Desert Island Dicks - JAY RAYNER

Episode Date: November 23, 2020

Dan is joined by journalist, writer, broadcaster and musician Jay Rayner, to discuss the worst people and things in the world. Jay is hosting a streamed performance of his show My last Supper this Saturday the 28th of November, in aid of the charity The Food Chain, which provides nutritional advice and support to people with HIV. You can read more about it and get tickets here: https://www.fane.co.uk/online-shows/my-last-supper-with-jay-rayner-a-streamed-performance/about-the-show 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

This episode is brought to you by United Airlines. When you want to make the most of your vacation, book with United. They're an airline that cares about your travels as much as you do. United is transforming the flying experience with Bluetooth connectivity, screens, power at every seat, and bigger overhead bins to help fit everyone's bag. And with their app, you can skip the bag check line, get live updates, and more. Change the way you fly. Book your next trip today at United.com. At Sierra, discover joyous deals on great gifts

for everyone on your list, like cozy slippers, ski gear, fishing poles, bikes, large kayaks, even larger canoes, which might lead to another discovery. Robbing gifts is the only sport you need to stay fit this season. Tis the season to discover great gifts at unexpectedly low prices. Sierra, let's get moving. Hi, I'm Dan from Desert Island Dicks. This episode features journalist, writer, food critic and musician Jay Rayner. And I think it's a great episode.

Fans of his won't be surprised to know that he really took to the format like a duck to water. So I think you're in for a treat. This Saturday, the 28th of November, Jay is doing a streamed performance of his show My Last Supper, in which he contemplates what would be his last meal. And it's in aid of the charity The Food Chain, which provides nutritional advice and support to people with HIV. It's a really good cause, and there's a link to buy tickets in the description of this episode, and Jay talks more about it at the very end of this podcast as well. If you enjoy listening to these episodes and it makes you want to tell the world about the people and things that really get on your tits, then you

can get involved too, with our regular companion podcast, Compact Dicks, where me and founder of Desert Island Dicks, James Deacon, read out your submissions. It comes out every Friday and you can tell us who and what you hate by going to dickspod.com slash contact. Before we get stuck in, please do subscribe to this podcast and give us a rating if you can, because it's really handy for us and it means that you'll always be the first to get the episodes. And it also means that we'll like you even more than the other listeners. And that's a lot. OK, now that's all out the way.

Let's get stuck into 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 journalist, writer, broadcaster and musician Jay Rayner. Hello. Hello Dan, how are you? I'm very well. How are you doing today?

Well, I'm slightly disturbed by the idea of being marooned on a bloody island. I don't want to go. I don't want to go there at all. I mean, it's not even the possibility of the company or the things. It's just, it sounds like a fucking nightmare. It really does. Yeah. And it's a nightmare of entirely your own making as well. So you only have yourself to blame.

Exactly. You asked. I said, yes. God knows what, you know, possessed me. But here we are. Okay. And now, obviously, given the nature of your work, you know, you give opinions on things for a living. And how did you find the process of kind of whittling down your dislikes for this podcast?

Well, hugely cathartic, because at the moment, trying to be a good human being, I have sworn off doing or publishing negative restaurant reviews. On the grounds that, A, I don't really think it's what people want to read. And B, you know, the restaurant industry is already on its knees and it doesn't need that bastard Rainer, you know, laying into them with knives and forks. So really the opportunity to really let rip on a few people and things has been a joy. Thank you. I appreciate it.

It was cathartic. When you asked, I suddenly thought, oh, yeah, that would be great. I can really go for this. Good. Well, we're happy to facilitate your rage thank you thank you that's what i need okay well let's dive straight in who's going to be the first person joining you on the island the first person joining me on the island is the right honorable michael gove mp and i frankly i think i should be thanked by everybody else for taking him um because i am performing a public service i have a lot of history with michael gove an awful of history um and he represents everything that's wrong something actually has to be said we were

