Desert Island Dicks - ARCHIE HENDERSON (AKA JAZZ EMU)

Episode Date: July 17, 2023

Musical comedy genius the Jazz Emu joins Dan to share who and what he'd hate to be stuck with on a desert island. Be sure to follow us @dickspodLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, my name is Dan and this is Desert Island Dicks and today my guest is Archie Henderson, also known as Jazz Emu. He's a comedian, writer and musician and you should go and check out his videos on YouTube because they're really funny, which is confirmed by the fact that they've got lots of views and he has lots of subscribers. That's how the internet works folks, you're welcome. If you'd like to see him in real life, IRL, he's doing shows in Edinburgh for the festival so you can check him out if you're up there this August and he's also doing shows elsewhere as well which he mentions in this episode. At the end, I haven't got much to tell you about today, I've just been to my

six-year-old's day is schooled today and i'm frankly overwhelmed by all the great sporting action on display so let's keep this short and sweet and just get on with the mother flipping podcast shall we it's desert island dicks with jazz emu 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, writer and musician Archie Henderson, also known as Jazz Emu.

How are you doing? Hello. I'm doing well, thanks. Thanks for having me. You're very welcome. Thank you for coming on today. Originally, we reached out to you because my friend James, who started this podcast podcast literally couldn't get one of your songs out of his head and here we are I'm sorry to hear that they're relentless sometimes no they're really good

I urge anyone who hasn't seen them to check them out because they're like real earworms but very funny as well thank you for coming on as we were chatting a little bit just before we got started it's a very hot. You're roasting away in your studio there. I'm cooking. I'm slow cooking right now. Yeah. I'd make a good pulled pork in about an hour, an hour and a half. Yeah. Just be peeling bits of you off. In general, do you find it easy to have a little rant or are you

kind of a bit more mild mannered sort of person? i'm not a very ranty person although i would say that you know occasionally things do push me over the edge it's usually if i've had a couple of beers then i'll then i'll be kind of uh yeah pushed over the into the abyss and then you know my eyes go fully black like a shark and i'm just ready to go but otherwise uh no no i'm, I'm pretty easy going. Not an end to nothing that makes me go too crazy. Okay. Well, it'd be interesting to find out your list, but was it easy compiling your list of people? I think the list of people was relatively easy.

Yeah, I did struggle a little bit with the song because I like music and I like, you know, I generally like most genres of music and I think I'm more forgiving than I used to be of pretty much any genre of music I'm better at seeing the value in it so but I did find one eventually. Okay cool well I'm intrigued to see who we're going to have on on the island with you so let's just get get straight into it who's going to be the first person joining you on the island? The first person joining me is Timothy Dalton. Okay.

Absolute piece of work. And I'll tell you why. Okay. This is as intense as it's going to get. Timothy Dalton is the fourth James Bond, for people that don't know. So there was Sean Connery, George Lesenby. Sean Connery did like six films, I think. George Lesenby did one film and was so bad that they had to bring Sean Connery back again.

Then followed by Roger Moore after Sean did one more film. And then Timothy Dalton. And he just came and he tanked the whole franchise. He did two films. And most people will say, oh, George Lesenby is the whole franchise. He did two films and most people will say, oh, George Lesenby is the worst one. George Lesenby is the worst Bond. He only did one film. The films grossed half what they usually gross with George Lesenby.

I take a stand against that. I like George Lesenby. I like his little frilly shirts. I like his wooden performance. I like his total lack of charisma. Timothy Dalton is the worst possible middle ground. It was before they'd found Pierce Brosnan, they hadn't found this kind of smooth, charming, handsome one. And they just completely botched it. They got this kind of middle of the road, just nothing. He did two films.

He got scared off from doing more because they tried to lock him into doing more. And he said, no, I'm not sure if I feel like doing it. And they didn't make any Bond films for six years, which is the longest break that it had in the whole history of it. So I would credit him with almost tanking the whole franchise. Yeah, I sort of hadn't realised he'd just done two, actually. I mean, for me, I always thought that he was... Because I would put him above Pierce Brosnan, I think,

because I sort of felt like with Pierce Brosnan, they were kind of just going, you look like James Bond, let's not worry about all the rest of it. Whereas I thought at least Dalton kind of had a bit of like, brought in a bit of a ruggedness to it. Interesting, i think that was his the brand he was trying to go for you know he's trying to do like a a pre daniel craig yeah maybe bond should be a bit darker like he is in the books and he just doesn't he just doesn't pull it off yeah you know you just he just goes around asking where where the villains are you know he He's like, where's Colchez? Where's this person?

