Desert Island Dicks - BEN BAILEY SMITH (DOC BROWN)

Episode Date: September 20, 2022

Ben Bailey Smith joins us to systematically list the people and things he'd hate to be stuck on an island with, and it's a very fun journey, so listen up. BUT ALSO READ THIS - because you can come and see us live, as part of the Cheerful Earful podcast festival on Thursday 6th October in Balham, South London. Tickets available now. See you there. 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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host endorsements or run a reproduced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Lipson Ads. Go to LipsonAds.com now. That's L-I-B-S-Y-N-Ads.com. Hi, I'm Dan from Desert Island Dicks. Today's guest is the very wonderful ben bailey smith also known as doc brown he's a musician he's a comedian he's an actor he does a bit of everything i mean you just got to go online and try and write a succinct biography for him to to realize that it's quite difficult because he's up to loads of stuff but he's a fantastic guest obviously i'm biased and i always love the guests that we have on desert island dicks but i think it was a particularly strong one today so i hope you enjoy it um just a reminder we've still got tickets for our live show at the bedford pub in ballam as part of the cheerful earful podcast

festival featuring the amazing john robbins that's on sale now and it's uh thursday the 6th of october so make sure you come along to that. There's a link in the description of this podcast. We've also got the information up on our Instagram and Twitter at Dickspod. So check it out. But right now, let's get on and listen to the podcast. It's Ben Bailey-Smith, a.k.a. Doc Brown 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 actor, musician, comedian, podcaster and more. He's an all-round polymath. It's Ben Bailey-Smith, also known as Doc Brown. How are you doing? Yeah, I'm not too bad. I'm feeling good.

I've got that Friday feeling, you know. I feel very positive. So I've got to turn my brain around to get really nice and negative for this uh this particular concept that you've you've come up with well maybe it will just sort of make sure there is no negativity left in you yeah you know it's like think of it as a purge a cleanse yeah you know and then hopefully it won't get you too riled up i mean you know you you're involved in so many different things does that mean that

you're you know relatively calm person and methodical or you know do you kind of get quite passionate about stuff and riled up easily no i think i'm i'm very very calm which means if i do get riled up it's so it's a problem because it's it's very rare so i'll explode my i'll have one daughter who's very similar like she never gets upset but that occasion that she does you've got to batten down the hatches because it's gonna get nasty you know whereas the other one is just like she's always flying off the handle every day so this is totally different don't take her that seriously yeah i'm i just i don't i just don't see any point in getting worked up about stuff i'm just more of an observer.

I think about it. That way you do get things done much more efficiently if you just watch and observe and take a breath and then make your decision. If you're a reactive person, you might be more well-remembered, I suppose. You might be more highly regarded. But you're going to make a lot of mistakes, man. Do you know what? It makes perfect sense. and i'd like to say i'm similar but then i think back a few hours to getting the kids

ready for school this morning and uh i don't know if it's true all the time yeah just lose it yeah okay well look let's get into it and see how we get along then um who's going to be the first person joining you on the island well this is actually really tough man i found all the other questions way easier than people do you mean because first of all the first thing that came to my mind is if i was on a desert island like i would be on that list do you mean i had like being alone for too long i just get so irritated with myself you know just find myself going oh shut up like to my to my own brain do you know what i mean um but yeah i thought it'd be a bit too existential including myself but my the first the first three people that came to mind were me my dog and uh the traffic warden

who patrols willsden lane like those those three people um but then i realized there was an animal so i cut the dog out and then I also realized that it's just too colloquial you know my local traffic warden probably doesn't mean a lot to other people it means a lot to me though so I then started thinking about people that everybody knows man and the first place my head went which is probably the first place a lot of people's minds wonder is to Jeremy Clarkson but then I thought actually I'd take all three of those dickheads from the grand tour and stick them in they all irritate me equally and then that's a bit boring so I scratched them and also thought Clarkson's just a bit too obvious he's just you know his his

his sort of raison d'etre is to be an obnoxious dick yeah you know yeah so i thought it was too obvious so then my mind went towards uh prince andrew okay and i settled with him i thought yeah definitely definitely would not want to be spending any lengthy amount of time with that guy you know yeah just someone so full of shit as him um you know i mean clearly he's uh he's an he's an innocent man i mean it's a totally innocent man who paid a person that he'd never met 12 million pounds just one of those things that happens yeah we've all done it sometimes in your life you know we've all done it we've all been there just never met this person but i should probably give her 12 mil um being that i'm an innocent do-gooder so yeah i just i don't trust

the man i uh i don't want anything to do with him so to have him on and there's me would be up there with my worst nightmares definitely for him it's just that he's such a great poster boy for sort of privilege and not realising the extent to which you're wrong about things. You know, just that self-belief. It was just a normal, everyday, run-of-the-mill shooting weekend. I see. Yeah, absolutely. That bugs me. Just no concept of other people at all, really. Like what other people might think or feel.

