Desert Island Dicks - ALEX LOWE, (CLINTON BAPTISE AND BARRY FROM WATFORD)

Episode Date: December 20, 2021

This episode we're joined by the man behind Clinton Baptiste from Phoenix Nights and Barry from Watford, it's the brilliant Alex Lowe, taking us through his list of people and things he'd absolutely hate to be stuck with on a desert island. Tickets are now on sale for the next Desert Island Dicks Live, featuring Lou Sanders. Get someone you love a Christmas present to remember (or listen back to if they forget), and buy a ticket here: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/qE9cZT4E82 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Marc Jacobs perfume gift sets include everything she needs to feel special. From her favorite fragrance plus the matching travel spray, holiday gifts don't get much more perfect than this. So if you're looking for a gift inspiration these holidays, gift theable with Mark Jacobs. Hello, what's your name? My name is Dan from Desert Island Dicks. It's a strange surname, but I'm going with it. I've changed it by deed poll, so there's no getting away from it. This episode features Alex Lowe. He's also known as Barry from Watford or Clinton Baptiste from Phoenix Night,

and he's popped up all over the place over the years, and he's a very funny man indeed, so I hope you'll enjoy this. Before we get stuck in though, a reminder that tickets are now available for our next Desert Island Dicks Live, featuring Lou Sanders at 2 North Down. It's on the 4th of February, which is a Friday night, so you can come and have a laugh with us, and then go out drinking afterwards, or just go out, or you don't have to drink, do whatever you want really, and it's going to be a lot of fun if you're looking for a last minute present to buy someone then why not say hey look i didn't want to clog up your life with more crap what i've done is bought you an experience you know we can both go you and i to

see lou sanders at two north down on the fourth of February doing Desert Island Dicks Live. We'll have a lot of fun and afterwards I'll buy you a pint or alternative drink of your choice. So that's what you should do. If you want to get tickets, and believe me, I think you should, you can get tickets from the link in the description of this podcast or you can go to the 2 North Down website or you can find the link on our social media pages on Instagram and Twitter at Dickspod. OK, enough of that. Now on with the show. It's Desert Island Dicks with Alex Lowe. Hi, I'm Dan Benedictus and welcome to Desert Island Dicks,

the show that sees you marooned on a desert island after a plane crash with the worst people and worst things imaginable. Who they are and why they're a dick is up to our guest. And here to share their Desert Island Dicks with us today is comedian, actor, writer, also known as Clinton Baptiste and Barry from Watford, Alex Lowe. How are you doing? Oh yeah, great, thanks. Great to speak to you, Daniel.

I've been very busy just on tour. I'm back now. I've been touring as Clinton and hoping to have a nice Christmas. Put my feet up. Good, good. Well, thank you for joining us. I mean, obviously, you know, we know you in many different guises. You are here today as yourself, as Alex Lowe.

I mean, we can sort of imagine what some of your alter egos, how they might react to the questions I'm about to ask you. But how do you as an individual, I mean, do you find it easy to sort of rant about people or is this sort of tricky to compile a list? Well, actually, the truth is I do find it easy to rant about people. And I have a list, as long as you're on, of people I would not like to be stuck in Desert Island with. But I'm so much of a chicken that I'm not going to say their names because, you know, they're bound to bump into them at some point.

But equally, the people I've chosen are people who are unlikely to bump into me again, but I have the same disdain for them. But yeah, no, I mean, quite often I do bump into people who occasionally I bump into very famous people who I half know. And I sometimes think I know them better than I do. So there's various people. These are two people, just very quickly. I was Christmas shopping the other day. I bumped into Toby Jones, the actor, who I've worked with a couple of times.

And I started chatting to him like we're long lost friends. He can't bloody remember me. And then I thought that was sort of embarrassing. Yes, it's kind of, you know, we're on to modding acquaintance only. But because you see these people on telly, you's kind of you know we're on nodding acquaintance only but because you see these people on telly you kind of think you know them better and then straight after that I walked through Soho and I bumped into Harry Enfield who I did one Christmas show with about two years ago and we got on famously and had a good old chat and I stopped him and he looked at me like I was kind of mad. Who is this guy? And curtailed the conversation very quickly.

So I seem to know lots of people, not very well, but there's always the chance if I slag anyone off, I am going to bump into them. All right, Alex, well, let's see how we get on in today. Let's just dive in. Who's going to be the first person joining you on the island okay the first person i would not like on the island is a bloke who used to sit with his kids near me and my son at molyneux wolverhampton wanderers ground in the west midlands uh some years ago i was a big qpr fan are you a football fan daniel not really no okay well i'll get through this you can probably sympathize with this it's it's kind of anyone you sit next to at a major event who keeps getting up and down out of their seat many many years ago uh i i was a qpr fan i stuck a picture of qpr versus

wolves on our fridge and my son who was seven at the time, went for the wrong bloody team. He went for Wolves. And my wife was kind of full of this, oh, isn't it great? You know, he's got his own thing, Wolves. And I had to say to her, you don't understand. That is it now.

That is his absolute passion for the rest of his life. So he's very, very keen on Wolves. And over the years, I've taken him up on the train every week in week out we've been to away matches but the irritating thing was sat next to this guy and there are some people who who well you included it seems who don't get the absolute raw passion of going something i imagine it's the same for anyone who goes to gigs. Someone who keeps getting up to get their kids sweets or the kids need the toilet or something, always pushing past.