He doesn't have any ideas for himself. Yeah. I mean, there is one bit in one of the films where he manages to do a wheelie in a truck, which I think is impossible. It's like, I mean, not the James Bond films are known for their realism, obviously, you know. But I think doing a wheelie in a truck.

All right, credit to him there yeah he can break the laws of physics that is the one allowance that i will make for him yeah i think there was a sort of a weird muddy period with the bond film because i think also when you got into pierce brosnan you started having invisible cars and they just sort of stretched it so far beyond the realms of of what's possible and i felt like yeah maybe you can argue that dalton was the start of that slide. I don't know, from the sort of classic Bond into that kind of thing.

I think it was exactly, it was the beginning of the end. And to be honest, I think they, I mean, I was growing up with Pierce Brosnan at the prime age for when invisible cars actually perfectly appealed to my mental sensibility of things that i thought were amazingly cool and not cheap gimmicks um so you know i'll forgive the pierce brosnan films for everything i'll forgive them for the the terrible video game spinoffs that they made with the world's

most wooden dialogue yeah i was re-watching some cut scenes from night fire i just went on a nostalgia trip and i because i used to play that night the night fire video game the pc game and the dialogue in the cut scenes is completely mental it's so weird they've like got these script writers in who are trying to do this like sexy dialogue with between uh between james bond and this this like cia agent agent nightshade i think she's called and there's this bit she's wearing like a sexy dress and he's like uh is that is that dress standard company issue nightshade and she's like don't get any ideas it's armored in all the right places and it's like everything is delivered with this like it's like it's an innuendo but not an innuendo at all yeah if i was wearing an armored dress i'd want all of it to be armored that like

my whole body would be all the right places for an armored piece of clothing you would hope it would yeah the right place is you know your heart and yeah your internal organs generally not um whatever she was suggesting i don't know, you're going to be working with James Bond, so we'll put extra enforcements around the breasts and the groin area because we know what he's like. So you will be safe from his advances. I guess that's what they meant probably, which is also quite weird. Yeah, the Bond franchise is strange in a way

because I sort of feel like it's so highly revered amongst so many people. I don't know if there's that many films that are that good. You know, it's almost like a tradition, like with Christmas, you know, you'll eat things you wouldn't eat the rest of the year round, but you're like, oh, you've got to have these on Christmas. And it feels a bit like that with James Bond.

Like, some of them are quite good films, but a lot of them are sort of six out of tens. I don't know. You've got to respect just the relentless churn. I think that is it. It's like they just, you know, it's quantity over quality. They're one of the few franchises that has just pulled that off. And I don't know, I think they're really fun,

but if you analyse them as films, they are objectively bad, mostly. There's maybe like four or five that pop their head above the good threshold there. Yeah. Timothy Dalton, though, he's done, so, I mean, he obviously did those two James Bond films, Flash Gordon, that's about all I can think of with him, really.

And Hot Fights, where he has a cameo. Of course, yes, he does that. So he sort of pops up in little bits and pieces here and there. I wonder, like, on the island, would he just be sort of overbearingly kind of just telling you loads of stories about how he was an underrated James Bond and all these sort of things?

Do you know what I mean? I wonder if it cuts deep with him. I think he'd just be a bummer, yeah. He'd be like, I feel like he's above James Bond and all these sort of things. Do you know what I mean? I wonder if it cuts deep with him. I think he'd just be a bummer, yeah. He'd be like, I feel like he's above James Bond, you know, be saying like, oh, I got out at the good time, you know. It was failing and it would have failed even more. I think he'd be kind of smug about it. Daniel Craig goes so much to my performance.

They didn't do proper punches before I came in. It was all just judo chops, you know, that kind of thing. Okay, well, he's going to be first with you on the island, and let's see who's going to be joining him. Who's your next guest on the island? My second selection is maybe a more obviously odious person, which is Richard Dawkins. Okay, yeah.

