Desert Island Dicks - BETHANY BLACK

Episode Date: December 13, 2021

Dan is joined by Bethany Black this week, to mull over the worst people and things she could be stuck on an island with, and let me just tell you right here that she picks a solid bunch of dicks, so enjoy. Tickets are now on sale for the next Desert Island Dicks Live, with our guest Lou Sanders, at 2 Northdown - buy a wonderful gift for that special someone in your life this Christmas and give the gift of dicks, LIVE: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/qE9cZT4E82 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

At Sierra, discover joyous deals on great gifts for everyone on your list. Like cozy slippers, ski gear, fishing poles, bikes, large kayaks, even larger canoes. Which might lead to another discovery. Robbing gifts is the only sport you need to stay fit this season. Tis the season to discover great gifts at unexpectedly low prices. Sierra, let's get moving. You're a podcast listener, and this is a podcast ad. Reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Lipson 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 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. This episode features Bethany Black, and it's a good one if I do say so myself.

And I can say so myself, because most of the funny bits come from our guest, as usual. So sit right back and enjoy the heck out of this one. say so myself and I can say so myself because most of the funny bits come from our guest as usual. So sit right back and enjoy the heck out of this one. But before you do, let me tell you that now we have tickets on sale for our next Desert Island Dicks Live. It's on the 4th of February, Friday the 4th of February at 2 North Down in King's Cross. You know King's Cross. It's a huge transport hub in London, so you can get there from all over the country with ease. Oh, and did I mention the guest yet? Well, I probably should, because that's the best part.

The guest is none other than the amazing Lou Sanders. She's very funny. You've seen her being funny in her stand-up. She's been on Taskmaster. She is excellent, and she is going to be a very, very good guest. So go to the link in the description of this podcast now or the link on our socials at Dick's Pod on Instagram and Twitter and get yourself some tickets. They're only £11. They'll be going fast. It's Friday the 4th of February. It's a Friday night and it's 7.30

start. What better way to start your Friday night? You can get some food, come and laugh, and then you're going to be in a great mood to carry on your night, whatever you want to do with it. It'll be lovely to see you. We had a great time the last shows that we did. So I look forward to seeing you there.

Okay, on with the show. I'll be back at the end for a bit more information and enjoy this show, Desert Island Dicks with Bethany Black. Hi, I'm Dan Benedictus and welcome to Desert Island Dicks, the show that sees you marooned on a desert island after a plane crash with the worst people and worst things imaginable. Who they are and why they're a dick is up to our guest and here to share their Desert Island Dicks with us today is comedian, actor and writer Bethany Black. How are you doing? Yeah, I'm doing very well. Yeah, I've had one of the worst weeks I've had in a while, but it all turned around yesterday afternoon when the fantastic comedian friend of mine, Laura Lex, sent me a hat that she'd knitted for me.

So I'm in a very good mood today. Oh, good, good. Okay, well, hopefully, you know, this process can sort of relieve you of any extra sort of stress that may still be there. Catharsis is what we need. Exactly, that's what we're going for yeah um are you someone who finds it easy to rant a lot or like you know or are you sort of more like

reserved i'm more reserved like i don't tend to get very angry about things i know that i have like i know because i'm autistic and a whole bunch of other things that i come across as quite uh sort of stern and stoic like I discovered that behind my back a bunch of comedians years ago had nicknamed me the ice queen uh and and I also know that the auditions that I get are all for like terrifying like uh lesbian psychopaths those are the ones that I or you know dog groomers it's like literally the only two that I get asked for that's quite an interesting Venn diagram it It is, yeah. I think it's the terrifying tall butch lesbian

is just a thing that people go, yeah, okay, right. They're either a dog groomer who's a terrible disappointment to their parents, or they're a psychopath who works for a gangster. So in spite of that, I'm not really a sort of

angry, ranty person. I am recovering drug addict and recovering alcoholic as well. So like as a result of that, working through all of the resentments and stuff that I built up whilst I was drinking, I kind of got rid of that. And it's like, it's an interesting space to sort of try and get back into and go, oh yeah. Oh, who makes me angry? And I'm quite pleased with my list all right well well let's just dive straight in then um who's the first person joining you on the island um

oh jacob reese mogg oh yes okay well i mean i think a lot of us can guess why why he annoys you but let's uh let's talk it through i of all, right, because obviously being on a desert island, the thing that I'm thinking about in terms of this is he would be absolutely useless on a desert island, for starters. This is someone who has his entire life mistaken luck for skill and has found himself in this situation that he's at, high up in the higher echelons of government yesterday uh and obviously you when you're listening to this it'll have been weeks ago but he's probably said the same thing because

it's the second time he said it uh yesterday in parliament he said that it was that conservative mps didn't need to wear masks to protect against covid because they all knew each other so what you're dealing with here is somebody who has absolutely zero understanding of cause and effect or anything that goes on in the real world. This is a guy who still has his nanny present with him every single day. Like, if you're trapped on an island, desert island with him, he is only going to be a liability, isn't he? Yeah, absolutely. Because, you know, you like to think that people at some point get into politics, like the ideal is that they want to help things run smoothly and they want to broadly help the country and it sort of should come from that kind of place. And then there's

