Desert Island Dicks - GEOFF LLOYD

Episode Date: January 17, 2018

BRAND NEW DICKS! For this week's edition of the podcast, I'm joined by radio presenter and podcaster, Geoff Lloyd. Be sure to follow us on twitter and facebook @dickspod 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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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. Hi, I'm James Deacon 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 the worst things imaginable. Who they are and why they are a dick is up to you. And here to share their Desert island dicks with us today

is my friend and yours. How should I introduce you? Your friend and theirs? And here to share their desert island dicks with us today is your friend and theirs, Geoff Lloyd. Hello, James. Hi, Geoff. How are you? I'm well.

The whole premise of this is slightly shaky for me because I just think I'm not somebody who would survive in any kind of plane crash. Because I have no survival instinct. I'm just ready to die at any given moment. I just, you know, if I have a hairy moment in an Uber where the guy pulls out probably when the light is on red and I think, okay, well, I'm probably going to die now.

I don't think, how would I get out of this? And I think if a plane was going down, my instinct wouldn't be, how can I get out of the wreckage? Who would I eat? It would be just, okay, take me now. I've lived long enough. So, you know, it's a flimsy premise in my case. Oh no, I think it's a flimsy premise anyway.

I just want you to come on and tell me who you think is a dick. But I think, shall we dive in? Sure. Who's going to should we dive in? Sure. Who's going to be your first person? Adolf Hitler. Okay, Adolf Hitler. Need I ask why? Well, of course, you know, responsible really

for starting the Second World War and the slaughter of millions of people and the Holocaust and so on. I think, in a way way that is reason enough. I think that's a good reason. To be a desert island dick. But I know that you've got a certain amount of length that you need the podcast to be.

Yes. So just to elaborate a little further, I share my birthday with Adolf Hitler. Ah, okay, yes. So I will quite often mention this. And then people will say inane things. Somebody once said to me, but you're nothing like him. Now, I know people believe in stuff like astrology

and you are supposed to share some traits with the person you're born on the same day as. But I think to say you're nothing like him, of course I'm not. I'm not responsible for any genocides. No, yeah, of course. I don't have any dictatorial you you worked with me but I don't think I have any dictatorial uh inclinations well this is the part of the podcast where I wanted to bring up that um but one thing I do have in common is that I'm a vegetarian and if you're a vegetarian people who aren't love to say to you well adolf hitler was a vegetarian

you know implying that there is something fundamentally untrustworthy about somebody who chooses not to eat meat because really what they're you know they they may be compassionate towards animals but really they are considering the slaughter yes okay of millions of people which i'm not. I remember talking to Annabelle, who I used to do the radio show with, and she will quite often have murderous impulses. So in as much as somebody annoys her,

she will want to kill them. Really? Well, as I don't have a single murderous impulse, I will wish people dead. Yeah. And the very worst, I'd think about hiring an assassin. But in terms of murdering somebody with my own hands, I never have that impulse.

You'd rather someone else did it. Although I suppose Hitler was getting other people to do the dirty work for him, wasn't he? So we have that in common. How much did he get up to on his own? Well, not that much that we know about, really. Did he kill his dog in the end i think that that was a thing that he's meant to have done right yeah so i don't think he did it out of cruelty i think he would

argue if he was still with us today that he did it from a position of compassion because it was you know that very last stage of his life where he's in the bunker and he knows the game is up and rather let rather than let the dog fall into the hands of the allies, you know, he did the compassionate thing and shot it, right? Is that what's meant to have happened? I think so. I'm basing a lot of this on the film Downfall. Right.

Say what you will about Adolf Hitler, but we wouldn't have all those hilarious Adolf Hitler memes if it wasn't for him, where people take bits of the film Downfall and put funny subtitles on it okay so i'm not saying what i'm not saying is that cancels out all the other stuff but what i'm saying is every cloud has a silver lining that and the volkswagen beetle of course which he uh he invented yeah that's strange isn't it yeah i mean people say that he he drew it on

the back of a napkin i've seen the picture. I think that's one of these kind of internet things that somebody made up. I don't think that's real. Right, okay. It's quite a weird, cute story to make up about Hitler. Well, I think there's some truth in that his government wanted some kind of utilitarian car for the people, and they were big on the motorways. Of course, we wouldn't have the aut Autobahns if it wasn't for them.

But I'm worrying now that I'm coming across as an apologist for the Führer, which I'm not. You know, I'm very much saying he is a desert island dick. If I'm thinking of the worst people to be on this desert island with, Hitler has to be one of them, one of the worst figures in history. And I'll tell you what's offensive to me is 200 years' time, you're going to go to Berlin and there's going to be like an Adolf Hitler-themed tourist restaurant.

Right, okay. Because that's how these things go. So we know that he was this appalling evil in human form. But what history does is it just makes people into tourist attractions. Sure, yeah. It's like Genghis Khan's Mongolian Grill. Is that is that oh yeah loads of them the world yeah I mean there's Genghis Khan themed stuff like so he becomes a punchline and at some point the same will happen

with Hitler he will just become you know this comical character with a mustache from history so enough time will pass yeah despite but despite being responsible for the worst atrocities in history. It'll be a vegetarian restaurant. Yeah, probably. I also think he's ruined the name Adolf. Okay, yeah. How many people being called Adolf, is that? I don't know, but I once, when I first moved to London, I was working at the radio station Virgin Radio,

and we had a cleaner who was probably in his 30s. So this was 1999, somebody born in the 60s, certainly in the second half of the 20th century. He was also from Togo in West Africa. He was black and he was called Adolf. And I was thinking, who in the second half of the 20th century is calling their kid Adolf? Yeah. Where are they getting that from?

I don't know. It's a mystery to me. Although there is a thing, I think there's part of India where there's some kind of superstition that names hold power. So there is some part of India, some province where you've got a bunch of local politicians, councillors and things with names like Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill, because those names have been historically significant. So people are calling their kids those names. In the hope that... Yeah, nominative determinism, I believe they call it. That's incredible.

