The Ricky Gervais Show

Announcer: For the past few years Ricky Gervais,

Stephen merchant and Karl Pilkington

have been meeting regularly

for a series of pointless conversations.

This is one of them.

- Testing. - Is that all right?

Hello and welcome to "The Ricky Gervais Show"

with me, Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant...

- Hello. - ...And the little round-headed buffoon

that is Karl Pilkington.

Hi.

What's been going on? What's been going on?

I've been to hospital.

I was rushed to hospital, right?

Emergency and that.

I had a, uh, tube put up me knob.

- You had a tube put up your knob? - Yeah.

- What's the story? - Uh, kidney stones.

- Oof. - So shouldn't really be here, to be honest,

doing this. He said rest and that.

Climbing them stairs on the way in was...

To be quite honest, it doesn't look like you expend a lot of energy at the moment.

It's like a zookeeper going, "Oh, that sloth moved today."

"Calm down!"

Yeah, but I had to get here. It's been raining.

- Yeah? - I had to come up the stairs. I had to carry the computer.

- Yeah? - Well, that's not entirely true

'cause your girlfriend was carrying it. I saw her, actually.

Yeah, but I'm just saying...

Then you handed it to me and said, "Steve, carry this."

- God almighty. - Yeah, I know.

- That's already a lie. - Christ almighty.

- Whinging. - I'm not whinging.

I'm in show business. I know loads of people

that wake up every day with a sore knob,

feeling like they've had their kidneys probed.

And they... you know... they would say they were unconscious.

So they didn't whinge about it. They get straight back on to it.

They, you know... a lot of them are on TV now.

Yeah, straight back to hosting game shows.

So you were rushed to hospital?

So take us through the... Take us through the events

'cause it does sound quite dramatic.

You started feeling a bit of pain, did you, initially?

I felt a bit of pain. I thought, you know,

maybe I just pulled a muscle or something when I've been

wrestling with Ricky and that.

'Cause you don't know what damage is being done.

So I just think it'll go in a minute.

And then it didn't. It got a bit badder.

- It got badder, did it? - So then I thought...

- Got a bit badder. - Oh dear.

So then I thought I was crippled.

I was lying on the floor in agony,

looking on the Internet. Looking for...

Still looking up monkey news?

I just put in like "bellyache"

and stuff and they were saying it can be loads of different things.

Um, and I... What I used to do when I was a kid,

I used to always just get a cold ashtray

and put that on me belly. And the coldness

used to get rid of the badness.

- Amazing. - The coldness got rid...

Was that like a witch doctor?

Ha! Yeah, there you go. Yeah yeah.

This is... this is like...

a witch doctor that happens to work in a pub.

It's like it's some sort of fifth-century remedy written in mud.

"Coldness doth get away with the badness."

- Oh! - Why specifically an ashtray?

Just 'cause they were... they sort of hold cold.

They're old cold? What?

I don't know what this is.

It's... I love this idea that he's...

He's had the operation and he comes around and they're talking to him.

And his girlfriend gets a phone call and they say,

"Mr. Pilkington's... may be complications.

He's talking rubbish." She goes, "Oh good!"

"Yeah, he's back to his old self."

What... what... what...

Why specifically an ashtray? Sorry, 'cause it's old cold.

- I understand it's old cold. - 'Cause earlier we understand...

Everyone who's done a medical degree understands old cold.

But... but, uh...

"Old... old cold belly badness."

"Do you wanna buy that book, 'old cold belly badness'?

It's the history of abdominal surgery by Karl Pilkington."

No, it just... you know...

But do you put it in the freezer or something first?

You can do if you want, but they're normally cold anyway.

Sort of thick glass and that, it holds the cold.

But we don't smoke in our house, so I had to use a plate.

Oh well, that's madness.

A plate's not gonna work. Famously a plate doesn't work.

Oh my God, no. No.

So you put a... a... a...

You put a plate on your belly, but that didn't do anything.

- Yeah, no... - That didn't work.

So I called Suzanne and said, "Oh, I'm in agony, yeah."

She said, "Go to the doctor's then."

