Desert Island Dicks - ELIS JAMES

Episode Date: January 16, 2022

You've probably worked it out from the title of this podcast, but just in case you hadn't, this episode features comedian, actor and broadcaster Elis James, who very adeptly describes the worst people and things to be stuck with on a desert island. Listen, and you'll laugh and be happy. 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, it's Dan from Desert Island Dicks. This episode features Ellis James and I'm just going to say from the beginning is brilliant. He was really good. I enjoyed it a lot and I think you will too. So yeah, we'll get straight into it. I've just got a little bit of the usual admin. As I've said on the previous episode, unfortunately, we're no longer doing our Desert Island Dicks live with Lou Sanders, but we are getting her on the podcast very soon. So look out for that because it's coming your way imminently.

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shut up and instead let's get ellis james on to share his desert island dicks 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, podcaster, actor and broadcaster Ellis James. Hello. How are you doing? Very good, how are you? Good, I forgot I agreed to say that vibe merchant in there at the beginning as well. Yeah, if you could check that in please. And vibe merchant Ellis James. And vibe merchant, Ellis James.

How are you doing today? I'm good, I'm good. Well, actually, I'm quite wound up because this morning I had to think of the worst people, foods, drinks, songs, films and animals to spend my time with on a desert island. So I was actually quite chilled when I woke up this morning, but I've just been running through a sort of Rolodex of things that I loathe in my mind. So, yeah, I mean, I'm looking forward to the podcast, but it's put me in a very odd frame of mind, I'm afraid. I'm sorry about that. I mean, I'd like to think that maybe once you've got it all off your chest, you'll be OK for the rest of the day.

But it might be that like a bad song, it lodges in your mind and these choices repeat over and over again. Well, I'm playing five aside later on so i don't know maybe this will translate into my game and i'll start making very rash challenges all sorts of you know lashing out yeah well i don't know we'll just have to go and see how it goes and um you know if if something amiss happens with your five aside um uh later on you know just get in touch and, you know, I'll sort out some kind of compensation. I don't know. I don't know quite how we'll work it out. But, you know, I'm anxious not to affect your personal life too much.

I mean, generally, are you a kind of someone who manages to not explode and rant a lot? Or do you need to sort of have a little safety valve of ranting to kind of maintain equilibrium? What, in general or on the Fiverr side pitch? Just in general. In general, I'm quite placid, but I realised this during the pandemic actually that I really need time on my own. If I spend too long with lots of other people

and I don't get to recharge on my own, then I can find myself getting slightly impatient. But in general, a fairly happy, placid, laid-back sort of person, I think. I actually reckon I'd be quite good on a desert island.

If you could still get your own time to yourself, then that's okay. I guess it depends on the size of the desert island. Yeah, and Wi-Fi. Yeah, and Wi-Fi. I mean, if I had Wi-Fi, I'd be absolutely fine. Absolutely. I mean, you know, you have children, so I think most people with children would sort of enjoy the first week of isolation, I think, a little bit, you know.

Yeah. Before you started missing them terribly, obviously. Please rescue me in a bit. Yeah. Okay, Ellis, well, let's get into it. Let's hear who your first dick is going to be. Okay. Well, in terms of people, this took me a long time to narrow down.

So what I'm going to go for initially is when John and I started on Five Live, we used to get lots of very angry tweets from listeners, which we get far fewer of them now. But especially if I was getting them to my personal Twitter account, I would often look at the bio. And there were always certain themes. Certain themes would emerge from people's bios. From the people who were tweeting us very angrily in capital letters when we first started on the station. And you would often get

Proud Dad. Proud Dads don't like it. Proud Dads, Patriots. But the one that always used to stick in my head, because this is actually more common than you'd think, it would be Andy, Sheffield United fan, 48, contrarian. Can you imagine being on a desert island with a contrarian? So there's two of you.

And you're like, okay, so let's imagine the scenario. The plane has crash landed, sort of lost style, and you're the only two survivors. And you've survived alongside a contrarian. So you're saying, I think we should build some shelter. Well, I don't actually. Okay, fine, let's not build a shelter. I think we should, I don't know, maybe sort of a fishing rod or something so we can eat something. Well,

I actually don't think a fishing rod would be a good idea in this scenario. Within an hour, it would be so deeply irritating. And contrarians often, in my experience, they think that they're the clever ones and that they think that they've got all of the answers and that we're all, you yn fy mhrofiad, maen nhw'n meddwl eu bod nhw'n ychydig o'r rhai gwych ac yn meddwl eu bod ganddyn nhw'n cael yr holl atebion ac ein bod ni'n ni'n llwyr o'r bobl sy'n ddynol yn dilyn y rhan ac maen nhw'n y rhai sydd wedi ddynnu i lawr i'r hyn y mae'r byd gwirioneddol yn ei fodlon ac yn aml, gallai ganddyn nhw gael safbwynt neu safbwynt ddiddorol ond ar un oedolion, os yw'r ddau ohonoch yn unig ac mae perspective or point of view but on a desert island if it's just the two of you and survival is paramount i just cannot think of anything worse than than being with someone who would um disagree with consensus because i think in this situation you're stressed you're anxious there has to be a certain amount of consensus otherwise it's going to be very very difficult yeah people