Yeah. Adolf Hitler is going to be your first choice. I think so, yeah. Okay. Who's going to be your second choice? Osama bin Laden. Okay, I see a theme, a recurring theme. So a terrible evil figure in early 21st century history. It's really difficult for me to argue an opposition.

Yeah, you know, a leader in Al-Qaeda and twisting the teachings of Islam to get people to commit terrible atrocities, not least one of the against everyday Muslims that came as a reaction to that. I mean, it's just a terrible thing that he's unleashed on the world. But also it's made flying such a fucking palaver. I hate having to take my belt off. Yeah. Like, why can't we just go back? Do we not have to take our belts off before?

No, no, you can leave your belt on. I mean, maybe you'd have to take some things out your pockets, but really, pre-September the 11th, no, you could leave your belt on. I mean, maybe you'd have to take some things out of your pockets, but really, pre-September the 11th, 2001, I think the security screening at the airport, it was a formality. A pat down on your go. Yeah, you could leave your keys in your pocket. It was no problem.

You didn't have to worry about decanting your shampoo into tiny bottles. It was a lot easier yeah i remember being on a flight and i could tell you the exact date it was the 7th of september 2001 okay and i was going to visit a friend who was working at a hotel in italy and it was an early evening flight and the pilot came over the tannoy. And he said, ladies and gentlemen, we're just about to fly over Lake Garda. It's a beautiful view tonight. We've got the sunset over the lake.

If any passengers are interested in coming to the cockpit and taking a look through the front window, just contact the cabin crew and I'd be happy to welcome you and have a little chat with you. And I wasn't on an ILC and I thought I'll have to budge past somebody else to get up and i thought i'm gonna get another chance to do that there'll be some other view where a captain goes a bit giddy and asks you to come in the cockpit yeah so i didn't do it and then of course just days later the 11th september and that's never going to happen now is it you just can't go no no and that's all because of this bastard Osama Bin Laden and again I'm not saying this is the worst thing I'm just talking about how it has impacted me

so it's just made the whole process of flying far less pleasant. That's enjoyable what a bastard when your stuff comes out you have to use too many trays. Why can't you just put all your things in one tray? Yeah.

Does taking your laptop out of your rucksack really make that big a difference? Once I sent just my phone through on one. Yeah. And then they're all piling up and it's stressful like at the supermarket when stuff's coming down the conveyor belt and you're struggling to get it all in the right bags. You're tying your shoelace and threading the belt back on. You're walking through the airport not properly done.

I mean, it's impacted terribly on me. Trying to do that with a child as well. Oh, the worst, yeah. It's horrible. Yeah, and you feel a bit judged by the airport security people too. Because you've got a child on you. Yeah, yeah. It's just like, oh, can you take the child's jacket off, please?

And you just look down at her and then look at them like... Yeah, you're thinking, do you really think that I'm the sort of person who would use my child to conceal an explosive device? I mean, I guess, but who does look like that? Maybe it's Indian moccasins. Yeah. Okay, Osama bin Laden. Yeah, so Adolf Hitler is my first one,

and then Osama bin Laden is my second one. Geoff, dare I ask who's going to be your third choice? Yeah, it's my wife's friend, Kimberly. Yeah. What has Kimberly done to the world? So let me just be clear here. Kimberly is an excellent... I want to go through Kimberly's positives first.

Okay, great. But she is an excellent friend to go through kimberly's positives okay great but um she is an excellent friend to my wife she's lovely with my son when she's been over to visit she lives in america um what else can tell you about kimberly if you want a restaurant recommendation there is nobody better like this is somebody who not only knows what's happening in the restaurant scene but she has excellent taste and she'll be able to match just the the right place to the kind of occasion formal informal birthday meeting someone the first time like she she's this she's this food maven is what she is she sounds like a good person right and broadly speaking she's good company like you'll go on

evening out with kimberly and you and you'll have a nice time. But I want to bring up two incidents. Okay. One incident was she came over to visit London about a year ago and I wasn't even there and I've had this reported back to me. But her and my wife had gone for a walk and she popped into a newsagent and she wanted some water and she wanted some gum to freshen up her mouth.

Fine. So firstly, they only have Evian water in the newsagent and she says that's not good enough. She doesn't want to drink Evian water. What water does she want? Water's water, right? I'm drinking tap water now. Yeah.

There's a bit of variation with hard and soft water. And there was hotel i stayed at in liverpool once the adelphi where the water was i mean it was brown and you couldn't see through it but by and large water's water i challenge anybody to sit with a blindfold on and have perrier evian buxton water whatever and and be able to tell one from another um but when you said i'm drinking tap water now is that since you've left radio i mean now i mean like this this moment yeah yeah yeah yeah uh it is filtered i've got a very nice filtering system on my fridge yeah i loved how you just demonstrated it with a gulp yeah i mean i say it's um tap water it's actually uh one of those little taps on the front the fridge through a very expensive nice fridge here in my well-appointed North London home.

Nice. So, yeah. The picture is painted. Yeah. So, I mean, I'll point out at this stage, it's only eight or so months since I left radio, so give it another six and maybe I won't be able to afford the HP payments on the fridge anymore.

I will be on actual tap water. Kimberley's in there. That was irritating to me did i say irritating word yeah and i said irritating that was irritating to me that that she would be so snooty about whether to have evian water or not so that's the the first bit of evidence i offer up yeah and the second thing is then so she's walking down the street with my wife and she pops this gum in her mouth. And then a few seconds later, my wife just watches her drop the gum wrapper on the ground.

She's a litterer. Just casual. Just drops it. She says, oh, my wife says to her, sorry, did you just litter? She brought it up straight away. Yeah. And she said, well, I couldn't see a garbage can.

So I thought, you know, I shouldn't have to, I shouldn't have to carry it around with me all day. What kind of a psychopath would do that? You just put it in your pocket. Yes. Wait until you get home. Yeah. Or when you see a bin, if you remember.

Yeah, yeah. There's going to be a bin at some stage. So I think this doesn't reflect well on this. There's a crack there. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm thinking this Kimberly is a nice person with excellent taste in restaurants and so on, but the snobbishness about the Evian water

and dropping the gum wrapper on the ground. Are these the two occasions in one? Well, there isn't. I mean, that really is one occasion. There's another thing as well, which I'm not sure whether to bring up or not. Bring it up. Kimberley's not listening to this.