people like him who is just power. I want power and I actually, I deserve it. Like I should be here because I'm supposed to be. And that's it it's not about helping it's just like it's about dominance yeah do you think he ever gets imposter syndrome absolutely not there is absolutely no point on earth when he's going i can't believe they're letting me get away with this shit you know that's that's where i'm at with when i'm on stage sometimes you know not so much these days but like the amount of times over the years when i've been stood on stage as a stand-up comedian or it's not even when I'm stood on stage. Usually by that point it's gone. It's normally the bit just before an emcee introduces me and I'm stood backstage and part of my brain goes, maybe tonight, maybe tonight will be the night that the audience figures out you're just making this all up and that you're not really a comedian. You're just a dickhead who says funny things on stage, right? Which is what a comedian is. I don't suppose he's ever had anything

even approaching that in his life. At no point has he gone, I probably don't deserve to be here. He honestly believes that he deserves to be there. It's like, it reminds me, there's a book I was reading recently by Michael Lewis, who's the guy who wrote The Big Short, the book that the movie was based on.

And he was looking into like various different other organisations and stuff in California and discovered that there was an issue over like the police and fire service and disparity in wages on stuff like that and how the police wages had gone up and up and up and firefighters wages had stagnated and they were struggling with that. And he spoke to a guy it was all about how unions had worked but when he was talking to the one of the guys who was pretty much in charge of making sure that people did get paid through through the government he said yeah well you've got what you've got to understand is that people go into those jobs for two entirely different reasons people go into

into being a firefighter or a paramedic because they want to be liked whereas people go into the police because they want to be respected and that's the problem and that's kind of what i see with with how that sort of works in terms of those sorts of politics there are people who go on the left there are people who go and really sort of give it their all because it is life and death. And people on the right who go, ah, it's just a game, even if I lose, it doesn't really matter. It's not really going to affect me in any material way. And the problem is that when you have that mental perspective on things,

you tend to end up winning anyway because it means so much to the other person that they're far more likely to make missteps and the missteps that they make are far more likely to have massive consequences so you'd think that that would mean that you'd be all right on a desert island wouldn't it uh if you're going oh well it doesn't really matter either way but once you go and put somebody like that into a situation where it does become life and death they usually fall apart in my experience he would at once fail at being any good on a desert island but at the same time kind of sit there with this sort of like arrogance

that he was doing it better than you, you know, while you're like helping him along and, or just sort of refusing to help, you know, he'd sort of just be ordering you around. Yeah, absolutely. And of course, like if he was, you know, if it came down to it, there's almost no meat on him. So, you know, there's not even useful for that in that eventuality exactly yeah i mean i was just thinking about the same thing i was just like i wonder if you came to

eat him like there wouldn't be much meat but it'd probably be quite soft because he's never done any activity or like hard graft you know it'd be like is it like veal and they sort of like keep them in boxes so they don't move much the muscle's very very tender. Yeah, but also, like, he's so skinny. There's very little muscle on him anyway. So it's like, ah, mm. I don't know how this has suddenly descended into cannibalism cooking hour. No marbling on that meat.

There's no fat, no good fatty tissue running through it. I also, I have, this is just on, like, a really superficial level. I get really annoyed when people who are clearly very wealthy can't get a suit that fits properly. And he looks like he's wearing like his dad's old suits. You know, like he's very skinny, but their suits always look too big. Slightly too long.

Yeah. I suspect that just comes from the fact that he's always been like that. So having had those like that when he was a little kid to now, but also chatting to somebody who was with him at university, who said oh yeah it's an absolute affectation he desperately wanted all the posh kids to think that he was one of them whereas all the really posh kids were like as they always have done pretending to be a little bit more working class right and he just kind of went the other way uh so yeah so i honestly don't think he'd be any use whatsoever on a desert island like not even for kindling and i think yeah anytime like someone in your party like got

killed or like hurt themselves there would just be no pity or anything you know he's like incapable of any sort of pity or sincerity or like you know empathy and that kind of thing yeah absolutely absolutely so yeah that's that that's my number one choice for one of the worst people. I think it's a very solid start and well argued. And let's see who's going to be joining him. Tom Hanks. Oh, interesting. I mean, the lovable Tom Hanks.

The lovable, the favourite, the family favourite, lovable Tom Hanks, who, you know who when he got Covid it was like oh my god he is Americana personified he is the modern Jimmy Stewart also the last thing you want if you're on a plane crash and then get stuck on a desert island is him going

when I was preparing for Castaway fuck off Tom, it's not going to work in this situation is it he'd do your head in because he'd just constantly be talking about that and like as if he knows exactly what it is. And I reckon he possibly isn't going to be as good in that situation as he should be.

In the film Cast Away, you know, he's like this guy who works in logistics and he kind of works out like where he is in the world and, you know, how to get out of it. Whereas like hanks actor probably doesn't i mean might do but i don't know if he'll have those same skills he probably has like the most basic so that it looks good on camera because that tends to be what it is as an actor i know that often you'll go and put in your spotlight i go and have a list for like things that you can do special talents and. And we always lie. We always lie. The amount of comedians I know who've gone, oh yeah, I can horse ride.

