Desert Island Dicks - GEOFF NORCOTT

Episode Date: January 10, 2022

This episode sees comedian Geoff Norcott step up to the plate, to choose which awful things and people he'd hate to be stuck with on a desert island, and it's as good a way as any to distract yourself from the fact that it's still January. 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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Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements, or run a reproduced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Lipson Ads. Go to lipsonads.com now. That's L-I-B-S-Y-N ads.com. Hi, I'm Dan from Desert Island Dicks. This episode features Jeff Norcott, and I think you'll enjoy it because he's a funny guy, and that's how it works. you know that that's a good format for a podcast we recorded this in December so sometimes you hear us referring to next year obviously that's now this year so when we say he's going out on tour next year he's going out on tour this year next month in fact you know how these things work you've lived through years and the change of dates

and seasons so you're going to be fine I think you can you can deal with this i believe in you before we start uh i've just got to say that unfortunately we've had to cancel the live show with uh lou sanders because um there's this bug going around and you know the fucking pandemic so that means we've had to cancel it unfortunately but the good news is she has agreed to record with us uh do a normal episode with us so although there won't you won't be able to come and see us live in person you will be able to listen to an episode that we're going to record so you won't miss out in that sense and for most of you it won't make a lot of difference but for those of you who did want to join us i'm very sorry it's just sort of those

pandemic things isn't it? I mean, I'm sure we'll do some more live shows at some point. I mean, this pandemic can't go on forever, can it? That's what we all keep saying. But yes, we'll be out sometime, so don't you worry. And in the meantime, here is the very wonderful Jeff Norcott on 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 and writer, going back on tour in 2022, it's Geoff Norcott. How are you doing? Yeah, I'm very well, man. Very well. This feels like exactly the sort of show I want to be on. Do you find it easy to sort of rant about people you hate in general do you know despite i suppose if people knew much about my comedy they would feel like i quite like an attack but i do find it hard being specific about people so you might see that in in the choices that i've made here i just you know i really want to be one of these edgy guys it's like you know screw it can I swear by the way yeah of course yeah yeah just fuck it I'll go hot go in hard but then I sort of think I imagine if they're just out for a jog and this is their favorite podcast to hear it but I will try to be I I'm very um once you lump people in big groups together

that's when I come into my own okay okay well we'll see how we get on today um well let's just dive straight into it shall we who's going to be your first person joining you on the island well as if to sort of demonstrate a point it is a kind of person right is this legitimate to do this but yeah it's the kind of people that use modern buzzwords okay you know these kind of like fast rotating glossary of lingo you know kind of people that go hey guys how's it going hey hey guys oh my god this is everything you know these weird little phrases right oh man i got all the feels i was feeling a bit cray cray um they use the word chill instead of chilled and i think you're not saving any time by dropping out that even that i just feel like that that has come from that

constant i like old-fashioned slang right stuff that stood the test of time not this weird stuff that comes and goes so it's that would drive me to murder so quickly if i was just sitting there thinking well we haven't eaten for three days we've got no fresh water and then he comes out of the little woods going, Hey, guys. I'll be like, I'm going to kill this guy. I'm going to kill him very soon. It's like a real sort of signifier of growing up

when you suddenly go, Sorry, what did you say? Like, I was in a lift and there were two young people got in. One went to the other one. Oh, my God, that jacket is goals. And I was like, that jacket is goals. What the fuck are you talking about? Like, what's wrong

with nice jacket you know yeah it's just so infuriating well and I think also social media has seeded a more fast-moving uh world of slang and and I suppose you're right and you said it used the word signifier is a way of showing a certain group of people where you're at and a lot of the slang is and you know i'm not like massively against i'm not one of these people that's on a crusade against cultural appropriation but what you often get i think is a certain kind of white middle class person who they struggle for an identity and so one of the what they're quite like is to have language um that sort of makes them feel like they're in somewhere or they're certainly on side with people

who they consider to be cool. And it's not just sort of language or particular sort of words. There's a way of talking as well. I found with millennial men for a while, they speak like Alan Partridge. So many of them. They just speak in this kind of like ironic way.

You know, they can't seem to say anything with just plaintive feeling. They'll say, yeah, well, I'm going to go to the pub and have a few pints. Sorry, why did you say that? Ironically, are you not going to the pub? I think you've really confused your meaning here. Or they say, well, you know, I enjoy the odd pub quiz. And I just, I don't know what they're doing.

Yeah. I think there'll just come a point where they're just middle-aged men who are a bit like alan partridge yeah it's true it's almost like it's kind of they're aware they're doing something that might not be viewed as cool so they have to sort of do it in that accent but it's like but you are doing that thing so you might as well just own it and just say just say it and also they'll often like if they're alluding to something that might be seen as politically incorrect, they'll then adopt that voice.