I think there's a phrase that goes around, isn't there? It's like someone's got a punchable face. I think he's got just much worse than that he's got like a he's got like a a squeezable fight you want to like pluck his nose you want to like pull his nose like a like a squeezy doll yeah something about it he just looks villainous to me he has the sort of air of someone who would write his neighbours a lot of angry letters. Oh, yeah, for sure. Their begonias are encroaching on his driveway. Yeah.

As per my previous correspondence, I must remind you, bin day is actually Tuesdays, that kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah, he's a weird character, isn't he? He's sort of one of those people who... Creeps me out. Yeah, he's kind of one of those people you kind of think, I know that this is important to you, but the subject of atheism is kind of swallowing up

your whole life until you're basically you know like an evangelical atheist you're basically in the same camp as as someone who's like a rabid religious fanatic you know for sure yeah he's kind of had this crazy rise and fall hasn't he in terms of the way he's perceived by the cultural zeitgeist I think he was at his height maybe when I was at the perfectly um malleable teenage boy kind of era where I started to take every book that he read as gospel and it made me really vitriolic against religion and you know all these all these lines that he was pushing in his books and uh i think it really appeals to that kind of teenage boy sensibility where you just want everything to be uh hard and fast rules uh and he's somehow got stuck that into his into his older age as well uh and i yeah i think you're right it's like fanaticism. It's kind of terrifying.

I was a teacher for a bit, and I went to see him do – it was like a conference for students. Lots of different schools came, and he was doing a talk at this conference thing somewhere in London for these sixth form students. And he was so unbelievably cruel to a bunch of teenagers, which made me so, you know. What did he do? People asking just very, like, valid religious questions. But, you know, one of the students was Muslim and she was asking, you know, kind of a specific question about how his views related to her faith. And he was, you know, kind of turned it around and was like,

you idiot, how could you possibly think that, you know, he was doing this kind of teenage boy rhetoric? And I just, that was the moment where I was like, oh, you're just a genuinely cruel, bad person. Yeah. Yeah. It's so easy to sort of say how much crazy stuff has been done in the name of religion and obviously still continues to be done today. And, you know, you look at stuff like in America, what's going on and so much is driven by extreme religious views and that sort of thing.

But then also, you know, like, you know, I'm an atheist. I also know religious people. I went to a funeral recently and I was thinking, do you know what? If I was religious, this would definitely give me a lot of comfort right now. Like, you know, I could definitely see why this is making this tragic loss. And it was a very tragic loss for the people involved. You know, look, they have that to cling on to. And that's a really amazing thing.

So I'm not going to walk around and be like, oh, do you really believe some man in a beard and a long white robe is looking after the deceased? Come on, wake up. It's like, just fuck it. Like, they're getting something. It's tempting to suck the joy out. You know, it makes so little difference to me. That's why I find it so mad because he's so he goes so hard down this this uh rational logic line but as soon as you contemplate

it like the way you just described there which is like this is providing a very rational comfort uh you know even if it's whether regardless of whether it's whether it's objectively true or not it actually you know is um providing emotional comfort for these people and that in itself is a real thing um and i don't know i just feel like you have to be so cold not to be able to see that yeah it's kind of terrifying yeah yeah and he's definitely on the island going to be this he's never going to shut up is he he's always like everything is going to turn into a long-winded argument until you know when you go i'm not debating this we need more palm fronds on the roof of our shelter to protect us it's like well i think historically

if you go back to the formation of the shelter yeah actually a problematic the palm fronds i think uh also he i saw a picture of him um playing a electronic sax which i didn't even realize he did. Wow. And it's an instrument that I play in my act, and I was like, he'll take anything from me. He'll ruin anything he gets his hands on. Just imagine Richard Dawkins demanding to play you musical instruments,

playing you the iwi over dinner on the island. That's just hell to me just imagine him doing like an hour of sort of dismantling religious topics uh and beliefs and practices but then uh but at the end there will be some light entertainment when i regale you with the work of kenny g maybe he's just kind of yeah alternating just crushing logical insights and beautiful, haunting sax solos. Oh, man. So you think, does he do concerts or anything? Does he do recitals or shows or anything?