amicable if you go back 25 years he was another hack and you know in in london newspaper journalism we all knew each other and you know you'd nod at him at parties and have a little conversation it all seemed jolly pleasant i didn't realize he was uh an utter destructive cunt in the making. Can I say that on your podcast? Absolutely. Yeah, I clearly just have. So so that's, that's good. So where to start with Gove? First of all, newspaper columnists should never go into government. I am one, I know what what we do. And what we do is we come up with an idea or an argument that is compelling across 10 paragraphs and to deadline. Now, that's not a bad thing in itself, because it's a way of speaking a certain kind of truth to power, to pointing out things, and that can be valuable. But as a way of making policy,

of thinking that you can make policy, it's idiotic. And having got into politics, Gove has proved himself to be every kind of duplicitous, shallow newspaper columnist you could ever wish to come across. And he hides that behind a veneer, an absolute greasy veneer of civility, which is just mind-boggling. I had a row with him,

a very weird one. Actually, it started with me having a row with his wife. weird one, actually it started with me having a row with his wife there's lots of history here, how long is this podcast? 7 hours, is that right? you just cut out whichever bits you want so first of all, Sarah Vine who I worked with when she was deputy

production editor on the section of the Mail on Sunday that I worked on back in the day, we're talking about almost 30 years ago now she had a real crack at Ed Miliband for having two kitchens Mail on Sunday that I worked on back in the day. We're talking about almost 30 years ago now. She had a real crack at Ed Miliband for having two kitchens, apparently. And I made the point, well, at least he paid for his own money and didn't spend £7,000 on expenses that he then had to repay. And she got really, really.

And it turned into some row, which, dare I say, I think I won. Anyway, come early December, no no mid-december 2016 gov is in the um is in the wilderness because uh theresa may has got rid of him and he's out um despite having you know won the brexit vote by uh as he even admitted himself being part of a campaign which stoked xenophobic fears uh claimed turkey was going to join the eu put that 350 million quid figure on the side of a bus lied uh did all of those things um and he has a crack at me on twitter about me asking shops that are selling any of my books to get in touch and i'll read to it and all this um and it went on and on it ended with him saying

that if i ever wanted to get involved in public service like he had then i should get in touch this from a man who was earning six figures from rupert fucking murdoch to write a column at the time i mean just the he's a scumbag of extraordinary depth yeah he's the man who brought dominic cummings into the heart of government who created this vengeful bullying culture um really there is no beginning to his talents and no end to his mendacity i mean i basically for i can't disagree with anything you've said there you've put it so no you can't but um i just feel as well i mean you know he was the one who came up with the um we've had enough of experts thing which is just gonna run forever you know and it's it's the same thing you know like when you see the same thing, you know,

like when you see everything that happens in America with Donald Trump and people just absolutely refusing to look at evidence or going, what do you know? You're just an expert. And it's just, I mean, if anything we can take away from Brexit, it's just such a damaging thing to say. Completely damaging. In 2017, he became brought back into government. He's made DEFRA secretary. And I got this approach. He's going to hold a roundtable of informed food people. And would I join? I thought, was I a big enough man to sit in the room with Michael Gove? And I decided I wasn't. But I wasn't going to waste that opportunity so i wrote a three and a half thousand word position paper explaining the state of our food supply chain um people may know me only as a restaurant critic and

the the fop who turns up with a beard and the hair on masterchef but i've been a reporter for a very long time i wrote a whole book on food sustainability and genuine definitions thereof called greedy man the hungry world available from all good bookshops um and i wrote this position paper which basically everything that's in there has proven to be the case about the uh lack of self-sufficiency the the parlous state we're in but he's just pushed on with this bloody project and you know possibly by the time you release this we may have a deal but doesn't look that way and if we don't get one the damage to people's lives is going to be intense. I blame him for everything. He's a greasy, backstabbing scumbag,

and I think my willingness to nominate him to come on this bloody island with me is a heroic act on my part. I agree, I agree. And I also think, though his sort of duplicitous nature you know even if sort of after a certain amount of time on the island you kind of said oh let's just put everything aside for the just just so that we can get along like human beings because we just have to survive even then you'd never know if you could you'd never be able to trust him because you know he just flip-flops so quickly yeah you'd never be able to trust him can i say