In football, you know, there's never a lot of room for your knees. So this guy would be getting up and down, up and down. Now, I hasten to add, where I sit now at Wolves, it is not that section. So I don't want anyone coming up to me there, not that I speak to anyone there particularly, and claiming it's them. So it's that guy, you know, with his snotty kids coming back,

endless supply of crisps, drinks, sort of Haribo things, and constantly interrupting my viewing pleasure. Yeah, I can understand that. See, although I'm not a big football fan, my brother is. And when we were growing up in Leicester, he was always taking me to Leicester matches, which I really enjoyed. And I thought I was a football fan until he sort of left home. And I realised that without him sort of explaining what was happening

and taking me to matches, it sort of died away but I mean you know I do understand like the passion you get a football match and how important it is even if it's just like a normal league game it feels you know it's it's you know it's a big deal and like someone who just clearly isn't like not only interrupting you but it's like you know they're interrupting you because they're obviously the heart's not in it to the same extent that yours is absolutely it's really hard for but you know people will often say about sport and stuff they'll go it's just 22 blokes chasing a bit of leather around the pitch which you could say about absolutely anything couldn't you oh why are you sitting here um you know why are you getting on stage it's just you standing on a wooden platform

and speaking out loud to lots of people you can say about anything you know i always remember getting married why do you need a piece of paper why do you need a piece of paper to get married to prove your love well unfortunately i'm just like any other human being yes i do occasionally need that sort of thing to validate you know nothing extraordinary about that so yeah um people who don't really get that thing i think anyone who's had kids and it might be the same with you and your brother you know shared some sort of love that you you feel that you're that you that you are sharing and it's important that you're both sharing it with each other you know if you've got uh i don't know

if you've got any kids daniel yeah i've got two kids yeah exactly but so so that whole thing of you know uh going out together and enjoying a father and son thing it's so important and it's just just the kind of i mean before my son was about five well maybe five seven when this happened In fact, it was exactly when he was seven, because it was the World Cup 2010. I think my wife found it very upsetting. We didn't really have much relationship. I can honestly say that football brought us together. Nowadays, of course, I don't know anything about football, and he'll constantly say to me,

look, it's page one all the time with you, Dad. You don't seem to know anything about it. Yeah, so it's page one all the time with you dad you don't seem to know anything about it um yeah so it's that it's those kind of people who don't who really you suspect don't have the same level of uh you know desire and that's true of anything you know people who go to uh the theater you know i was i went to see dan skinner's play uh he plays angelos at the menier chocolate factory and you see people who kind of you think what are you doing here i mean it's just a thing that you think you have to go and do are you enjoying are you getting anything out of it you know sort of i have to say they're all slightly older people who sort of went there for a matinee and they were laughing,

but you think, are you getting any of this stuff? What will become? You know? Yeah, it's weird, isn't it? It's sort of like, because especially these days, the level of effort to get to things like this,

you know, you've got to plan, you've got to think, you know, is the health of the nation okay that I can go out? I've ordered tickets. You know, especially if you've got kids, that i can go out i've ordered tickets so you know especially you've got kids that's a hassle you've got to sort of make sure you've got babysitter you get to this place and then you're like oh no you know so i'll take it or leave it really you

know i think these days i have such little time that if i go somewhere it's got to be worth it you know even if it's a friend's birthday i'm like is this going to be worth it really i mean you know when you talk about that you know your time, I'm considerably older than you. And I have now got this thing where I can't waste any time when the adverts come on. I can't, you know, to watch some fucking funny toilet duck character walk across the screen or, you know, some kids making some charmless quip or you know what i mean i i can't i can't be arsed with it you know idris elba telling us the benefits of sky telly and all these sort of treats i just i have to look away i've got to look at something else i cannot waste any of my time on any ephemeral shit.

Every second counts, you know. And I think that's a real failing. And I mean, it drives my wife mad. You know, something I've got to try and do in the coming year is read a book. You know, I'm maybe going to cut down on social media. But I find my career so endlessly fascinating and, you know, writing and going and do things and touring. Maybe because it's only in recent months that anyone's been remotely interested in me touring around the country. Prior to this, I'm just a jobbing actor.

No one could give two hoots about. But now suddenly people are turning up to see my show so i find that so kind of exhilarating anything else i think it's a bit of a waste of time apart from going to wolves this is weird though isn't it because like a football i mean football tickets aren't even that cheap so to like turn up to war even if it's like wolves which you know not a huge team but it's still not a cheap endeavor it's not like you know when it used to be like when i used to go and it'd be like Wolves, which, you know, not a huge team, but it's still not a cheap endeavour. It's not like, you know, when it used to be like, when I used to go and it'd be like 15, 20 quid or something. Yeah, yeah.