And just that sort of, I'm going to go and give this interview. Don't worry, it's fine. Because once they hear me talk, everything will be settled. It's just that level of, I mean, we can all do with a little bit of that self-belief. But there's probably a point where there's definitely a line when you're like, you were so far past real life. Absolutely shocking. I mean, as actually a friend of mine who interviewed him, Emily Maitlis, and I spoke to her about it, you know,

because I was just fascinated by it, having watched it, the whole thing. I just couldn't believe the level of scoop. When I spoke to Emily about it, she said to me, dude, like, no one was more shocked or surprised than me she said she she went in that day expecting to just get pr'd up the wazoo jimmy you can't you can't ask this you can't ask that you can't ask this she said there was just nobody there like nobody approached her no one said like she just had this time she's like so i've just got the whole hour and i can just ask why there's like just go on

with it she couldn't believe it she was shocked and then she didn't even get most of her bombshell questions out because he was just dropping bombs left right and center himself she was just sat sat there in shock not really having to do anything just going are you sure you want to say what you just said because that sounds terrible yeah you almost want to coach him be like do you think this is going well i mean as an interrogator you kind of you know yeah she could not believe her luck so like she came away with everyone saying oh my god emily emily's like blown this thing wide open but actually she was like nah he kind of did it himself i was just there yeah i mean extra credit for just keeping a professional straight face and not just going

whoa mate do you know what you just said i know she's so smart and she's so sharp that yeah she's and she's so pro and she's so pro. No one's ever going to pull the rug out from under Emily, so there's no doubt about that. But yeah, regardless of your own intelligence and professionalism, it was an amazing job to sit there and just go, wait, what? To not do that was exceptional self-control, I think. Yeah, yeah. So spending time with him on the island,

I mean, I just think on a practical level as well, like, you know, I think... Because on hand, you know, people say about, like, the royals, you know, they can get stuck in and work hard and stuff, but I sort of think, well, maybe. You've also been looked after very well for a long time, you know, and I just think, you know, do you think he's going to get his hands dirty in terms of, like, chores and stuff like that?

He's not giving you much help, I don't think. He's not going to help. He's not going to help. I mean, does he know how to start a fire even? I just... I see him being completely useless. Just one of those. Just making that noise quite a lot, which is unhelpful.

I'd probably have to eat him. Yeah, yeah. I imagine it'd be quite tender meat, you know, quite an unstressed life, isn't it? You know, that's got to be a good thing. When you talk about one of the bad things, well, one of the many bad things about, say, factory farming is, you know, it's just stress does bad things to animals, you know.

Yeah, it makes them all sinewy and wiry. You know, the last couple of years notwithstanding, he's probably had quite a relaxing time of it. Absolutely, absolutely. Slice off a thigh. So let's see who's going to be joining him. Who's the next choice on the island? I think it's everybody's favourite DJ, David Guetta.

Yeah. um i think it's everybody's favorite dj david guetta yeah um i i've never understood david guetta ever from like the start you know there's like loads of actors and musicians and you know they're really irritating and you hate that all their output and you you just like oh god this guy again but if you trace their career back you go oh yeah but that's why you know that breakthrough hit or that amazing movie you know that's why people loved him initially and he's dining out on that but i go back in this guy's case he was always shit i just don't get him at all the music he plays is obviously it's not my music so that's a bad start for any dj but for him to become this guy who's and i'm gonna sound like a hater here and i'm glad because i i hate him so it's perfect like you know this kind of super

bowl level guy like dj's the biggest events in the world um you know i'm by and when i say that i mean he's getting up and pressing play and then the rest of the time is just like christ-like pose that he does um don't understand it i just don't understand it don't get it i i i love djs and i love the art of djing but I just don't see that that's what he's doing. I mean, he surely, he spends more time highlighting his hair than, than,

than preparing any kind of, uh, mix for, for live performance. The last thing I saw him do actually, um, which sort of solidified my sheer disdain for the man was after the horrific George Floyd murder. There was a lot of celebrities, you know, saying their piece and asking for peace.

And some of it was cringy, but it was all, you know, comes from the right place david guetta um created a remix of the i have a dream speech by martin luther king and when i say remix all he did from a rooftop somewhere in los angeles or somewhere like that um with lots of sort of like very hot looking men and women around him zipping champagne uh he just like played a bit of the speech and then just went into the arms up like christ again and he was like he did this speech about this is what we've got to do to bring the world together man and i was like yeah yeah me and you we were never anything but if we were we're fully done now but if only there'd been more mediocre house music things could have been different in a way it'd be great to have him on the island just to watch him like without the one thing that

sort of makes him a star without the turntables just to see what's left yeah yeah because there's not much there no with the turntables and without his hair products like what happens exactly yeah it's he's he's so weird so you know i'm you know i'm a bedroom dj basically i've played out a little bit and when i hear about djs who just have such a prepared set pre-mixed basically yeah I just think for me to stand there for an hour pretending to do something which you know at his level should be pretty easy yeah like it must be harder to stand there miming and pretending than it is to just play the records absolutely absolutely the one thing you have to admire the man for is the levels of shamelessness i mean there's not many of us who could just stand there for an hour

occasionally twiddling a knob or adjusting the the earphones yeah where they sit on our ears i mean it's it's it's admirable really i saw a thing with him once it was an interview and he was going they were saying oh you know if you had any mishaps or stressful situations? And he was saying, oh yeah, you know, like recently I was playing this festival, but I had this software malfunction. So all my tracks that had lined up, you know, they weren't lined up.