by the way if you want to read that position paper on the part of state of our food supply it's still on my website jayrayner.co.uk explains that my the whole background of me and go with links and everything no you couldn't trust him you could never trust him um in any way whatsoever i have to tell you you know we've just been through a stage of downing street reconfiguring itself and it's all shown boris Boris Johnson's position to be very shaky with his own party and it genuinely is and I can guarantee that you know when that happened over that weekend uh Gove and Ms Vine they lay in bed propped up discussing next moves because surely Mr Gove must be next in line. I think actually his own party

recognises that he's a wanker and wouldn't elect him. That's a technical term for a political octave, by the way. I just think you can absolutely imagine him kind of in, you know, in a school uniform with shorts on, holding a bully's jacket while they punch up a weaker student, you know. Yeah, yeah. And then denying that he'd done anything of the sort. I was merely facilitating a more polite environment through which the exchange of views could take place. That's the thing. I've been in conversations with him. I've discussed things with him.

Greasy, plausible. He is a newspaper columnist in that way, that plausibility. And Boris Johnson's also exactly the same. And what's happening with every single deadline? They're missing them. That's what's going on. They're the kind of journalists that make editors despair. Well, I think you've argued that so beautifully. I think we can move straight on to the second person joining him with you on the island. Yeah, and this comes right from my wheelhouse, and it's Uber chef Gordon Ramsay.

Now, I want to preface this with the statement that there is no doubt that he is a very gifted chef. He's a very gifted cook. I have eaten some great food from Gordon Ramsay himself at Aubergine. I remember in the early 90s, 94 actually, when Aubergine and its pomp, absolutely stupendous. I'm marking him as a dick to go on the desert island because of his belief that the way forward for a television career was to promote himself

through violence, intimidation and aggression. I suspect that somewhere in his childhood he received abuse uh of uh you know whether it was emotional or physical i don't know i'm sure in various kitchens he was shouted at relentlessly uh he thinks that's what being a real man is i think the damage he has done to the restaurant industry by portraying it as a place in which this has to go on is vast. He should hold his head in shame. You know, he's made enormous amounts of money and he doesn't need to worry about me.

But I think he, in the long run, it doesn't really matter if he can make a trio of herb-flavoured creme brulees. You see, I remember some of the dishes. If what he has done is got where he is through shouting at people, belittling people, intimidating people, then it's all worthless. I think it's interesting because I think, you know,

you see it in different areas of reality TV from kind of America's Next Top Model to The Apprentice where it's a lot of people who are very angry saying, you've got to toughen up if you're going to make it in this industry because people are bastards. And you think, well, you could stop being a bastard. Yeah, you could stop being the bastard. You could stop shouting.

You could stop making this a horrendous working environment. A conversation has started, a real one, certainly within the British end of the hospitality industry, about working conditions, about mental health, about depression and drink and drugs among hard work kitchen staff. I know some people listening to this will say, but surely you're part of the problem, Rainer, because you dole out savage reviews well they are never face-to-face personal abuse I talk about what happens to the money you spend and I also make a point of not picking on little people you know before I came up with this edict that I wouldn't write negative reviews I'd long said that

if I came across sort of mom-and-pop operation which was failing I wasn't going to write about it because they don't need a national newspaper to do that so if I'm across sort of mom and pop operation, which was failing, I wasn't going to write about it because they don't need a national newspaper to do that. So if I'm accused of punching, I always punch up. The thing about Gordon Ramsay was he thought it was clever to punch down. He's a bully. Even if he would say that's just a persona, then that's him. And the persona is that of a bully.

Yeah. And I think it's just as a bystander kind of watching programmes about chefs and things like that, you do kind of have this idea that, you know, you watch MasterChef and you see Marcus Waring and he can be very smiley with his twinkly blue eyes and then suddenly he can sort of turn and you think, God, that's quite scary. But then he can still deal with people on a normal level,

you know, and be smiley and nice, whereas Gordon Ramsay has this sort of staccato kind of machine gun delivery where everything is snapped and just angry and aggressive. Even if he's being friendly, it's a kind of aggressive manner, I think. Yes, that's absolutely true. That's exactly the way it works. I mean, I am slightly amazed at the scale of his TV career.

And do not underestimate it. On Fox in the US, he is one of the biggest grossing stars of all time and takes home tens of millions of dollars every year for that. For the most part, it seems to be built on this persona of aggression and rage.