who call themselves contrarians it's like you're still living by most of the societal norms that the rest of us that's a good point so it's not like you're still you've still got pants on yeah you're still wearing clothes you live in a house you go to work and it's like you're not really subverting the norm that much you know it's not like you've gone completely off grid yeah you're on twitter for fuck's sake like how contrarian you know yeah and also know, it's not like you've gone completely off grid. Yeah. You're on Twitter for fuck's sake. Like how contrarian are you? Yeah. And also, you know, it's like a lot of people have also put their age,

which team they support. So straight away, you're quite normal in that regard, you know, as a contrarian. I'm a big Beatles fan. And I do have a slight problem with, not with all, not with everyone who doesn't like the Beatles, but there is a certain kind of person who doesn't like the Beatles, who is doing it to get a rise out of the general public. And, you know, if you like classic music or jazz music, whatever, and they don't float your boat, that's absolutely fine. But there's a certain kind of

person who delights in saying, well, I actually think they're just no more than a bloody boy band who uh got bloody lucky actually in there i would listen to the beatles but i'm too busy yawning because i'm so because i'm so bloody bored yeah well not as good as eric clapton in my humble opinion yeah well well well done you're really brave i think there's something as well about people who who proudly describe themselves you know because you get an idea of who you are but i don't think i have enough nailed down certainty to say in my bio this is me in one word you know it's like's like people who go, oh, well, I'm a bit crazy. They're never very crazy.

No, yeah. People who sort of go, well, this is me. I'm a contrarian. It's like, you probably aren't. You're probably just a prick. You probably just like arguing. Andy, 48, a prick. Yeah, yeah.

Put that on your bio. Yeah. You know, because we're reading between the lines here. According to my wife and son, your bio. Yeah. You know, because we're reading between the lines here. According to my wife and son, a prick. Yeah. After a while, I suppose it could be quite entertaining trying to get them to just go in circles and sort of disagree with themselves

or, you know, contradict themselves a lot. You know, a contrarian, it doesn't mean that you disagree with everything. It means that you tend to disagree with the sort of the general consensus but in my experience the people who describe themselves as contrarians will just a degree will just disagree with everything because they seem to like arguing so i think what would happen is you would eventually have to there'd be a lot of double bluffs there'd be a lot of I don't think we should get

a safe source of clean water I think that would be a bad idea and then you'd have to sit back and let them think that they've come up with the idea on their own and then obviously we can all move on and progress but

it's a very sort of uh sixth form attitude it's also it might have been quite male it's often it's often blokes who are like this and i just haven't got the time to i haven't got the time to disagree that much i don't i don't like confrontation enough yeah yeah desert island someone who's that confrontational because i think you know on the on the face of it a lot of the things that contrarians would have issue with probably exist in the modern world you know like lots of things like okay today there'd be things like vaccines politics brexit all these kind of things you think maybe removing them to a desert island would sort of take all that ammunition away from them.

But I think they'd still bring it up though. I think they'd still find a way of sort of shoehorning it in, you know, even if you're just sitting there looking at a lovely sunrise, they might say, oh yeah, well you don't get this back home. And of course some people will tell you that's down to pollution, both from cars and streetlights. They're actually wrong on two counts there. And they're just really crowbarring shit in like that. You're in your hammock and you're covering your ears

because this bloke is going on and on and on about Britain's relationship with the EU. Mate, I don't care. I don't care about the common agricultural policy. You know, we're marooned. Yeah, we have literally left the EU now, there's no doubt about it. There's no arguing anymore. I'd love a trade deal.

Okay, well, I think a contrarian is a brilliant first choice. Who's going to be joining the two of you then? Okay, for a long time when I was thinking about this, it was going to be a specific person who wants to cut my hair. He wasn't my usual hairdresser, and I said, I was just making small talk. I said, so do you like to tip music? He went, no. I was like, oh said, so do you like music? He went, no.

I was like, oh, okay. Do you like sport? No. Oh, so what are you into? Films, is it? No. Telly? No, I don't have a telly.

Okay. Cars? No. No. All right, then. Poetry? cars no alright then poetry he's like no, no not really I haven't done poetry since school and I said so what are you interested in

and he said I just text my friends now he he would be difficult to spend time in a desert with so I thought I was in the show and I thought great I'll choose that hairdresser he would be difficult to spend time in a desert island with. So I thought, I was in the show and I thought, great, I'll choose that hairdresser. And then I remembered something Izzy told me.

Now, Izzy, my partner, who's been on this podcast, she studied drama at college. And even though she went on to do mainly comedy stuff like, you know, Peep Show and Man Down and Damned and all that kind of stuff. When she was at college, obviously there was a huge emphasis on, like, not, you know, they were doing plays, but also they were doing musicals and stuff, lots of singing and dancing. And I didn't go to drama college.

