Quotes from the book (10)

I guess that people working in academia are on the official list of "People who are not allowed to envy other people traveling for their job". Apart from the cleaners, obviously. So there goes the introduction I had in mind, when I decided to blog about one of the funniest books I read in a while: The travel diaries of Karl Pilkington. For those of you who are not familiar with Karl: he is a jack-of-all-trades in the media landscape (podcaster, author, television producer), best known for the travel series "An idiot abroad" and his appearances in the Ricky Gervais Show (the world's most downloaded podcast, unless Adam Carolla succeeded in setting a new record), mostly as the butt of Gervais' practical jokes. 

The aforementioned book, spun off the travel documentary television series, describes the adventures of Karl, traveling in Egypt, Brazil, Jordan, China, India, Mexico and Peru. It is written as a diary, including his telephone conversations with the people who sent him abroad in the first place (Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant), and it is downright funny. His one-liners are hilarious, and some entries could have been scripted for a stand-up comedy show. A few examples: 

I had some toast and a bit of papaya. This was the first time I've ever eaten papaya. It was okay, but if someone told me I'd never eat papaya ever again, I wouldn't be bothered. I feel like this about most fruit. There is too much fruit in the world, and I don't like buying a lot of fruit, as it goes off so quickly. Maybe that's why we are told to eat five portions a day, just to get through the stuff before it gets mouldy. 

The odd thing with China is, they like to go out of their way to do things differently. Even something simple like reading a book they mess with. They read books from top to bottom and then back to the top again. It looks like they're agreeing with everything they're reading. 

The thing with announcing funny stuff is that you may end up with people staring at their screen, finding it all but hilarious. In that case, grab the book yourself and read it from top to bottom. You can agree with me afterwards: funny stuff...