And apart from anything else, I find myself thinking, God, that must be tiresome do you enjoy being that person do you actually enjoy being that angry and furious do you enjoy being that famous gordon do you enjoy being you know do you enjoy the work um i don't think he does he always looks sort of bemused and cross and furious because i get it if you're you know everything's on the line for your business you're doing 17 hour days with this sort of bemused and cross and furious because i get it if you're you know everything's on the line for your business you're doing 17 hour days with this sort of high-end restaurant and you know

at a minute's notice it could come tumbling down and you know the pressure's really on i can get the you know in the heat of the moment you might snap at a sous chef but then once that ends and you're getting paid loads of money to you know go around the world then you know just like it's time to relax now you know well you would think so but i think he's got it in his head that um he became who he is through this shtick yeah and therefore that's what he has to stick to um seems very very peculiar yeah and you know i i wonder whether he's had any therapy and if he hasn't maybe he ought to i'm sure there are friends of his who say, no, he's a lovely guy. In fact, I've talked to chefs he's worked with in the kitchens who said, no, no, Gordon's fine.

Gordon's a pussycat. Gordon's great. Gordon's supportive. OK. Well, if that's the case, then why did you do all of that stuff on screen? Yeah. What was that about? Why did you think it was clever?

Yeah. screen yeah what was that about what why did you think it was clever yeah i saw i saw once a really interesting clip on youtube a very old clip with him when he used to work under marco pierre white yes harvey's yeah and marco pierre white you know is famously kind of fiery temperament as well well same fiery temperament another bully yeah yeah and in the background of this clip, you can just see a very timid young Gordon Ramsay sort of cowering away, working on sources or whatever. And it's so bizarre seeing him with that body language, that sort of nervous, young body language. Gordon Ramsay has said that Marco Pierwhite made him cry. And so what what he then went

and decided to repeat the behavior by making other people cry well that's that's a cycle of violence and abuse i'm not talking physical violence in case he's listening but and and he may say that he stopped doing that now and so well maybe you could apologize for it as well and make out that you know being a chef being a cook in a restaurant kitchen it is a high pressure environment but it doesn't have to be like that yeah yeah i agree and i mean in terms of being on the island with him i mean just a terrifying person to be on the island because i mean apart from anything you know he's used to this lifestyle he's going to be pretty pissed off that now he's stuck on an island um he's probably gonna have a few words to say to you as well oh yeah but he got very cross with me at one point my publisher sent one of my novels

to him or to his office um and you know it was they came back with an endorsement quote and i put it on the book i don't think he ever read the book i suspect somebody else did it um and i think he concluded that having done that he would be immune from any kind of critical comment from me uh forever and he wasn't um also his father-in-law tried to well sent legal letters to me once over something he claimed i put in another book which i hadn't quite extraordinary uh I cost it cost him lots and lots of money because he decided to get a very expensive firm of lawyers to write legal letters to one of the papers about me it was great absolutely great but that's that's the kind of people they are they're firing off legal letters they're being angry they're being furious they're defending themselves so you know the characters had a game

of thrones they really are yeah i just i just think the level of so if to keep up that level of testosterone and sort of you know even if it's just pretend fury would just be exhausting and just being near it would be exhausting so can i point out the irony that doing this podcast requires me to have a level of anger and testosterone i'm just thinking of you are you on the island now and he's sort of you know knocking back and forth between michael gove and gordon ramsey and to think oh god here's the thing so ramsey is uh a study in paranoid masculinity in fearing that he doesn't measure up as a man and therefore he must climb mountains and you know ski down the other side and he must kill things with his bare hands and wield a big knife uh and gove is sort of the opposite and i suspect i could possibly retire

to the edge of the circle while the two of them wrestled in an attempt to prove something about themselves. Yeah, see who lasted longest. Yeah, because of course now Gordon Ramsay's latest thing is a sort of a Bear Grylls kind of approach to sort of travelling the world. Oh yeah, but there was an added element to it which was

that he was going to travel the world, go to strange new countries, meet interesting new people, and then show them how to cook their own food. Because you cannot come up with a factual television format without gamifying an element of it, that was the gamified element he put in. So in Thailand, he'd do a pad thai and they'd do a pad thai