And when I was studying, I must admit, I didn't realise how hard they worked. I thought it was a bit of a doss. But they're constantly in rehearsals because they're always putting a play on or they're always putting a musical on or something. There's always some performance that they're working towards. So they're often in very early and they're rehearsing all day. But as he said, they just love to perform so much. She was saying that she'd be in the canteen at like midday because they've

got an hour off for lunch and then they're going back to do more rehearsals but people she was at college with would love to perform so much often someone would just jump on a table as everyone's trying to eat like a sandwich and have a can of coke and just go luck be a lady tonight just start like singing songs from the shows you know i dreamed a dream in time has gone by no no that is that is my idea of hell yeah see you next to a palm tree and the bloke you're with, the contrarian, he's fucked off to the other side of the island, obviously. And the other bloke you're with or the other person you're with is hanging from a sort of palm tree and singing, you know, sort of something from, I don't know, Les Mis or Cats. Can you imagine a song from Cats or something? Yeah. Neymiz, neu... Câts! Gallwch chi ddychmygu cychwyn o gâts? Ie.

Dwi ddim yn gallu meddwl, neu stori West Side, dwi ddim yn gallu meddwl unrhyw beth yn gwaethaf. Oherwydd, yn amlwg, dwi'n gwneud stand-up a phethau o'r math, ac rwy'n perfformwr, ond mae'n rhaid i chi gael swith arall. Ond rhai pobl, a'r stand-ups yn y maen, yn wir yn dda iawn yn hyn,

mae'n rhaid i chi gael swith arall. Os ydych chi ar Eiland Dyn gyda perfformwr sydd heb swith arall And stand-ups in the main are actually quite good at this. You've got to have an off switch. If you were on a desert island with a performer who didn't have an off switch and was constantly singing. I once did a gig where it wasn't just comedy, there were singers as well. And one bloke on the stage, and he was an opera singer. And I don't know if you've ever been in the same room as an opera singer. it's extraordinarily loud. Like they are. It is inhuman how loud they are. Now, the idea of sharing, as much as I appreciate it as an art form,

it's not really my thing, but you can't deny that it's impressive. Sharing a desert island with someone who's got that kind of vocal ability would be deeply irritating for about 15 minutes yeah definitely i think it's maybe something about our culture it just doesn't quite sit well with us when someone's that confident all of the time yeah i had a friend who who their friendship group involved a lot of these people who were very sort of confident performers and did improv and things like that. And it was just slightly unnerving

because it was just a bit like every laugh was a bit too loud and a bit like a bit over the top. And it was just really like, no one's that confident. Like now you're performing, you've gone past being yourself and you're on stage here in the pub. And it's like when you're imposing your confidence on somebody else. For instance, I used to live in a very studenty area of Cardiff and you'd always see it.

First year students were particularly bad for this. You'd be in Tesco or something and they would be very loudly and performatively discussing their, like, booze choices for the rest of the aisle to hear. You're like, mate, I don't care that you've bought Drumbooy because you're going to a party. It could not be less relevant to my life. I think I'll probably end up drinking eight pints of gin and tonic.

Yeah, great. You know, do that. I couldn't care less. But you're performatively discussing your choices in front of like, like there's like a, you know, a taxi driver and a sort of a postman and a nurse. We're just trying to get our ready meals that we can go home and watch telly with our feet up. And that that really annoys me. Like when I first started doing stand-up, when I was an open spot, the other open spots I was always drawn to, the ones I liked,

were the nerds who just liked comedy who actually weren't very confident. And often were quite bad performers but had good material. The ones I could never really relate to were often the ones with acting training who appeared bulletproof on stage and appeared bulletproof off stage because of with acting training who appeared bulletproof on stage and appeared bulletproof off stage because of their acting training

even if the gig had gone badly you must accept that we're in Northampton and no one's been laughing and yet you've got this painted on rictus grin and I'm like come on on, come on, mate.

They were throwing chicken kebs at you. Please, acknowledge that this has gone badly. I mean, the idea of them doing musicals at college, like a drama college in the canteen, I sort of understand it just because that's sort of how musicals work. Like you're in an everyday setting and then someone starts singing. So maybe it's just the overwhelming temptation like i've

worked in factories before like when i left uni i worked in loads of sort of like industrial like factories and warehouses and stuff and i always used to just think god imagine if this place burst into song it would be perfect but i don't even like musicals but like just because it looked it looked like a set you know like for someone like me and dolls yeah and it's probably just because like i'm an awful middle class person who hasn't been in many factories so i was like wow yeah it looks amazing so maybe it's just that energy in anything that's vaguely like not like a just a very plain room i i just i just if'm going to be sung at,

I want it to be my choice when that happens. Absolutely, yeah. I don't want to be sung at when I'm, you know, eating a Kit Kat and drinking a can of Sprite because it's my lunchtime. Yeah, and I think some of the best things in life are when you're with a group of people that you'll get on with and there's spontaneous humour. But when it's someone like this,

I don't think it'll ever be spontaneous because they know at the back of their mind, like, I want to sing this tune from Cats. Okay, so the drama student with no self-awareness joins you on the island. And who's going to be the third dick? I once did a corporate event, I did stand-up at a corporate

event and I had to sit with the director and have sort of the dinner before I got up and did comedy. I was the president of the company and I was sat next to his wife and she said what do you do? And I said I'm the turn.