So I had to go and find them through all the files and folders that I have. And you're like, that's DJing. You mean DJing? It's not even like you're pulling out a vinyl anymore. You know, like you're finding a file on your computer or on usb or whatever and then what because they're not all lined up in a folder you've got to remember the order they're in you're like do you remember how as a dj you know that thing of like reacting to a crowd and what a crazy story dave yeah

and it's not like you know it's all so one bpm and one genre and look i like electronic music so i'm not like dissing him just on that i don't like his kind of electronic music And it's not like, you know, it's all so one BPM and one genre. And look, I like electronic music, so I'm not dissing him just on that. I don't like his kind of electronic music. But it's not like the styles are varying so much that if he just picked a random tune, it's going to clash with whatever he's playing. I mean, wow. You know. Unreal. And his audiences would never notice either way.

Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah. Yeah. I'd definitely stick him in there. He's a man who's really consistently irritated me for, oh, it's just well over a decade now. It must be, eh?

Yeah, I mean, a long time. It's been approximately two decades. Yeah, I think so. A while. He's never good. Yeah, I think he's absolutely a bit of a stain on the industry. And, yeah, he's not doing anyone any favors and also people who don't understand yeah people who don't understand anything about djing

like he's the guy that i think sort of validates their point of view that djing is not musicianship it's i mean it's just some some twat who comes in and presses play yeah you know there's a lot of old school musicians feel that way about djs and other people who just don't understand the art form of djing he's detriment to all of us like he's he's a problem for all of us because he is that stereotype yeah i mean definitely definitely and yeah just a big ego to have on the island with you and you've already got one pretty big ego so yeah here man prince andrew you know and how small is this island like where can i go respite okay well let's see who's gonna be the final piece in the puzzle like who's the last person joining me well i had a whole long list of obnoxious people

you know boris johnson was in there piers morgan and i started to realize there's a pattern. These are all people that are really, really obnoxious, really arrogant, obnoxious, loud, fancy themselves people, which are the kind of people it's easy to hate. And then I thought, again, probably he's probably had Piers Morgan on this show a hundred times, Boris Johnson on the show a hundred times. And I suddenly thought, what's the only thing worse than being annoying in another human being for me personally and i and i realize what it is is it's someone who's really boring like that's that's a worse crime in a way than being obnoxious because like prince andrews entertained me with his obnoxiousness, as has Piers Morgan and Boris Johnson. I've enjoyed the car crash occasionally. Oh, my God.

The level of prick this person is, is actually outrageously entertaining almost, if it wasn't so maddening. Whereas boringness, it's like, where do you begin? Yeah. And I think you begin with michael owen i remember i remember when he was a player in an interview one time they asked him about like oh what's you know what's your favorite um music or like movies and he goes i don't watch movies

i was like what i remember watching it like who doesn't watch movies like i just can't think of anybody who just doesn't watch a film and yeah i don't really listen to music um and then he'd talk at length about horses and uh as his career's gone on it's it's it's like's like a kind of weird habit of his. He'll talk and talk and talk, but he'll never really say anything. So it's remarkable. And he's like a famous pundit. People actually hire him every week on the biggest channels on the planet

to talk about football. Why? You'll never hear a more boring person i wonder if it's like people mistake his sort of calm quiet delivery for sort of intelligence yeah yeah yeah shored and smart and measured yeah because you can't have too many like passionate ian wright sort of characters of you know yeah that's probably what they're thinking right you've got to balance it out yeah yeah but also you can have someone who's calm and collected and just actually interesting as well yeah i mean interesting things have happened to him yeah he's scored one of the one of my favorite goals of all time for england against argentina in 1998 you know he was an incredibly exciting breakthrough talent as a kid.

He's fought back from a million injuries. He's been a megastar. Even recently, something interesting happened to him. His daughter was on Love Island, you know. So suddenly, his opinion was being asked about that. But he didn't really have anything exciting to say about one of the most exciting occurrences that's happened to an owen for a for a long time um bless him he's just incredibly

boring and i'm sure he's a nice man but if you're stuck on a desert island like it could be worse than being obnoxious it could be worse than being arrogant. Having someone who's like. How many grains of sand do you think might be on. This island. It's an interesting thought. Isn't it. Because I suppose every time. The water laps the shore. It's washing up.

More. But taking some away. Are we getting more sand. Less sand. Or is the median of sand really just staying the same uh in the time that we're here i i i would have like brained myself with a coconut i mean within a couple of days i've got guetta to do like an acapella game just to break it up i think it'd just be like a pinball bouncing between the two groups.

You know, you think, oh God, I've had enough of these egos over here. I just need to, oh Michael, what are you up to? No, no, no, no. You'd have to break up. You'd have to have an Owen day and then an Andrew and Gweta day. Yeah, definitely. And I think... Try and stay sane.