You go, sorry, no, you just think that, right? They'll say, oh, yeah, I went out on the weekend because the wife was doing some housework. You go, no, if that's your setup, right? If you went to the football and your missus was hoovering, then just say it, okay? You don't get to dissociate yourself by then suddenly adopting a caricature of a man much older than you like a sort of boomer

guy um and so i suppose a lot of it it comes down to feeling maybe that it's a bit disingenuous perhaps yeah is that you're not getting the real person I mean this way of speaking has been around for a while I remember like you know when people like Fern Cotton and so were hosting Radio 1 they would talk about loving the hoff you know or I'm kissing my guns

there's just this rhythm to talking where the fuck did this rhythm come from it does feel like it's accelerated a bit recently and i think yeah probably as you say like social media does definitely play a part but it just it really makes me feel old at the same time that's partly why i hate it but it's also because it feels like i don't know like when i was young and you know you'd be like oh that's wicked and it's sort of like okay well that's quite simple it's like you know it's obvious

you know bad meaning good that kind of thing but now there's so many things it's just like yeah giving me all the feels or like that jacket is goals or like you know it's just too much saying stuff is everything as well yeah it just did some of these things have quite a grammatical kink in them as well it's going oh yeah i saw i saw a musical the other day and it was everything it's such a piece of hyperbole it wasn't everything was it do you mean you could just say it was it was good but i i don't know if there is some meeting of the cool slang uh committee every once in a while but i'm definitely you know i'm pushing 45 i'm definitely not invited and then it just seems

that they try and push it you know the funny thing is when words just don't catch on um do you remember bay as well b-a-e yeah just calling someone bay it's like you couldn't say it as well that was the weird thing it's for most kind of white english people it sounded like a weird word to say but a lot of people wrote you'd see people writing it on Twitter. That word's fucking gone missing. It's when I find myself sort of having to ask young colleagues, like, what is this? What does that mean?

And they're like, oh, it's just this. I'm like, is that all it is? Oh, is that all it is? Oh, okay. I like that there's a huge weapons manufacturer called BAE Systems. So now, like, it's just BAE Systems. You know, it's like with the new slang, it seems less threatening now, you know?

Or it sounds like a method as to how you decide who your most lovable person is. Yeah, exactly. I've got BAE Systems. I often think by the time I hear a word as well, it's probably too late anyway. So by the time it's got to me, I should probably just tap should probably just uh tap out

but maybe tap out i mean that that is a kind of word that a certain kind of american comic like bill burr uses so the truth is there's probably coders and slang that we all buy into but i like ones that have shown that they've got legs another example is these these off-the-peg sort of phrases that people can use to be funny online, but they didn't come up with a phrase. So, you know, you're not saying, oh, is that even a thing? I don't know if saying, is that even a thing, is still a thing. That's how complicated it's got.

And then another one will be if somebody wants to sort of embarrass somebody for contradicting themselves, they'll find an old tweet of them and they'll say this you question mark and and i just as a comic i suppose you're striving hard to come up with funny stuff it does it does sort of piss me off that they're delving into these off the peg phrases yeah yeah or this aged well there's a certain kind this is this will be a middle-aged middle-class bloke probably a little bit center left their whole goal in life is to find somebody who made a prediction, got it wrong, and then just go, this aged well.

In their little community, or as I imagine it, of Merlot drinking, beta males, that is the kingpin moment, to find something that Nigel Farage says and say, this age well yeah this will keep me warm all winter now i've got this tweet ready to go in a folder i'm like yes now's my time spring into action okay yeah i think this is a good group of people to join you on the island because it's going to be they're going to be a pain in the like even if you get on well one day

you're going to be sitting looking out over the sunset and someone's just going to say something like you know this sunset is everything and you're just like oh for fuck's sake you've ruined it you've ruined it yeah it'd be some if i if i could define the guy he'd probably be 35 36 wearing a satchel i'm not saying owen jones because i know owen jones i get on i get on fine with him but he's certainly the grand pooh bar of perhaps this way of talking and i've said that to him and uh so again this is my problem with criticizing people for being direct no this is this is i'm talking about sub genres you know knockoff versions i mean if you've said it to his face i mean i think that's it's fair enough that you share it here so that's fine okay who's

going to be the second person joining you then on the island now i'm very happy to be direct about a person here tom huddleston hiddleston hiddleston yeah don't know don't care i just don't like the guy he i get the impression that he is a proper knob like you know you meet something social groups you know like one of your your wife's female friends you just meet a guy and you just go oh he's a proper cockhead like it's not often in life people have redeeming features you go like they're not evil do you know i mean they're not nasty they're just prats i think that's the old word see this is this links in i like words that have plonkers right where you go are you just a tit um he did an impression of robert de niro to robert de niro and you have to think like the level of deluded self-belief to to pitch into what is already a crowded market yeah

like robert de niro impressions i you know i was a circuit comic uh in the jonglers mid-naughties era and you know i think that we were our union contractually obliged somebody to pull that face, to squint in and just look from side to side and go, hey, you talking to me? He did that to Robert De Niro. And so I just think if you want any more clues as to how this guy, you could just tell that he's got a way inflated perception of himself. And the fact is, that's still true, even though he's a wildly successful film star. He still thinks he's better a way inflated perception of himself. And the fact is, that's still true, even though he's a wildly successful film star.

He still thinks he's better than he is. It's something about like, I don't know if it's just our culture and like people that are too kind of confident or something, but it's just unbearable. You just imagine like, like, you know, at the beginning of lockdown and there were all those celebrities doing Imagine.