And she said are you a singer? I said no I'm a to his wife and she said, what do you do? And I said, I'm the turn. And she said, are you a singer? I said, no, I'm a comedian actually. And she said, oh, I hate comedy of all kinds. And then she nudged her husband and said, don't I? And he said, yes, yes, she does. She said, I hate it all. So I thought, oh, I'll choose her then. I'll be, you know know someone who hates to laugh

would be an issue then I thought what would be more annoying than that I thought oh yeah Don King the boxing promoter Don King because as I'm almost because I'm not really suited for desert island life as I'm almost certainly you know breathing

my last I haven't eaten properly for days I smashed my glasses on impact which means I can't see very much I'm uncomfortable because I'm being able to change my pants in weeks I don't need a hype man in that scenario I don't need a hype man to tell me that this is the best desert island

I've ever crash landed on and also a hype man who's got links to organised crime. Because not only is the hype irritating, I'm very frightened as well. I can't relax. I just don't think we'd get on. I'd find out that somehow on the desert island,

I don't know, he's embezzled funds from my bank account or something. So, yeah, I just, I've watched a lot of boxing documentaries recently and he never really comes out to them in glowing terms. And also just, I don't think I'd need my morale lifted. I think I would need someone to be very realistic about our situation. And I don't think he would be able to be realistic. No.

Oh man, this is the greatest uninhabited small island that anyone's ever crash landed. Does it feel that way, Dan? I feel very vulnerable, actually. Because it's wildlife, I don't recognise it. We haven't got any access to food or water. Oh, this is the greatest! Okay!

I reckon, I reckon first thing in the morning... It's like people who've got loads of energy, first thing. I can't... No. When I do the school run, if I get there and there are other parents waiting in line, I often haven't said a word. And I will try not to say it because it actually takes me about an hour and a half before I'm able to speak properly.

Oh, yeah. Minimum. Yeah. So in the morning I might say, go on, toast eat your toast no you can't have apple juice you can have a glass of milk or you can have some water no you can't have a smoothie because it's too sweet so that that is as much as i can do yeah and you know when i used to live in house shares most of the people in house shares like in my late teens and 20, were similar to me. But every now and then, if you were at parties and you were staying over, there'd be someone who would, even if they were hungover,

they would sort of jump out of bed. Hey, what should we do today? We're not going to do anything today. Why would we want to do anything? It's a Sunday and we only went to bed at five. Why on earth would you want to go and play crazy golf? It's absolute, you know, et cetera, et cetera. So I think that Don King would have an element of that.

Yeah, absolutely. It's weird, isn't it? Because there's lots of things in life where, you know, if a joke is told too many times or like a bit is done too many times, it loses its impact and its resonance. But with someone like Don King, it's like like if he stops doing that he dies don we we get it it's an exciting boxing match but we're all gonna watch it anyway it's all right yeah yeah you know it's it's just the biggest match of the year like you don't have to um you don't have to no but like and and you couldn't yeah i would love to see that energy transformed to a mundane space, you know,

like him shopping or something. This is the greatest printer paper, 80 GSM printer paper you've ever seen in your life. It is the HP laser jet printer that refuses to quit. And you'd know that like something was really wrong. I mean, he'd be a good barometer for like the mood of the island because the day that you're like don you haven't said anything yet today it's like ah just don't feel like it today and you were like oh my god don are you okay yeah yeah

you've you've taken your brocade waistcoat off what's what's going on like where's the musical guy luck be a lady tonight you know just his hair just slightly sort of drooping down you know it's like the signs of a healthy looking dog or something it's like bright eyes wagging tail and like i think if don king's hair just droops slightly and like you know maybe sort of isn't sort of wearing a waistcoat and a really shiny jacket. You're like, oh, no. The signs, yeah, of a happy boxing promoter. His hair's sticking up. Oh, his cigar's almost gone out.

Yeah. He's in a bad way. Oh, God, he hasn't spoken in rhyme for ages. Yeah, I wonder, because also, if you imagine if you're a boxer and you're like doing that thing where like you have to get really close to their face which i imagine even if you're going to punch this guy a lot and you believe that you're stronger and better than him i still don't know how they're comfortable with that sort of nose to nose kind of thing and then you've got don king just sort of like just spinning around wildly behind you just shouting a lot and And I don't know how that's not really distracting.

