Read Online The World of Karl Pilkington by Karl Pilkington, Stephen Merchant, Ricky Gervais - Free Book Online Page A
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sort of thing. So me dad had a mate called John the Screw.
Ricky: What, he had sex a lot? Or he worked in a prison?
Karl: No he had a DIY shop.
Ricky and Steve laugh .
Karl: So you had him, right. There was Fred the Veg …
Ricky: I assume it’s because he had the same IQ as you.
Steve: Or he was in a coma.
Karl: There was me uncle, Tattoo Stan – he had loads of tattoos that he’d just done himself.
Ricky: Oh my God.
Karl: The problem was, because he did his tattoos himself, the ones on his left arm were really good because he was right handed. But on his right arm – rubbish. So there was him and there was Jimmy the Hat.
Steve: Jimmy the Hat. Did he always wear a hat?
Karl: No, he didn’t. That was the point – he never wore a hat.
Ricky: That’s amazing. How can you pick up on someone never wearing a hat? How would you ever notice? ‘I’ll tell you what, I’ve noticed something about Jimmy.’ ‘What?’ ‘He doesn’t wear a hat.’ Why was he not called ‘Jimmy the Parrot’ because he never carries a parrot?
Karl: That’s just the way they work innit.
Ricky: ‘Here comes Jimmy Three Legs. Why do you call him that?’ – ‘He hasn’t got three legs.’
Karl: I didn’t really have a nickname – apart from when you go on CB radio and you have a chat to people.
Ricky: Oh, this was a craze in the late 70s, early 80s and it was just short-band radio, wasn’t it? Everyone had these little CB hand-sets and they would speak to each other in their local area.
Karl: Yes, I think it started off with truckers. So I had one of them and me handle …
Ricky: ‘Handle’ was your nickname?
Karl: Yes there’s loads of code stuff. I had a couple of ‘handles’. There was ‘Pilkie 01’ because there’s a lot of Pilkingtons in Manchester so I just thought, ‘Give it a number.’ And then because I did boxing and that …
Ricky: Well you did it once.
Karl: … I had ‘Boxer Boy’ because that’s quite a good image as well. People will be going, ‘Oh don’t mess with him.’
Ricky: What is the point of this?
Karl: Well you just meet people don’t you?
Ricky: But you don’t meet people do you? You just say, ‘What’s your handle?’ ‘Boxer Boy, what’s yours?’ ‘Rubber duck.’ ‘Alright, cheers.’
Karl: Oh, but then you’ll say like, ‘What’s your twenty?’
Ricky: What does that mean?
Karl: Where are you?
Ricky: Why don’t you say, ‘Where are you?’
Karl: Well just in case there is someone who is listening in. You hear about this all the time, people listening in and jotting stuff down.
Ricky: Oh right, so just in case someone in the world doesn’t know what ‘handle’ means, they are out of the loop.
Steve: It’s not a difficult code to crack is it, if you are trying to track someone?
Ricky: It’s hardly the head of the mafia talking to each other because the FBI are on the wire. ‘He keeps saying “What’s your handle?” and they come back with something else. I can’t work out what’s going on.’
Karl: That’s what codes are all about, innit?
Ricky: Go on then, tell me the code.
Steve: Reveal at long last to the world what these codes are.
Karl: Alright, so ‘What’s your twenty?’ – where are you?
Ricky: This is better than the Enigma machine.
Karl: ‘How many candles are you burning?’ – how old are you?
Ricky: How many candles are you burning – of course. So what’s the answer?
Karl: You go … erm …
Ricky: ‘I’m fifteen.’
Karl: fourteen.
Ricky: Brilliant. There is no one that’s going to work that one out.
Steve: So let’s just play through this conversation. Give us an example of how it worked, because I want to hear the fascinating conversations that Karl must have had.