Because when they were a kid, they once got on a donkey at Blackpool, you know. One of my friends got a job in an advert where he was playing a motorcycle cop because he put that he could ride a motorbike on his spotlight and had never done that before. And it was only when he got to the set he went, yeah, I can't do that.

So I had to have like a really quick course in how to just at least come to a standstill so that it looked okay for camera. So yeah, so like with a lot of those things, actors tend to be, in my experience, except for the ones who like properly go like deep sort of um daniel day lewis kind of style yeah yeah the ones who like do the proper full-on um method acting thing you know christian bale uh there's a fantastic story from tim booth out of james who played uh the

serial killer zaz from the batman comics and he played him in Batman Begins. And said he was working with Christian Bale for like three or four weeks on Batman. And he was sat in the makeup chair one morning and Christian Bale was sat next to him getting the full Batman cowl and stuff on. And at the end of it, he turned around and did the Batman voice and went, you're Tim Booth, right?

Of James? Laid save my life. And like walked off, right? Because obviously he stays in character. He said, and then after that, they just chatted to each other on set, the entire thing. After they'd finished filming,

he realized that he hadn't actually been hanging out and chatting to Christian Bale at all. He'd been hanging out and chatting to Christian Bale's version of Bruce Wayne, because that's what it's like when you're working with some of the method actors. And although he went and put on a lot of weight and lost a lot of weight for the role,

I don't think he sort of falls into that category where he would have gone out and gone, oh, yeah. Because if they'd have cast, like, obviously, if they'd have cast Daniel Day-Lewis in Cast Away, he would have gone and made sure that he got, he would have made sure that he survived a plane crash and got shipwrecked for three years just so he could go and bring a sense of resimilitude to the role. Tom Hanks isn't doing that. Tom Hanks is going to go, oh, yeah, yeah, well, you know, obviously the one thing I remember from the film, don't eat too many coconuts.

Yeah, right, Tom. Yeah, whatever. Yeah, we know the story about the coconuts now, Tom. Yeah, come on. Yeah. And the other thing is he's, like, obsessed with collecting typewriters. So there's a part of him that isn't that interesting. That's the thing.

That is the bit of him, the part of him that's like the obsessive and the thing that isn't really that interesting that I would find most interesting about him. That would be the thing. Also, the other thing is, I know for certain that I would manage very, very quickly to annoy him.

It's the other thing. Because I really like Tom Hanks. I think he'd just be terrible to be trapped on a desert island with partly because of cast away but also because um i would annoy him really quickly and it would and it would like ruin uh it would just ruin uh it would ruin my image of him and i've managed to damage that with enough heroes over the years i don't want to do that with him yeah um but i also know that i was really upset him really quickly because i wouldn't be able to not ask him what the fuck happened with chet hanks his son because he has two sons he has

colin hanks and he has chet hanks and colin hanks is exactly what you would imagine if you called your kid colin and you were tom hanks and chet hanks is just a disaster. And I can't figure out how that happened. I would try not to ask him anything about that and then accidentally completely ruin it and ask him immediately. And then he just get so annoyed with me. Cause this is the thing, like the thing about Chet Hanks, I think,

and if you're not aware of who Chet Hanks is, just Google him. He's awful. On the one hand, I just think he's awful. But on the other hand, I also, at least the rest of us, only have to imagine what it's like to be a disappointment to Tom Hanks. Whereas he knows what it's like to be a disappointment to Tom Hanks.

Because he has to. He has to be. And I think I'd probably bring that up within the first hour of realising that Tom was one of the other survivors. And I just wouldn't mention Cast Away at at all i would be able to do that i just wouldn't be able to avoid asking him about his terrible son and then if he got annoyed you'd be like oh now i'm a disappointment to tom hanks and it would just be just be a minefield okay well fair enough i think yeah again a solid a solid argument for for your second choice all right who's going to round

off the trio of dicks that you're stuck with them Gwyneth Paltrow okay right Gwyneth Paltrow there's lots to get into oh maybe we should go and eat some of this seaweed because it's high in antioxidants fuck off Gwyneth uh it's just terrible like there's so much about her that's like because of her her organization that she's ahead of this wellness is it's nonsense it really is so much of it just has no basis in scientific reality at all and it's actively damaging uh whether it's steam cleaning a vagina or whether it's selling jade eggs to whack up there or whether it's other stuff that you should be eating.

Like so much. It's that stuff that's like, I really find that sort of level of nonsense just so irritating. It's almost like that Deepak Chopra, that quantum can mean whatever you want it to mean. No, it can't. It has a very specific thing. Oh no, it just means things that we can't expect.

No, it fucking doesn't. Even with incredibly tiny things that are subatomic. Yes. And we can't explain those, can we? Fuck off. All of you. Yeah, I think she would be an absolute nightmare to be stuck on a desert island for that.