So to go every week and then kind of just sort of be up and down and just have a really short attention span is just quite strange. It's like, do you just like sort of go, oh, yeah, I love Wolves season ticket holder me, but you don't really know anything about it? I, do you know what? I really love going there with my son. But you're right. To go all the way up there, and it costs a lot of money to go from Watford Junction,

get up there, change, get to the ground. Everything's expensive. Sit there, and 90 minutes later, it's time to come home. You're right. It's the most ridiculous thing but as i said the stuff you'll do for the love of your son and bonding well that i mean the other thing the tragic thing now is he's in university in manchester so i go up from watford and it's this terrible painful thing where at the end of the match he goes in the other direction all these

years since he was seven of me you know getting on the train going back home and uh you know he just goes in the opposite direction so that's what you've got to look forward to me yeah i know at the minute it's just sort of talking about dinosaurs and playing in the sandpit so it's not too bad that can get very boring yeah um so this kind of character then on the island as well having that kind of character with you you're going right today we've got to build a shelter there was a storm last night and he's like yeah yeah i love building shelters then just five minutes late he's wandering off coming back i mean just that mindset is just gonna drive you mad or you've got beautiful sunset and he's like yeah back in a in a minute. Just go have a piss.

And, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I think it would be that. You've got to have people who are going to concentrate on the thing. But also I suspect someone like that is so into their home comforts. Yeah. You know, if you've got to constantly buying shit.

This is the other thing. Just to go back on that. You know, I often feel like, like you know the ice caps are melting the ice caps are melting constantly i heard the most horrible ecological story on radio 4 this morning about there's something that is about to shear off a massive glacier in the south pole whatever it is um As you can see, I didn't take too much. But it's the size of Britain. And it will raise the sea level by 65 centimetres, right, over the next, whatever that is, 10 years or something.

Now, that is terrifying. And yet people, this endless consumerism, constantly buying shit. Idris Elba telling us of more shit we can have you know i don't i really want to pare down stuff i don't want to you know the christmas thing i am a real since we're doing this christmas i've got to say i i really don't like christmas and i'm not proud i'm not proud to say that i don't think that makes me clever I'd like to enjoy it but it's just you fucking disengage your brain

for this whole two, three months where you've got to do it it's Christmas no you don't have to do it you've got to have that well you know you've got to have that

it's Christmas no and it's just you know the endless amount of junk going into landfill I know I'm stating the obvious so people like him

who constantly have to get up and purchase shit and leave their wrappers on the floor and their drinks i i suspect this guy is not going to be not that i'm particularly practical but it's going to be someone who's absolutely steeped in modern living and consumerism which i want to sort of gradually turn my back on okay well i think we're off to a very strong start and uh i hate christmas everyone i hate this man as well already so i think it's a good a good opening gambit uh who's going to be the second person joining you okay well this is a kind of a bit of an obvious one um i had to go back a few years but um i i live near watford i'm not saying everyone's like this but the watford parts of watford some people in watford have a little

touch of these sort of what would you call it it's an old-fashioned phrase white flight about them out of hartfordshire uh occasionally i come across it across it. It's not really any of my neighbours, I have to say, but there is a slight sort of unconscious racism. I hate that. I hate that sort of little Britain thing that brought us Brexit. And I think this is a rather extreme version of that it was a skinhead uh in 1985 who started on me and my mates he was with his mates at Bournemouth Pier and uh chased us up the road and it was particularly terrifying I had cigarettes put out on me uh and it's that really i mean it's such an obvious one who who who would like to be stuck with someone like that no one but uh many years ago you know when i was about sort of 70 i was 17 uh we we were a bit too young to get in the pub and we looked young you know so it was that terrible time you know from about 16 between 16 and 18 where you want

to get out you want to get amongst it you want to go clubbing and all that but we just couldn't get in anywhere so you sort of hung around we hung around uh bournemouth pier with some really cheap crappy accommodation and there was me um there was a guy who's very famous now who was One Direction's manager, I think, Michael Greek, Mike Greek. He's a very, very well-known agent or manager. Another guy called Paul Jackman, who's in television, and my friend Jonathan Eames. And we went out to Bournemouth Pier and this is all we could do we couldn't really get in anywhere and we were sort of playing um pinball this was the sort of thing you might remember at that age and we met some French girls some lovely French girls and I just remember as we

were playing pinball in that sort of French way that's the kind of thing they did, you know, playing ping-pong. And I just, someone sort of nudged me and I didn't think anything of it. We carried on playing. And my mate, Johnny Eames, tapped me on the shoulder and said, we're going to have to go now. We're going to have to go. I said, what are you talking about? He said, we're going to have to go.

And as I turned around, I realised we'd been shoved and it was a sort of semicircle of the hardest, nasty looking skinheads behind us. And I was tapping the French girls on the shoulder, carrying on playing pinball. And it was obvious. It was the fact that they were French was what they didn't like about it. Right.

And that we were dirty English anglian with foreigners and we and eventually i managed to push my way through them and try and escape through these crowds of people in this arcade and when we got outside they were waiting for us outside my friend johnny disappeared i hope you don't mind this story. It's not very seasonal. Anyway, look, to cut a long story short, they stood there flobbing on us, me and these girls, and I had a cigarette put out on my hand. And every time I tried to say, look, what's the problem? They'd be like, oh, what, mate?