Yeah, I wonder how he'd react to the other two. I don't know if he'd just sit there and really listen to them because actually they've got some really good points and you'd have to explain to him you know i don't know it's hard to i mean you know i'm not the world's biggest football fan so i don't know an awful lot about him but i mean it's hard it's so hard to know are you thick are you like vaguely intelligent like i just can't get much from him you know so it's like long term with michael owen it's very difficult to to know what he'll be like absolutely you're right he gives very very little away um because i think there is very little to give yeah do you know what i mean so that's all you're gonna get it's such a shame when someone

you know like you know my fantasy is like being a rock star or like you know being on stage to thousands of people or just like just to experience that feeling of adulation and like passion and like you know that he must you know he scored goals for england in the world cup and it's like i want the pre-match into i mean the post-match interview to just be like fucking hell did you see what i did that's been my dream forever and i've just gone and done it and it's just sort of like well you know obviously uh you know good result no come on it's a waste it's a waste it's a shame isn't it but that's that's what we have and uh you know the best guys the most excitable guys will uh you know will end up as the the the

the the best paid pundits i mean mic, Micah Richards is ubiquitous on screens now. He's on every football show talking about football in an incredibly excitable way. But I remember him as a player and in his first two post-match interviews, he was like, I can't fucking believe it. He actually said that. And they were like, Micah, we have to remind you.

I know you're excited, but please don't swear. swear and i was just i fell in love with him immediately yeah because i was just like that's real that's real he's reacting in a very real way yeah you know yeah rather than bottling it all up yeah so ian right there was no situation i've been lucky enough to meet ian right a couple of times and i can't think of a single situation that isn't improved by having ian right in the room you know there you go like it's same sort of thing like it's a very long story I won't go into but I ended up watching a Star Wars film with him in the cinema and coming out it was like the first of the new lot you know oh Force Awakens yes and coming out of the cinema having really enjoyed a film with Ian Wright who was just so excited it was just the best thing

ever you know and i just thought i wish i could just like call on him ian do you want to go and do something today like it'd just be amazing yeah well maybe that will happen to me because he's just moved in at the end of my road oh well you've you've got it you've got to link up because honestly it's not it's only going to improve your life i bumped into him once and it was incredibly exciting he was so generous with his time he talked to me for so long that i had to leave yeah i never thought i'd see that day you know i was like i had to wrap it up i need to get to work amazing guy well unfortunately this this uh podcast isn't about positivity so we're gonna we're gonna park the positive chat there

for a minute but you've got a good selection of people already so that's the hard part over 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 now ben 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 well now i food wise drinks is tricky i have to have to mull that one over food wise i knew straight away it has to be shellfish because there's no shellfish that i like

apart from like i might have like some minced crab meat possibly but the texture of shellfish weirds me out grosses me out and sometimes the smell of it sometimes the feel on mouthfeel mouthfeel is you know minus minus two minus three for me um out of ten for pretty much all shellfish but particularly oysters man oh yeah that's the grossest thing ever like whack open the shell you get that smell then inside is like someone's like tongue covered in mucus and you just have you seen people eating them normally rich people it's like makes the grossest noise and they're like either chewing them this jelly squidgy thing or they're swallowing it right down either way i'm just like just watching it makes me want to barf do you mean

let alone the thought of putting one in my mouth i just there's so many close seconds i mean octopus was up there which i have i have tried once i never wanted to try it but i thought stop being a baby jimmy you're nearly 40 years old so i tried it a couple years ago and i was like yep disgusting just just just what i thought it would be i don't need you don't you know when people get angry oh my god you have to you have to try it no you don't no i don't bro like there's loads of other food that i like yeah I really don't have to. It's weird, like, oysters, I wish I liked them. Because it's kind of, I like anything that's got a bit of ceremony to it.

You know, it's like, you know, opening up Tabasco, putting all the bits on. It's like a shot, you know, it's kind of like a bit rock and roll. Yeah. Like, yeah, I've tried. And it's very difficult to, like, like you know because as a grown-up i don't want to be the one spitting out food going well you know but it's i will be that guy yeah that guy society party and it's such a big thing i just wrong and you're right because if you try and swallow it you're like this is unnatural i feel like a drugs mule here trying

to choke this down and if you try and chew it it's like i mean this has taken a long time i don't yeah it's like oh it just tastes like the sea i'm like the sea doesn't always smell that great that's the other thing people say like it tastes like the sea and i'm like that's one of the reasons i don't like a lot of shellfish do you mean because of the sea thing that's not a taste that I'm into you know what I'm saying you've got to try it and then even when you do try it and you don't like it they'll say oh but how did they prepare it you know you've got to have it from this place or you've got to have it with this sauce on it and like no I'm not going back in again the last time I tried one I remember thinking okay I've given it a go before and it didn't work but this time I know I'm gonna put

loads of Tabasco on because I like hot sauce right so i did that then the thing was still stuck a bit in the shell so i tipped it back all i got was just all this tabasco running down my throat and like hitting you know like because i like spicy food but you know sometimes it hits you in the wrong point and it just makes you cough so i'm coughing and then trying to eyes are watering oh man it's awful so yeah i think a lot of seafood promises a lot more than it gives do you know i mean it looks spectacular looks great um it looks great yes presentation and all of that and um and also that there's so many elements of seafood that uh sort of scream high ends do you mean caviar and lobster oysters they're all things that you think oh this

is high-end stuff octopus but i'm just like keep it man keep it weird i wonder if it's just looks it looks good because we're conditioned we know it's expensive like you know like you think oh lobster looks so delicious and decadent but then like i took my son to the sea life center recently and i saw some lobsters crawling around and then i was like they don't look delicious now they don't look delicious when i'm watching alien and i see face spiders do you mean it's weird aren't they there's too much not a tempting thing to eat no okay so we'll give you a lovely seafood platter with an extra side of oysters as much raw fish as you possibly can.