And also because every single solution that she would give you for any problem that you had would be wrong. Yeah. It would come from a good place, but it would be factually wrong in all sorts of different ways. So the website Goop is the thing. And then didn't they have some massive publishing deal with like a huge publishing house that then had to, they couldn't go on with it because to be on the internet, you put any old crap up about like, you know, vaginal jade eggs or whatever. But then when you're putting it in print,

there are certain standards that you have to have checked and stuff like that. So they were like, well, hang on, wait, have you got any proof for any of this? And it's like, oh yeah, but it's a doctor who said it. And it's like, yeah, but she's a doctor of like linguistics, not of like vaginal health or something, you know. A doctor in the same way that Gillian McKeckeith called herself a doctor uh something completely different yeah because she gone and bought a doctorate off the internet which you can do because i'm trying to get one

for my cat so that my cat is at least as qualified as gillian mckeith um to be giving out advice my cat brings home like pasties through the uh cat flap like genuinely she i've never seen her bring any animal in uh but she's uh she's brought in and i've come home a number of times and found flaky pastry up the stairs into my bedroom i found chicken goujons she regularly brings home sausages she once brought home a greg's steak bake actually in its paper bag. She managed to drag that through the cat flap. The weirdest thing about all of that is there isn't a Gregg's near where I live. It's like three miles away and it's at a motorway services.

That's the nearest one to where I live. Do you think there's some weird like feline Gregg's somewhere and it's just all these cats queuing up for a sausage roll? I have no idea but she really loves them she goes i wouldn't mind but there's like there's two pie shops in the village that i live in but uh she has never brought anything back from either of those she's like no she shows brand loyalty and i respect that in her i love your cat this is amazing yeah she's fantastic um but yeah so like with the gwyneth paltrow stuff a lot of that stuff like the vagina scented candle as well as the one that people remember but there was this news story a while ago that one of them

had exploded and a guy'd been burnt to death and that is just not how you want to go engulfed in flames the last thing that you think it is oh my god I'm dying in the middle of a Gwyneth Paltrow fanny scented candle this is so embarrassing you don't want to die in an embarrassing way like that so yeah like honestly like so much of the stuff that's that's put in there is not is it's not useful and a lot of the times it's actively dangerous there was it was interesting a couple of months ago that she'd um shared a video of her skin rate a skin routine of like how she goes and puts on uh sunscreen and she goes you only really need to put it on you on your cheekbones and the tops of your ears because those are the

bits that get burnt and like dermatologists were going no no what is wrong with you like that is just patently nonsense so yeah i think she'd i think she'd be a danger i think she would like no matter how good you are in surviving that, it would be like having Homer Simpson on a desert island with you. But like a really self-righteous Homer Simpson. Yeah. Who, like, demanded respect and credibility. You know, like, Homer, you know, he doesn't think, you know, he just is,

you know, he's just like a bumbling fool who's trying his best, you know. Whereas, like, you know, she would, like, be lecturing you and just things like that when you're like, the sun is on your whole face, Gwyneth, you fucking idiot. Unless you've got weird cheekbones that stick out further than the rest of your face. And even then, what about your forehead, Gwyneth? Come on, just infuriating.

And she'd get Rhys Mogg wound up as well because he's not going to like any of that. And then you've got an angry Rees-Mogg, which is even worse than a passive one. And then you've got Tom Hanks in the middle, trying to play peacemaker, you know, just reliving his role as Mr. Rogers.

And just me sat at the edge of it going, right, okay, I've managed to go and strip down this bark to try and make it, to weave it into rope. We're going to have to go and try and find some flint on this island so we can try and cut down some trees so we can at least start to try and get our way off here.

Also, I've just realised, I've just remembered as well, Tom Hanks isn't going to survive very long on a desert island because Tom Hanks is diabetic. So that's another thing. He's going to die within a couple of days in an incredibly horrific way. And he's the best one as well, you know. So obviously, I don't want him on the island for that reason.

I want him to survive. I want him to have not got on the plane, or if he is in the plane, to have died immediately in the crash, because that is the better outcome for him. Okay. Well, I think that sums up that section very nicely. So we're going to move on, because 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 cauliflower cauliflower okay i just will not eat it like i i was trying to think since i narrowed it down to three because there's there's only three things that i don't eat in terms of like food stuff like that that it you know in the event of being trapped on a desert island that i still couldn't bring myself to eat and this is an autistic thing as much as anything else but the three things are peppers cauliflower and brussels sprouts those are the three things that I couldn't, can't do.

And it comes from, I think it's almost an entirely an autistic thing, but I can always taste, cauliflower has a really specific taste that I can taste. My mum loves it. My dad loves it. And they really like the three things that I don't. And I've always cooked those things for me really badly. And from that, I've come to this basis that I'm just an incredibly picky eater. I'm an incredibly fussy eater who you can't please.