Yeah. And there was that real sense of just like, oh, God, stop being so confident. It's too much. Yeah. Tom Huddleston would have thought that they didn't commit enough to Imagine. That would have been his main criticism of it was that they didn't go big. They didn't go big enough. They didn't show enough self-belief.

And the other thing is about confidence levels. Impressions. Like comedy is jeopardy, right? It's a social form of jeopardy to try and be funny and fail. Impressions probably are even more so that because the feeling when somebody goes, oh, I'll do an impression, it's not good. It's so excruciating because the level of self-delusion, you go, oh, you've been through the process, you've practiced.

I say this is someone who once considered himself a mild impressionist right so i went and recorded a voice reel and i remember the sound guy looking at me and eventually he cut it short he just said he said that just doesn't sound anything like david cameron i went yeah i don't think i don't think there was one there was one impression i did do um so there was a lot of impressions of Gollum around on that kind of jongler's circuit and mine was

pretty decent even by common like standards it worked very well and so I went to see a voiceover agent and I said to them I said just so you know

you know I do a Gollum voice she said well yeah quite a few people do those I went just so you're aware I know that I said but mine is you know generally considered to be you know sort of Premier League so if you ever and then she said well yeah quite a few people do those i went just so you're aware i know that i said but mine is you know generally considered to be you know sort of premier league so if you ever and then she said well the thing is we've got a guy who does that for us i went i'm just saying you

probably need to hear this before you make any decisions she said well that guy is andy circus i went oh right right the guy that actually did gollum in the films yeah i went okay i'd stick with him i would stick with him yeah i find if someone says to me oh do you want to hear my impression of it's the same sort of reaction is when someone says would you like to see a magic trick you know it's like i might end up being impressed but like let's just sort of nip it in the bud because you know chances are you know we could just carry on having a nice conversation do you know what i mean well i mean you just say magic trick has already made me change my third option i forgot about magicians i think just quickly finishing on tom hiddleston there's there's um there's an amazing advert have

you seen the advert he did in china and i'm sure lots of people have sort of done these adverts where it's like like no one in your own country is going to see it. But it's just the weirdest out of context thing where you just think, you went along with this and at some point you probably had the opportunity to change parts of this, but it just, none of it makes any sense at all. But you know, being Tom Huddleston, I think he probably thought, I hope people see it.

I think this is good. He's probably the guy that looked at all the other cringy Hollywood star in Southeast Asia and gone, yeah, you know what they've got wrong there? This is what I would do.

He is, and also, there's another thing as well. He got some of the most, he's got the most loyal fans as well. If you did a clip of this and it went viral, I would get attacked.

You know, like the Bayhive for Beyonce's fans. I don't know what they are. Tom Hiddles, Hiddles, I don't know. I don't know what the the beehive for uh beyonce's fans i don't know what they are tom hiddles hiddles i don't know i don't know what they'd be called huddle around the hiddle i don't know this this is really poor ad libbing but the point is is that yeah he's got these female fans that defend him and get really annoyed i think phil wang did a routine about him had a viral clip and he got attacked so even like in the metaphor of like if these fans are

like his partner they've got that delusion too so i'll take you back to the female friend who you know you think she's a nice girl she deserves to be with a nice bloke where you go what has happened to you something about being with him you've caught the huddle you caught the huddle you've got you've touched the huddle stone i finally got a half decent gag out um and and so there's something odd about him and there's a level of arrogance i mean he he played loki and he's pretty good as loki mainly because loki was a bit of a prick right so he could just play himself and then for the tv show i was actually thought this could be quite a good little link in peace in the marvel universe he was shit at being loki he was rubbish at it he wasn't anything like he was in the films

and that some his fans will probably go oh that's because loki had been humbled or some crap and i thought no i bet you any money that he's just gone i am loki and then they've gone well do you want to watch the old films to maybe remember how he did it he's gone i'll just turn up on set and just be loki okay and he's turned up on set and everyone's going did it, he's gone, I'll just turn up on set and just be Loki, okay? And he's turned up on set and everyone's going, he's not that Loki-like, is he? I don't know what's going on here. But I've been around showbiz

and once people get to that level of fame, people would complete a whole shoot and go, well, we don't want to upset Tom, even though he's not playing the character that made him famous and not playing it very well. I can imagine on an island scenario, he'd be the sort of person where he'd be like, OK, come on, Tom, we've got to get firewood.

And he'd say something like, oh, I'd love to, mate, but the back's playing up. And you're like, really? Why? What happened? I won't bore you with it. I won't bore you with it. And you go, OK. And he's like, yeah, yeah, I was just doing this stunt, actually. It was actually quite a big deal at the time. like a lot of that kind of thing all the time you know just a lot of sort of like real crowbarred anecdotes and things like that yeah i mean in a way there's another idea there is actors that seem to want credit for mild injuries that they've got on set you go why do you think that this equates you with with the the sort of peril of the film

like they go yeah on set i had to do you know we had this world war ii set and i had to jump from one of the landing craft and uh i scuffed my shin on a shell and you go why what because they know deep down right all they're doing is pretending they're just pretending to be soldiers and stuff so there's a part of them as a man you never get this with feet with with female actors right they never they never have to talk about their injuries at the time they had to leap from a helicopter but you know it was only four feet but they slightly sprained their ankle but you you always got this remember when the rocky films used to come out as well there'd be these stories like um sly actually punched dolph Lundgren

in the face a couple of times. Again, yeah, I would imagine that when you're pretending to punch somebody for probably three whole days on set, you might connect with the odd one. So I think actors, I'm not that fond of them generally. And I think that maybe Tom Huddleston represents the apex prat. Okay. The apex prat is a good title for him to have, I think.