Well, so we're in Chicago and we're out for a drink with Kimberly. And I don't know, maybe she's not eating that day, but the one or two glasses of wine seem to have gone to her head very quickly. And my wife, who's from Chicago, says in the conversation, she says, you know what, I see a lot of, because I'm from Manchester, she says, I see a lot of similarities between Chicago and Manchester, not just because I suppose Chicago

is the actual second city, Manchester is the de facto second city. So I know people from Birmingham kid themselves out that it's the second city, but no one thinks of it like that. There's no culture there or anything. Yes, there might have been some stuff during the Industrial Revolution,

but the de facto second city in this country is Manchester. So anyway, so Sarah says, I think there's a lot of similarity between Chicago and Manchester. And Kimberley does like a derisive snort and laughs and says, I don't think so. I mean, Chicago is a major world city.

And that really got my back up. It's like Manchester birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, the cooperative movement, where Mr. Rolls met Mr. Royce. So much great culture has come from there. The Smiths, the Stone Roses, New Order, Joy Division. I mean, it's just this... Does she not know music? They split the atom for the first time in Manchester.

Did they? Yeah, they did. The microchip was invented there. There's all this amazing stuff that's happened to Manchester and it was such an ethnocentric view of the world that an American would only think of American cities as being world cities, or capitals, as being world cities. It really got my back up.

And because I'm quite a placid person, I didn't say very much at the time. And this was, I'm guessing, four years ago at this point. But I've been biding my time just waiting for somebody to ask me on a podcast where I can rant about it. If you could go back to that moment in time, what would you say to her? I did say something quite bad at the time.

What did you say? I said something like, well, isn't somebody the small-minded American? Or something like that. It really got my back up. Did she say anything? Because she'd had these couple of glasses of wine, she didn't really notice.

She didn't take it on. No, no. It didn't hurt her as much as it hurt you. No. And I'm pretty sure that she wouldn't have given it a single thought since then. Whereas I spend quite a lot of time glowering about things generally um and this is something that i've returned to on many occasions yeah yeah so i think i mean i think there's enough stuff there to put her in the same category as hitler and bin laden right i think i mean it's totally up to you

how often does she come to visit? She hasn't been for a while, so we're probably due a visit. Okay, so she might pop by. Do you feel like bringing it up? Recommend a podcast. I feel like making sure that I've got some kind of receptacle for her rubbish. Okay. Do you know what I'd love to do?

In fact, now I'm thinking I'm going to do this, is buy a load of whatever her favourite brand of mineral water is, but decant Evian water into it. It's a lot of effort, but it is amazing. But when she does it and when she takes the bottle out and she turns it, she'll be like, this has already been opened. Maybe I could open it for her, like pretend to open it myself. Oh, yeah.

Kimberly, let me get you a drink. Pour into a glass of it. Yeah, there we go. And then say, Kimberly, let me get you a drink. Pour it into a glass a bit. Yeah, there we go. And then she'll go, oh, yeah, this is great. And then you can just, in the back of your mind, know that it's Evian. There'd be no Evian on the desert island. No, of course.

Is there any natural water? I mean, are we just destined to drink salt water and slowly go mad? I think because I think it's up to you. Okay. What do you think? Well, I would quite like a swift death given the company. So maybe the saltwater, maybe there is no fresh water. Imagine the company.

I think the thing to do is if you're really, I can't remember why I read this, but you can drink the moisture out of people's eyeballs or keep you going for a bit. Is that true? If you're around saltwater. Yeah. Although tears are salty, so I don't quite know if that's true.

No, yeah. But, I mean, when I imagine this island, you've got to, like, collect rainwater. You're having to go through a real ordeal with these people. You know, it's not as if you're going to find a fresh pool. Are you forming a team with them? That's up to you. If you want to just kill them off or...

Well, I'm not a killer. I'm weak. I'm physically weak. And as I mentioned or well i'm not a killer i'm a weak i'm weak i'm physically weak and as i mentioned before i'm not directly murderous i don't have murderous impulses so needs must yeah although i mean forming any kind of team and hierarchy with adolf hitler osama bin laden and sarah's friend kimberly i think yeah i'm definitely not at the top of that hierarchy maybe just let them three fight it out. Yeah, and then just eat whoever dies. I think I would be the prime candidate for being eaten, though,

because all those three are far more slender than I am. So as a vegetarian, would you go carnivorous in that situation? Yeah, because I think the vegetarian argument, like if you want the vegetarian argument to have weight to it, you've got to be practical and want your biggest, not necessarily mine, but the human being's biggest instinct is survival. So you eat what you have to. Right, you're starving, you're going to do it.

Yeah. Okay, so you would go carnivorous. It's the fifth meat. Geoff, now mercifully amongst the wreckage of the plane, there was some food and drink left over. Yes. Unfortunately for you, it's your least favourite food and drink in the world. What are they and why?

Well, for food, I was going to go meat. Meat. All meat. Okay. All meat and fish. Great. The fish in the ocean around the desert island, the meat. And it doesn't apply in this situation,

but if you were asking me to to to pick the worst food so here's here's what i i became a vegetarian when i was about 27 years old because i upset the vegetarian society okay tell us please so i um i used to have this radio producer called leona who had been vegetarian for 13 years. I was out for dinner with her one night. The next morning we were covering what was then a big show. It was the Virgin Radio Breakfast Show back when like a gajillion people used to listen to it and Chris Evans hosted it. And I was eating sausages and she was saying,

this was back when I was a meat eater, she was saying, oh, I really miss sausages. I used to love them so much. When I to eat sausages i could sit down i could eat 15 at one sitting so i stored this in the back of my head and i went on air the next morning and i i told you know i told the listeners that fact about her and then i said okay leona what is your favorite animal charity she says peter so i said so what if I donated £100 to PETA

and on Friday morning's breakfast show, we get a chef in to cook you a sausage and you eat a sausage? She said, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm a vegetarian. I said, but yes, but the £100 to an animal charity is going to do more good for animals than you not eating the sausage. So if you don't eat the sausage, I won't give the money to the charity and animals will suffer.