And what are you going to try and wash it down with? What do you think your drink choice would be? I think I'd wash it down with Southern Comfort. Yeah, good choice. Possibly the worst alcohol. I love alcohol. I love it. There's very little in the world of alcohol that I'm not willing to partake in or try.

It's the opposite of shellfish. There's loads of alcohol I've never tried. But listen, line one up. I'll give it a bash. Southern Comfort is the only one I think I've not returned to since the age of 15. I don't know why we had a bottle. One of us had a bottle. We went.

It was like four or five of us, we went up to the Norfolk Broads, got the train from London after school one Friday and we went and camped out there and just thought, let's have a little weekend. We'd get some booze,

we'd get some weed and we'd go out there. It's the kind of thing we used to do, like just get a break from the city. And I don't know who brought Southern Comfort, but it was all we had. And you know, like this booze you would steal

from an older sibling or a parent or something because you couldn't buy it unless you had that. You know, you did that thing of paying someone to like an adult. In the 90s, I think there was more like morally dubious adults who would probably do that. So maybe that's how we got it. But I don't remember. Anyway, it was all we had. So we all like drank as much as we could and it's like a sickly sweet syrup and i think all of us were roundly sick i definitely was i was like

puking all weekend like just foul the foulest stuff i'm not sure what are you supposed to drink it with coca-cola that seems wrong i mean it's already so sweet isn't it it's like what is it anyway what is it i don't i don't even know what it is what family is it claiming to be a part of i suppose like i don't know i mean i guess it's is it some somehow bourbon related or something like maybe it's very much like sort of spirits with training wheels on isn't it it's like you know booze with stabilizers it's sort of like you know if they had an honest tagline it's like it's spirits for kids you know it's it's like do you know what i mean because you feel like grown up you're like oh it's like your introduction it's like things like that and like you know people used to drink like arches and lemonade

it's yeah when i think of all the underage drinking that that we did outside of the obvious like cider which is like the the gateway to to actual beer it was all stuff like alize mad dog 2020 archers like the sweetest brightly colored i mean when they created hooch it was just like okay now they're taking this is actually for children yeah yeah yeah you've made alcoholic lemonade and that was the first like real alco pop either that or two dogs i think they were both australian yeah but um when they created that i was just like okay game over we've got out we've got an alcoholic soft drink yeah i just love the juxtaposition of like who southern comfort appeals to and what it tastes like versus

their imagery where it's like yeah how they sell these parts we do things differently old man withers pulls himself up a story whittling the stick and there's an old glass of southern comfort that's the way we do things around here like no like they're probably drinking moonshine why didn't you spend some time making it not taste like shit with all these experienced old guys get yourself a proper drink boy try some of this wow this is sweet didn't expect that no you didn't oh my god it's a terrible drink it really is a terrible drink yeah oh man and yeah just if that's your only drink as well i mean with given the company on your own at some point you're going

to be forced to drink a bit you know just to try and let the hangovers from that and uh yeah yeah it's a solid choice i reckon prince andrews drinks it by the bucket like pint of it you just find it a funny poor person's novelty he'd be quite excited by it all David Guetta's probably like oh I was sponsored by these guys once yeah great okay now Ben 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 favourite film of all time and the other is your least favourite song what are they and why the film's really hard so i'll do the easier one first there's plenty of songs i hate but there's only one that genuinely angers me the only time i'd hear it is in the back of the cab because you know someone's got greatest hits radio on or something or this is this is heart or something like that. Breakfast at Tiffany's.

That song... There's loads of songs that are irritating and you just turn them off. There's loads of other songs that are just like, why do you like that song? It's rubbish. Breakfast at Tiffany's I find offensive in its shitness.

It's got less chords than an Oasis song. The chorus itself is two notes. The melody's two notes. And I said, what about breakfast at Tiffany's and then, then, then, then remember the film and as I recall,

we both kind of liked it. Is this chorus still going on? And I said, well, there's one thing we've got. Are you taking the piss? Yeah, it's one step away from being a siren at that point. Yeah. Jesus Christ.

There's such a one-hit wonder. Oh, really? What a surprise that they didn't have any other songs. Like, can you imagine what the rest of their catalogue is like? Oh, man. the songs that were not even close to being good enough to charting it sounds really like it should have been the theme tune to something you know like you know like um like maybe it was in the running for friends yeah exactly didn't quite make it exactly yeah it feels like a song that was a theme tune

then they released it but it's not like that was that was someone's band that's what they released and that was you know that was their song they were happy with you know you're happy with it you can picture the engineer going what are you are you finnett is that yeah okay okay no no cool cool i'll invoice you i didn't i didn't i just thought we'd be here for a bit longer no no it's fine it's fine no honestly it's fine i'll call my missus we'll go up for for a meal great it's lovely to meet you guys all the best do you mean wow it is the most basic piece of songwriting i think i've ever heard and yet so irritating because basic songwriting on the surface there's nothing wrong with it. A simplistic idea. I remember reading interviews with like Evan Dando, John Lennon, Kurt Cobain,