So, right, well, he joins the annoying people talking annoying slang on the island. I think they're going to have a whale of a time. So who's going to be the final person joining those two people? Can I just say that the satchel guy, how he'd call tom huddleston he'd call him the huddlesmeister yeah yeah the hiddles boss hiddlespiddles that he'd have to come up with some sort of shitty nickname the third person which i have changed as a consequence of this discussion any magician okay they freak me out i just it upon a time, if there had been somebody in your tribe, your community, your village,

who could appear to make things appear, you'd either make them chief or you'd kill them, right? And I think that at the moment, now they get like a little slot on Britain's Got Talent or something. Just to patronise it, like with a joke, people can see the workings. They know it's a joke, although these days sometimes it's hard to tell people can see the workings they know it's a joke although these days sometimes it's hard to tell but there's a setup there's a punch line but with

magicians i go sorry as an adult are you expecting me to to believe that you've got some sort of messianic power to manifest make things disappear because if you're not going to tell me how you did it that is the impression that you want to leave me with. I was once at an event where I was in a dressing room with some magicians. I had to leave the dressing room. They freaked me out too much. They were all showing their tricks to each other. And I was going, what is this so deceptive?

It's such a weird thing to be drawn to, I think. When you do find out how it's done, it's really unsatisfying. It's usually just some really sort of laborious mechanical process where, like, you know, it's like, well, and then, quickly, while you're looking over there, I tuck this thing from, you know. And sometimes, you know, magic tricks can be impressive, but, like, not enough to interrupt what I'm doing. You know, there's times where I've been at a function,

there's been a magician, you're like, yeah, I don't want to be rude to you, but just, I'm doing. You know, there's times where I've been at a function, there's been a magician. You're like, yeah, I don't want to be rude to you, but just, you know, not now. Like, go away. I don't... Yeah, table magic at weddings is a weird one. Don't get me wrong, I think some of them are such great performers

that you can see that the magic is just a prop for the performance, right? That's slightly different. But the ones that you can see in their eyes that they want to be believed, right? Then what I love, like, there's a brilliant comic on the UK circuit called Danny Buckler. And he just he mocks all of the tropes and stuff. And he's just a brilliant showman.

But when you get to the point of who's that guy's name? Dynamo. So did that trick where he was sort of was flying next to a bus. And you go, look, you weren't flying next to a bus. Right. We know that and then it turned out that all they'd done is put a bit of iron piping out of the bus through it through his coat to make it look like he was being suspended you're going it's just fucking ridiculous david copperfield he made the empire state building disappear i mean this is just just the biggest load of bollocks and and

there's also loads of really irrational things that impress people as well one of them is if you wrote something or said something or thought something they just make it appear in writing on something else and for some reason that blows people's minds like you slow it down there's something like a horror film about it where you see a bus go past in the background and it'll say like Steve written on it because the person they were asked a question about their favourite uncle and the surprise element of seeing the name Steve

confers a level of status onto these people that is frankly disgraceful. The things like the dynamo thing it's like he looked like he was flying next to a bus if you were standing in the right place at the right time at least if you are doing a card trick very up close that seems that's sort of more difficult in a way it's like yeah yeah

genuine sleight of hand yeah yeah because it's like god you must have been really quick to get away with doing that i'm not really sure how you did it was like okay obviously like you say he can't fly so i know that you're just hanging off something yeah and he just like somebody else built the pole and stuff it was a health and safety check done. You know, they probably did three takes of it as well. And my wife gets so annoyed when I shit on stuff like this because she thinks that, you know, you should have the idea of magic in the world.

But, like, for me, magic is subjective. Like you say, if somebody has sleight of hand skills that are on such an elevated level, there's something magical about that. But there's not magic about somebody just editing in a name, the name Steve on a bus as it goes past. There's no skill in that at all. Yeah, that's just editing, isn't it?

It just doesn't work. Yeah, and there's no wonder in that. It's not like the sort of, wow, I'm right here looking at it. It's just sort of going, hmm, you must have a big team. Yeah. Well, also, apparently there's a huge element of profiling so you know when they go out on the street that uh they decide who who they're going to show the tricks to and stuff like there are certain people that are just guaranteed to react more you know

like there's certain people when more working class settings are going to react more you know like they know that women tend to react more and stuff. So there's all these filters that they apply. And the ones on the talent show auditions really annoy me because the judges on talent shows have worked out quite a long time ago, ever since the Susan Boyle one, that if they can look astonished, that they'll get a lot of screen time, right? If they can look really genuinely wide open, eyes wide open. So they're just waiting.

You've got deceit on two levels there. The judge is just waiting to do their astonished face. So we're on the desert island. Tom Hiddleston's wanging on about his stunts. The other guy's calling him the huddlesmeister. And then this prick shows up and makes a flower disappear. But it turns out it wasn't a flower. It was the only vegetable on the island which we could have eaten.