Oh, what, what, mate? Are you sure? Are you sure, mate? I couldn't get a word in. So eventually I managed to get back into the bournemouth pier uh alerted a woman at the bucket and spade shop who said go into the arcade find a bloke called dave on the uh change machine change you know where they did the chain and tell him what's happened so i pushed the front of the queue of the uh change cashier booth the person behind it went fuck off because i

you know no no i'm here to ask dave all right well he went you know over the sort of tannoy dave dave could you come to the uh cashiers booth anyway it was obvious what was going on these i can see these skinheads in there back in there looking for me and he came she'd you want to point them out mate i was thinking i'm not gonna go up and say this is uh anyway cut my story short uh we tried to we sort of made a run for it and uh tried to get in a taxi now i know this sounds ridiculous for uh millennials but getting a taxi was not something we did it was just we just didn't do it in those days we caught the bus it was a bit of a thing to catch a taxi i didn't really know how much it cost even got in the taxi with these french girls who were very sort of crying knew that there was

something afoot and um with that the taxi my mate johnny eames turned up there was three girls and me and he turned up banging on the window saying, let me in. And the cab driver said, no, I'm not taking all of you. So we all had to get out. It's like, oh, my God. Steamed it up the road and eventually got into a hotel where I phoned another taxi and we sort of got away. So it was a kind of horrific reminder.

You know, there was a time, I don't know whether you remember this, but from about the age of, say, 14 to about 22, as a bloke living in the suburbs, or, you know, maybe it's the same the world over, there's always a chance it's going to kick off. And it was a real relief to get to 22, 23, and that sort of died down. But, you know, I'm always aware of that with my son you know

there's always there's always a slight air of there's going to be some absolute nutcase and i think we came dangerously close to a horrible pasting at that time i remember once in brighton seeing like i think there was an edl march on that day and they used to there was a period where they used to go down to bright and just wind everyone up because obviously brightens the sort of you know like lots of sort of like left wing hippies and stuff like that so the edo used to turn up and i got off the train and it was like it was like something out of like a something you'd see on telly these two skinheads you know like the you know bomber jacket and the boots and everything they both had shaved really short hair

obviously skinhead and one of them on his head had the word um skinhead tattooed on his skinhead and the other one had like a tattoo of knuckle dusters on his skinhead and it was like are you have i like walked into a set or something because this seems a bit heavy-handed if you're filming this is england you know you don't actually have to write skinhead on him like i get it but you know you just go oh my god you are fucking terrifying well yeah i mean and i suppose you know this is completely obvious that you wouldn't want to share a desert island with any of these nutcases okay well i don't have to delve too deep into why they'd be difficult to be on an island with so i think it's

another fair choice yeah yeah exactly they wouldn't be sharing any fruit would they no they'd have their own fruit and any foreign fruit either they wouldn't find themselves on a desert island. They'd be Canvey Island is about it. Oh, right. And who's going to be the third person joining those two people then? Okay. Well, look, you know, I didn't want this to be all sort of horrible stuff. But there's a guy, there's an actor called Johnny Flynn.

I wouldn't like to be with. Just because, for perfectly nice reasons, he seems to me to be the personification of all that is great about humankind. He's very attractive. He's Jerome Flynn's brother. And I did a thing with him. I can't remember what it was called. What was it called?

Oh, my God. This is terrible to me. I can't remember. We did a what was it called oh my god this is terrible me i can't remember it's good we did a tv program i was in an episode of it love love something anyway he was in that i didn't watch it and um he is a very very good actor he's very charming he's very intelligent he plays in a band that seemed to be do very well um and i was talking to someone the other day and his name came up and this guy also said this guy he cannot in a band that seemed to be do very well um and i was talking to someone the other day and his name came up and this guy also said this guy he cannot put a foot wrong women love him and i just think to sit there watching this guy who has this wonderful career he's got all the angles

covered i think i would just be feeling my own sense of uh my own failings you know and i think i mean yeah because any anecdote you had you know if you were sort of looking back at your careers i think oh yeah i remember this audition i did once he's like oh funny i've never really had a bad audition it'd be that sort of thing where you're kind of constantly going okay well let's get on with each other yeah let's exchange some stories but you can't you can't ever kind of connect but you can't really bond but you know i mean sort of you know when you're an actor i i never been i've never been very good at playing the game you know i i'm not a particularly uh attractive i'm not a gorgon but i'm not um you know i'm a sort of middle of the road, suburban, lower middle class bloke, you know, from northwest London. I don't have any. I don't even have the added thing of being Danny Dyer or Eddie Marsden.

You know, I'm not I don't even have that sort of cockney thing. I'm just a sort of estuary bloke. And Johnny Flynn is kind of posh and he's beautiful and he's got lovely blonde hair and this kind of you know um i just feel i've just been one of these people who's kind of had to stumble along in the middle ground which naively i always thought was what actors did you're a kind of a pawn for you know you're a vessel for pouring in this character and you can play all these variety of characters but over the years it sort of stupidly it's taken me a long time to realize that you have your brand and your thing that you play and i've never really decided what that is

because i'm a sort of catch-all for everything so i think that would be nice if if i'm not johnny to be someone like johnny with blonde hair and extraordinary talents and a nice way of speaking you know i suppose the sort of people that like you want to really dislike and then you meet him you're like oh actually you know like i remember people at school or at uni and you're like oh who's that guy seems really good looking all the girls like him what a prick and then you actually get chatting to him you're like oh he's really fucking nice as well and he always remembers your name afterwards you're like oh bloody hell even you know he actually is nice fucking hell i know no that's true and he is super nice and i think everyone will tell you he's super nice as