I don't know. This picture I saw of him was at, what was it at? Dawkins playing the iwi in rehearsal for the new director's showcase. I don't even know what that is. He obviously, he's wearing a Hawaiian shirt. He's obviously like, oh, I'm doing my fun side fun side today you know he's getting his wacky shirt on he's gonna play a sax solo wow they need to give it a better name than an iwi as well that's that's not the best name for that instrument yeah it's a it's a beautiful thing okay well i think so far

you've got the makings of quite an irritating place to spend the rest of your life um a lot could hinge on who the final piece of the puzzle is who's the third person joining you my third selection is david attimer oh now i mean just the most overrated national treasure that has ever been treasured by this nation okay wow wow okay so i think he has been chosen in the past but the person choosing him was like look i know this is controversial it's more about having to deal with an old man having to look after a very old like treasured figure but you you genuinely don't like him so this is interesting i think he's disgusting i think he's a disgusting piece of work and i don't want him anywhere near me i would actually feel

sorry for richard dawkins to have to spend time with him wow okay right what's your rationale for this because i'm i've got i've got to lay my cards on the table like most people i'm very fond of richard of dav David Attenborough. No, I've had enough. I've had enough. I think he wangs on for too long. I think he loves the sound of his own voice, and he's pushing his liberal environmental agenda onto the nation over and over again, and I've had enough enough of it and i just know that he would just be

wanging on showing me all these plants are saying we've got to protect them oh the sea level's rising oh we're gonna get drowned on the island no thanks so but so you don't you don't believe in his environmental stance then no i do i just don't like him saying it specifically yeah okay so it's more a sort of it's more like a give us the sort of programs about animals we used to have without the sort of conscious stuff in it yeah i don't mind the conscious stuff i just can't stand the sound of his voice his crusty old white man voice just telling me all this stuff i don't i mean i'm quite it's difficult for me to i mean previously like i say when i've had to go in on david attenborough i've

been able to kind of go from the the the you know the point of view of like obviously it would be difficult having like an elderly man to look after on the island he couldn't do much but well yeah that too he's too old he's too old yeah because he's about what 96 or something now yeah he's 97 yeah he's just you know he's gonna need way too much support yeah yeah but wouldn't it be interesting for him to explain all the stuff on the island with you and like look under a rock oh what's that no no no no i'm not i'm not interested i feel like i've seen enough right wow do you do you get in arguments about this a lot i mean this must be a bone of contention for a lot of people yeah i bring up i make my housemates watch the documentaries with

me so that i can shout over them about how much I dislike David Attenborough. I scream along with it. Yeah. Anytime his face pops up. There's nothing worse than hating someone who everybody else universally, like, like I used to, for some reason when I was young,

I don't have it at all anymore. I mean, when I was like a teenager, I used to hate Tom Hanks and no one could understand why. And I was like, but it's fucking Tom Hanks. And now, you know, like most people.

What was it about Tom Hanks? I've no idea. I just found him incredibly annoying. Like, I don't know what it was. And every time there's a film I was looking forward to, I'd be like, oh, but it's got Tom Hanks in it. You know, but no one could ever understand what it was. You can see it in their eyes, I think.

They know that they're national treasures. I think that's the problem. There's like a smugness there. i've i've shaken hands with the queen i've been tapped on the shoulder yeah so smug because i think most people like david attenborough more than the queen like the queen is quite a partisan thing you know a lot of people like at best indifferent or some people are really upset some people actively hate the monarchy david Attenborough, I think, apart from you, I think there are more people like David Attenborough than like the Royal Family, I think is a fair thing.

So, oh, wow. So, I mean, for you to be stuck with him and you're the one person, because, I mean, Timothy Dalton and Richard Dawkins are probably going to get on famously with him as well. I mean, obviously, Richard Dawkins, you know, they've got all the evolution to talk about. Yeah, that I'm, I mean, presumably they'll admire him.

You know, a bad egg knows a bad egg. They'll all be getting on really well. I'll be building my own camp on the side. Interesting. Apparently he's quite, I've heard that he's quite a, in real life is sort of a bit cheeky to the point of being slightly inappropriate at times david attenborough so maybe you'd really see that size great this is all grist to my mill

yeah cancel him cancel him there's gonna be something that comes out i guarantee it i've it's been my life life's work to expose anything i've been i've been analyzing those documentaries like a conspiracy theorist you you know. I'm pulling the clues together. He's going down. Okay, well, it's not my island, it's your island, and he goes with you to the island. Fair enough. Okay, Archie, we're going to move on from people now, because mercifully, amongst the wreckage of the plane, there was some food and drink left over. Unfortunately for you, it's your least favourite food and drink in the world. What are they and why are they so bad?