Do you see the logic here? So it got into a barter situation whereby I eventually agreed to pay like £250 or something to Peter on the condition that she would eat a sausage. So we started arranging for a chef to come in and and so on then peter heard about it and they went ballistic oh my god because like i say this was you know back when that breakfast show had a lot of anything that happened on that show would get a certain amount of attention like chris evans when he was doing it every day there'd be

something in the press so people were in the habit of listening to it so so not that what we were doing was news but it would get back to the fact that you could do things now on you know um certain shows and uh you know you could you could say that and it would you could announce that you were gonna like slaughter a human live on air and it'd go unnoticed you know so um so so anyway anyway uh they they went mad and they you know started like getting people to jam the switchboards of the radio station yeah and they were saying they were going to like send people down with leaflets and this was back in the days when animal rights protesters were doing a little bit of firebombing here and there, you know, getting creative with it. And I became scared that, you know, I didn't fancy being a martyr.

So they got in touch and said, what if we send like a top vegetarian chef and he can come down and cook you veggie sausages and he can then prove to you that you don't need to eat meat, that the veggie sausage is just so far enough. So it comes quarter past eight, Friday morning, they've sent their chef down. He's all set up down in the staff canteen. I go down the corridor with a little microphone and headphones.

I get him to explain what he's cooking. It's this veggie sausage. I say, okay, I'm going to take a taste of it now. And I'm ashamed of this. I'd planned it in advance and it was so immature of me. But as soon as I put it in my mouth I went oh it's disgusting oh get water get water I need to drink water oh this is horrible yeah just thinking I'd do it for a laugh and they didn't find it a bit funny and you know they were threatening to mail shot all

their members and whatever so I said as a sign of goodwill I'll go vegetarian for a week oh for a week okay now the the other thing that was going on in my life at the time is i'm an alcoholic i've not had a drink for 16 years or something and um my alcoholism was kind of at its peak it was out of control and i found having this one little bit of discipline this bit of control felt quite good to me. And then I later attached principles to it about animals and things. But at the time, that was how it came about. But I was one of these people who I've never liked thinking about what's on my plate and what's in a field as the same thing. Right, yeah, me too.

So that's never very comfortable for me so like so my point with meat really is that as as you mentioned before if for survival you've got to eat what you've got to eat right sure but we live in this bloated society where we don't none of us ever need to eat meat there is so you go into any supermarket and there's so much food on the shelf that you could eat and survive and be nutritionally perfect without eating any meat for the rest of your life right right so basically this is this is the selfishness of the human being you're thinking oh it just tastes a little bit nicer though doesn't it so you're looking at i don't know say um spaghetti aglio olio with a bit of parsley and a bit of chili and a bit of garlic, very nice.

Or you're looking at, I don't know, charcuterie, that plate of meat, you think, I just really fancy the place of meat though. So it's probably better that something dies just so that I can have something that I slightly prefer. It's not that you're going to go hungry or you're not going to have something delicious. You're just going to think, I'd just rather eat that. Oh, it's okay if it dies because I'd just rather,

I just prefer it. It tastes a bit nicer. Yeah. It just feels awful to me. No, no. Sometimes it's nice. Yeah, but that's my whole point. Oh, it's nice though.

It's nice to have a bit of meat. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's also nice for things not to have to lose their life so that you can eat something that tastes to you slightly better than something that would taste you slightly better than something that would taste perfectly delicious. And I know that meat substitutes are horrible, but I'm telling you, after 16 years, if I eat pretend ham,

I can't remember what ham tastes like. It's just as good. It's like a bit of whatever that gets at with your teeth that are good for eating meat. Yeah, those ones. Canines, maybe it is canines. Yeah, but, you know, it's fine. Why would you have pretend ham, though?

Why would you eat pretend ham? Because I remember once getting into a thing at a party with a guy about this, not, you know, that I'm often at a party. But a guy said, well, you're not a very good vegetarian if you like eating pretend meat. I said, no, I'm a better vegetarian because I used to really enjoy meat. Right. So if you don't like the taste, if you like eating pretend meat i'm saying no i'm a better vegetarian because i used to really enjoy meat right like so if you don't like the taste if you never enjoyed meat and then you go veggie good for you for your principles but there's no great sacrifice going on there right okay whereas i used to really enjoy meat but i'm a good enough human being to understand that

it's probably better that something doesn't lose its life just because I slightly prefer it. So if I can get something that, you know, scratches that itch a little bit, then great. Yeah, okay. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. It makes perfect sense. I'm curious to know, with the animal cherry, did they arrange the vegetarian chef to come? Yes, they did, yeah.

That was really nice of them to do. Yeah, it wasn't nice of me. I'm ashamed of my behaviour. I was just, you know, it was for a stupid laugh. Can you picture that moment in your mind perfectly? Is it one of those? I'll be honest, I was probably a bit drunk, so I can't. Okay, right.

It is amazing that your vegetarianism ran alongside your... Alcoholism. Yeah. Because basically what booze does is makes you think, oh, fuck it. Like, whatever, you lose a sense of consequence. That's a basic thing that drink does. Yes. So, you know, it might be, oh, fuck it. Like whatever, you lose a sense of consequence. That's a basic thing that drink does. So, you know, it might be, ah, fuck it,

I'll stay for one more drink and I won't go home despite the fact that, you know, my wife or girlfriend's waiting to watch a show with me. It ought to be, ah, fuck it, it doesn't matter if I buy everybody a drink, everybody in the pub are drinking, but I can't afford it. Ah, fuck it, it doesn't matter if i sleep with this person

despite the fact that i've already got a partner that's basically what drink is doing to people so you're saying that why isn't drink making me think ah fuck it i might as well eat a mcdonald's burger yes and the answer is i don't there wasn't much overlap there was only a couple of months right okay but i think it was something to do with the fact that my alcoholism had gone so crazy that you know just part of me was yearning for a little bit of control in my life. Amazing. All right. Meat.