well and very unspoilt by any of that stuff yeah yeah god what a bastard what a bastard yeah no he's great so i would like to be with him just to remind me of my failings pretty much well it sounds like he's also not going to get on very well with the right wing uh sort of uh thug so i mean you know it's just going to provide another sort of opportunity for you to get involved in something because you know he's going to get started on for having long hair and being a bit effeminate and you're going to have to intervene that's going to cause trouble you don't need that alex on the island i know what will happen there'll be some gorgeous mermaid would swim up and take him away with her you know or some casting director worse would swim up put him in something and not me okay fair enough well that's your three dicks okay now

alex mercifully amongst the wreckage of the plane there was some food and drink left over unfortunately for you it's your least favorite food and drink in the world what are they and why are they so bad okay my wife has recently gone vegetarian you You know, I respect her for it. I'm delighted. But, you know, if we get an Indian takeaway, she will say, oh, lovely, some tarka dal or some chana masala, which is like chickpeas and really bland stuff.

But the thing that is absolutely for texture, everything, which, which is just so inedible is okra. Do you know okra? Yeah. Yeah. Okra.

Yeah. It is rank. It most awful texture. It doesn't taste particularly nice. It doesn't do anything. It's slippery. it's like a sort of aliens bummer it's disgusting slippery muck so okra okra especially when you see that and you think well the alternative is i could have had a nice lamb tikka masala but no we've got okra and some chana chat or some uh you know i mean one of

her favorites things uh a while ago was to go to a belpore house do you know what those are belpore yeah they're sort of little starters little kind of crispy snacks aren't they oh mate oh mate that ain't a starter that's a main course in her world there's no meat with it it's like it's like sugar puffs isn't it and it's like ice krispies uh a sort of bit of kind of yogurty stuff and you mix it all together that is not a meal is it that's a sort of horrible mess and i think that um along and apologies to you know any of our south indian friends who think i'm being racist i just i just don't like it does that make me wrong well i know i mean i think if it's you know if it's just your taste it's your taste isn't it i think yeah okra i think there's a lot of people don't like it and it's a weird one because it's not like it doesn't seem very

versatile like you only see it in that one dish like you have it in in a sort of a curry dish yeah but it's not like you can eat it any other way it's just you know it's not like you know a carrot or something that you can you know you could have it in a curry or a potato you can have it curried you could have it sort of dry spiced you know like a bombay potato or something you can have it like there's a million different ways but it seems like okra has a very narrow operating window. I wonder whether, I mean, surely, I'm sure you can sort of deep fry it, couldn't you?

I think maybe I've seen it deep fried, yeah. The nice bit about that would be the batter, not the actual okra, wouldn't it? Yeah, I think it's something that, you know, there will always be a better option. Yeah, I mean, that it doesn't mean you know uh so okra is the thing really and and often i've seen it and tried it again and thought nope you're quite right that really is disgusting yeah i can't think of it sort of having you know i can imagine the texture but i don't know what it tastes like you know it doesn't it just sort of tastes of its surroundings it doesn't have its own thing it's almost like it

kind of it's just to bulk things up you know so you don't just have sauce you've got something in there but i can't think of it as having its own real taste you think of like a cat that's got diarrhea and you were forced to ladle a bit onto your plate i don't know i can't remember what it tastes like but it's mostly it's the it's the texture of the thing yeah yeah slimy isn't it yeah okay and what would you try and wash it down with what would your drink choice okay the choice of drink my least favorite drink okay this is controversial but it's coffee okay yeah who on earth has managed to convince the british people over the last 15 20 years that we like coffee whoever has done that has just you know had just the most incredible marketing skills because you're a podcast

listener and this is a podcast ad reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from lips and ads choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a reproduced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with lips and ads go to lips and ads.com now that's l-i-b-s-y-n ads.com you must have seen it particularly in london there's a lot of sort of coffee snobs going into near or what have you and sometimes they'll have a glass of water with their coffee presumably to wash down the taste of the fucking horrible coffee that they've just bought what is it is it doesn't quench thirst it's claggy it makes your breath smell of a library assistant in a school it's it's it's sort

of unrewarding there's people who endlessly opine over the different types of coffee as if you know there are very different um you know the costa don't do it as well as nero don't do it as well as Nero. Don't do it. Oh, Starbucks, I'll never touch it. It's all horrible. It's all bitter, you know, acrid at the back of your throat. Now, give me a cup of tea any time with my British palate. It's refreshing. It's subtle. It's sort of, it's a comforting savory taste it doesn't it doesn't either you know hype you up so much that you want to go and i don't know run a mile it it doesn't it doesn't come with

so much milk that it you know you can't speak properly because it's all in your throat it's it's rank coffee in this mug here i have coffee and the reason is because the only two times i've been really into coffee has been when my kids have been very young and my youngest is currently 10 months old and likes to wake up most mornings yeah i'd say nine out of ten mornings at 4 30 so and during these times i it's the only time i'm really i crave coffee just because i know that i don't have time to drink the number of teas i need to get me awake enough to function so this is my second coffee of the day yeah but i've got this really bad taste in my mouth yes and i feel tired but as i'm speaking to you like my heart is racing like you know i am very awake but i still feel

lethargic and it's like i wish i just had a comforting cup of tea there instead but this is what i needed and and i know that as soon as he starts sleeping better i'm going to stop drinking coffee again for a while you know because it doesn't like i'll have the occasional one but i'm not for me it's very functional and even then i don't you know it kind of annoys me but that there are other things you can do that are not even in drink form if you want to perk up yeah but i don't want to get in the realms of having like a red bull in the morning i mean that's just barbaric you know like you know sometimes you're on the tube in the morning there's a guy next to you with a red bull it's like oh my god no i mean it's but in terms of a drink to be enjoyed, oh God.