My least favourite food, firstly, is a summer pudding, which is a dish that I've only eaten once in my entire life and it was so bad that it made me wretch and run out of the room and I've sworn to never ever touch it again yeah i'd forgotten all about these but am i right in thinking it contains bread it's a bread based pudding yeah and you know bread obviously is amazing everyone agrees that bread is amazing bread when it's tainted by liquid is the least appetizing food in the world. And this pudding is like a loaf of bread, smushed up, soaked in berry juice overnight

to the point where it has no consistency at all. It's just like slug trail, very, very sickly with all these like smush mushy berries in and it just there's something about textureless food that just it freaked me out makes me sprint out the room it feels like one of those things where you know in the old days we needed to use up what we had i mean we still need to use what we have but it was we didn't maybe have the range of things we have now so it's like oh what are we going to encase this pudding in yeah some bread that's that's right but then it's full of you know lovely summer berries and things so it just feels like just having a bowl of that with some cream on or some ice cream would be perfect

or like setting it into like some kind of jelly or something if you need to really need to keep it together and carve it into slices i don't know or like or even i was gonna say even like a sponge or something but then you'd still get that soaking in thing i don't really know what the point of it is it's such a weird thing it's the most depressing figurehead for our country of like this is our traditional pudding a victorian pudding now you say it's like using up using up stuff stuff from the cupboard it's kind of uh really monastic pudding that no one needs to eat anymore you You know, we get like, you can get nice fresh berries with a crunch from the supermarket. Why are we mushing them into soft squidgy bread?

Yeah. Yeah, I just don't feel that, you know, I think use up what you have in the cupboard, but don't use it if it's going to be to the detriment of all the other ingredients, you know, like don't encase them in a prison of bread because i've got a lovely bowl of strawberries and raspberries here so why am i why is it why is it like being soaked up with like with mighty white because i think it's white bread as well you've got to use

like quite shit white bread for it i think yeah because a whole meal would be there's also no ways to use that yeah that would be even worse with the with the lumps in it because there's good ways you can use up bread as well you know it's not like there aren't nice ways to get get your breadcrumbs and you know make a kiev or whatever you want make some goujons there's there's good ways to do it get them crispy exactly exactly yeah i don't know who's wanting a slice of summer pudding when yeah just scoop out the insides bit of whipped cream delicious you know smash some meringues you got an eaten mess easy yeah done okay what are you going to wash down your summer pudding with then i'm sadly washing

it down with fizzy water which i know i think is probably quite controversial. I just think I can't understand why people prefer it to still water ever. Just the metallic flavor, the kind of spiky texture of it on your tongue. It doesn't sit right with me. And if the stream on the island was soda water, I would be devastated. A carbonated natural spring. Carbonated. What would be the odds of that? I'm firmly on board with you with this.

I hate sparkling water. And I think maybe there's something about us. You know you hear people say for some people coriander is a really strong taste and it's like soapy and weird and I really like it. It's still a strong taste, but for some people it's just kryptonite and I think I say to people who like sparkling water look I don't mind the idea of water that has bubbles but it doesn't taste like water it has a such a strong taste yeah and I think maybe some people just yeah they don't get that you know it's like the gas flavor or something yeah that's interesting maybe we're just highly sensitive just delicate

flowers yeah my wife switched over to it in like a few years ago and she'd previously been quite vocal about how she didn't like it at all and then i remember i was like you've bought fizzy water by mr why have you got this she's like oh no i like it now and it was like what the fuck like we've been together for the dark side yeah we've been together for about 12 years by that point. And I was like, what else are you not telling me? This is, I mean, it was such a big change of character. It turns your relationship on its head, yeah. Yeah, because it's such a...

I know, you question everything about them. Yeah, because it's like, oh, you know, I didn't used to like those olives, but now I do. You know, that's okay. But, like, that's quite a big shift, I think, from not liking it to being into it. I had a housemate who would say after, you know, that's okay. But that's quite a big shift, I think, from not liking it to being into it. I had a housemate who would say after, you know, we'd have dinner, and then she'd say, oh, should we have a sweet treat?

