bed.

But, nevertheless, you know, it's hardback and it's got pages, it's a real book. Yeah.
Will you

now read some great works? Will you read poetry at all?

Um

probably not. I've I I don't like reading made-up stories because

life's interesting enough, innit?

If I'm gonna read someone else's lies, I might as well make some of my own up and save me money, is what I mean. But you do read um lies and made-up things, you just take them as the truth.

Most of the spurious facts and apocryphal tales and ridiculous stories that you read on the internet

I mean,

fiction. Yeah, but as long as it gets you thinking, then it really doesn't matter.
Say, like, you know, I was telling you about the sea being full up,

right? How there's too many fish in it and they're all being pushed out.

Then,

you know, it was saying about how the jellyfish is changing

from a bit back just being a blob to now being a blob with stingy bits. You go, oh.

And then... No, I don't.
I think, I wonder what he reads

then I'll think of what other things are in the sea, how are they changing? And then that's when I might do a poem about an octopus with two heads

because it's got it's got me thinking. So no longer am I just reading someone else's story, spending a full week reading some other story.

I've read a little paragraph and that's got me thinking about it.

With uh an octopus with two heads. And you just think, Yeah, that would work.
You know, that's a good way for them to evolve. They've got all the arms, doing two heads.

They've got all the arms.

And, you know, it would work because, like I've said to you before, it is one big head. Let's make it two smaller heads.

So it's just looking at science, looking at how things can move.

But it's not looking at science. You then speculating on an octopus having two heads is of no value, is it, to anyone or anything?

But there's people out there who are bringing out books, who are writing stuff like that for sci-fi stuff. And I I think, why are you talking about that? But that's entertainment.

Everyone knows it's not true. They're doing it to But they do more than just say what would it wouldn't it be great if there was a if there was an octopus with two heads?

They then paint a world in which this octopus exists and presumably causes some kind of narrative interest. I can do that on my own though.
Without so what's the story of the octopus with two heads?

It's happier in the end. Everyone likes happy ending.
He's got company. But that's not a story, Carl.
What? What? Tell us the story. What you made up a story about an octopus with two heads?

No, I'm just saying

I've thought about how the sea is changing.

Right, what else is in the sea? Octopus. Right.

What's an octopus like? Well, it's just a big head with a load of arms. Right.
I would have changed that.

I love this thought, Process.

But it's not a story. This is not a story.
It's not anything. It's just some thoughts you've had.
It's not a thought.

A story is there to make you think and have thoughts. But what is it that you thought?

I don't see what you've thought here. I've just thought, yeah, that'd be alright.

I know, but.

Well, like King Kong, then. That's only someone who's gone, oh, monkeys are getting better at stuff.
Yes, but it has a story, doesn't it? They go in searching. No, it isn't.

It isn't saying monkeys are getting better at stuff.

That's not what it's saying. There's lots of themes, but that's not one of them.

Monkeys are getting better at stuff.

Getting better at stuff, the way they try to sort of, you try to go out with a woman. woman, that's them moving on, innit? It's the monkey going, do you know what? I quite fancy her.

And you know, from the beginning, I mean, that is a story that you go, well, that relationship ain't gonna work.

Do you know what I mean? I don't, I mean, I've not gone out with women who have quite fancied, but then they smoke, and you go, oh, that's enough to put me off.

So, when a monkey's that big, I wouldn't, even the thought wouldn't even pass my mind

that

this could work out. Sometimes it's just, you know, relationships aren't made for each other.

Now, that for a story,

you wouldn't think it'd go past page one. Yet, you're having a go at me because an octopus has got two heads, which isn't that weird.

When you look at them anyway, I mean, it must be the weirdest thing knocking about on the planet. I'm not kidding you.
I've never seen anything so weird.

And yet.

He's angry because he's not. I'd seen anything so weird as an octopus.

It's not yet a story. What's weird about it? What's strange about an octopus with all the things that could why is it any weirder than a dog? Because it couldn't be further away from us.

A dog has got human eyes.

Honestly, if a jellyfish had a pair of eyes like ours, I probably wouldn't worry about them that much. But like I said to you, it's that way that they haven't got eyes.
They're floating about.

I can handle some fish.

They look like us. They've got eyes.
You can make eye-to-eye contact with them.

A jellyfish, what are you looking at? It's a snidey thing, like I've said to you.

You can see a lot in eyes. Do you know what I mean? They say you don't trust him.
Why? It's his eyes. Jellyfish haven't even got any, and I don't trust them.

Whereas if it had them, maybe they'd be the odd one that I'd go, oh, that one's all right. Okay, Carl, I'm just gonna throw an arm at you.

Tell me how weird it is, what bits annoy you, how you change it. Okay,

a crab.

I would have changed it. Yeah.
Does it annoy you? Do you think it's weird?

They are weird.

But they're at that size where they can get away with it.

Yeah. It suits them.
Okay.

Would have changed anything.

In a way, you know, what you're saying about things not working, you can't walk forwards. So why hasn't something happened? Why haven't they said, you know what, these arms are too clumsy?

We need to have them so they can slot away easier and we can pull them out when we need need them. And so they're clumping around with them because they do struggle.

You see them struggling with their arms, yet they're still here, they're still doing that, they still design that way. What's the weirdest animal?

So you think the octopus is the weirdest animal on earth? Yeah.

In terms of

design and everything, and

if you lined everything up, say if I'd come from another planet

and everything was lined up in a row, and they said, right, we're going to give you a crash course in what's knocking about on this planet.

And you go, Right, go on then. And you go, This is man, here's woman, here's a dog, here's a cat, here's an octopus, here's a.
I go, hang on a minute, what is this?

That jingle, of course, signifies another reading from Carl Pilkington's diary. 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.

Do you know what I mean? If something's living somewhere,

but why are we going to bug it for the Andes? 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 of the

this isn't happening. They're angry about it, like it just happened, you're sick of it.
None of this has happened, yet. Yeah, I'm just looking at how it will happen.
Leave them where they were.

But you're getting angry about things that you're speculating on now. It's absurd, Carl.

Not once have I read here about your regular

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 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 bad flies like that? 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 palaco or whatever.

Great news, get twenty-five dollars cash back for the purchase of the money.

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 do you mean?

It was.

Someone's found some sort of shell with a thing living in it. Right.

They thought, oh, I've never seen one of these before. I can flog it on eBay.

Someone bought it and then wanted to look after it, went to some C expert and they said, oh, I don't know what that is.

That's the story. It's just weird.

Now you can get it. It's just been found on eBay.

It wasn't found on eBay.

Yeah, but that's where the specialist people sort of picked up on it. It's just weird that.
I mean,

all I was saying is I wouldn't want one. If you don't know how to, if it's a new creature, you don't know what 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, isn't it? It's nice to know what you're doing with something.

Well, as you write in the diary, it's like if an alien landed and wanted to live with you.

As much fun as it might sound, it wouldn't be long before you've 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.

Everyone likes pasta.

Well,

that's it for another week. I hope you've enjoyed this half hour of drivel.
I mean, some of the most stupid things ever said. I mean, it's like he's got a contempt now for the world.

He doesn't care what comes out of his head. Learning can be frustrating.

Can't it?

You know, maybe I'm getting you thinking. Maybe on your way home today, you'll be going, yeah, octopus with two heads.

And if you do that for five seconds, I've done my job.

Good to have a job, innit?

So, from me, Vicky DeBays, goodbye. From Steve Merchant.
Goodbye. And from Carl Pilkington.