But the snobbery, the absolute bullshit about it. Yeah. I mean. The worst thing is I find sometimes you go into a coffee shop and they've got all the signifiers that it should be really good coffee and there's a bicycle on the wall. There's a typewriter on the windowsill, you know, like, okay, I get it. You've got a beard.

It's going to be good. You're using words like single origin and and like there's a poster of guatemala yeah norah jones is playing yeah and then you pay three quid for something and it's still not very good and you're like yeah you fucking bastards yeah but it's always intriguing you know i've never someone who's never drunk that much coffee, you will see adverts where instant coffee is being delighted in. Someone saying, you know, what was that one where she had to pretend it was being percolated? Oh, yeah.

Nescafe Gold or one of these, Billy Egberts or one of these things. And they're sort of, lovely coffee. You know, I don't believe it can be, if you can, through instant coffee, replicate something that people need little Nespresso shots with. And,

you know, Brad Pitt is advertising and the other fella, you know, if you can replicate that, I think it's all a load of Emperor's new clothes. Yeah. Yeah. I think I mean, occasionally I have a really nice coffee, but very nice when I have there's about a very substandard bit of messes of a coffee. So what makes it good? What makes it good? I mean, you say I don't know. I mean, sometimes what it makes your breath smell less? Sometimes it's not really bitter and strong.

Sometimes it just tastes like, okay, this is all right. It's sort of smooth and nice. And sometimes it's really like, yeah, acrid and strong. And it makes you really on edge while still being tiring. I don't know what the difference is. Or, you know, it's like, I guess it's some, I don't know if it's the bean or the process. I just think it's too hit and miss to rely on.

And it annoys me. It was a cup of tea is generally all right. It's generally all right. But you know, the worst thing is you're queuing up behind someone ordering coffees. And there's that barista machine that's supposed to be so technical. I'm on the barista machine and I'm twisting this and I'm tapping that out and I'm wiping this nozzle down with this. Like it's not the fucking spaceship.

You know what I mean? It's not the sort of reverence for this stuff. It's just being spoon-fed us. And quite honestly, you might as well spoon-feed coffee into your gob. You know, it's only about getting a high but we've been somehow brilliant whoever has done this has convinced the british punter that no coffee is it's it's not a it's a sort of socio-economic sign isn't it it's a sort of sign of your standing yeah fair enough good choice okay now fortunately you won't be without entertainment on the island

the planes entertainment system continues to work but just your luck it only has two working settings one is your least favorite film of all time and the other is your least favorite song what are they and why okay well this is a seasonal thing for everyone out there uh i'm not averse to a christmas song one of my favorite songs that i would listen to during the year is is elton john step into christmas there's something about it i think it's joyous and lovely but the song i cannot bear is i wish it could be christmas every day by wizard what's his name wizard roy wood is it roy roy wood from wizard yeah the band's wizard isn't it and i just i mean as i said i'm not a big fan of christmas i don't mind it for a day or two

with my kids i like boxing days you go to football but this endless disengage your brain christmas bollocks uh and that is the absolute uh uh you know epitome of that I wish it could be Christmas every day and it's a really bland British song doesn't have anything nice there's nothing harmonious about it it's just

I mean even how does it start? I can't think they all merge into one sometimes don't they oh i'm thinking i just i can only think of the chorus yeah it's got that sound in it doesn't it but uh no i mean i just don't i mean just christmas it goes on and on i mean i know i sound like a middle-aged twat and i as I say I'm not proud of it I wish I could enjoy it

but it's just it's absolutely moronic and I don't think anyone really enjoys it after a while it goes on and on and on and if you're a self-employed person who kind of loves their work uh I can't wait to get back I can't wait to get on with things again, you know? And it's a sort of British thing, oh, well, you know, it's all got to come to a close for Christmas because really we don't really like our work, anything to just get away from work. If you're American or something,

you would be thinking, great, I can't wait to get amongst it again. But the thing is about being self-employed is of course, while you're not working, you're losing money and then you're spending it the same time and it's the worst possible time of year because at the end of january you've got tax to pay so it's like the the worst time to have christmas for me one of the most depressing things i heard at christmas once was um a few years ago Roy Wood from Wizard was on the radio and it was sort of you know when Spotify and YouTube and stuff became a big thing

yeah and he was going yeah so you know I used to make a lot of royalties you know obviously having a Christmas a Christmas hit that's always you know money in the bag every year but um you know now I make less money from airplay and stuff because you know everyone's streaming it and stuff and um so you know I've written a song about uh new year's eve because i realized there aren't any songs about new year's eve and i was like oh no roy it's never gonna work come on like please roy just just get a different job or something and i was like roy i want to write in and be like sorry can i just say to roy would of Wizard there, we don't need, I mean, we'll still just use, you know, Prince's 1999, that works as a New Year's Eve.