I'd be like, yeah, that's nice. And she would get fizzy water out of the fridge, and that would be it. And I was like, what level of sweet treat are you working on? This is the most depressing treat I've ever heard of in my life. That's mad. She was like, oh, no, it's so tangy. It's so sweet. That's insane.

I mean, was she like some kind of fitness influencer who wasn't allowed any calories or something? It does have almond mom energy, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'll just have a little sweet treat, yeah, just to take the edge off. That's insane.

I mean, that's so... Caloriless soda water. Yeah, that's like puritanical, isn't it? It is, yeah. Yeah, so you're basically enjoying bubbles. That's it. Yeah, bubbles. It's exciting, you know, I understand that.

Not against bubbles as a concept. No, I mean, bubbles in most forms make things more fun it's a childish thing but they're like oh bubbles right okay i'm with this but the water i just think water is so perfect on its own yeah no notes no notes for still water and you can't you can't chug it either like fizzy water you know because you've got because the fiz it gets you in the throat so if you're really thirsty on the island and you don't really like the fizzy water you can't even just knock it back quickly because it's too fizzy and sharp to just get rid of yeah yeah okay it's just it's cruel it's a torture of a drink also i think it's one of those things that because it's sort of seen as

sophisticated i think there's like an a bit of a bit of an implicit kind of dig at you if you don't like it. It's like, oh, should we get some water? Yeah, is everyone sparkling, sparkling, sparkling? Oh, I don't like fizzy. It's like, oh, right, you don't like fizzy water. It's a bit like you don't get it. You know, you're a simpleton or something, you know. Yeah.

It's definitely, but I feel like that's what the fizzy water brands have capitalised on that, right? Yeah, they have. They get the San Pellegrino and they're kind of acting like, oh, an Italian would drink this. So therefore it must be classy. Yeah, it's true. I mean, in the 80s, Perio was a big thing

and you get those little glass bottles of it and that was the thing. I don't know what's happened to them. They seem to be like falling out of favor slightly. But yeah, okay. Fzy water is your drink choice now archie 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 my least favorite film of all time and the other is your least favourite song. What are they and why? My least favourite film of all time, and I think you're going to agree with me

on this, unless you've changed your mind since childhood, is Forrest Gump, starring Tom Hanks. Forrest Gump is such an annoying film. I actually love Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks in Big, one of my favourite films of all time. It's just

dire. It's like weird cartoon nationalism for the year which is the most insidious type of of u.s nationalism where they have this kind of blank-faced everyman going through all these really intensely horrible political scenarios and be like never mind i guess it's fine and then uh yeah and winning the girl in the end it's just it's mad yeah mad film yeah i mean i should say i don't i don't have an issue with tom hanks these days but i i remember watching Forrest Gump once. I just think it's a sort of film you watch once and you see what it's about.

And I can't imagine ever wanting to watch it again. You watch it and go, yeah, it's fine. Oh, there's the bit about the chocolates. Okay. Oh, that bit's a bit sad. This bit's a bit funny. You know, it's just... And then I guess there's enough kind of memes

and references to it throughout popular culture that you never need to see it again but if you were really into i don't know it was just it's quite long and slow and up and down and i wouldn't want to keep watching it for sure it feels like a it feels like a film that's been written to be memefied before memes existed yeah i mean yeah it was like they've they've written it every scene to be like, Oh, what's going to be the quotable line in this scene? It's very tactical.

Yeah. Yeah. I sort of see a point about it. Like the nationalism thing about it's almost like put out for morale. You're like, yeah, this is a great country. You know what?

Yeah. Anyone can, we're doing well. Yeah. Anyone can do anything in this great country. Look, look what Forrest Gump did. Yeah.