I think this is a really good melting pot of complete dicks that you've got to spend time with. So I think already you're off to a good start here. This is very strong. 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. Okay. Now, mercifully, amongst the wreckage of the plane there was some food and drink left over unfortunately for you it's your least favorite food and drink in the world what are they and why are they so bad okay so food is i did a documentary once and i've been criticized this is just digging out middle class people and what they eat you know the wanky chickpea salads you know there's again like the words i think the food goes with trends you know and then those trends get cliched very quickly quinoa you know curly kale linseed or you know all these things but one of the mainstays for a

long time has been avocado and it's been you know it gets used as a stick with which to beat millennials and i've been part of that i've wielded that stick more times than I probably should have. But I'm just going to go on an objective level and say that it was always genuine with me because I really dislike avocados. Because they are too meaty and too oily to be a fruit. Texture-wise, it doesn't make sense. So I reject them. i don't see the

appeal i don't a fruit should taste like a fruit meat should taste like a meat how can it be that oily i don't i don't get it i mean i'm you know i've got to hold my hands up here like i am the middle class man you're talking about here you know i mean as i was saying i did look at you and think if there's ever an avocado eater yeah like guilty as charged guilty as charged but i have to say there's something very frustrating about something that you enjoy eating that also costs a lot that has such a fine operating window yeah you know like pears you get a pear and it's like it's too hard it's too hard then it's too soft and it's the same with fucking avocados and it's weird that it's been you know it's not like they're a new thing no no no they've been around for what thousands of years no they had a wave of popularity in the 80s and i do think that a lot of what we claim to

support or detest there is based on psychological hunches right stuff that we this happened that we've more or less forgotten about that drives a lot of our aversions and when i was a kid my sister and my dad my sister was a lot closer to my dad and i was close to my mum so there's kind of tribal thing in the household and my sister my dad really enjoyed avocados and i felt outside of that like they used to sit and like scoop out an avocado and eat it together and i just felt so i i don't know if i've really and i like all food by the way like pretty much all food i just it's more case of there's some i like more than others but so the fact that i've singled out avocado for this maybe suggests that it could be cured with a bit of therapy but but then you'd

have to go back and go well there was an original reason why i would happily have been part of that gang if i could have been but i just remember how oily it was. And I guess always, and I know that a lot of the oils that we use are from vegetables and nuts and stuff like that. But there's something about the texture of the oil that feels like something must have died, you know what I mean, or been alive at some point. And there's a meat in it. I don't mind avocado and guacamole.

But that just shows how much you have to sort of drown it out with onion and lemon and yeah fucking coriander it's not a good food yeah and i mean look who you're sharing the island with you know you've got tom hiddleston you've got the millennial slang guy both of them all over the avocado they're all over the avocados so i mean they're just constantly going to be going jeff i can't believe you're you're not enjoying the You know, they're calling it avo as well, which I fucking can't stand. Well, there's another one. I can't stand that.

I mean, like, mayo. And this isn't just a class thing. I remember in, like, Greasy Spoon Calfs as a kid, they would just put Tom's instead of tomato. That annoyed me. And equally, the middle-class version, that's slaw instead of coleslaw. Yeah. You're not saving a

massive amount of time again it seems to be a signifier like i'm one of the cool guys that calls it calls it slaw slaw it's just a weird word to say coleslaw you get a couple of decent beats out of that um but yeah avocado and also the skin as well for, the skin seems to be saying, don't eat this. You know, the stone is massive. The only redeeming thing about an avocado is the weirdly silky texture that the stone has on its exterior. There's something quite pleasing about that. Yeah. Apparently, a lot of injuries each year come from people trying to get the stones out of avocados. Like a lot of people cut themselves.

My wife knew someone, one of her colleagues had like a bandaged up hand and she oh god what's happened he was like oh avocado stone like really crestfallen you know his most middle class injury in the world like a and e and crouch end they're just just absolutely overrun with people that and people who've actually got back into cracking their own nuts you know because that was a thing in the 80s you used to have a nut bowl at christmas and it would have like brazil nuts hazelnuts walnuts and stuff and you would crack your own nuts and then some suddenly you we started getting them this is what happens with food right so that was a thing that all people did in the 80s working class people then it goes away and then you'll get some fucking like jamie oliver will go you know what's back this year's nut bowls and you'll suddenly find that nuts,

like Brazil nuts are the most expensive thing on earth. And then you'll have like customized nut crackers, like really expensive ones from John Lewis that cost about like 39 quid. The same as when they like bring back tripe or just something that's been away for a while, tiny milk bottles, something from the past. And then you get fucking old Hoffmemeister guy he's the guy buying

all that shit you know he's the same guy i mean it happened with paninis wasn't it cheese and ham toasties two pound fifty cheese and ham panini three pound ninety five yeah okay well you've made a good point on the food what's your drink choice what's gonna wash that avocado down with whiskey so whiskey in popular culture it benefits from the most sort of fundamental misrepresentation when you see films in all tv right so no one ever just drinks it straight from a bottle right this is how people drink whiskey in in normal life mostly you've had a house party you didn't buy enough beer you didn't buy enough wine two of the blokes want to carry on drinking so you get some nasty old bottle of

whiskey out and then you just drink it straight from the thing and then you feel the worst you've ever felt the following day like like sort of wedding level hangover but in your own house this is how you see it in films and telly decanter always with a decanter nobody in the world of film or tv has ever just got some nasty kind of like famous grouse out from the back of the cupboard that they've got moved with them from the previous house and and they always like whiskey and it looks and the the orangey like texture it looks like the best thing in the world to drink it looks incredible and they just sip it they never they barely have any ice with it, no mixers, and it seems like the most macho, manly thing in the world to do. And yet, you have whiskey, it's fucking rank.