Yeah. Do you take any offense if you're at a table and other people are eating meat? No, because it's not up to me to, you know, I'll sit in silent judgment for the reason that i detailed before but i just think it's um i don't i don't there are things i don't like looking at i don't like walking past the butchers yeah i don't like if something looks too much like what it was when it was walking around but um it all just feels unnecessary yeah i don't i don't what i don't like is if people start getting too apologetic around like either don't eat meat or just shut up just do it yeah okay yeah like my mother-in-law is constantly saying to me jeff i have changed my

eating so much you've really made me think about these things now i did have a brisket on friday fine if you had a brisket but don't don't worry yeah yeah just don't tell me yeah yeah a bird in a bird in a bird yeah people it's almost like a confessional or something yeah what a confess their meaty sins to you yeah um i wonder if old vegetarians deal with that i'm sure they do and i'm sure i think a lot of vegetarians can be sanctimonious as well and i feel very you know i feel inferior to a vegan. Oh, right. Okay. So I have no doubt that vegans are morally superior and that the dairy industry is fucking insane. So, I mean, it's just like what you don't ever want to do

is think about dairy. No. Because just the concept of it, the concept of eating meat, if you think it comes out of the need for survival and and actually there is evolutionary stuff that suggests that we would never that carnivorous we're always you know very omnivorous and maybe more plant-based than meat-based but anyway that's a whole other thing but you can kind of see where that comes from you really struggle to see where

the idea of dairy came from yes for sure yeah and and, for sure. And it's not to me that somebody thought, hmm, that cow there, what if I pulled on that? Oh, something comes out. What if I drank that? That's not the weirdest thing to me. The weirdest thing to me is that they went and told somebody else and the other person went, yeah, I'll give that a go. Right, okay.

But I think dairy is bizarre. Cheese is bizarre. Yogurt, you just don't want to think about it. No. But it is nice, yogurt. You just don't want to think about it. But it is nice cheese. It is nice. And, you know, this is, a vegan would make the same argument to me

as I would make to a meat eater that I'm basically just having this stuff because it's just nice though, isn't it? Yes, okay. And so I like to kid myself that if I'm drinking milk there's been like a little milking

stool involved and a milk maid I'm not thinking of somebody rigged up like all these miserable cows rigged up to stainless steel have you seen the film Okja? I watched it with you I don't like thinking that my dairy

is coming from that kind of environment but it could be almost definitely yeah yeah almost definitely you only have to watch Simon Amstel's

which I haven't done because I know it'll make me feel better about myself right yeah which I think you know I understand that

is how people think about meat as well but I just give them a wide berth because here's the thing because I don't drink I think there's already some deprivation thing, because I don't drink,

I think there's already some deprivation in my life. I don't get to do that thing that everybody else does. And the reason I'm alcoholic, I'm an alcoholic, is because there's obviously some deep-seated emotional, psychological problems in me, a hole that I was trying to fill with the drink. Now, I don't get to fill that hole with the drink anymore, but that's not to say the hole isn't still there. So one of the ways in which i try and fill it is by eating nice food and i really love indian food and if i went vegan a lot of that indian food would be out of the

equation and you can't you can't read your life i think there are some excellent vegan restaurants these days and it is getting better and it's really trendy at the minute like hipsters are into the vegan stuff but like eating out in restaurants is a great pleasure of mine and to some and as a vegetarian it can be tricky but you always get your option and in some restaurants like indian restaurants or whatever it's fantastic i think once you say okay i'm vegan your relationship with eating out changes completely right okay and i don't love anywhere that smacks of sort of 1970s art center vegan canteen no yeah um and there are some good ones but it's way behind the other you don't want to be at a point where you're having to check

everything so meticulously no asking every time no no if you want you just want to see that little v next to whatever it's called yeah yeah yeah I'm very good at scanning for the V. Yeah. I hate it, actually. If I ever go to a restaurant, like a veggie restaurant or a particularly good restaurant that caters to veggies, if I get the same amount of choice on a menu as a normal person, I get completely thrown because that's really what I do.

If I go anywhere, I look at a menu scan for the v or whatever and then put it down again and i'm done in about a minute pick one of the two yeah whereas you know if you ever go anywhere with choice i find it quite crippling these days okay jeff um what's going to be your drink choice my wife drinks this honestly james it's it's disgusting what is it so it's some berries that I'd never previously heard of. So I might be saying it right, but I think they're called acai berries. Oh, yeah, I've seen that. So she gets a frozen bag of those and she gets some bananas

and she gets some almond milk and she pours it all into the Vitamix or whatever it's called. And it looks so horrible what comes out. It's very difficult to explain. If I was to say it said it looked like mud that would make it sound more appealing than it actually is because you may be thinking oh a bit like a chocolate milkshake it's not it's it's almost got a grayish palette to it like somewhere between gray and and like a horrible shade of purple like if somebody got frostbite

and have you so you're not drinking this? No, because I don't like a banana. Ah. Smoothies are very much off limits for me because the banana gives them the consistency. Right. And I don't enjoy a banana. And often Sarah will try making something with a banana in it and say, oh, you won't be able to taste it.

But I get it every time. Even in the mix like that? In the mix like that. Very strong to me. Dislike a banana. Why is that no apparently when i was a little kid i used to love them but um i probably had some vomiting incident or maybe it's something to do with that medicine you have when you're little i don't i

don't know i like that um yeah i liked it but i always felt it was more vanilla than banana but i think maybe um it was quite chemically yeah yeah yeah. What does it smell like, this drink? It's completely odourless. Yeah. It doesn't smell a bit of it. And I just think, have something you'll enjoy. People having health foods that are this extreme. So there's no doubt in my mind that there's some good health food out there.

But when people are making themselves like sprout smoothies, I like a sprout as much as the next person, but you're not meant to drink it. But boiled next to some stuffing and some gravy. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So I think I know the answer to this already, but the reason that she's drinking this is health food. It's a health food and that's it. Yeah, yeah.

So she's kind of battling through it for health reasons. There are other things. You know, we were fine. Like, I really had never heard of an acai berry until two, three years ago. And I've been around a lot of people, some unhealthy, some healthy. And they were getting on just fine without it. People weren't drinking this horrible concoction of a deathly pallor. Like, don't do it to yourself.