In spite of the fact, I really am not. I will eat any old shite. I honestly don't care. I just don't like those three things, which they seem to put in everything. Someone once gave me that cauliflower rice. and I'm never talking to them again, like, what is, it's just, it's just the worst, there's something about it, I can't even manage to, once I recognise that that's what it is, even if you go and blend it up, and try and put it in something else, like in soup, I can spot that it's's there and my throat just won't swallow i just i cannot physically do it and when i was a kid whenever i'd sort of like

describe my upbringing i always sound like incredibly victorian i'm almost like the equal and opposite to reese mogg in that um my dad when he my dad used to be a blacksmith and um he met my mum uh because he was his parents ran a pub and he was just finishing his apprenticeship and my mum was selling uh seafood out of a basket from pub to pub so which is you know incredibly victorian thing we've done and that's how they met and um but and we lived off in the countryside and so as a result of that one of my jobs when i got home every day from school was to go and get rid of the ash from the open fire and then reset the fire so that it could be lit when the parents came. But like in terms of some of the other stuff, they were really, really strict over what I could and couldn't eat.

We weren't very well off. My dad retrained and became a teacher. My mom eventually went and did like A-levels and got a degree at night school and went off and became a probation officer. But for most of my early childhood, we really didn't have any spare money at all. And like didn't get a video recorder until the mid 90s. The TV that we had was rented and it went back. We ended up without one for about six weeks when I was a kid, because it had to go back to the shop. And all of these things that by the mid 80s were just standard for everybody on everybody,

certainly where I lived and within my peer group had, it was just, you know, and we didn't. And when it came to food, they were really old school about it, that if I didn't eat something, I had to sit at the table until it was done. And cauliflower was one of those things where I would just sit next to it for hours. Although the one that really sort of eventually got me was that they had Brussels sprouts and one afternoon, one Sunday as part of our Sunday lunch, because they're my mum's favourite thing. Right. And I refused to eat them

and I sat in front of that plate for about four or five hours until it was time to go to bed. And then I got up the next morning and it was there on the table for me for breakfast and I wasn't able to eat it. I wasn't allowed to go to school. It wasn't allowed to have me.

It wasn't allowed to go to school or do any of the things until I'd eaten it. Wow. Yeah. So stuff like that. Those three things. I'm just not having them but cauliflower particularly like that's the top of the pile yeah because as i've grown older i think i could probably palate brussels sprouts but cauliflower i every now and again i get something that's got it in by accident and because the other

two i feel like peppers pop up a bit more, but not that often. Brussels sprouts are more localized. You know, like you don't tend to get them that often. They're easier to avoid. Cauliflower, like it sort of had a, like a hipster resurgence as well. So now it's like, it kind of gone away for a while. And now it's like, it's back, you know, and it's trendy and stuff as well, isn't it? Yeah.

Like a lot of places that I go and gig in the last couple of years, you in and they go oh we've got these vegan chicken tenders have them and you go oh fantastic oh these are great and you buy into when you go the fuck is that that's cauliflower in batter is what you've just given me there what is that how on earth do you think that that is an equivalent of a vegan chicken tender go screw yourself i don't have any of this it's not i mean it is a vegetable which is good but no you never hear anyone go oh you know cauliflower is very good for this reason it's never mentioned it's like it's not like it's high in iron yeah i don't know i mean i'm sure there'll be people looking this up going actually it's got loads of vitamin whatever but it's never you know you don't hear it talked about that much

so no and also like eating enough cauliflower to be full is a lot of cauliflower. It is, yeah, because it's carbs and, well, it's not even carbs. It's mostly dietary fiber. So it's not going to be great for you on a desert island. You are really going to be struggling with that unless you go and use it as a weapon to throw at something. But even then, you're not going to be able to throw it hard enough. Yeah, and it's not even that heavy, is it? You couldn't really bludgeon someone.

I mean, I'm saying someone rather than something, because I'm thinking of Mog. But yeah. Okay, so cauliflower, a good choice there. And what were you going to wash that down with? What's your drink choice? Anything alcoholic. Like I said, I mentioned earlier, I'm a recovering alcoholic,

so these days days even a little bit of that that's going to be the end of me if there's anything that's got any booze in it i'm not getting off that island and not only am i not getting off that island i'm going to be dead in a very short amount of time i'm just going to go oh got nothing oh what's washed up thousands upon thousands of bottles of wine right okay yeah we are not getting off this island it would be the end of me well yeah because either that or like if you are like you know in that situation and you manage to be strong enough just like what an awful temptation just to have that there all the time you know it's like things can't get any worse

just imagine it like a single crate of it that it that's broken at the bottom of the sea and they've all sort of slowly started to bob up. So no matter how many of them I get rid of, the next morning I come down, there's another hundred of them on the shore. I'm like, for fuck's sake, really? And they're all miniature bottles because you've been on a plane. So it feels like you've drunk even more because there'll be like 50 of them just surrounding you like you're a giant, like there'll be like 50 of them just surrounding you.

Like you're a giant, like a really pissed giant. Waiting for like a little message in a bottle and going, this isn't even big enough to put a message in. You have to do like a sentence at a time, like individual words and just throw out a million and hope that someone can rearrange them later. Really just waiting for some sellotape to wash up so you can at least tape them together so that they can do that. Yeah. Yeah. So they don't all just fall apart.