who all said like they were as inspired by like nursery rhymes as by anything else because the simplicity of a melody is the thing that really like grabs somebody. And it's true. You know, you think about a lot of their songs. If you hear some of Kurt Cobain's harmonies, if you take out like the rawness of the lyrics

and the rawness of hisess of the sound of his vocals, it's really like playful playground music. Same with Evan Dando, same with a lot of Lennon's early stuff. So there's nothing wrong with it. And like I say, there's nothing wrong with having only a couple of chords. Oasis proved that, having incredibly catchy, basic songs. There's nothing wrong with it. But if you're going to take that and run with it to the extent that... I can't even remember what the band's called, Breakfast at Tiffany's. To the extent they did, where it's almost like a middle finger

to the history of music. I'm just going to nasally sing this. And I think it's also the attempt at being quirky that annoys me. Yeah. Did you find the name of the band? What are they called? Deep Blue Something. Wow, they couldn't even bother to finish their band name.

Wow. Yeah. It's Deep Deep Blue. Deep Blue. Deep Blue Something, guys. Think of something. Come on. Deep Blue.

Deep Blue. Oh, fuck it. Let's just go and get lunch. on. Deep blue, deep blue. Oh, fuck it. Let's just go and get lunch. Yeah. Deep blue something. And that just says it all. Couldn't even be bothered to finish writing their own name. Yeah, it's the attempt at, oh, quirk.

You know, oh, this is a bit different. Oh, this is a bit strange, isn't it? A bit off centre. It's a bit left field. Yeah, you can imagine him. he's got like a waistcoat and a little straw trophy at an angle. And you think at the same time, Jarvis Cocker is like effortlessly writing

what seem like simple stories about life that are actually quirky and left-field. And when they hit you, you're like, oh my God, this doesn't only speak to me. This feels like he's talking about the state of the nation, you know, where we're at in modern history. It felt profound within its simplicity. You know, that's happening at the same time

that you're writing that. I would have been embarrassed to release it, but they did. I feel like it was around for a long time as well. Like, I think it stuck about for a while. that you're writing that i would have been embarrassed to release it but they did i feel like it was around for a long time as well like i think it's still go go and get go and get a cab now you have to turn on like heart it will be played no of course but i mean like i don't know if it got to number one or whatever but it felt like it was fairly big for a while but yeah i agree with you i think and it's exactly the sort of thing that will just it would just stick with you though because it's just that sort of annoying thing that catches you know like you'll be walking around the island you catch yourself humming it

and then go oh god you know you got to tell yourself off like stop doing that you know yeah i don't get it with the chorus because i that i hate that chorus more than any chorus ever written in the history of of music but i sometimes get caught out by the verse you know you'd be walking along just like you're saying what is that is that the beatle oh my god it's not it's the antithesis of the beatles it's the worst song ever fuck did anybody hear me yeah yeah scary times it's a strong choice okay well then uh what's your film choice gonna be do you think this is much harder it's much harder because there's so many bad films and with films as well they're not like songs they can't just assault you like breakfast at tiffany's can just like

weave into your crevice without you asking you know you're in a cab breakfast at tiffany's plays there's not much you can do about it um with movies if your mate says it's terrible or the review says he's just not gonna go and watch it i mean it's like yeah i opt out so it was it's a bit tougher and i have to think about films that i was either forced to watch or had to watch or was stuck with you know um and two came to mind so we need to pick between the two because they're so completely opposite okay one I had to watch for another podcast a film show which was Batman vs Superman and I think this may win because it angered me from start to finish.

Although it did make me laugh. I credit it for being like its most dramatic moment, its most serious moment had me crying with laughter, which is where they finally show down after three hours of fucking nothing happening. Just brooding, two men brooding in different places. And then eventually you get the showdown that you've been waiting for because it's called Batman versus Superman. So they really should have a fight.

And they have a fight. And obviously they're killing each other because they're both superheroes. And just as Superman's about to land the death blow to Batman, he mentions that his mum's name was Martha. I guess maybe he's praying to his parents or something, because he's about to die. And Superman, just before laying the death blow, goes, wait, your mum's name's Martha?

He goes, yeah. He goes, my mum's name's Martha. He's like, no. And they stop fighting and they see that they're both, you know, just guys with mums who, you know, just, just want to do right in the world and that fighting each other doesn't really make sense. You know, we're both of Martha. So let's just, let's just, let's, let's just, you know, do what we do best and fight crime rather than each other. I was watching it going,

I was looking around the cinema, you know, did that, have I like fallen asleep and started dreaming about the movie or did that just fucking happen? Of course, when I came out and read all the reviews, it happened and it was laughable moment, but how like unreal, like to a three-hour movie that was dog shit up until that point and just not know like we have to have the fight but how do we get out of the fight that's amazing

it's sort of like lying there going well dad i didn't make it i guess you had some pretty big shoes to fill wait shoes i wear shoes I wear shoes. I wear shoes. You know what it reminded me of? It reminded me of that early scene in When Harry Met Sally where they go on a really awkward double date and Carrie Fisher's trying to matchmake and she says to the awkward pair on their first date, she says, oh, you know, her dad comes from Maine.