What else goes in there again? I'd have to ask her, but I think the main bits are almond milk. Okay, yeah. And, you know, for whatever I said about dairy before, this nut milk seems very peculiar to me. I feel like people are pretending. It's when people are pretending something is nicer than it is that it gets to me i think that's the whole thing so i think these soy milks not milks

they're not nice but people are having them for these health reasons but then they start saying oh no actually it's really good when you get used to it really tastes good i just think it doesn't you might have dulled your senses to some extent. Well, maybe wait 16 years and it might taste like milk. No, I've had it a few times, and the only time that it's ever been okay is in a porridge, like a sugary porridge, and then you don't know. Right, because what you're doing there is using the sugar to mask the flavour off it.

My mum in a cup of tea or coffee is up to, I think, almost six sugars. Wow. So she's always had a lot of sugar in a hot drink and she drinks more coffee than anybody i know okay um not espressos or anything i'm talking about instant nescafe coffee and i say to mum you don't like the taste of coffee what you like is warmth and sweetness yes like you could just be drinking hot water excuse me i just burped that you could be drinking hot water with that much sugar in it and it would make no difference yeah how's her teeth um her teeth i mean she's always going to the dentist but she still has some teeth my nan who also had a lot of sugar in her um coffee she would drink all

this sugar but instead of using toothpaste every night when she brushed her teeth, she would use salt and water. She'd like put salt on the toothbrush and brush with salt. Why is that? It's like a thing, I guess, from the olden days. And let me tell you something about her teeth. I love it when people say olden days. Ye olden days.

When does it become the olden days? So if you're talking to your daughter Ayla about you growing up in the 90s as a millennial. It'll be the olden days. But what is the cutoff? What's the cutoff? When do the olden days start? Well, they start, I guess, whenever you want them to start. But what is the cutoff?

I don't know. How far back in time do you have to go before it becomes the olden days? It's on a case-by-case basis, I think. Anyway, so Manan, she used to, like all her life, she would brush her teeth using salt water and salt on the toothbrush. And her teeth actually were the worst teeth you've ever seen. They were like little black pegs. They didn't look like human teeth.

They looked like the Queen Mother's teeth. I mean, she must have done the same thing. That's so great. Like little peanuts. Burnt peanuts, yeah. I use baking soda toothpaste. I do, but do you not think it's an affectation? I don't know.

When did you start using it? When I met Esther and she used it. Before that, I used a toothpaste with a lot of chemical-looking colours. Yeah. Like whatever the one is where it's got blue, red and white. That's very childish of you. I know.

Is that Signal toothpaste? I think it's called Aquafresh. Good for you for, you know, not just having Colgate. Colgate's very mainstream. To be honest,

I probably just use whatever my parents bought or whatever was on offer at the time. I use McLean's. It feels a bit more indie. McLean's. Actually, no bit more indie. McLean's. Actually, no, I'll tell you,

the indie toothpaste is euthymol and the one that you're using, the baking soda. That's a bit indie alternative. Arm & Hammer. Yeah. I think so, yeah. It's that band, you know, that sort of some people have heard of,

but not everyone's cool enough to sit down and listen to. Have you ever used euthymol? No, but it sounds like something that you might do to people. It looks like it's from like a 1920s druggist. It's a very nice packaging. I think old people use it, but it burns your mouth. I think it burns the plaque off your teeth. There is something awful about the consistency of the baking soda toothpaste.

Gritty. Yes, that's exactly it. And do you use an electric toothbrush? Yeah. I use an electric toothbrush yeah i use electric toothbrush but every now and again when i'm feeling mellow i break out the acoustic yeah just do it old style unplugged sorry not audible laughter because i had a mouthful of water that was really good i was hoping for a spit take that's really good 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. Cool. Jeff, fortunately, you won't be without entertainment on this island the planes entertainment system continues to work but just your luck it only has two working settings one has your least favorite film of all time and the other is your least

favorite song what are they and why well i've i've i think i've got this slightly wrong because what i've gone with is actually one of my favourite films of all time, but one that I feel doesn't stand up to scrutiny in a certain way. Okay. So this could be influenced by the fact that we're recording this on the in-between days. Do you not think these days should be called in-between days, like the Cure song?

I think I saw it written down as Gooch Week. Gooch? I saw it written down as Gooch Week. Howoch? I saw it written down as Gooch Week. How are you spelling Gooch? G-O-O-C-H. Like your perineum. Right, yes, I've heard that, yeah. Between your balls and your ass.

Yeah, that's good. That's good. I didn't know that was called your Gooch. It's called your Gooch. I did not know that. Well, there we go. Wow. That's the tagline.

I'm always struggling for a word for it when I'm talking about it which I often am in between days is a much nicer yeah I think maybe that's what they call it in Sweden

where I've spent a lot of time and I think we've got the cure song in between days let's try and make it a thing here so anyway so we're recording this between Christmas and New Year

so this film is on my mind at the moment because I love it and every Christmas I go and see it at the cinema and have since I was uh about 20 we went to see at the British Film Institute last week and I will make a point of finding a cinema that's showing it and it's the Jimmy Stewart classic Christmas film It's a Wonderful Life brilliant now I love that film but because I've seen it so many times I I find it very easy to pick holes in.

Okay, yeah. And the thing I'd most like to mention in this context is, if people don't know the film, it's about a guy in a small town with big dreams of leaving the town and going out to become an architect and designing bridges and cities. And meanwhile, his dad runs a small building and loans firm. And due to a chain of events, he ends up taking over this firm. His dad dies and he gets stuck in the town that he's grown up in

and his ambitions are thwarted. And really what it's about is little dreams can be just as important as the big dreams and your life is beautiful even though you don't think it is it's not basically the premise of the film anyway so the the kind of dramatic high spot of the film is he finds himself through no fault of himself of his own in a terrible financial situation. And at his wits end, he decides to throw himself off a bridge, commit suicide, because he has a life insurance policy that will fix all the problems and make sure that his family is okay. And his idea is that his life is worthless and he's worth more dead than alive. And then an angel is sent from heaven to show him what the world would be like if he'd never lived.