Do you think afterwards they're like, Don, come on, I'm trying to get in the zone here. I've got to fight a really hard man here. It's weird, isn't it? Because with boxing, you feel like the World Cup final or the Champions League final, the FA Cup final,

the fixture is the event. So no matter who plays in the World Cup final, the fixture is the event. So, you know, no matter who plays in the World Cup final, the fact it's the World Cup final is the important thing. But obviously with boxing matches, unless the boxers are fighting for a second time, there's no precedence. It's all about the personalities of the fighters. So you constantly need to be creating drama and story.

And I just think that on a desert island, I think you'd have to have some quiet time. I'd be like, I'm not sure. Yeah, please. I, you know, just, just chill. I think the only time he's going to calm down is if he's sort of like trying to work out a rhyme of like how he can promote it.

Like there's going to be Val and Sunny Island. Does that work? Is it quiet? And like, just that might be the thing that like drives him mad yeah he's going bright red we need to we need to come up with a tagline quick he won't rest until he's got one and then so you'd sort of have to be co-opted and then once he's got one he's off again and yeah should i have done that i don't know anyway it's a very fine choice. Now, mercifully, amongst the wreckage of the plane, there was some food and drink left over. Unfortunately for you, it's your least favourite food and drink in the world.

What are they and why are they so bad? Initially, I was going to go for pears because I don't like pears. I will eat most things. I'm not particularly fussy and I like more stuff. I just cannot get on with pears. Then I thought, no, no, no, no, no. There's something far more depressing.

And it's a legacy, I think, of filming in rural locations and doing stand-up in small villages and towns. There's a certain kind of shop-bought package sandwich that are sold in garages on rural A-roads. And when you bite into these sandwiches, they're wet. And you don't really... They used to get them a lot in service stations on motorways, but food in service stations has now largely improved.

But it's like you'd be driving through i don't know mid wales or something and there hasn't been a shop open for miles and then you see a little petrol station hasn't got a spa attached to it or something it's just a small petrol station and the sandwiches in there will always be absolutely disgusting and when you bite into them they're too cold and they're sort of moist yeah and you think well goes off to days, how long has this been here for? And those sandwiches just depress me and the idea

of just eating, there's purely food that you eat to keep going before you can get to your destination and maybe get something better. So just living off them, it would be so unremittingly bleak and depressing yeah so those sandwiches um a couple of pairs have been chucked in there in terms of drink i think the worst one

would be 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 Lipson Ads. Go to LipsonAds.com now. That's L-I-B-S-Y-N-Ads.com. I mean, I haven't had it for years and years, but Red Bull. Can you imagine if you all needed to survive on Red Bull? Oh, God, yeah. Yeah, it's Bull. Can you imagine if you only had to survive on Red Bull? Oh, God, yeah, yeah.

It's awful. So you're on a desert island. I'm assuming it's sunny, so you're going to be thirsty. So you need to quench your thirst. You can't drink water from the sea, because obviously there's salt and stuff. So you need to drink the drink that sort of crash-landed with you in the plane.

Now, I don't know what the bare minimum you could drink on a desert island would be to keep you alive. But if it's all Red Bull, by mid-morning, you're going to be anxious. You're going to be stressed. Your heart's going to be going like the clappers. I'm assuming there's going to be toilet issues. When it first came out, I was a student. And I just thought it was a normal mixer, like sort of Coke or something.

And I must have gone out and I must have had like seven or eight cans of it. I remember walking home and thinking, this is a very, very weird feeling. I'm not sure this is normal. And then the next morning was an absolute car crash. So you're on a desert island. You've got stuff to do.

You need to sort of shelter. You need to sort of food source, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You need to write SOS in white pebbles so that a plane overhead can see you. All of the sort of general admin have been stuck on a desert island. You've got Don King talking about how Red Bull is the best drink ever. I just think there's no way that after about two days you wouldn't be completely sick of it. Yeah.

And yeah, I mean, Don King and Red Bull, can you imagine that combination? And the drama student as well. I mean, fucking hell. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It would just be, it would be a really hard drink to drink a lot of on a desert island, I think. I just think with Red Bull it's weird because

they obviously invented it and they went, oh, we've mixed all this shit together and this is what it tastes like. Alright, well people, it's the first of its kind so that's fine. Diabetics can't drink it. No, but then people started trying to copy it and then making bad versions of Red Bull

and it's like, but the baseline isn't good. It's just that that's what it came out as. It's its own weird flavour. It's not like they tried to make Coke and it went, oh God, it's this taste. Yeah, and it is quite a medicinal flavour as well. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's very associated with like extreme sports now

and documentaries about extreme sports. Like they've got their own TV channel and stuff, which is quite weird because my memory of it when it first came out was that it was something that students used when they were up all night writing essays or long distance lorry drivers would use it, you know, as they were driving to Rotterdam from Grimsby.

We have a telly that's got like, you know, different apps on it. And one of them is like the Red Bull channel. Yeah. And I quite like watching all that kind of stuff. So, but you forget that it's anything to do with a drink after all, because it's just such this big brand. You know, they don't sort of like ram it down your throat all the time by having little adverts, Red Bull or anything.