I mean, yeah, that'd be awful. It'd be a terrible situation. Plus the other thing is if it's alcoholic, there's a genetic thing, right. Called,

um, or it's, it's known as Oriental flush, which is that, uh, because people from the Far East tend to after they've had alcohol uh tend to go bright red there's something yeah yeah in my family so anyone in my family when we do drink we just we go bright red and the reason for that is because in the far east in

order to make water um more uh in order to sort of like try and get away from dysentery and other waterborne illnesses in order to make water safe to drink they went and boiled it into like tea and stuff like that whereas in Europe in order to make water safe to drink we tended to do we tended to go and brew it into like really weak beer and it was the reason why

on ships for generations they went and they had barrels of beer everyone had an amount of beer that they were allowed to have that was a low percentage because that was the safest way to make sure that you got enough to drink. And the stuff that's going to wash up on your desert island is not going to be that. You're going to get absolutely hammered. And then the next day you're going to be incredibly hungover and really dehydrated. It's just going to make things worse. And I can imagine like Tom Hanks being like,

he'll be the mediator, like laying a hand on you, just when you're at your low point, and he'll be like, come on now, let's think about it. And you're like, fuck off, Tom Hanks. Fuck off, Tom Hanks, I'm getting drunk. And again, the next day you're like, oh God. And then I upset Tom as well, and he was just trying to be nice.

And Gwyneth is going to be like, you look a little red there try some try some whatever fucking weird shit I've made up instead of sun cream

and Rhys Mogg's going you've only got yourself to blame you should have showed some restraint I only had one and yeah

and that would be the day that I'd bludgeon him to death I think with a tiny wine bottle trying to trying to bottle, but it doesn't work and just gets a splinter. 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 lipsandads.com now. That's L-I-B-S-Y-N ads.com. Yeah, okay. Well, look, fortunately, you're not going to be without entertainment on the island. The Plains

Entertainment System continues to work, but just your luck, it only has two working settings. One is your least favorite film of all time time and the other is your least favorite song what are they and why song re-rewind by craig david oh good call i hate that song yeah there's something about it that i just found find really uncanny it's partly the auto tune that's in it um because i don't i'm not particularly as i say i'm not particularly a ranter and mostly i'll be able to forget about it especially sort of songs because now that i'm old i uh i just like i don't have the energy to be annoyed by things like that anymore i remember when you when you're a teenager and somebody doesn't like the band that you like and you've made it sort of like a supporting wall of your entire personality

and so you're really angry at them for this how dare you not like the thing that i like and you get so angry and i and i don't i can't i don't have the energy for that anymore however with this song uh when i was about 18 at 19 i was at university in South London and living in a little sort of terraced house. It was in quite a nice little area, you know, considering we were students. We were doing quite well in getting the place that we had. It was a really, really nice place to rent. And next door was a bunch of graduate students who were a bit older than us. And one weekend they had a party and they played re rewind on repeat pretty much for the

entire week it was it was all sort of uk garage that they were playing and it was so loud coming through the wall and just couldn't sleep for an entire weekend and it was re rewind that they kept playing over and over and over again and what else i think they had the shanks and bigfoot sweet like chocolate oh god yeah i hated that era of music me too and eiffel 65 blue was oh my god so it was basically those three songs over and over and over again and just couldn't sleep it was so loud for the entire weekend and it nearly broke me to the point that i remember being stood in in the in the hallway of my house with a hammer going, I'm going to go around and I'm just going to smash up the stereo.

I need to stop this. I can't carry on. Yeah, like re-rewind isn't an instruction. Play something else. It's okay. Absolutely. And so off the back of that, I was like, yeah, no. And whenever I hear that song, it just sort of triggers something deep inside of me.

It just makes me incredibly upset. You know, sometimes there's like a new, when you're young, like a new form of music comes out and you're like, I feel like I'm the only one who doesn't get this. Like, you know, you'd hear it and go, this is fucking shit. And then you get to school and everyone's just like,

yeah, that's the best. This is the best song ever. What are you hearing? What are you listening to? Why are you listening? No no listen to some of this oh i'm not listening to that shit all right okay fine yeah and it's got that's a weird comedy boing sound effect in it and it's like what the fuck is this yeah why do you need this none of this none of this is good i'm so glad when garage wasn't a thing anyway i remember my friend said he worked in a bar like years years later and someone said oh do you know anywhere where like where i can go find some garage and

he forgot that garage existed and he directed them to a petrol station and then they were like no no you know like uk garage and he was really pleased that like for that amount of time he forgot that the genre was a thing yeah i'd have been so pleased as well it was an awful time because i'd always been into metal and punk and goth stuff. It was like people thinking that it was just, oh, no, you just hate dance music. And I was like, I don't. I'm really into big beat. I'd also just recently discovered ecstasy at MDMA.

I was so into like so much dance music. I went and saw Norman Cook versus Armand Van Helden. It was fantastic. it was like i was really into that sort of stuff and i just uk garage of that era just and i put i mean part is that i think that song was absolutely terrible but i also think that that party that happened next door that lasted for three days just the thing that made me go, no, I cannot listen to anything associated with this music at all. No, I agree.