It is a fairly, it's a very, you know, and there'll be people right now going, Jeff, it's a challenging drink. I don't need to be challenged by drinks, okay? I want a Jack Daniels and Coke. I want the easy version of that. There's a reason that's the big seller. And you also get a culture in and around it where guys of a certain age they can't just accept that

they've become alcoholics so they have to become whiskey aficionados and you know one of your mates has become a boring person when they start telling you why something's single malt and why something's not single malt what what the difference is. The moment a mate says to you, starts explaining the difference between single malt and double malt, they're dead inside. Make some new friends. I just like quite normal whiskey.

But then sometimes you try one and it's like, God, this tastes like antiseptic. And you look on the back of the bottle and they'll even say with notes of antiseptic. And you're like, when you made that whiskey and you realise that after 12 years work it tasted of tcp like you were fine with that and you just went yeah okay there's no tweaks needed like surely you'd be like fucking hell lads we've made this thing we spent all this time would you wonder though if they've kind of gone this might get us a mention on sunday brunch because on sunday brunch they love talking about drinks that

have notes of something in it and then they'll go like that'll be one yeah antiseptic people go wow yeah antiseptic just just a little new thing just to keep us interested and it is completely confected it's one of those manly things that i secretly don't think that anybody enjoys right like cigars and poker there's an age that you get to where you think like it's part of the status it looks great you know you got a cigar you're playing poker no one ever looks happy playing poker you know smoking cigars it just i just i don't believe or maybe i'm just projecting because i'm worried that i'm not manly enough to enjoy these things but whiskey cigars and poker i i'm not i'm not buying it i'm just gonna do things that i The thing is, if I order a whiskey in a bar, someone might want to talk to me about it.

That's the risk. Do you know what I mean? It's like, oh, do you like that one? Oh, I find it. I don't want to talk about it. I just want to carry on talking whilst having a drink. You know what I mean? It's like you always want to order it without people seeing

because there's all this bullshit that comes with it. So Tom Hiddleston's going to be all over that. We know that. I can imagine. Tom Hiddleston. Yeah yeah he'll be like he'll be like sorry dude no you you can't put ice in that man that is that is sacrilege that's what he'll say he'll tell you it's sacrilege okay god whiskey and coke is a good drink it tastes nice it's got it's got that weirdly it feels quite organic you know it's quite it's quite tasty you know, it's sugary and it's fun. It's a fun drink.

Whiskey on its own. And you can't drink. You can't, you know, drink. I mean, I remember when I was younger, people used to do whiskey chasers. Before shots, kids, people called them chasers. And that was rank. I mean, maybe that was the problem. I was in some, like, social club.

And the chaser would be given to you in in one of those little you know those plastic things that they give out methadone in and so that might be you know part of the problem and and again i'm a very simple man in terms of my taste when it comes to lager you know people have got very into their craft beers and all this sort of stuff i bait i like session lagers i like the ones that are popular there's a reason like they've been brewed and refined because they've gone, right, people will be able to drink eight pints of this.

I don't want something with fucking like notes of toffee that feels like a meal. So yeah, maybe it all comes down to I'm quite a basic bitch. I don't know. I think you've argued your case well. So I think that's absolutely fair enough. Okay, Jeff. Now, fortunately, you won argued your case well, so I think that's absolutely fair enough. Okay, Geoff, 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, and the other is your least favourite song. What are they and why? So I'll go with song first. You know that song, Dancing in the Moonlight? Oh, God, yeah. so i'll go his song first um you know that song dancing in the moonlight oh gosh yeah

so there was a period when i was um i think it was around 2000 and i was working in media and i went to a lot of parties and and it was one of those really popular songs i never understood because even despite being a party song it was sort of whiny and downbeat we get it almost every night and and you'd see people and women have this great thing of on dance floors of singing the words to their friend and thinking that the words are about them and i always look and think you don't get it on almost every night like it's a lovely sentiment that you just party all the time and i think i'd argue that you barely get it on seven times a year on the dance floor like but right now they've packaged an idea to you dancing in the moonlight you know like barefoot that's

probably the idea that they're trying to a force of nature it's very much marketed at women that song I think the same as um dancing on the ceiling it's it's sort of like I would say it's like a memed version of a carefree life, isn't it? Yeah. That for three and a half minutes, you get to think that you've devoted your life to the dance floor. But again, and just simply the tone of the song. I mean, there's another one as well. I like upbeat music.

