Just stumbled across this video clip of Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and the incongruous Karl Pilkington. Now, I believe most of us downloading the podcast will have wondered at some point whether Karl is, in fact, a real person, or simply an actor with a cleverly written script. Based on the strength of the video material shown here, I have to say the balance of my judgement has taken something of a tilt towards believing that Karl is, unfortunately, very real. In fact, from the footage, Karl would appear to be (and I hope I may be forgiven for speaking so harshly of someone I've never met) every bit as dull and ignorant as Ricky and Karl make him appear in the podcasts. Which leaves me feeling decidedly uncomfortable about the whole matter. For some reason, I feel that a podcast making fun of someone apparently incapable of even understanding what is happening to him just isn't right. I don't subscribe to cruelty to animals for fun in Spanish arenas any more than I would watch dwarf throwing on TV or otherwise. Could subscribing to a podcast (the world's most popular podcast, let's not forget) end up being a question of ethics? Mebbe I've just been conned successfully into believing what Mr Gervais wants me to, but what if not? Dude - are you really real?