But quite often someone will just do something insane on a bike and then afterwards they'll be drinking a can of it. The thing that that guy has just done, which is terrifying and exhausting, they've hurtled down a cliff on a bike or something. We've seen the same documentary. The last thing you want to do is have that to drink. You want just a nice big pint of water or something. Yeah, this bloke has been training for two years

and he's going to ride his bike off a cliff, but he's got a parachute on his back. And the bike also has a parachute attached to it. And he's going to do four flips, have a Red Bull after the second flip, and then he's going to land, I don't know, sort of in the crevice of a ravine. Yeah, I've also watched those documentaries

and it's a very funny bit of product placement there was one on there about a guy who swam around um he swam around the uk and it took quite a long time as you'd imagine and there was all these like little video diaries of his checking in and people like submitting questions on twitter and he was like okay so you know on day 48 just going to answer some of your questions here and someone had gone do you actually drink red bull and obviously red bull had had to keep that in because they were like well no because we want to prove that it's a useful thing yeah and he was like yeah well you know all these studies that show that a certain

amount of caffeine blah blah blah and then i realized the amount he was talking about was such a small amount that he was taking each day he'd obviously thought well if i if i like the research has shown that and he was having the equivalent of like maybe one espresso a day which is like you know like a fifth of a can or something i was like uh hang on he said the milliliters i'm on to you yes so yeah red bull and look and the packet sandwiches as well there's just i don't know it's something about the wet cold misery of it as well because it's you know when you're eating at a petrol station it's just, I don't know, there's something about the wet, cold misery of it as well, because it's, you know, when you're eating at a petrol station, it's because you're desperate. You know, you need something to keep you going.

And if that's what you've got... I used to know a bloke whose favourite food was genuinely hot dogs from vans on the side of the road. And he would, he couldn't resist buying a hot dog from a van on the side of the road.

I met an Australian once who was really impressed. He said in Australia they didn't have packet sandwiches like that. And he was like, everywhere you go, there's just these sandwiches. It's amazing. I was like, right? Are you sure? But, yeah. What a country.

Oh, my God, there's packet sandwiches everywhere. That's absolutely incredible, mate. Yeah, it a country. Oh, my God, there's packaged sandwiches everywhere. That's absolutely incredible, mate. Yeah, it was extraordinary. Anyway, I think it's a very good shit meal choice. Okay, now, fortunately, you won't be without entertainment on the island. The plane's entertainment system continues to work, but just your luck, it only has two working settings. One is your least favourite film of all time time and the other is your least favourite song. What are they and why?

With the song, I have a very, very low cringe threshold. And I also have a very, very low, almost a bit of a giggle threshold. So any novelty song, especially the more successful ones, I think probably in the last few years the most irritating one is Baby Shark thinking back through my life

all of the ones that got to number one and it was seen as a bit of a laugh so Mr Blobby was also just horrible and I didn't find it funny the most irritating one and the one that I just could not understand why anyone was getting any joy out of it at all, was the fast food song by the fast food rockers.

Do you remember that one? McDonald's, McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a pizza. I mean, I can't even. I just can't. And if that is ever playing, you know that bit in Partridge where Lin opens his secret drawer and he

dives across the bed to close the drawer? I will do that if it was ever played. So obviously I've got young kids, so I go to a lot of birthday parties. And the music is, you know, inevitably terrible. And it's a bit in fever pitch

when Nick Hornby says, because he in some of his livings is a rock critic. He was like, it's quite teenage of me, but I actually find songs I don't like sort of almost personally offensive. Yeah. And that song in particular. So it would be the fast food song by the fast food rockers.

But again, any of that kind of Baby Shark, Mr. Blobby sort of thing. You know, there are Christmas songs I don't mind, actually. I quite like a lot of Christmas songs. But there's that sort of novelty record that makes a lot of wankers a lot of money. Just does my head in. I'm very with you on this because I think in the last five days, my four-year-old son somehow through a YouTube algorithm discovered Crazy Frog. Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah.

Awful. And, you know, the thing about these songs is that, you know, they've got a shelf life and then they go away. And this, you know, Crazy Frog was like, what, 20-odd years ago now? Yeah. And I thought we'd never have to listen to that again. Suddenly I've got it in my house. And I sort of adopted quite a hard line on this straight away. And I was like, oh, no, don't watch Crazy Frog again.