And I both recognise that Sweet Dreams by Eurythmics is a great track and it's got a great riff. But it's depressing. It's just not... Yeah, so I feel that's a much better song than this. Dancing in the Moonlight is an absolute piece of shit. Yeah, I got haunted by it. I remember when I left college, I was doing these 12- hour shifts at a trucking company and um they had commercial radio on all day long and it was right at the sort of the nexus like the

peak of that song's popularity so it was on like eight times a day on the playlist anyway and there was also an advert on the commercial radio at the time that used a version of that song so it was like you basically heard it every half an hour because it's got that little jingle at the beginning that sort of little like twinkly so it almost like signals it's coming and then you get women cheering going yeah run into the dance floor and i'm not i mean it sounds like i'm just digging out women here there's lots of songs that women love that i also love so when when single ladies comes on and women cheer and go to the dance floor i'm with them obviously culturally i'm not allowed to

go on the dance floor at that point and cheer because i might get excommunicated from the lads group but i see where they're coming from but dancing in the moonlight feels like this very feminine thing that i just don't understand you know and it also i get the impression that the guys and this is just complete speculation but the guys that wrote it were the ones that are thinking what kind of song would women love you know like rather than just write a song from the heart it's like it's like those songs that that really just sort of like a bit like you're beautiful by james blunt you know i think it's so squarely marketed at women where where you can just vicariously think that there was a guy that saw you

and was just so struck by your beauty, couldn't stop thinking about it, and he wrote a song. You know, it must be that when women hear that song, they sort of think, oh, I wonder if that could be about me. And, you know, and they wonder if they're a dancing in the moonlight sort of girl. Can I just say for balance here because i understand that you know from a doctor that you might be getting worried that this is starting to sound a bit like an attack on women there are obviously equivalent songs like this for men jump around

by house of pain so many women must have thought and it's got exactly the same features that you mentioned was a and then all these women have to see loads of bloats run onto a dance floor and then do that jumping up thing where their hands will touch in the middle and also like probably some very middle-class suburban type males just rapping and and sort of doing that rapping whereby they want everyone else to notice that they know all the words that's what happens is you think i hope people are noticing how i know these words so i i think that this kind of this kind of stuff cuts across the sexes yeah no i mean as far as i'm concerned it's just a fucking awful tune you know for everyone concerned so you know i think enough people help hate it that it's fine you know i think maybe even some women hate it hey god i

never even thought of that yeah absolutely um Geoff, what would your film choice be? Well, it's quite specific, this. So The Last Jedi got a lot of stick generally, but I, as a big, big Star Wars fan, I thought a lot of the film was pretty good, right? I thought the portrayal of Luke Skywalker, I thought it was sort of plausible that he'd kind of come in bitters

and become a bit of a hermit. I kind of didn't mind that uh the you know there's some great scenes in it you know with ray and kylo ren fighting supreme leader snoke just sounded like a nerd here now but in the middle act of the film two of the characters go to a planet called canto bite which is a weird name for a planet anyway. And it's so obviously, and the film got a lot of criticism for being too woke, you know, like it was so clearly pushing an agenda.

And there was a lot of it that I didn't really mind, I didn't really care about. But in this one bit, it's so obviously an attack on capitalism, right? And such an unsophisticated means of doing it. So it's all these wealthy people. They're all gambling. They all look down their noses at people.

And there's even a line in it, which the character Rose Tico says, which she says, I wish I could burn down this whole beautiful town. It's just most clunky fucking dialogue. And then you go from like this massive epic space battle at one point to another point. Two of the

main characters are riding these sort of giant emus out of what looks like a greyhound racing track and you know when people say something pulls you out of a film it pulls you so far out of this film it's so badly done it doesn't really look very good and then you know it returns to a passable story but you're just trying to get out of your head. Why did they do that? And you just think, you know, having worked in comedy, knowing what it takes to get sitcoms made, anything made, you know, to get a joke in that makes the edit,

which goes to television. It's all hard. And you go, so at no level has someone sat down with the director, producer, Rian Johnson, gone, this Canto Bight bit is shit. It's really bad. You're essentially saying money's bad, but you're also making a film

for the biggest corporation in the world, which you get a lot in films. I remember with the Goonies, you know, the whole appeal of that was these kids rising up against the evil money men. But it was also distributed by Buena Vista, who at the time, one of the biggest companies you know so yeah i i would defend the last jedi for some things but i think it's probably got the worst middle act of any film ever okay so let's put it on the island scenario are we just

going to give you that bit we'll say the entertainment system's broken and you can only have that section of the film perhaps yeah the middle acts i never even thought of just being forced to watch that bit because at least if you watch the whole film you can get a little bit of credit in the bank before you have to watch this this awful um segue this 45 minute long segue yeah i mean you could literally have gone right this way you tidy up that whole film you go oh rose finn where have you been we went to a planet called canter by it's disgusting but anyway look we've got what we need covered you've saved yourself 45 minutes and it's not like it's you know that short i mean the film's long enough that it could do with a bit taken out

of it as well yeah okay well you make a good point um jeff finally the island is overrun by the biggest dick of all the animals which animal is it and why my dog your dog lily yeah she is i mean like first up dogs get an easy ride i think dogs are fantastic i will always have one in my family i think they're a brilliant thing to have but we i think just like you know i don't want to get political, but you know, like the way that the NHS got venerated to such a ridiculous point throughout the pandemic, where it's a good thing. And then people talk about it, you go, it's not that good. All right. Same with dogs. People going, we don't deserve dogs.