We don't need, Roy, just stop it. Just stop. It's okay. Just break his little heart. I mean, I know I've sounded really down about Britain and I said Little Englanders and all that, but there is something so unsubtle and awful, even his name, Roy Wood. Roy Wood with his song about Christmas.

Da-dun, da-dun, da-dun. It's a big bearded monster of a man. There's nothing nice about it. There's nothing subtle about it. It's all tinsel and big, busty, getting pissed on is party seven there's nothing there's nothing subtle about it a big sledgehammer of a christmas and i don't know it's hot it's like getting over hot as a kid and being told to calm down by your mum that song you know stop showing off in front of relatives that's what it makes me think of. I think I love certain songs that people pick are, you know, annoying.

But certain songs suit the scene of going mad on an island so well. And there's something about Christmas music that so suits the sort of like desperate descent into madness on an island like as you're all going crazy being chased around by the skinhead oh to i wish it could be christmas every day it's just it's perfect it's such a good choice um okay what would your film choice be okay i mean once again i'm not trying to be clever i I don't want, you know, but genuinely it is any sci-fi. Any sci-fi does not interest me. And if I'm really going to be honest, Star Wars. I can honestly say I did not see Star Wars. I saw it when it came out.

It came out in 1977. That sounds about right. I remember seeing it at Pinner cinema, the Langham cinema in Pinner where I grew up and then I can honestly say I did not watch any Star Wars movies until I think it was 2014 which is the one that came

out was there one in 2014 that came out, I can't remember, with my kids I've lost count now I mean because there was the recent three weren't there but that would have only been the last four five years i suppose but um it was the one yeah i don't know but anyway i and and i fell asleep during it i'm not as i said i'm not trying to be clever i know people love it they they genuinely love it but any anything where you can suddenly reverse the

polarity or luckily there's no real there's no real jeopardy because at any moment you can change physics doesn't interest me well how can anyone really feel any sense of tension if at any moment you can change the physics of the world around you it just doesn't make sense i'm not invested in any of it because the writer can go ah but i tell you how we get out of this he's got the um sonic screwdriver and he'll just reverse that and it will send time into a warp space continuum bollocks and that's how they get out of that it just yeah it just doesn't you know doesn't entrap you it's a good point is it the phrase ex machina is that the thing where they just sort of go oh how we can never get out of this we'll just introduce

something that you know you just suddenly change the rules a bit yeah yeah it's a good point i think um and also because it's a good point i think um and also because it's not like you have a comeback because occasionally you might hear people going oh well actually they couldn't have done that because if you look her to two films prior you'll they specifically said but because like it's all just based on made-up bollocks you can just sort of suddenly go well actually no because this works in this context so yeah it's fine you know and my wife as a school teacher is forever telling me oh no these are these are old fables these are kind of ancient fables that have been updated for you know uh and these stories it's only a it's

only a morality tale that you would read in the bible and these are timeless timeless stories i was going so what doesn't make it good, does it? And plus, it can change at any given moment. But, I mean, you know, it just doesn't really do it for me. And I'm sorry about that. And it's the sort of thing that surrounds it, this endless talk about, you know, and people who are much admired

if they can do an impression of, what's that big Yeti thing in it called? Chewbacca. It's the hilarity that you can tell that we like Chewbacca. No, fair enough. And I think they're weird films because some of them are kind of like,

some of them are sort of like kids' films and other ones are a bit more serious. And it's weird to have a series where there's like, you know, ones are 15 but ones are universal. And it's like, what? There's no sort of consistency. Oh, well, this one we're going to make a gritty one. I thought it was for all the family.

Like one's got Ewoks and cute things in it and the other one's like a bit gritty. And it's, which is kind of, you've got to sort of try and have a bit of consistency you know well i mean there's a lot of that kind of you know i think that about harry potter there's a lot of adults very keen on harry potter very keen to tell us how much they like harry potter and their experts well why do you have a bit of dignity? It's for children. It is for children.

Star Wars is for kids. It's a kids movie, isn't it? Have I missed something? It's a very, very simple tale that's for kids. Why don't you watch something a bit more fitting of your age and intellect? There's so much of this shite out there that's really know uh that's really really i mean i think that about adverts you see now i don't know whether it's a millennial thing or a generation y thing that really really dumb childish adverts really sort of i can't think of try i think you know invariably i mentioned sort of toilet duck or there's some creature being introduced.

Hello, I'm your... Yeah. I'm Mr Polish. Or really babyish stuff that I can't actually bear to watch now, as I say. And it's sort of really dumb. But somehow people love that. They love that sort of switch off dumbness and i think

harry potter and star wars somehow we've been told as adults we're supposed to love that it's a children's film yeah i mean i think you make a good point it's um it's always disappointing when you see anything like that and it's whether it's a new advert or a new new film or something and you watch it on your own you go god that was bullshit that's gonna get panned and then you sort of meet up you know you go to work or something it was like oh do you see and the catchphrase yeah the catchphrase and then you're like no like what are you doing this isn't it's not meant to be like that yeah fair enough okay well i think um because because it's Christmas,

we're going to give you the box set. So you can have the full box set of all nine Star Wars films. The trilogy of trilogies. I've only seen, I have only seen Star Wars once in 1977. And then this other one, which name escapes me, in 2014. Okay, well, you have plenty of time to get up to speed then, Alex. Okay. All right. 2014 so okay well you have plenty of time to get up to speed then it's okay all right now finally the island is overrun by the biggest dick of all the animals which animal is it and why