He was good at ping pong and shrimp fishing. I mean, who can say that? He can be good at everything if you put in zero effort and just get randomly validated at various points in your life and just drift through the terrible things that your country makes you do yeah if you just greet it with a smile i think also it's sort of more sad that because he's just this kind of guy who just goes along with things and doesn't always understand everything that's happening it just makes everything a bit more depressing when bad things happen because he's like oh poor forest

he doesn't understand he's just like a happy dog who just goes along with things and you know yeah i think it's quite bleak in lots of ways you know but you remember like oh forrest gump it's always happy but it's like as you say he just goes through loads of bleak difficult things and but because he kind of comes out on top and just never stops going and like he'll always stick up for his friends it's like oh lovely forrest gump and actually it's just this is horrible he's just being bludgeoned at every turn and uh and he's completely relentless he's like the terminator like he doesn't stop you know he's like obsessed with uh jenny his girlfriend and she you know turns him down on various occasions he's like nope i will have this woman uh and it's just like so it's unbelievably intense as a human yeah yeah yeah i think that would just be a boring film to watch

again and again i think it'll get even more cloying and sickly and you're going to find even more stuff wrong with it that you hate over time so yeah i think it's fair uh what would your song choice be i had to think about this because like i said i like lots of songs and i actually this was a this was a tough one because there are bits of this song that i do like but i but i think it's so unbelievably overrated and i think it's insane that it's played at the end of every single club night in the UK at closing time the song is Mr Brightside by the Killers yeah and the reason I take issue with it is that it has one note the whole way through the first verse and he's just singing one note and I just think the laziness of that songwriting just pathetic it doesn't change

go and if you go back and listen to it it's just relentless it's like he's so he's half rapping half singing but i just just lazy to me yeah i was just going through it in my head and it is that yeah very one note i've never been a big fan of it and it's one of those like you'd be in a club or something and just watch people going absolutely mental and it's like it's not like there aren't quite a lot of songs that are quite a lot like it you know and i know that's a bit reductive you can say that about a lot of things but for it to sort of be on such a pedestal compared to a lot of music that came around it a fine odd i was at a wedding once and the dj is one of those wedding djs that talks a bit as well you know in between songs yeah and there weren't that many people on the dance floor because it

was a nice evening and people wanted to be outside and stuff and he's obviously trying to get the crowd going and he put on mr bright side and he got the microphone and went ladies and gentlemen the killers yeah they're not here man you know you're trying to trick people to get hyped up though yeah but it just seems like it always i always think about it every time the song comes on are you trying to trick us into thinking the band have turned up for this anyway uh yeah it's Yeah, but it just seems like I always think about it every time the song comes on. Are you trying to trick us into thinking the band have turned up for this? Anyway, yeah, I've heard it too much and I didn't really like it an awful lot to start with. Yeah, I think there's something a bit uncanny about it, actually,

when I was just thinking about, you know, when you're in the crowd and people are screaming along with it and there's like this kind of rage and passion that it brings out in people from the UK for some reason. Cause I saw someone talking about this online. They were like, has anyone, does anyone in the U S care about this song? Cause the killers are an American band. Like does anyone,

does anyone interested? And it's like complete, completely unproven. It's, it's a thing that this nation specifically has a lot of passion for. And I think it's like bringing out something. There's something in the psyche of our country that makes people want to very passionately scream about a relationship breaking down and jealousy and turning snakes into the sea. Maybe that's what it is. because at the end of the night

it's like some people will be disappointed and upset some people will be really upbeat some people will just be a bit angry some people are sort of ecstatic and i suppose it does have all those things it's kind of like kind of a bit angry but oh you know it has the positive side it's got the sort of synths that sound a bit like it feels it feels positive yeah but you can shout at it you can shout along with it and it's wonderful yeah you can scream it in your friend's face yeah yeah it's definitely got it's definitely got a catharsis to it yeah yeah so it's maybe it's cleverer than i thought but damn it it would annoy me if i i mean just taking it i'm taking it out taking out i've got to choose something else it's too good but imagine being on the island having a song

that's that upbeat you know you go okay come on come on david let's put a song on and it's just it's a bit too big richard's playing along with his ewe what's the do i have does it do we have to listen to it every day or is it just like no it's up to you it's just playing whenever you want it just whenever you want you can put it on but that's all you can put on so probably you would reach for it eventually and you might go i want you know you might sort of go actually i've been wrong about this it's a banger and then you just hear it too much and you'd hate it again i think it's the thing that would push us over the edge in the end like it was it's the thing that would push us over the edge in the end like