And, you know, you see that the town he grew up in has fallen into the hands of the evil capitalists. And it's full of strip clubs. It's a small village. And there must be 15 strip clubs. I mean, how they are supporting that kind of... How do they find that many strippers? Yeah, I know. And punters.

I mean, those are some quite empty G-strings, you would imagine. Just coins in them, maybe. And it's like this real decadent town. And his brother, who was a war hero, he is dead. He sees his brother's grave because if he'd never been born,

he would have never stopped his brother having an accident as a little boy. He would have fallen through the ice and drowned. So his brother had died and then a little boy. He would have fallen through the ice and drowned. So his brother had died and then all these people on the aircraft carriers would have died because his brother hadn't prevented the Germans from bombing them or whatever. And then worst of all, and it's the big reveal, so he's at his brother's grave and he's beside himself

because he's thinking, but my brother, all these lives would have been lost if my brother wasn't here. And he'd been to see his mother, who's like an old, bitter old woman running a guest house. And she doesn't recognise him. So he's had all these traumatic things of seeing what life would be like without him, up to and including the death of his brother. And then he says to the angel, but what about Mary, meaning his wife? And the angel's like, oh, well, I don't think I can tell you that. He's thinking, God, how bad can this be,

given that he's found out that his brother is dead? He says, tell me, tell me. He says, I'll tell you, but you're not going to like it. She never married. She's an old maid and she's closing up the library. And like the horrible reveal of what the world would have been like if he hadn't been there the the climax is that his wife was a spinster and a librarian so so all i mean all this is going on

and anyway people die yeah but that's not as bad as the fact that his wife is a librarian and unwed at the age of like 35 or whatever she would have been um so so there's that and also so the angel is showing him what the world would be like if he'd never been born but i sometimes wonder that not having ever been born and committing suicide they're not the same thing no yeah so up so imagine imagine if he'd committed suicide rather than seeing seeing what the world was like without him. His brother would still be alive and all those soldiers would have been saved in the war. His mother would be happy. The town wouldn't have fallen into the hands of a sinner.

His wife wouldn't be a librarian. So that's all the same. None of that has changed. All that happens is at that point, he commits suicide. And I think, well, maybe things would have gone better. Yeah. same none of that has changed all that happens is at that point he commits suicide and i think well maybe things would have gone better yeah like maybe his wife would have remarried somebody who was um you know a little less emotionally volatile the town would have been out of financial burden yeah yeah yeah yeah like maybe somebody else would have come over and taken over that building and

loans would have been even greater than him there's nothing to say that life wouldn't have got better at that point he committed suicide only the point do you see what i mean yeah do you think that um originally they were going to write what would have happened and then they realized that actually it probably would have been oh uh maybe let's just write that he hadn't been born yeah so undoubtedly you know it's good that he was born but there's there's no there's no compelling evidence that the angel gives to him that, you know, the world would continue to be a better place with him in it. You want to see a bit of what the future would look like if you weren't in it, right?

Yeah, of course. That's what you think about all the time. Yes. So that's the film I've chosen. And then the song choice is the National Anthem. Okay, yeah. Which I think it's a dreary tune. A weird thing about that tune is,

so National Anthems weren't really a thing until about 200 years ago, and I am pulling that figure out of my bum to some extent. And then I think Britain and the Netherlands got one and other countries thought, oh, that's good. We should have one too. But at first, everybody used the same tune. So what is God Save the Queen here was, I don't know.

Is that true? Yeah. And I think it still is the national anthem in a few different countries. And in America, it's some song, patriotic song, that they use in a different context. But it's a dreary tune. So if you watch things like the Olympics

where they're doing other national anthems, ours isn't good. I think Billy Bragg has said they should replace it with Jerusalem, which is a far more stirring tune. And despite the sort of religious connotations of it, it's actually about a country and what a country is. This this is my big problem with the national anthem it's god save the queen yes i don't care about the queen and i don't believe in god so it's meaningless i'm not a particularly patriotic person in a sense like i really love um you know i feel very lucky that

i was born into this modern country and I think there are great things about its history and great things about its present despite the times we're living through. But that said, it's just an accident, isn't it, where you're born? I think feeling particularly proud of where you're born is a peculiar thing because it's just a complete

accident. It's not anything you've had any part in really. It's like with football people saying us and we yeah yeah kind of stuff it's you know yeah circumstantial yeah i always think just a bit of a tangent but i've said this before like so if the beatles hadn't split up in 1970 and you know ringo had left and somebody else had joined and then at some stage paul had left and somebody else had joined and you know same with george and john and then like they start making this terrible music that sounds nothing like the music they wouldn't be my favorite band anymore i'm not loyal to the brand

the beatles and i think the same about football teams because they're getting new people all the time it's not the same people that when you first no basically just i think this is somebody else's line i can't remember who said it but But you're supporting some shirts, really. Yes, it is. You're supporting a uniform. Yeah. But anyway, God save the Queen. I don't believe in God.

I'm not a monarchist. If I do want to sort of make a nod towards patriotism, it's the worst possible song for me. And you're stuck there and, you know, you've got Adolf Hitler, Samba Bin Laden and Kimberley's just dropping like coconut rind all over the place and then it fires up in the seven thousandths time god yeah yeah i always think that it's it's so dreary and what always happens just before the national anthem is yeah god save you're right yeah it's almost audible this is a big sigh that and the sort of rain over us

bit feels horrible and subservient to me yeah you know if you think of colonization yeah it does yeah like you know if you're gonna have a song about a country you want to be something that you feel like you're part of yes and that you're you know you're part of a long tradition of people taking part in this country and making it what it is not some people who just happen to be born somewhere where like a very rich person reigns over you and it just like feels weird to me because i know when i used to be on the radio i'd say some of this stuff sometimes and people would go apeshit and call me a traitor and things especially people who served in the armed forces, who I guess like you really sold the idea

of your monarch and your queen. But if there was no monarchy, can you imagine? There's never been a monarchy in a country. And then a government proposed, all right, here's what we're going to do. We're going to pick a family and from now until forever, we're going to pay for them to live in the lap of luxury. We will do that. And you've got a daughter.