Good advice. A lot of people would have done that straightaway

as opposed to going through the plate,

- ashtray. - Ashtray and plate!

So he went to hospital... and they went to hospital

and he said, "Have you got an ashtray?"

- Go and fetch me an ashtray. - "This is no smoking."

So anyway, so then we get in a cab and what have you,

go there. I have an X-ray.

His voice is even more boring than usual, isn't it?

- It's extraordinary, isn't it? - Fuck me.

And they put me on a drip and everything,

gave me some morphine and stuff

and found out that I had kidney stones.

So that's why I was in hospital.

And they get 'em out by...

I can't even... I don't know what's going on, to be honest.

- Come on. - I've got some tube inside me

from me kidney to me bladder

that's helping me stuff get about.

And so there's a little tube up the end of your knob

- into your...? - Yeah, it's not there now.

It's right... it's high up.

- Right? - So it's high up between

- me kidney and me bladder. - But why didn't you have the thing

where they go in the side? You had the choice to...

Because I said to the doctor, "I'm not a doctor,"

I said, "What do you think?"

And he went, "Stop putting yourself down, Karl.

We need you in the operating theater now."

He just said... you know, I said to him, "What should I have done?"

'Cause he said, "If you want, go home,

um, and we'll get you in again or something."

Uh, something like that.

And I said "No, I might as well have it done properly.

Have it done there whilst I'm here."

Sorry, the choice was have it done properly or go home?

It was... it was something like that.

He said, "There's something you can do" and I said, "Oh..."

- Flush it out? - Uh, no, because it's too big.

It's something like 7mm.

- And it's basically because you don't drink enough water? - Yeah.

So anyway I said, "What do you think I should have done?"

And he said, "Tube up the knob." And I said, "Hmm,

not me favorite one of the choice,

but if that's what you think."

So he said "yYeah, have that." He did me little diagrams,

which didn't help. He was like showing...

- How big did he draw your knob? - Sort of normal size.

- Yeah? Was it... - It was all right.

- You weren't offended by the... - When he went into detail

it was just more the tubes and stuff

- and your bladder and your kidney. - What was your ball bag like?

- Did he draw that? - He didn't do that bit. He left that bit out.

- Okay, right. - But he said, "We'll just pop that up there."

And then that's when Ricky turned up

to visit, and came in laughing at me

'cause I was sat there in, like, me underpants and stockings.

- In stockings? - Yeah yeah.

- Why were you dressed as... - He was there and he wasn't in bed.

He was sort of out of bed with a little drip, right?

He had his little boxer shorts on, just sat there.

Right? In his pants, right?

And he had stockings on.

Yeah, because they stop clots or something.

They put 'em on your legs. It's like, d'you know,

when people have got big veins and they go on a plane.

Right, yeah.

You said you're not a doctor.

No, but I've seen it 'cause Suzanne's mom did it

and it was... she put 'em on ridiculously early,

like three days before we were going away and that.

She'd never been away before

and everything was like over the top, do you know what I mean?

So I best put 'em on. And, uh,

so I put them on and they were like... I don't know what it is.

It's something when you're in... when you're under

- your blood doesn't move about the same... - Right.

And it can clot up in your leg.

So you wear these... it's like tights.

And I came in to cheer him up, didn't I?

- Yeah. - Was that a nice cheery experience,

- him coming in? - I had a headache at the time

and I was a bit stressed out.

He's just the man you want at that point.

Yeah. Uh, well, it's weird how it suddenly all happened quick.

And, uh, I woke up and there was an Irish woman over me,

going, "Are you all right? You all right?"

And I said, "Oh it's stinging a bit."

She said, "I'll give you some more morphine."

And I sort of put me head up to have a look at me tackle

- 'cause I wanted to see... - If it was still there?

What was attached to it. Do you know what I mean?

'Cause they said something about they might leave some string hanging out of it

so they can pull the tube out.

- It makes you talk. - So I had a look for that.

Couldn't... couldn't see any of that.

But as she put the morphine in,

all the muscles in your body go funny.

Me head just collapsed.

I'm in agony now and, uh...