Karl: So you turn it on and you start off and it was something like, ‘Breaker breaker, do you copy’ or whatever and then you go, ‘Right. It’s Boxer Boy here.’ And they go, ‘What’s your twenty?’ and you go, ‘Well I
Ricky: What, he had sex a lot? Or he worked in a prison?
Karl: No he had a DIY shop.
Ricky and Steve laugh .
Karl: So you had him, right. There was Fred the Veg …
Ricky: I assume it’s because he had the same IQ as you.
Steve: Or he was in a coma.
Karl: There was me uncle, Tattoo Stan – he had loads of tattoos that he’d just done himself.
Ricky: Oh my God.
Karl: The problem was, because he did his tattoos himself, the ones on his left arm were really good because he was right handed. But on his right arm – rubbish. So there was him and there was Jimmy the Hat.
Steve: Jimmy the Hat. Did he always wear a hat?
Karl: No, he didn’t. That was the point – he never wore a hat.
Ricky: That’s amazing. How can you pick up on someone never wearing a hat? How would you ever notice? ‘I’ll tell you what, I’ve noticed something about Jimmy.’ ‘What?’ ‘He doesn’t wear a hat.’ Why was he not called ‘Jimmy the Parrot’ because he never carries a parrot?
Karl: That’s just the way they work innit.
Ricky: ‘Here comes Jimmy Three Legs. Why do you call him that?’ – ‘He hasn’t got three legs.’
Karl: I didn’t really have a nickname – apart from when you go on CB radio and you have a chat to people.
Ricky: Oh, this was a craze in the late 70s, early 80s and it was just short-band radio, wasn’t it? Everyone had these little CB hand-sets and they would speak to each other in their local area.
Karl: Yes, I think it started off with truckers. So I had one of them and me handle …
Ricky: ‘Handle’ was your nickname?
Karl: Yes there’s loads of code stuff. I had a couple of ‘handles’. There was ‘Pilkie 01’ because there’s a lot of Pilkingtons in Manchester so I just thought, ‘Give it a number.’ And then because I did boxing and that …
Ricky: Well you did it once.
Karl: … I had ‘Boxer Boy’ because that’s quite a good image as well. People will be going, ‘Oh don’t mess with him.’
Ricky: What is the point of this?
Karl: Well you just meet people don’t you?
Ricky: But you don’t meet people do you? You just say, ‘What’s your handle?’ ‘Boxer Boy, what’s yours?’ ‘Rubber duck.’ ‘Alright, cheers.’
Karl: Oh, but then you’ll say like, ‘What’s your twenty?’
Ricky: What does that mean?
Karl: Where are you?
Ricky: Why don’t you say, ‘Where are you?’
Karl: Well just in case there is someone who is listening in. You hear about this all the time, people listening in and jotting stuff down.
Ricky: Oh right, so just in case someone in the world doesn’t know what ‘handle’ means, they are out of the loop.
Steve: It’s not a difficult code to crack is it, if you are trying to track someone?
Ricky: It’s hardly the head of the mafia talking to each other because the FBI are on the wire. ‘He keeps saying “What’s your handle?” and they come back with something else. I can’t work out what’s going on.’
Karl: That’s what codes are all about, innit?
Ricky: Go on then, tell me the code.
Steve: Reveal at long last to the world what these codes are.
Karl: Alright, so ‘What’s your twenty?’ – where are you?
Ricky: This is better than the Enigma machine.
Karl: ‘How many candles are you burning?’ – how old are you?
Ricky: How many candles are you burning – of course. So what’s the answer?
Karl: You go … erm …
Ricky: ‘I’m fifteen.’
Karl: fourteen.
Ricky: Brilliant. There is no one that’s going to work that one out.
Steve: So let’s just play through this conversation. Give us an example of how it worked, because I want to hear the fascinating conversations that Karl must have had.
Karl: So you turn it on and you start off and it was something like, ‘Breaker breaker, do you copy’ or whatever and then you go, ‘Right. It’s Boxer Boy here.’ And they go, ‘What’s your twenty?’ and you go, ‘Well I
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