abused it – but it used to run around and play out ’til ten at night, it used to chase cars …
Steve: Right. Did it have hooves?
Ricky: It used to chase cars? What sort of kid chases cars? Was it called ‘Rover’? Did it fetch sticks?
Karl: The weird thing is, it was a good looking kid but as time went on and all that not eating properly, its hair was all patchy and it became an ugly kid. And that’s what I’m saying, right; you can clone all you like but at the end of the day, it’s how you’re brought up.
Steve: Man alive, that was one hell of a point.
Karl: But am I right?
Ricky: Er … you’re always right, Karl.
‘Look, if you don’t wanna do it, we won’t do it!’
Karl: No, but my thing with iPods is – do we need ’em? We’re living in that era now where we’ve invented most of the stuff that we need, and now we’re just messing about.
Ricky: They said that in 1900. Someone actually said, ‘Everything to be invented has already been invented.’ They said that in 1900, and how wrong were they?
Karl: No, but what did they invent in 1900 that made ’em go, ‘We’ve done it all now?’
Ricky: Well think what happened in the twentieth century.
Karl: Go on.
Ricky: Cars, planes.
Karl: Yeah, but is that a good thing, planes and that? Do you need a plane really? Wouldn’t it have been better if we were all stuck where we should be, instead of travelling about?
Ricky: Why?
Karl: War. War’s happening innit, because everyone’s saying, ‘Well now we can fly, we’ll go over there and invade that lot.’
Steve: So there were no wars prior to the invention of the aeroplane?
Karl: Not like there is today. What I’m saying is, the world has got smaller, hasn’t it? Everyone is saying that. I was saying to you the other day how we now go to places where we shouldn’t go. People go on holiday to places where you’ve got to have an injection before you go there. Forget it then. That’s a warning. Don’t go there!
Ricky: I am with you on that. I don’t want to enter a country where I have to have an injection to stop me from dying while I am in that country. I totally agree with you on that.
Karl: So what happened is, so they invented a plane and it’s like, ‘Oh let’s go on holiday’ and then they go, ‘You’ll die though’, ‘Oh, well you’ve got to invent summit.’ ‘Let’s invent an injection’ and then it’s like ‘Right, what else do we need to go to that place?’ There’s a lot of faffing.
Steve and Ricky laugh.
Karl: What I’m saying is, you know Steve’s travelled more than I have. You’ve been to, like, dangerous places.
Steve: I have been to places where you need injections, yeah.
Karl: Yeah but why?
Steve: Because it’s fascinating. Do you not believe in the idea that travel broadens the mind? It makes you experience other ways of life, other ways of thinking. It enriches you as a human being. That’s the whole reason people go travelling.
Karl: But since the invention of the telly you don’t have to go that far.
Steve: You’re absolutely right.
Ricky: So there you go then. The telly was invented in the twentieth century wasn’t it?
Karl: Yeah, it’s pretty good.
Steve: Where would you stop then? Would you stop inventing stuff right now or do you think we could carry on for another five years – see what comes up and then just draw a line under it all?
Karl: We are just messing about.
Ricky: But there’s still things to do – a cure for cancer, a cure for AIDS.
Karl: Yeah but should we mess with that?
Ricky: What d’you mean?
Karl: Because there’s too many people in the world as it is, in’t there? So that’s a way of controlling it. You know, look at London, right, it’s over-populated. Rent keeps going up because there’s more and more people surviving. If you let ’em die, it’s gonna even itself out. I was saying to someone the other day about maybe we should look at – if we are going to invent something – forget like the traditional way of people having kids, right, the way they have it away and that, you know …
Ricky: What do you mean?
Karl: You know, the way that we have kids and stuff. It’d be good if what happened was, to control it, a man and woman, right, they’re born and that, they enjoy their life, they learn a lot. They live to be about seventy-eight by that point.
Ricky: So specific.
Karl: I think by seventy-eight I reckon you’ve sort of got to that point where you go, ‘D’you know what, I’ve done everything I’m gonna do.’ If you haven’t bungy jumped by the time you’re seventy-eight you’re not gonna do it.
Ricky: No, your hips come off.
Karl: You’ve done it all now. So I’ve had my innings, I live to be seventy-eight, but then, just as you die, you have a little baby inside you and, as you die, your life carries on.
Steve: How is this happening?
Ricky: Sorry – are you mental? I have never heard such drivel.
Karl: You’re saying that but if Newton said it you’d go, ‘Hmm, interesting.’ That’s what annoys me.
Steve: Karl, he never would. He would never say it and that’s the point.
Ricky: I don’t understand what you’re talking about. How is there a little baby in a seventy-eight-year-old?
Karl: No, what I’m saying is – it’s like an apple, where the apple grows and it’s got its little baby pips in it and the apple goes and the seeds are planted and a new one’s born.
Ricky: But that’s what happens now.
Steve: That’s what reproduction is.
Karl: But with my way, babies aren’t being born left, right and centre. It’s controlled so that as someone dies, someone’s born.
Steve: But Karl. Stop. Whose responsibility is this?
Karl: Look, if you