And it was the same. Like I liked so much, so many other genres that had an influence on, you know, like I used to like hip hop and R&B and house and all these other things. It's like, I like all these components that go into it, but you know, I can like a lot of different ingredients.

So it doesn't mean that the stuff you make out of it is going to be any good you know this is it yeah listening to that sort of stuff and going yeah yeah really because i was also really into a lot of hip-hop really into wu-tang clan really into public enemy really into like nwa and stuff like that and and a lot of the stuff that sort of came out of that and it was just one of those offshoots that was just like no this sounds awful this sounds terrible went on holiday to grit the last proper holiday i had was just like, no, this sounds awful. This sounds terrible. I went on holiday to Greece. The last proper holiday I had was in like 1999 and went with a whole bunch of people from university to Greece for a fortnight.

And it was just the worst as well. And that was like right at the height of that. So every single club would be playing stuff like that. It was that call and response thing that was going on in clubs at the time. Like, Oh God, that was the start of that. And you go,

you know, when you're like, you get up to a club and you just hear that happening from outside. And then the bouncer checking, if you had shoes on and you're like, Oh, the fuck. Really?

Really? Oh God, no, no, no, I don't want any of this. So yeah. So that song can, yeah. Can I'm just sitting there going right okay well obviously i i'm never listening to music again until we escape i agree and then what would your film choice be uh lord of the rings the two towers okay yeah yeah

first of all it's the middle of the trilogy so it's absolutely not satisfying in any way whatsoever to just watch that on its own It lasts a long time, so it's got that going for it, but also I'm a proper nerd and you can see, because we're on Zoom here, and you can see all of the nerd shit that I have in the background of my

shot, whether it's my Catwoman poster or my Hulk poster poster or the marvel comics covers or you know the uh stanley bumper sticker from avengers endgame that's behind me or like if i move my chair slightly out the way how much way is it there we go you can see i've got like a mario coin block and like pokemon spider-man mask and like you can't quite see because it's just out of shot but there's a Cybermen picture up there as well and I've got like Doctor

Who stuff all over the place and comic books, all sorts of different comic books of different types and so obviously everybody assumes that I would like Lord of the Rings and I don't really don't I find it,

I found it interminable. I've never been able to get past like about page three or four of any, of The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. Struggled with those. Went to see the first film at the pictures because I was dead excited because obviously it was a huge event. It's like, oh wow,

they're finally going to be able to film this. Wow. Amazing. And watched it and got back. I was like, oh wow. It took're finally going to be able to film this. Wow, amazing. And watched it and got back. I was like, oh, wow. It took a long time to go nowhere. And, yeah, and I watched all three of them. The pictures didn't enjoy any of them.

But by the time I'd got to the end of the two towers, I was like, I'm going to have to watch Return of the King, can't I, just to at least find out how this goes. And I didn't like it. And that was it. And I was like, yeah, okay, fair enough. It's And I was like, okay, fair enough. I don't, it's not for me. It's for everyone else. I'm really glad that it exists. And I know that a lot of people really enjoy it and I am so happy for them. And I think it's wonderful. My partner,

it's like her favorite science fiction trilogy. Absolutely adores it. Yeah. And then about 10 years ago, I got really ill. I got glandular fever. I've had glandular fever twice in my life, which I don't even think is supposed to be possible. And the second time I got it, it developed into chronic fatigue syndrome, which I've struggled with for the last 10 years. And so for about six months, I couldn't get out of bed. And I just watched stuff all the time.

I managed to get through the entirety of the West Wing in under a week, right? Because I couldn't do anything else. I didn't have the focus to even play video games or anything like that. So I'm lying in bed and my flatmate had the extended versions of Lord of the Rings. And I went, do you know what? I watched them at the pictures and I didn't really get, maybe I should watch them again and just see what they're like. And I decided to watch them all in a single day because obviously I couldn't do anything else. And so I woke up one morning and put them on.

And the director's versions, I think they're like four hours each. Yeah, like if ever something didn't need extending, it's those films. Yeah. And I watched all of them back to back and just got to the end of it and went, that was the worst thing. That was just, it was, it was every, not only was it every bit as bad as I remember it being, it was even worse.

Nothing happens. Nothing happens. There's like, and even the building of the characters and their feelings for each other doesn't really go anywhere. Also, they're really hard to care about, I find. Yeah. You know, it's an epic quest and this big struggle against good and evil.

But I don't like any of you that much. I don't really care if you die or if an orc kills you or whatever. You know, I don't care. You're not likeable. Yeah. I'm so uninvested in this. Totally. It doesn't matter

totally and it's always that thing of yeah and i remember going i remember saying to to my girlfriend without realizing you know about how boring i found it and her going yeah it's almost as boring as this as this rant from you about it all right fair enough yeah you're probably right why don't they get the eagles to go and rescue them like yeah i could just imagine fucking don henley climbing up that mountain um plays in a hotel california yeah there's so much of it i mean like obviously that's the one that people think of as a plot hole and it doesn't really work as a plot hole but yeah but it even so it's essentially it with the director's cut versions of it, it's 12 hours of a bunch of people going on a walk

