Customer Reviews

The World of Karl Pilkington

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Karl Pilkington, the new Mark Twain. Witty and a great story teller. His descriptions of his adventures kept me in stitches from the first to the last page.

Mark my words, when future generations talk judge our current civilization it will be based on the works of this man.
You will never encounter a person this honest in your life.
Almost everything that comes out of his mouth is false but, he's not lying. If someone has gone to the trouble of writing it out, it must be fact in the world of Karl.
Here are just some of the 100's of musings of Karl Pilkington (The "K Man" to some):
"Even caveman had little pants on when you see footage of them."
"What were the things in 'Gremlins' called? "
"You never see a black ghost, do you?"
"It was bacteria, fish, mermaid, man, onwards and what have you." - Karl ponders the stages of man's evolution.
"They say they've got a new pope, he's hardly new is he?"
"Why didn't evolution give them genes to make them good at carpentry then, so they could build a ladder instead of growing long necks?" - On the evolution of the giraffe.

Karl truly is the voice of our generation. Wait till this book is sold and it takes the world by storm.
Karl has an opinion on any given subject. He takes nothing for granted. His literal takes on analogies, proverbs, and fables are the stuff of pure genius.
Here are some examples:
"It wouldn't happen... There hasn't been one publication by a monkey." - Expressing his disbelief regarding Infinite monkey theorem.

"Don't chuck stuff about because you'll break it." - Karl fails to grasp the metaphorical nature of the 'People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones' proverb.

"Don't be chucking that out you might need it later." - Karl's interpretation of Benjamin Franklin's "Waste not, want not."

"A little story told quickly." - Karl's definition of an analogy

This book will be a masterpiece!

It took me about 7 years to integrate into the British psyche and culture sufficiently to even begin to appreciate that sharpest tool of all tools available to those of this nation: their humour.
If you don't 'get it', you're just completely lost, not even any point in attempting; if you do 'get it', you're on...
Karl Pilkington and co. are fine specimens, undeniably.
Good for a few chuckles!

Like the other reviewers have mentioned, we are only surmising that this book will be utter comedic genius. The master-mindless behind this text is a little Manc, Karl Pilkington, who was originally hired to simply "push the buttons" during the XFM radio broadcast of the Ricky Gervais. As Mr. Gervais and his "The Office" co-writer and friend, Stephen Merchant, soon discovered, Karl's fractured sense of reality and how Karl is unintentionally the dimmest and funniest man in Britain. They even went as far as to say that Karl was like a little toy they were able to play with only on Saturdays (when the show broadcast), but it was one thing they true looked forward to.


Regular features of the XFM broadcast included 1) "Educating Ricky" where many "facts" were obtained from the internet and often took place "ages ago" - like the researcher who was beheaded in olden times but not before he instructed onlookers to "count how many times he blinked" right after he got the chop (32 times, if memory serves), 2) "Do We Need 'Em" where Karl phoned 'experts' and got their opinions on whether or not the world would be better off with the certain animals that Mr. Pilkington frequently maligned including the jellyfish, octopus and inexplicably, the snail ("I know they eat the glue from stamps, drink beer and can sleep for 13 years") and 3) various random nonsense such as the kids at his school with "big heads and webbed hands", but who weren't friends because "it would be too obvious."

Most people probably know Karl from the hugely popular Podcast, but the 18 episodes (12 from season 1 and 6 from season 2 available on iTunes) are only the tip of the iceberg, although the Monkey News is absolutely briliant. I encourage any fan to scour the messageboards for the nearly 100 episodes from the XFM days. A treat and definitely a preview of the madness that will be in store in "The World of Karl Pilkington".

I don't usually like the idea of reviewing something before it even officially exists, but I just watched the Ricky Gervais Video Podcast where Ricky previews the book with Karl, and based on Ricky's own description of the book I just know it's going to be brilliant:

"It's the sort of book that you'd find written in s**t under the floorboards of a serial killer's house..."