i want to say spider but that's an insect so what i'll say is well you can have it's it's you know insects are under the animal category so you can't you can have a spider okay well spiders okay well it's the creepier end of things i was gonna say snakes ah what a horrible thing a snake is i mean what a horrible thing that is it's terrifying it's slippery and all that sort of stuff and occasionally you'll get some sort of um you'll get someone, quite often around here in the suburbs with a ring through their nose will tell you with great pride about their snake or some horrible thing they've kept in a tank in their house. Snakes, terrifying. And, you know, what we do is every year, well, when we were allowed to go,

we go to Portugal on the western algarve my mate has got a place there all the kids his kids and my kids growing up had a great time really love it and it's i mean maybe i've got no imagination but we go there year after year after year and we always go to well i don't was probably stopped going now the kids are older it's called Slide and Splash which does sound a bit like someone having a shit I know but it's a water theme park

which I love when you go around there you can have your photo taken with an owl that sits on your shoulder you know they do that on your shoulder and you can do that they come up on your shoulder and you can go and collect the photos when you get or and or a sort of horrible fucking yellow snake thing real 100 real that looks absolutely terrifying it looks like that yellow is a warning

really horrible yellow thing. And I've been there before and I've tried to do it, hold it up to have a photo taken. And the last time I was there, this thing clearly can tell I'm terrified of it. My palms sweating in my trunks there, stood there. And it and it last time it turned and began to look at me like this bloke. He's right. And make its way towards my face where I had to throw it off to the photographer and his assistant there. Absolutely horrible. And and of course, it's, you know, the original sin, isn't it? Adam and Eve with the snake in the Garden garden of eden not slide and splash in the garden

and you know i just think it is human beings who like snakes we are surely surely conditioned as part of our you know our dna to to not like snakes it makes me think yes okay i'm a proper human being i don't trust people who like snakes and spiders see i never had a problem with snakes and when i was little i used to be you know when like you're you're a kid and you're like you're really fascinated about one animal or one thing i used to when i was little i used to be really into snakes and have loads of books on them these days i'm sort of less less fuss but um i don't you know i don't i don't like snakes and football yeah exactly i know but i mean but the point is even though i don't have a problem with them if like even if i had a pet one i think if

it was loose and it just suddenly came up behind my shoulder i'd still get a fright whereas with with my cat that will never happen unless you know he really takes me by surprise and jumps on me. So there's something quite weird about an animal that you have nothing against but could still scare the shit out of you. I've seen them in the wild and I have jumped and kind of ran away because it's a primal thing, isn't it?

Even if you're fascinated by them, they're terrifying. They're just very strange animals. Anything that looks sort of alien like that it's it's it's too horrible it's too old snakes and spiders but i think you know i mean if i'm really pushed spiders uh really i'm really pretty terrified of them and i always think the the worst of the spider kingdom is the daddy long legs a fucking spider that flies at you yeah what is that that that is horrific yeah and it's clearly so stupid as well it's kind of like it's not even like they're not even purposeful they're just kind of

flapping around do anything it's like they can't even you know when you just see them sort of flying sideways along the wall oh what are you terrible what are you trying to achieve what are you doing you know yeah yeah yeah definitely well alex i think you've you've made you know a great island full of awful things of your own making and uh you know i think um it's going to be a really unpleasant place to spend time so you know you've done really well done really well in terms of nailing the brief. So thank you. Thank you. And I'm relieved that you don't have to stay on there.

Thank God. But, Alex, you're saying you've been on tour. Where's the best place to keep up to date with what you're up to? Oh, very good. Clintonbaptiste.com. And I'm going out on tour next year, all being well with COVID. September to December. Do you know lewis mcleod he's the most he must be the best impressionist in the world he does dead ringers he does endless amounts of voiceovers and he plays a character called ramon

in my podcast clinton baptiste paranormal podcast And so we're out on tour from September to December. And between now and then, God knows, but I'm quite happy throughout the winter to just hunker down here, do some writing and, you know, see through the terrible Omicron. Lovely.

All right, Alex. Well, thank you very much again for coming on and I hope you have a lovely Christmas. Thank you. I'll try and get through it. So there you go. That's Alex Lowe on Desert Island Dicks. And that brings us neatly to the end of 2021, although we do have a couple more episodes to put out this year.

Over Christmas we're going to bring you the recordings from our previous live shows with Firm Brady and Stephen K Amos and I think that once you have listened to those, you'll really be in the mood to attend a live show yourself. But don't wait for me to be proved right, just buy a ticket now, before Christmas, then it's done. Something to look forward to, and God knows we all need something

to look forward to at the minute. And we can see you in February. Before I go, I'd just like to say that Desert Island Dicks is a Sync Clap production, created and produced by James Deacon, also produced and presented by me, Dan Benedictus, edited by Chris Attataway we get social

media support from jason leach and chintzy clinton not his real name and as always a special thanks to grandmamster flash and john deacon for all their hard work behind the scenes as i say we'll be back over the christmas period with the recordings from our two live shows but depending on when you're listening to this it might be be the one you listened to last before Christmas, so I hope you have a lovely Christmas if that's the case, and we'll be back very shortly with more dicks for your delectation. Thank you for listening.

Bye.