Karl Pilkington - The Moaning of Life: The Worldly Wisdom of Karl Pilkington

ALSO BY KARL PILKINGTON

THE WORLD OF KARL PILKINGTON
HAPPYSLAPPED BY A JELLYFISH
KARLOLOGY
AN IDIOT ABROAD
THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF AN IDIOT ABROAD

FIRST PUBLISHED IN GREAT BRITAIN IN 2013
BY CANONGATE BOOKS LTD, 14 HIGH STREET, EDINBURGH EH1 1TE

WWW.CANONGATE.TV

This digital edition first published in 2013 by Canongate Books

COPYRIGHT KARL PILKINGTON, 2013

THE MORAL RIGHT OF THE AUTHOR HAS BEEN ASSERTED

PHOTOGRAPHY COPYRIGHT FREDDIE CLAIRE, 2013
ILLUSTRATIONS COPYRIGHT ANDY SMITH
ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY ON P. VI RICH HARDCASTLE

BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING-IN DATA
A CATALOGUE RECORD FOR THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE
ON REQUEST FROM THE BRITISH LIBRARY

ISBN: 978 1 78211 151 1
eISBN: 978 1 78211 182 5
EXPORT ISBN: 978 1 78211 152 8

Contents

I DIDNT WANT to celebrate my fortieth birthday. Not because I wasnt happy about being forty; I dont mind getting older. Ive always been older than my years anyway. My mam said I even acted old and grumpy when I was a baby. Apparently I learnt to frown before I could walk and didnt like having a dummy, as it got in the way of me tutting. I suppose losing my hair made me feel older too. I had a head like a wind-beaten dandelion by the time I had reached twenty-two. I dont think stress was to blame for the baldness; it was the extra-strong power shower my dad had bought off a mate and installed himself. It was way too powerful. Taking a shower was like doing a task in an episode of Total Wipeout . But being bald didnt bother me, as my hair wasnt that good anyway. Fine, flimsy stuff it was, that my barber described as the hair of a Chinaman, so I could never have had a trendy style. Wet-look hair gel was all the rage in England in the early 80s, after Michael Jackson made it popular. It was to help mould your hair, whilst making it look like youd just stepped out of the shower. But it was never a big seller in Manchester as everybody had the wet look anyway due to the continuous, pissing-down rain.

I just want to stay in and have a chilli con carne, I told Suzanne.

But its your fortieth birthday. A few people have asked what were doing!

Well, tell them Im staying in, having chilli con carne. They can celebrate my birthday without me if they want.

Thats just stupid, she said.

No, its not. People do it every year with Jesuss birthday.

The good thing with her asking meant that at least there wasnt going to be a surprise party for me. If there is one thing that I dont like its a surprise, and she knows it. If you want to know another thing I dont like, its fuss. I cant be doing with people making a fuss of me. The first time it happened was when I started work. I was on a training scheme at a printing company and the boss bought a cake and called me to the kitchen. As I opened the door, they all sang Happy Birthday, which must be one of the most boring songs ever written. It follows you right through your life. Why it hasnt been updated and changed I dont know. They remade the film Total Recall recently, and that was totally unnecessary as the original was only made in 1990. Get the bloody birthday song redone.

Anyway, I hated all the bother surrounding my birthday and felt embarrassed. I quickly said cheers and took the cake home. My mam then explained to me that I should have cut the cake there and then and shared it out, but staying in the kitchen handing out cake and talking to people I didnt know was not for me. I think this is why Bob Geldof chucked food parcels out of planes in Africa it was to avoid the small talk.

Why should they get my cake? I remember thinking. I wouldnt mind if I knew all of them, but there were people there from different departments, who Id never seen in my life, and yet they expected to have some of my cake. My mam made me take what was left into work the next day. After that experience, I always arranged to be away on holiday when it was my birthday. I also preferred to get fired from a job instead of leaving, as people dont tend to get you a card and cake or make a fuss when youve been booted out.

In the end Suzanne agreed to make me a chilli and it was well nice, and I didnt have to share it with any strangers.

Like I said, being forty doesnt feel any different to being thirty. Even the aches and pains I have now have always been around. Ive had backache since I was about ten, after I tried to kick my height and ended up landing on my arse. So now I get through as many heat patches in a week as I do teabags. I normally have two or three on at any one time to ease the pain. I give off that much heat I have old people shuffling behind me keeping warm in my jet stream.

For some reason a lot of people think you should be all settled by the time you get to forty and be married with kids, and if youre not they find it odd. Thats what triggered the idea of the TV programme and this new book. Why do most people follow the same pattern in life, and is it the same the world over? The number of times Ive been asked, Why arent you and Suzanne married? Why no kids? I say, Why does everyone feel that this is what you should do? They normally follow that up with Well, why are we here? a question Ive never thought about apart from the time Suzanne took me on a surprise holiday to Lanzarote.

IT DOESNT BOTHER me when there are postal strikes, as most of what comes through our front door Im not in a rush to receive. Gas bills, phone bills, council tax bills, and the thing that fills me with the most dread wedding invitations. Its like getting summoned for jury service.

You dont want to go, but its very difficult to get out of, and then its a long, drawn-out affair that you have to sit through with strangers. You can normally tell its a wedding invite because the font on the envelope has so many swirls and curls it looks like your address was written out during an earthquake.

Ill check who the invitation is from, and if its not a relation, Ill try to get it to the shredder before Suzanne gets wind of it. Getting rid of the evidence isnt so easy when the envelope is packed full of bits of glitter and gold hearts that go all over the bloody place when you open it, like a money bag from the bank thats been fitted with an ink bomb.

Then I have to hoover up the evidence. I did this recently, but Suzanne knew what Id done when she went to vacuum the stairs and saw the glitter whizzing round inside the Dyson like some kind of Brian Cox CGI universe.