I really don't like it. Yeah. And then he said to my wife you know mommy like i know no one else likes this song but i just think it's really good and it's like and i felt awful for him you know because you like it and we're just going stop listening to crazy frog again so maybe i should let him listen to it but it's not like i mean the good thing about small children is you can introduce them to good music and they're such got such a huge, they're just open to anything. So, you know, you can listen to The Beatles or something,

you know, interesting. Yeah, we've done that quite successfully, actually. I love my daughter's taste in music. The only difference is when, with little kids, there's repetition. So she likes Penny Lane. So we drove to see her grandmother. And so an hour and 40 minutes,

and there's an hour and 40 minutes back back so we listen to Penny Lane 60 times and I love I love Penny Lane but by the 40th time you're completely numb to it mmm yeah and and then we went for a drive when we were there and we had Penny Lane on again it's amazing how they will just listen to the same song again and again and again. So thankfully it's a song that I happen to like by a band I really love. But yeah, I mean if it was Baby Shark or one of those things, I think I would just say

I'm afraid we're not doing this anymore. Yeah, I just, I had to be blunt with him but yeah, unfortunately he's found the bit of YouTube where it can show like what you listened to last so he can go back and find it again whereas before it was like oh yeah I don't know it changes all the time I don't know where it is now

sorry I can't remember what it was called or I can't find it so I can't even lie to him but yeah I mean that fast food one is insane though it's like I mean because you forget. Who was buying that? What sort of thicko is buying that? Maybe it's just like some record exec or something and their kid starts singing it in the car and they're like,

hang on, say that again. I think we're onto something. What was that last bit? Change Burger King to McDonald's and I think we've got a hit. It's a good choice. Okay, what would your film choice be? I've never managed to watch more than the first three minutes of Love Actually.

Oh yeah, and you're very lucky in that respect. So probably a couple of times I've sat down with someone who did like it and after three minutes had to leave the room and over Christmas, so I'd seen the first three minutes probably twice,

maybe three times and then it was on over Christmas, I was flicking through the channels and we were probably I remember I looked at my watch, we were like an hour and ten minutes in so I was in uncharted territory I'd never seen this part of Love Actually and again I watched for about 90 seconds and I had to turn it off

so I've got about a threshold of about 90 seconds to three minutes for Love Actually so I'm on a desert island, I'm bored it off. So I've got about a threshold of about 90 seconds, 3 minutes for love actually. So I'm on a desert island, I'm bored, I need entertainment, I haven't got my computer, I haven't got my phone, I haven't got any books, I haven't got my records, etc, etc. I need to watch something. I am. Could I

sit through it? I mean, looking at the form guide, you would have to think no. If it was the last film on earth and I'm doing it to get away from don king someone who's always singing songs from the shows on the contrarian i don't i don't think i could actually and there's there's a certain kind of englishness that's in films that i find very irritating and i

i live in england i've got no problem with with England but it's the René Zellweger voice in Bridget Jones which just goes through me and Love Actually is full of that voice and it's a sort of England I don't really recognise

and oh my god it just again I've got a very very low cringe threshold and it just makes me cringe and it's a Richard Curtis film I mean I absolutely love Blackadder there's a lot of Richard Curtis's work I really like

Blackadder in particular but bloody hell man that film and I can't even discuss what i think the weaknesses in the film are because i haven't seen it i just know that i've seen enough after the first 180 seconds so it's not like there was a there was a piece in one of the papers over christmas about how love actually was you know it was a it was a kind of critical analysis. It really stuck the boot in.

I read the article and I couldn't even relate to it or empathise with it because I'd never got that far. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, and there's a lot of quite good actors in it as well, from what I understand. It's got a great cast, yeah. It's got a good cast. There's a smugness to it

that I just can't abide. Well, there certainly is in the first three minutes. I don't know, maybe the other 117 minutes is absolutely brilliant. I don't think that is the case. It's so sort of heavy-handed and it's that sort of as you say, that idea of a certain kind

of Englishness where you sort of expect someone to kind of be walking along in london a bit sad and someone goes cheer up greatest city in the world it's that kind of like like that's the sort of like market trader yeah come on love it's not that bad cheer up fuck off, mate. Yeah. And it's like, you know, I've lived in London for like 12 years or so, and it's taken me a long time to get to really enjoy it. You know, I just tolerated it for a long time.

And now I really do like London. But none of the things I like about London are in a Richard Curtis bit. It's just his idea of London is the idea of someone who probably hasn't really, or either hasn't lived in London or has lived in a very specific, isolated part of London for a long time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's never anyone smoking weed at a bus stop in Richard Curtis films. Exactly.

It's unrealistic. Or doing a wheelie outside a chicken shop. Yeah, just riding an electric scooter really fast down the pavement. None of that. I mean, electric scooters in his in his defense of electric scooters didn't exist at the time of love actually but it's just that sort of like and hugh grunt will be prime minister and he'll fall in love with a common girl and who's that martin mccutcheon she's got an accent hasn't she and it's just yeah yeah i think it's yeah awful awful piece of work so

um it's a very good choice okay ellis finally the island is overrun by the biggest dick of all the animals. Which animal is it and why? Are you aware of the internet forum Quora? I've seen it. I don't think I've been on it. Okay, I googled something once. What looked like the most reasonable answer. It's probably a bit of confirmation biases,

but it was something that looked fairly interesting. I thought, well, I will read that. I can't remember what I'd Googled. And it was on a Quora forum. So it's a sort of question and answer forum online, right? That's seemingly what it is. But to read the answer in full, I had to register. I thought, okay, well, it doesn't cost anything, so I'll register.