And he goes, oh, really? Yeah, I'm from maine she goes yeah yeah and then they just go back to their food it's like okay that's not gonna work it reminded me of that it was like who gives a fuck who cares you're actually not gonna kill him because it's just unbelievable actually now that i've remembered it i think it has to be my number one over my number two which which was mid-90s, which really irritated me. But it definitely doesn't get me as angry as Batman versus Superman. To give its full title, colon, Dawn of Justice. Oh, okay. So I called it BVS Dodge.

And it's worth dodging. Like, don't waste your life, three hours of your life. You will never get back mid 90s is in comparison actually not that bad it's just mid 90s is

massively overrated that's why it was in there with the shout by someone I really like Jonah Hill writing written and directed

a film about the mid 90s which is my era me and him same age so like everything about this is made for me. I watched it.

I've never seen a film like it. Nothing happened at all. It's just boys walking around. Yeah, I think with that film, it's one of those things where you go, yeah, we used to do that. Oh, I used to listen to that. Yeah, this is great. And then afterwards, you're like, what?

What's the story? Yeah, we used to skate around and like occasionally argue and listen to hip hop. And yeah. It's like the, and it's just so well received. That's why it was in my top sort of five most annoying movies. Because it's like, no, stop rating it.

Nothing happens. You can't have a movie where nothing happens and there's no subtext other than hey remember that time no shouldn't exist but no batman versus superman is way worse so absolutely in there and at least midnight is quite short compared it's not like a three hour long thing you know yeah yeah there you go it's it's 90 minutes you know if you've got nothing to say at least have the decency to say nothing for 90 minutes rather than three hours yeah and have a Martha reveal definitely and I think you know if you I mean Batman versus Superman or whichever way around is is never going to get it's never going

to get better with a lot you know you're only going to find more annoying things about it. And as you say, it's a three-hour long thing. And also, just from the beginning, you're like, Superman's got superpowers. Batman's a rich guy with gadgets. Come on, we don't need three hours to discuss this. Yeah, yeah. Superman is an alien who can kill anybody and is indestructible.

So let's just cut to the chase here. Batman needs to get some kryptonite ASAP. Yeah, exactly. No, we're going to have an hour of Batman brooding. Okay, now get the kryptonite. Oh no, we've got to move to an hour of Superman brooding. Then the final hour is half an hour's brood each and then fight. End credits.

Yeah, okay. I think you made a very good case for that being your film choice. Okay. Ben, finally, the island is overrun by the biggest dick of all the animals. Which animal is it and why? This was so easy, but it's quite specific. It's a fox, but it's not a country fox. I'm not into cruelty to animals i don't believe that they should be hunted down in the countryside that said being a londoner the london

fox is the specific fox i'm talking about and yes i am advocating hunting them down because mate these foxes right they're so ballsy now my garden is full of them they shit all over my garden sometimes like if i try and go to war with them like someone told me to like piss in the garden yeah you know like male piss so i find myself like pissing up against the fence or like filling a bottle with piss like pissing in a bottle that's where i'm at pissing in a bottle spraying it at them. Because apparently, like,

that's the territory thing. If I did that, I don't do it anymore because when I did that, they'd come right up to my back door. Just do a little shit just on the step. Or like,

I bought some new garden furniture and I got a big cover for it. Put the cover on. They're like, oh, you got some new shit, have you?

Okay, how about this? I woke up the next morning, there was a shit on top of the cover, on top of the garden furniture. Oh, man. You know, they're actually saying to me,

fuck you. Yeah, yeah. Not in those words. They're saying it like, which is the maddest. What the fuck is that? Oh, man. Yeah, definitely.

It's terrifying. And they've just given up being nocturnal. They're just like, fuck it. Oh, they don't give a shit about that anymore. Do you remember when we were kids? When you saw a fox, it's like seeing a deer in a movie. You know, there'd be this moment. The fox would be like, oh, my God, I've been spotted.

And you'd go, oh, my God, I've spotted a fox. And you'd share this moment where the fox looks at you and be like, don't tell anybody and then just disappear. And you'd be like, whoa. And you tell your friends,

I saw a fox last night. People are like, what? Now it's like you're at a bus stop and the fox is at the bus stop with you. Like,

when's this bus coming? Who's got snacks? Did that fox just kiss its teeth at me? And they don't, they're not mangy anymore they're fat they're plump yeah i saw a family of them yesterday two little cute cubs just bowling along like what are we living in fucking pepper pig now like what it's just a family of foxes cruising along come on kids come on just creating two more little shits for me to deal with i had the same thing with foxes in my garden.

I'm from Leicester and, you know, the fox is the symbol of my city. Of course, yeah, yeah. I used to love seeing a fox, like you said. But, yeah, I had this one and, like, it was so brazen. It would just sleep on our lawn in the middle of the day. Like, it wouldn't even sleep sort of under a bush or by a tree or any shelter. Like, right in the middle, just like, this is mine now. Fuck you.

And it was freaking out my cat. My cat started shitting in the house. I was like, oh, man, like, you know, like in my son's room. And I'm like, oh, mate. And my son, he's got, like, fake grass in his room because he thought it would be fun. You know, he's like, oh, look, you know, a bit of fun. But when you try to clean cat shit out of fake grass, it's no joke anymore, right? So I was, like, watching this fox from the kitchen.