You've got Ayla saying, oh, who's that? That's Queen Ayla. And who's the queen? Well, she's the head of state of Britain and she rules over us and she lives in a palace and she has all these servants and she wears a crown. And then Ayla says to you, that great how can i be how can i be queen say oh you can't you need to just be born into the right family yeah it's horrible yeah it's really weird yeah and um yeah don't

worry about it we're just gonna talk about them all the time and treat them as celebrities well it's yeah i mean it's a soap opera isn't it yes it's bizarre but people are really into them again now because those those boys. You know, some nice lads or whatever. I do think Royal Family by Lottery would be preferable. Yes. A yearly lottery. Yeah, just change it up.

Yeah. Yeah. Get the lotto lout in to do it for a year. I'd like him to be the first. Yeah, yeah. Geoff, finally, the island is overrun by the biggest dick of all the animals. Which animal is it and why?

Well, as I've said, I'm a great animal lover, but I fucking hate moths. Oh, yeah. They're the bane of my life. And, you know, I'm such an animal person that I won't kill a mosquito.

If I'm on holiday and there's a mosquito in the bedroom, I would sooner wake up covered in mosquito bites than harm that mosquito if I can't get out the window. But honestly, it would give me and Hitler something to talk about because I would happily do genocide of the clothes moths.

I hate them. Around my house, I've got all these moth traps that don't work. The amount of money I've invested in trying to defeat the moths, I've paid rent-a-Kill thousands of pounds. I've got these bags for putting suits and things in that, honestly, I think you could wear them in space and you'd be able to, you know, you'd be fine. Yeah, because they're that good.

Yeah, you could go underwater in them. I've said this before. I've never known anyone have moth problems like you. That is unbelievable. Yeah, they're the worst. I'm looking behind you. There is a moth trap somewhere where you'll see about 15 dead moths on it. Oh, really?

Yeah. And also I can find myself like pushed to the edge of sanity by them. So there's a time of year when you start seeing them again. So we're recording this in December. So we probably won't see any. But as spring starts coming i'll see one they're going they're back and then i'll be putting these traps about the place and i'll be you know twitching and looking all over the place and i seem like a man who's having

a nervous breakdown and it's possible that i'm hallucinating these moths but jeff imagine if the moths were never real i know they're know yeah I mean it would make a lot of sense they're the worst though I keep I've got three cashmere jumpers and I keep them in the freezer I know this about you I've got a drawer

a freezer drawer like there's a a frozen banana of Sarah's there's like some of the horrible berries like ice cubes a Linda McCartney pie and three cashmere jumpers in it Kimberley's out there and

she's like i'm fine to be weird about everyone this guy keeps cashmere jumpers in the freezer have you ever had a house guest pull the freezer yeah it happened the other day actually so you know somebody came around and they wanted some ice for their drink and then they pulled the freezer oh are these your jumpers yeah i keep doing that and if i was rich i would get um one of those chest freezers and I'd stand it upright and I'd put a clothes rail in it and I'd use it as a wardrobe. That's clever.

Yeah. I don't think you need to be rich to do that. You'd think you need a certain amount of space. Okay. Oh, yeah. Yeah. All right. Okay, cool.

I think it'd look weird just in the corner of your bedroom, wouldn't it? Imagine that. You'd need some kind of refrigerated room, I think, a refrigerated wardrobe. Maybe you could get one of those ones installed wouldn't it? Imagine that. You'd need some kind of refrigerated room, I think, a refrigerated wardrobe. Maybe you could get one of those ones installed that they usually keep meat in. Yes.

Hanging in all your clothes in there. It could be motorised and you press it and then your shirt's got it right. Imagine just an island overrun with moths as well. I mean, the merciful thing I'm guessing would be the island would have a click because it's a desert island i heard um chris skinner on your podcast a while ago like getting into would it be one of those north atlantic uh and and no we've established it's

a desert island it's called desert island dicks yeah i thought that was a waste of your time getting into that i felt angry at him for for talking about it's a desert island i'm often wasting my time so it's you know the implication is it's tropical right it's a warm island oh yeah i don't need to be worrying about my cashmere or my nice wool suits no okay desert island yes so you need that you know i'll probably be wearing a sarong and you're a very warm man the clothes i am a warm man yeah yeah two yeah get overheated a lot of the time yeah it's like a swamp in my go you know that bit right at the top of your legs yeah so i don't know is there a name for that so your perineum is called your gooch so i'm talking alongside your scrotum yeah right at the top

of your leg i know the bit you get your finger in there pubic mound is it your no it's lower than that yeah yeah i know what you mean yeah anyway i mean it's like a swamp in there for me because i'm just very i generate a lot of heat it's just a nice picture for yeah um i'm imagining you having this big cold room with all your clothes in and at some point in the future where you and your wife become so embittered that you have to stay in separate rooms that's where you put your single bed in the middle of this cold cold room one of the big arguments in our marriage is that i like the bedroom cold and she likes it hot yes i will not i i'm zero tolerance for a radiator in the bedroom yeah i think what you want to be is warm

under the duvet but breathing in the cold air i like yeah i like that yeah yeah and i'm a very warm person but i think i'm a very cold person, sorry. Nesh. Yeah, I am, I think. Feel the cold. Yeah, I do feel the cold, yeah. But, yeah, I'd say that. Because they say that people who feel the cold, it's because they've got bad circulation. I do have bad circulation.

Which, you know, I'm not somebody with a lot of self-esteem and I don't find many things to like about myself, but I think I must have excellent circulation. Yeah, I think you do. Because I'm seldom cold. Geoff. James. Thank you very much for doing this thank you for having me on uh on your desert island uh jeff if people want to hear more from you where can they hear you google me you know but you know i do a podcast with annabelle Port called Adrift, which is loosely for the socially awkward. And I do a podcast with the in no way socially awkward Ed Miller band

called Reasons to be Cheerful, which is if you are a progressive person depressed about the state of the world and thinking what hope is there for somebody like me, we find good ideas to get excited about from around the world. And if somehow you're in America and you listen to this by accident, you can hear me on Sirius XM radio on the official Beatles channel. Yeah, excellent. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you. Bye.