So I read the answer. There we go. And then what it does then is, based on what you've previously clicked on, it will send you more or further questions on that kind of topic, but they'll get emailed them. And then because you've registered, you can click on. And I don't know what I initially asked. But it's tailored very, very weird questions

to what it thinks my personality is. So as I've said, I don't know what I Googled when I first signed up to a website. But now the only stuff I ever get emailed is, could Riddick Bowe, the heavyweight boxer, survive 90 seconds in a cage with an orangutan? And then he'd be like, no, he absolutely couldn't. Even though Riddick Bowe is six for four, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

This is what an angry orangutan did to this poor woman at a zoo in Florida. And then there'd be a picture of a woman who's had her face ripped off. And I get these emailed to my inbox. And I think it must be because I click on them occasionally. It's sending me more and more. So based on whatever it was I Googled a long time ago, primates are very, very, very angry animals. Brackets, general. So any kind of pissed off primate, A long time ago, primates are very, very, very angry animals. Yeah.

Brackets, general. So any kind of pissed off primate, it would be absolutely horrific because they're very, very angry. They're much, much stronger than humans. And I think the final indignity as I was getting my legs ripped off by a chimpanzee would be to sort of lie there thinking, we share so much DNA. It's like having my legs ripped off by my second cousin oh my god uh they're just they're just like these humanoid sort of fighting machines yeah yeah um so yeah and i don't think i'd last 10 seconds with this sort of silverback gorilla and that's the thing I think I find it really depressing when, you know, I was watching an Attenborough thing and it was,

there's one where there's just a tribe of chimpanzees and they, like, invade another territory and they have this huge fight and it's really graphic and horrendous. And I just think, God, and we're their closest relative. Like, there's no hope for us. There's no hope for us. And then sometimes they show the bonobos that have sex a lot and you think, well, maybe there is hope for us. There's no hope for us. And then sometimes they'll show the bonobos that have sex a lot and you think, well, maybe there is hope for us.

And they wank loads. They wank loads. Maybe there's still no hope for us. You're on a desert island. You've got Don King piping up how great the island is in rhyme. You've got someone singing Luck Be A Lady Tonight. You've got a contrarian and just a wanking monkey who could kill you at any time.

And you're sitting there eating your wet sandwich, thinking to yourself, well, I can't even tempt him with this. The Red Bull's only going to make things worse. And just, I've never seen a primate wank to completion.

But I imagine there's loads of it. It's just the sheer volume will be horrendous. There's monkey spaff everywhere. I'm crying out loud. Again. Chill out. And then you're trying your best to stop this because every now and then

you will read about like a mad millionaire who's raised a lion from a cub and the lion will be relatively tame or a tiger or something so you think okay

well a lion or a tiger can't be that bad or maybe you know clearly it would be but I just think I reckon there's some animals I could outrun or I could climb up a tree. Yeah.

You don't have that option. Some monkeys either wanking or fighting. You think it is, either way, this is going to be unpleasant, potentially deadly. So, yeah, I haven't, you know, not a lovely environment to live in. No, I think you've done a superb job, Ellis, of picking an incredibly inhospitable environment. Yeah. The interplay between the characters and, yeah, I mean...

Your last few seconds soundtracked by the fast food rockers performing the fast food song, talking about food you can't even eat. I think it's flawless, really. I mean, you know know sometimes on this podcast i have to sort of really sort of stretch to you know to agree with with what our guests choose but i think in this instance i'm absolutely with you every step of the way so thank you very much thank you very much indeed um ellis obviously you know having heard this our listeners will want to see

and hear more of you um where's the best place they can do that um i do a five live show every friday with john robbins between one and three uh so you can either listen live or you can download the podcast i also do a podcast that's nominally a sports podcast but we discuss sport for about 15 of it called the socially distant sports bar but we just make each other laugh really um and you can get that um yeah wherever you get a podcast from that's where you can get it brilliant ellis thank you again so much for joining us today it's been a real pleasure pleasure is all mine so there you go that was ellis james on desert island dicks and i hope you enjoyed it it was a pleasure to record and uh yeah i think he did brilliantly now we've been a bit crap with it recently but we do intend to bring back Compact Dicks soon,

which is where you, the listener, get to share the people and things you'd hate to be stuck on an island with. And so in the meantime, you can always, at any point, share your dicks with us. Go to dickspod.com slash contact to leave us a submission,

and we'll try and read them out next time we finally get our asses into gear to release a compact dicks all that remains for me to say is thank you for listening um desert island dicks has been a sync clap production created by james deacon produced and presented by me dan benedictus edited by chris atway, social media support from Jason Leitch and Chinsey Clinton, and a special mention to Grandmaster Flash and John Deacon as always. That's it. Thank you.

Bye bye.