it was it's the thing that would take us to lord of the flies we'd be doing some kind of cult ritual richard richard would have lured us into some full atheist cult he would have gone full circle round back the horseshoe to becoming a religious fanatic from some religion he's invented yeah we'd be dancing to that song around the fire and and uh we'd all kill timothy well i mean you've got you've got a plan and that's important so i think you might be okay well we're nearly done but finally the island is overrun by the biggest dick of all the animals which animal is it and why this is an easy one for me and i reckon it's one that people have probably said before and my answer is cats it's a popular choice yeah i really really despise cats on a very very very primal level and i can't and i actually can't explain

why i think the the main reason is that i'm allergic to them okay and i liked them in up until the point when i realized i was allergic and then it all turned when i realized that they were like harbingers of doom for me um and then everything i've like now framed every everything i know about them through that lens you know anytime i see them do anything even if i see them do something that i i that looks cute to other people my narrative is that they're trying to be cute to get something out of you yeah I've like completely rewritten their story I trust them I think it makes sense if you dislike I mean if a creature has something that you know it can harm you without even trying I can understand why you

dislike it and especially being stuck with them on the island you know even if you're outdoors most of the time there's still enough of them to make you feel ill a lot um yeah it's weird for an animal to be as loved and hated as a as cats are i mean because they come up on here a lot people really yeah dislike them but i hate them yeah it's true yes it seems like it's the most divisive animal in a way it's like you know there are other animals that everyone would say okay I don't like them you know a wasp it's like on who who like if he mentored say your favorite animal is a wasp it's like but you know we can all agree on those there's something about a cat where it's like it sits in that weird grey area.

It's got the cute fluffy. It's cute and fluffy. It's kind of playful. But the way it plays is not. It's like a bully. The way a bully plays with you in the playground as a kid. You know, it's like it's taunting you. It's pushing you around.

I mean, they are mad creatures. I have a cat. And what I just find so fascinating about cats is how much they hate cats. You know, it's like, apart from humans, I mean, maybe humans, humans are probably the best example of an animal that really doesn't like the rest of its species that much. But I think there's more examples of our capacity for love

and helping and altruism than with a cat, which is basically like even their siblings or their parents or like or their you know or their offspring they're like fuck you all the time it's such a weird thing fuck out of my way yeah there's there's a we've the place i've just moved to we got we've got a little garden in the back and there's obviously like five of our neighbors have cats and they choose our garden to have this kind of insane standoff where they're all just like prowling a little section of the wall and if any of them moves, they all rotate around which part of the wall.

They're just like, yeah. Very strange creatures. Terrifying, terrifying creatures. Well, look, you have put together a good selection of people and things. Some of it very controversial, but all of it your choice. And it's going to make you very uncomfortable. So in that respect, you have succeeded admirably. So well done.

And thank you, Archie, for coming on Desert Island Dicks today. Tell everyone what you're up to at the minute. Obviously, you've got loads of work online that people can check out. And what shows and stuff have you got coming up? Yeah, I'm doing some shows in Edinburgh. If anyone you got coming up yeah i'm doing some shows uh in edinburgh if anyone's coming to edinburgh i'm doing two shows um one called you shouldn't have which was my show from last year i'm doing for 10 days and one called pleasure garden which is a live show with a band uh and some guests and that's gonna be like a late night show um at assembly in edinburgh it's really fun and if you're not in edinburgh please come in

london on november the 15th to the pleasure garden lovely at the clapham grant yeah perfect nice one well thank you again so much for coming on desert islandics today it's been really fun thanks for having me so there you go another desert island dicks done and dusted for you there and we will be back with more content very soon because that's how we roll if there's anyone that you would particularly like to see on desert island dicks or rather, then do let us know. You can get in touch with us on our Twitter and Instagram pages at Dickspod. And you can tell us if there's anyone that you think we should be interviewing that we're not, then let us know. And we'll try and get them on, because we aim to please.

That's about it for today. Obviously, it's lovely if you could give us a rating and subscribe. Those kind of things always help us a great deal, so please do a bit of that. And what else? Well, I'll just leave by saying that Desert Island Dicks is a Synclap production. It was created and produced by James

Deacon, produced and presented by me, Dan Benedictus. Occasional editing support comes from Chris Attaway and ongoing support as ever. A big shout out to John Deacon for being a nice guy I don't know why I said it in that way which makes it sound sarcastic he is a nice guy I just said it in a funny way um talking isn't my strong point today so I'm gonna stop but we'll be back soon uh with another episode of Desert Island Dicks and that's it for now bye bye