to chuck a ring into a volcano with not much really happening. I remember at uni it would be one of those things where it's like you're really hungover and somebody's like, oh, let's put all of the rings on. Let's all get the duvets in the living room. And I was like, I'm hungover too. And now what? I've got to just sit in my room because you're just going to watch this bullshit all day. And the lights have to be off and I'm like, I'm hung over too and now what? I've got to just sit in my room because you're just going to watch this bullshit all day

and the lights have to be off and I'm like, stop talking! This is the good bit. I'm like, fucking don't care. There's no good bit. I'm so bored of this. Yeah, I really struggled with that. Yeah, and like I say, specifically with clearly being

so into so much nerd shit that everybody assumes that I really like it. And I know enough about it to be able to get through a conversation without having to upset anyone, but I really don't want to have to. Do you know what I mean? And you've got Tom Hanks and Gwyneth Paltrow telling you why you're wrong, why it is actually a great film, and just like, oh, yeah, but if you think about the lighting,

and like, shut up, guys. Chatting with those two whilst they're telling me stories about you know things that they chatted to about the times that they met elijah wood or peter jackson after that and we're talking to them about it and what no i don't want to know about this oh you're going to go watch that i'm just going to go off into the woods and try and get some more stuff together for us to go and escape from this hellhole fair enough well you have certainly made a good case for it and i'm absolutely in agreement as well so very good work there okay very much now finally the island is overrun by the biggest dick of all the animals which animal is it and why the sasquatch the sasquatch okay the sasquatch

of all of the cryptids can you imagine right it's over the island's overrun with it and you're stuck on an island with this you're probably never going to get out of there again and you finally have proof that bigfoot exists how frustrating is that going to be for starters like that's the most frustrating thing ever you try to do that and like you actually get to see what Sasquatch actually looks like. You're like, all right, okay, yeah, I know it is. Because obviously it doesn't exist, right? We know this.

We know it doesn't exist. But that doesn't stop people from really honestly believing in it. There's a series of, I think it was on the History Channel, which every single day fails to live up to its name. They have some fantastic shows about the Bigfoot, about the Sasquatch on there. And in one of them, somebody had gone and was, I can remember one, some very serious guy,

like without any shred of irony, without anything else, just desperately trying to sort of be utterly sincere and earnest, who was doing a Bigfoot mating call. And it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen. But yeah, like if you do, if you were on an island that was just overrun with them, you'd be like, for God's sake, what? So this is where you all live, is it? Right, okay. Finally, proof.

I always love that Mitch that mitch hedberg joke uh it's like what if bigfoot is just blurry every time you try and take a photograph of him he's just blurry that's just what he looks like these photographs are really good he just looks like that yeah yeah it's part of his natural camouflage you just can't see the edges yeah and that would be quite terrifying to come across also like a seven foot tall humanoid ape creature on the island with you

you're going to get you're not going to survive for very long yeah I think they're going to tear you limb from limb which given your choices might not actually be that bad you can only stave them off with wreath mug for so long well listen i bet i think you've just done a superb job today um you know because i have

come to the end and i do think that being being torn apart by a fictional creature is the best option for you on the island it really is isn't it you know and that really speaks to the the strength of your choices here today so so you know i applaud you uh so well done well done for those um beth before we go uh where's the best place to sort of keep up to date with what you're up to at the minute what are you up to well i do a twitch show every day at 2 p.m at twitch.tv forward slash bethany black spelt phonetically b-e-double-f-e-r-n-i-e uh and i say phonetically because that's how one of my co-workers spelt it when he'd only ever heard my name spoken not never seen it written down uh but if you just type bethany black into the search you'll find me you'll find which one i'm also on on twitter that's mostly the best way to keep up

with where i am and and what'm doing. I'm sort of semi-permanently on tour around the country doing stuff here and there, but that's the best place to keep up with me, really. Brilliant. Well, Bethany Black, thank you very much for coming on Desert Island Dicks today. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you very much for having me. So there you go. That was Desert Island Dicks with Bethany Black. Desert Island Dicks is a Sink Clap production created by James Deacon, produced and presented by me, Dan Benedictus. Our editor is Chris Attataway we get social media

support from jason leach and a guy called chintzy clinton and a special mention as always to our statistician grandmaster flash and john deacon our show historian slash sommelier just like to say here thank you to everybody who listens it means an awful lot to us uh that we have your support and if you haven't already it would be so helpful for us if you would subscribe to this podcast and leave us a review as well. Subscribing, of course, means that you'll always get the latest episodes straight to your inbox. Well, not inbox, but you'll get them straight to your phone and you'll never miss an episode or never come to it late. So that's good. And just leaving us a review or a rating is really helpful for us. It helps us get up the charts, helps get us bigger guests and that kind

of thing. So it really means a lot. Despite all those names that I read out, we are an independent podcast, so we don't have any other help. We do this all ourselves. It's a DIY enterprise. So it really helps us out. And we very, very much appreciate it. All right, that's enough for me. Thank you again for listening. We'll be back next week with another wonderful episode from another wonderful guest. So I hope you have a week free of dicks, unless they're desert island dicks, and I've run out of things to say. Bye.