Review - Karl PILKINGTON - "Karlology"

Publ: 2008
Gift from Helen and Ian
ISBN: 978-1-40533-335-1
Genre: Non-fiction - Humour / Philosophy
Pages: 219p
Saw Karl on TV and was inspired to get his book
Rating: ***** ****


Summary:
Pearls of 'logic' and 'wisdom' from comedian Karl Pilkington whose way of looking at the world can best be described as eccentric in the extreme. His unique thought-process provides a hilarious look at 'What I've learnt so far'. The chapters are based on his various rips to museums and places around London like the Science Museum and Tower of London.

What did you like most about the book?
Karl's zany approach to life.

Was there anything you didn't like about the book?
At the end of each chapter is a handwritten page of facts - the writing is small and difficult to read.

Would I recommend it?
Yes.

Totally irrelevant side note:
The whole book is totally irrelevant.

Quotations:
I read about the sivathere, which was around years and ago but died out. They say it was a cross between a giraffe and a moose. I don't think that mix was ever needed on the world, and that's why they died out. (Labradoodle will go for similar reasons.)

Another thing that's important about art is where it's placed... That big Angel of the North statue in Gateshead is an example of what I mean. It's in a field off a motorway. Motorways are the most boring things to drive on, so stick something there for people to look at and they'll like it. I think that's why cavemen built Stonehenge where it is - it made the road next to it less boring to travel on.

But the best has got to be the chicken. They give us so much: chicken breast, chicken legs, wings (the fact chickens have wings that hey don't even use but that we can eat is evidence that these animals were designed o be eaten), and that's if a chicken gets past being eaten by us when it's an egg.

...people worry about testing drugs on animals, whereas I think it all depends on the situation: if the drug's aspirin and the chimp has a headache, is it still wrong?

They always do these scientific tests on the wrong creatures. It's like how when it came to cloning, they went and did a sheep. Why? All sheep look the same so it was hard to see how the good the cloning was.

Her lipstick was a luminous pink and went over the edges of he thin lips. I say of you're no good at colouring in, don't wear lipstick.

London Zoo ... three sausages, beans and chips and a coke came to £10.80p! I don't know why they bother putting up signs asking people not to feed the animals - at them prices there's no chance of that happening.

Peumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoniosis is a type of lung diease.
If someone can't breathe that well, why give the illness a name hat they'll struggle to say in one breath?

A million new books are published each year, a fifth of them in the UK, which produces more books than any other country. An estimated 175 million books have been published. If you read one an hour it would take 19,000 years to read them all.

Every hair on your body comes equipped with a tiny muscle that can make it stand upright.

The most interesting place was an art shop.... In prime position was a fossil fish with a sign saying it was 56 million years old. It's been around that long and still no one's bought it, it's clear to me that no one wants it. The shop was like a museum with price tags.

This seems to be everyone's dream before they die, to swim with dolphins and whales, yet people are panicking when the news says global warming means that Britain is gonna be underwater by the year 2025. Do they want to swim with dolphins or not?

Woke up to the news that people were happier in the 1960s than they are now. This isn't news, it's obvious, it's probably cos they were younger back then.

I think that's why nature put a pearl inside oysters, it was a way to encourage people to buy them - they are like mother nature's scratchcards.


KARL PILKINGTON (born 23 September 1972) is an award-winning English radio producer, philosopher, podcaster and author, best known for producing and co-presenting The Ricky Gervais Show on London radio station Xfm from 2001 to 2005 and later in the form of podcasts. Karlology is his third book.