KARL PILKINGTON FANS > Transcripts

SNAILS - Do we need 'em? - Xfm season 2

Karl bothers a scientist over the phone who works at some aquarium

If you’re new, I’m sort of on a bit of a mission to find out, ya know, we’ve got a lot of animals and insects in the world ‘n’ stuff.
Yeah.
Ermm…Do we need ‘em all?
Hahaha! This still amuses me.
So we found out we’ve got to keep jellyfish, we’ve done octopus, they said we gotta keep them. This week – snails.
Do we need them?

Theme music
Karl is speaking to a scientist on the phone

Just doing some research...
Uh huh.
Right, errm, I’m sorta working me way through different creatures and insects ‘n’ stuff that’s on the planet.
Yeh...
Right, ermm, and finding out if we need ‘em or not. Right?
Yeh.
Do you know much about snails?
What, erm, sea snails?
Well... yeah.
Or snails in general. Errm.. Don’t know much about land snails. I know a bit about sea snails, whelks, top shells, that sort of thing.
Would you say they’re important?
In what sort of sense do you mean by important?
Say we had to sort of get rid of some animals and insects ‘cos we’re running outta room.
Right.
Do y’know what I mean? ‘cos, ‘cos, I’ll tell you what I know about some snails – I don’t know if this applies to sea snails as well, I mean I called you today ‘cos a lot of other places are shut.
Yeh.
Right, so, err, I know, err, they like to eat stamps, apparently. The glue on stamps. They love it.
Right.
Right? Apparently a lot of ermm, letters ‘n’ stuff aren’t getting to where they’re meant to be getting ‘cos snails are crawling into letterboxes and eating the stamps. That obviously doesn’t apply to the sea ones.
Hmm.
But that’s a problem they’re causing.
Oh right.
Err.. were you aware of that?
No.
I bet you’re glad you answered the phone today!
…
Right, they love beer.
Beer? Yeh. Who doesn’t?
And also, I dunno if this is right, I heard that they sleep for thirteen years or can do.
Right... pfft… I wouldn’t know if they sleep for thirteen years or not but… I think sea snails are pretty important, yeah, they do quite a good job in the sea, they graze on algae.
But…
And provide food for other animals. I mean, you can say that about any fish. Ya know, any animal – why do they exist.
Would you be upset if someone said ‘we’re getting rid of ‘em’?
Oh yeah. Yeah.
You would be?
They’re an animal. I wouldn’t…
Forget being like, favouritism and all that for ‘em. Right? There’ll be other things knocking around that you can spend your time looking after. You’ll still have a job. Don’t be worrying about that. I’m not gonna get rid of all the fish. Jellyfish need looking after so you’re safe.
Yeah?
But – do we need them?
…
C’mon, there’s loads of people saying ‘come on we’ve got to move on through the animals’ and you’re holding ‘em up saying ‘well, I wanna keep ‘em’.
…who’s saying we need to.. that just sounds a bit, sounds a bit crazy. To me.
Just imagine. D’ya know what I mean and they would come to you ‘cos you’re working in aquariums. They’d be asking for your advice.
Right.
And you’re slowing it down.
Well they asked my advice and I’m giving it to them. So, Ya know? That’s what I think anyway.
Yeah but snails. Ya know like I said, they drink beer ‘n’ that, ya know. What do they do apart from… some food for a whelk?
They were around, their descendants were around, for a lot longer than… we have… been
Yeah they’ve been around a long time but what have they done?
Well they survived that long so they must be doing something pretty good.
Well apparently they sleep for thirteen years so really, even though they’ve been around for ages.
I don’t... I think... that sounds a bit…anything that sleeps for thirteen years.
No! I mean not all of ‘em, just the tired ones. So, snails
…
Do we need them?
… well yeah I just think they’ve got a, just this, ya know, it’s not for us to say if we need them or not we can’t…
So ya think we should keep ‘em?
Yeah definitely.

Theme music

Hahaha! Karl, I’m proud of you! That was…
He was getting really quite annoyed.
I know. What does he... what is he thinking you were doing. I don’t know what you tell these people. I mean, you don’t get their permission to play this out do ya?
Well the thing is, right…
Ha!
I sort of told him what it was about, but we won’t say who he is or where he works ‘cos it doesn’t matter. I just needed to speak to someone who…
I loved the fact you were trying to get an answer out of him by suggesting he would be safe ‘cos he could look after jellyfish if he GAVE the okay to destroy snails!
He was getting livid, you could tell.
Oh god… brilliant. So they’ve been around a long time but what have they done? Well that was great Karl. Play a record.