And you go, OK, like, I think that they're good, but they do get a lot of exchange value out of this relationship. And they are fucking thieves. Like they never stop being thieves. Almost all dogs. you out of this relationship and they are fucking thieves like they never stop being thieves almost all dogs they are really they are really conniving you know manipulative and i love my dog and i do every i do everything for her like i i take her out for a walk it's me that takes out for a walk i do like two walks of roughly 40 minutes a day rain shine snow asleep but she doesn't appreciate it um she's very arrogant and she's a coward as well she's a coward i've been in a couple of situations where i've had to defend her and she's

run away um she starts fights and doesn't finish them um she's not empathetic at all so when um you know like when you that thing of like when you're you're crying or upset your dog's supposed to notice and come in and nuzzle you and she doesn't do that she goes away she sort of acts like like you you've got the the kind of uh you've got the stink and she doesn't want to she doesn't want it to catch she's like you know one of those people you think is a friend until the shit hits the fan and she's off she's off so i think lily and that is not to say i will not care for her to her dying day and i'll be sad when she's gone but i think sometimes love is loving someone despite their flaws and and she's got she's got a lot of flaws yeah yeah fair enough and and i guess on the

island as well you know you'll you'll arrive then be like oh thank god i've got my dog at least yeah but then you know that you're going to have a heartbreak at some point i mean she might even get on with the others better for a while because they're like oh dog great no she's very much a tom hiddleston sort of dog um and she would what she would do she would make it harder do you know like the one time she frayed into the into the palm trees or whatever she'd come back and like she just she's she's also right she's i do love her even as i'm saying this i'm saying it with fondness is that she get the slightest little thing in her fur and she the dramatic reaction to it the melodrama are you going what is it lady

what is it you look around and it's just like one little little blade of grass that's got lodged in there but she'll like she'll start making these noises and stuff so she would actually probably make life harder on the island as well um she would she would eat more than she would eat more than her share but it's funny you know i didn't think this through like if you're asking me whether i'm on a desert island would i prefer my dog to be there than not i have to wonder because it would probably on balance be marginally better that she was there. And given the other three arseholes, I do think that she might just be the better living thing on the island. But that doesn't mean she's a good person. I just think she's going to, you know, the things that annoy you now will annoy you on the island as well.

And then, you know, there's always the chance that she's going to become better friends with the other people that you hate and you're going to have to watch that. You know, one day she won't be there anymore and then, you know, it's going to really compound the feeling of being with these dicks. So, you know, I think it's a good choice. Well, look, and also I think, you know, and to not dishonour the format here,

I've got two dogs. So if what you're saying to me is if I had a choice between either of them, you know, i think it says it all it's not even it's not even i don't even have to give it any thought i'm taking the new one so yeah she is she is i think and i think we just need to reflect with with all the positives about dogs is that they are just just living things that want food mainly all right so i think we just need to rein it in a bit jeff i think you've made a great

selection today and they've been very well argued uh choices as well so i think you know you've got yourself a thoroughly shit island on which to spend the rest of your life so um bravo miserable then to distract you from all that um tell us a bit about what you're up to you're going back on tour again uh in the new year yeah so i did the autumn leg of my tour i blame the parents and it was great we had we had great numbers got uh got a nice review in the times and we're back out from february of next year we're going to margate we're going to winchester carlisle we're going to some places we've never been we're going to aberdeen the way i say that there just sounds like so southern centric like i want credit like are we going to aberdeen and The way I say that there just sounds like so Southern-centric, like I want credit. Like, are we going to Aberdeen?

And it is a show, like, I mean, I do talk about politics, but it's probably my least political show in a way. I sort of balance it out between talking about stuff like cancel culture and all this sort of stuff, but then also talking about observational stuff about my parents and stuff like that. So it's the most fun I've had on stage because I think, you know, when doing comedy, you kind of think, think well if i talk for an hour roughly what would the breakdown of that be

and it would be observational comedy be sort of socio-political comedy and politics and this probably is the first tour where i've got an equal balance of those things cool nice one great well we look forward to seeing you out on tour in the new year then and jeff thank you again for uh coming on desert island Dicks today. It's been an absolute pleasure. Yeah. No, listen, man, I'm building a raft. Cheers.

So there you are, Desert Island Dicks with Geoff Norcott there. That's it for today. Just to say that Desert Island Dicks is a Sync Clap production created by James Deacon, produced and presented by me, Dan Benedictus, edited by Chris Attaway. Social media support comes from Jason Leitch and Chinsey Clinton and a special mention to Grandmaster Flash and John Deacon, as always, for being wonderful. We've got loads of great episodes coming up, so please do make sure you subscribe so they come straight to your phone

or wherever you listen. It also helps us out a bit if you could rate us and give us a review. That's really great if you could do that. it would mean a lot to some humble young men. What else is there? I don't know, really. I'm sort of recording this without thinking it through very much. So hopefully that's all you need to know. I hope you're well. Hope January is not kicking your ass too much at the minute. And, you know, don't worry, we're going to keep more episodes coming, but some really good ones coming up. So don't worry we're going to keep more episodes coming but some really good ones coming up so don't worry if nothing else there is that and on that note i'm gonna go thank you for listening i really appreciate it bye