Having already come across Karl Pilkington on the television series An Idiot Abroad, which also featured Ricky Gervais, I bought Karlology looking forward to some more of that sort of humour. It did not disappoint.
In the television series, Karl is portrayed as a simpleton, your average village idiot. His writing style in the book continues that trend as we are taken on a tour around England to the History Museum, The London Aquarium, The London Zoo, The Science Museum, various exhibitions and The Library among other places, with Karl musing about each in his own amusing way.
We are however frequently taken on a tangent in his thought processes which turn out to be quite hilarious usually, if a bit daft. From pretty early on, you realise that none of it is meant to be taken seriously; it’s just a little light reading and very funny in parts too.
This is the third book in the Karl Pilkington bibliography, but he has written a further two. I will have to make a point of finding and reading at least some of the others, if not all.
The best way to truly appreciate the idiotic brilliance of Karlology, is through some of the really funny quotes from the book:
Quotes
You’ve got people who can tel where dinosaurs walked on Earth and what they ha for their last meal 65 million years ago, and yet the doughnut who works at the service company in charge of our flat can’t tell me whether our windows are gonna get cleaned in the next month.
The way I see it, there’s no rush to read the classics as they’ll always be around. I might read one when I’m older. If I do, they’ll be even more classic by then.
Saucers are another thing that clutters up the house. We got a load of them with our plate set but we never use them. We never used saucers when I was a kid either – they always ended getting used to feed the cat off. We ain’t got a cat now so we could get shut of them, but Suzanne won’t get rid “just in case” we get a cat in the future.
That’s the odd thing with fish: we like t look at them and keep them as pets, but we also like to eat them – yet we moan about Koreans who do the same with their pet dogs.
I think the real reason that sea levels are rising is that there’s too many fish in the sea. Jesus didn’t use up enough of the fish when he had the chance. If he’d given everyone around five fish, the sea level would have dropped.
I must admit though, it does annoy me how they always bury people in nice quiet areas. I live on a really noisy road and have problems sleeping cos of the racket, and yet the dead get a lovely peaceful park.
It doesn’t bother me being bald. I’d have the cure if Suzanne wanted me to have hair again, cos I feel like I’ve conned her as I had hair when she me. Mind you, her arse is now bigger than when I met her, so I suppose we’ve both been done.
Lenny Says 