And I tried to open the window and sort of shoo it off and it just didn't care and I thought right it's right by the shed it's got a metal shed and I thought if I can throw something against the shed it'll make a really loud noise scare it off a bit and looked around the kitchen I was like what can I throw and there's this little pack of like uh smints that someone gave me in a train station I'm like picked up this and I'm like put some mints in my hand you know when you're just like I'm like, picked up this. And I'm like, put some mints in my hand. You know when you're just like, I'm going mad here. Like, this is a man, like, losing the plot. And I ran outside and it had run off by the time I got there.

And then I'm just like in my hall with a handful of mints, just like, what am I doing with my life? And it's like, at that moment, I was like, you know in Forrest Gump, he's like, life is like a box of chocolates. So I was like, life is like standing box of chocolates i was like life is like standing in your hall with a handful of a handful of smints because sometimes you're gonna stop and look at yourself and be like how the fuck did i end up here do you know what i mean i thought you

were gonna reference point break that bit where he gets frustrated and shoots at this guy before you're gonna like lie on your back and throw the smints at the ceiling why yeah there's I've got a neighbour who feeds the foxes raw meat so like I'll wake up some days and my garden will have

like a raw chicken leg in there covered in shit and then my dog will try and eat it and I say I can't deal with this who's feeding the foxes

they're fine they're scavengers but that's the thing the shitting as well like I had one day the other week a fox had torn open our food bin outside scattered everything everywhere shat in the pile of food and then i went in my back garden and there was mcdonald's bags in there so i'm like so wait you've come around to my house asking for food you didn't like what you found you

took a shit and then you brought a mackie d's round like what yeah they bring the the the pups bring in stuff that they found so it's like occasionally i'll get a shoe jamming a glove a ball like just shit just appears it's very irritating and that's why they pipped seagulls to my number one because seagulls were definitely in there with honorable mention for seagulls oh definitely they're very much they're similar the flying fox and um and and similarly they've got attitudes you notice and you walk past them and they just look at you and they'll be like oh massive they just look like they're laughing in your face and those dead eyes man those dead beady eyes yeah so they're they're a close second because

then because they're not like interfering with me directly some parts of london though do get like seagull abuse there was one time when the seagulls went rampant up holloway road in islington just tore the whole thing apart like it looked like there'd been a storm or like a riot during the night and they realized from footage that it was seagulls like a mass of them just on the rampage turning over bins like crazy pulling out bin bags tearing them apart nuts they're terrorists man yeah vandals foxes seagulls vandals rats like they just get on with it don't they just quietly do their thing yeah scavengers they do all the same things they're just like you know what i'm not an extrovert it's gonna do this my way i don't want to be seen i don't know you know i mean they're

like the old mafia yeah then you've got these like john gotty guys like seagulls and the foxes who just want to be seen they want to wear the sharp suits they want to be all over the news times have changed yeah uh ben do you know what i think you've had a brilliant selection and it's been really well argued throughout so thank you so much for coming on desert island dicks today it's been a real pleasure now you're up to so much all the time but like what you're up to at the minute that we should check out um well i've just you know i've just finished shooting an amazing true crime thing for bbc one with timothy spool but i've no idea when it it's gonna come out but that's gonna be a mind-blowing drama and a true story as well so really really riveting look out for that i guess

maybe like the new year sometime um but uh like coming out now um in fact, on my birthday, on the 21st of September, is going to be the new Star Wars series for Disney+. It's called Andor. It's kind of like a prequel to Rogue One. So you can add that to your Force Awakens. Maybe watch it with Ian Wright. I would love to watch it with Ian Wright. If you can get hold of him, if I bump into him,

I'll tell him, give you a shout. And a prequel to Rogue One as well. I mean, Rogue One is like the best bit that's come out so far for me you know that's yeah like really sort of dark kind of almost like a war action thriller kind of thing yeah what a credit to have that's that's amazing yeah definitely you know i'm pretty excited about that yeah that drops soon and then yeah next week i start a new job up in manchester shooting a rom-com thing for ITV so it's a good life man

I love jumping from job to job and meeting new people that's that's why I haven't done stand-up for so long because

stand-up's just it's amazing but it's just so lonely and when you're acting you've just got like you meet all these new people it's like a team game and you all work together

to try and get this thing done and make it good. And, yeah, I love finishing one and jumping on to the next. So, yeah, looking forward to the next adventure, man. Nice one. Brilliant. Well, we're all looking forward to it too. So, Ben, thank you so much for coming on Desert Island Dicks today. It's been really fun.

Cheers, man. Thank you. So there you go. That was Ben Bailey-Smith there. I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. It was really fun to record that one. We're going to be back next week with another podcast as i said before remember you can come and see us with john robbins live at the bedford pub in ballam on thursday the 6th of october as

part of the cheerful earful podcast festival be great to see you there um and and that's it really desert island dicks was a sync clap production created and produced by james deacon hosted and produced by me dan benedictus edited by the wonderful chris attaway and as always a special thanks to john deacon the boss man um that's it and we'll be back really soon with some more great guests here on desert island dicks thank you so much for listening tell your friends all about it and uh that's it bye