Happyslapped By A Jellyfish (Happyslapped by a jellyfish - Karl Pilkington)

Member Name: ollie19

Product:	Happyslapped by a jellyfish - Karl Pilkington
Date:	20/07/08 (39 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A charming insight into Karl's mind

Disadvantages: May not be to everyone's taste

Karl Pilkington's rise to fame came during his work as the 'producer' to Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's Saturday afternoon show on XFM Radio. Between 2001 and 2005 Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant brought out the best in Karl, exposing him and his views to the listen public for the first time. Whilst Gervais and Merchant spent much of their week writing and filming the award winning show "The Office," Karl spent his time thinking up ideas for the show, bringing such features as "Monkey News," "Songs of Phrase" and "Rock busters."

When the trio left XFM radio they began recording the first of three series of podcasts. These podcast's would become the top downloaded podcasts of all time. They also brought about the introduction of "Karl's Diary." During 2006 Karl spent the year writing into his diary and reluctantly allowing Stephen Merchant to read much of it out on air. It is extracts from this diary which make up much of Karl's book "Happyslapped by a Jellyfish."

The book is essentially a travel book featuring stories from Karl's travels. Some chapters are made up from diary entries whilst some are stories written after his trip containing anecdotes of Karl's experiences. As always Karl deviates from the topic in hand into his naive, single minded and hilarious views on anything from jellyfish to nudists.

It is Karl's innocent and uneducated thoughts that allow him to interpret the world in a way no one else does. He interprets people and places in a hilarious way which he accidently stumbles upon with little knowledge of how or why he is funny. "Happyslapped by a jellyfish" contains Karl's thoughts on places such as; Wales, Ibiza, Rye, Los Angeles, Florida, New York, Malaga, Sorrento, The Cotswolds, Weymouth, Caribbean, Lanzarote, Madeira, Tunisia, Brussels, The Lake District and Australia. The book also contains many illustrations drawn brilliantly by Karl himself. It seems he certainly has a talent for cartoon like drawing and they only add to the books charm and hilarity.

I highly recommend "Happyslapped by a jellyfish" to any fans of Karl's role in the famous Ricky Gervais podcasts. If you are like me you will read Karl's diary entries with Stephan Merchants voice in your head. If you are unfamiliar with Karl's work then this book will provide a good introduction to the mind of Karl although I recommend you probably listen to a few of the old

Summary: Highly recommended to any Karl fan