and the audience would decide who was i mean for god's sake get a grip really okay well gordon ramsey is going to join you on the island and who's going to be the third person joining you right so we've had two people that people may have heard of and the third one you won't have heard of um but uh and this is about me holding a grudge and a resentment for a very very long time it's an individual but he also represents something his name is michael lomprie and he was an english teacher at haberdasher's school for boys in elstree where i was a pupil between 1977 and 1984 it's a very expensive independent public school it has a an illustrious list of alumni

the likes of sasha baron cohen and david baddiel and matt lucas they used to call us a bunch of bloody comedians it turns out quite a lot of them were um but it was offensively built around attainment and their version of attainment and who you were and l'empereur was my english teacher but he was also responsible for corralling the team who would edit the school magazine which was a privilege for those in i think the lower six because in the upper six you're doing your a levels and i asked to be part of the editorial team because i already had it in my head that i would like to be a journalist and he said no because this is only a position a privilege given to those with a realistic likelihood of having a career in journalism and that moment symbolized everything I hate about that school I mean they

did throw me out for a while for getting stoned at a party um uh which is fine um but their version of what was succeeding and it was summed up by this guy Michael L'Empereur who gave the impression of being a wonderfully urbane quite youthful English teacher I have to tell you I've tried to find him because I do think a resentment is something you should bear well

and you should nurture I've tried to find him online because I'd love to tell him i mean if anybody is listening to this and knows uh possibly a former teacher now but a teacher of english called michael lomprea tell him that jay rena thinks he's a wanker uh and that wonders how many other kids in his care he risked damaging while pursuing the thing that he thought he was so good at um i i do think those environments those private schools those hot houses uh massively damaging to an awful lot of the kids who go through them i also wonder about the people who choose them as a place to go to work you want to be a teacher you want to impart education so rather than going

to the kind of school containing kids who really need your support and you're nurturing your education you go to an expensive public school with um an entrance exam which is selective to guarantee that you won't have any of the stupid ones uh so your job is bloody easy and you get paid well for it and you think that this is a reasonable way to pursue your life so michael omphur if that's been your life's work i hope you're satisfied with it uh because there is at least one of your former pupils who really thinks to use that classic piece of uh anglo-saxon which to be fair dom jolly was the one who used most on your podcast dan really thinks michael l'empereur a cunt. And I hope that you are left

wondering what it was all for. Yeah, I think that's a very fair thing. I think it's just, there's a particular type of damage that only a teacher can do, you know. Oh, yeah. And they do it casually. Yeah.

They do it casually. Or some of them, if they're actually really sadistic, do it actively. But I suspect he told me that and didn't think another thing about it uh and just moved on with his day because i so i went to private school for a little while um when i was young obviously when i was young because that's when you go to school but um best time mate best yeah but um yeah and i had a similar thing with teachers they were sort of simultaneously snobby, yet putting you down all the time.

So one minute they go, now remember, boys, you're better than that rabble down the road at that other place. Sort of trying to foster a sort of a division between other people, like, you know, as if you were better or worse than other people. And then simultaneously constantly telling you that you were stupid all the time. So that, you know, you couldn't even, he's like, like well do you want me to think i'm like worth something or not you know and just you know just constantly putting you down to the point where you just think well hang on a minute like you're being paid for this as well it's like yeah it's awful infuriating um i'd like to think it's got better uh but i had exchanges i live in umne Hill, Brixton. I used to say it was Herne Hill

if you were selling at Brixton, if you were being cool, but that doesn't apply anymore. But in those environments, not far away from the Dulwich Estate. Now, the Dulwich Estate is an enormous landowner. They have a landlord in Dulwich and their main job is to produce revenue,

which then goes to three private schools, which is Dulwich and their main job is to produce revenue which then goes to three private schools which is Dulwich College, James Alleyne's Girls School and Alleyne's. These three very selective public schools in the area and all three of those schools proclaim a corporate social responsibility to produce kids who are good neighbours and good citizens. And yet the Dulwich Estate, which funds them, is a landlord which has pursued very aggressive pricing policies, priced people out. Again, I've written about this and it's all over my website. You'll find it jraine.co.uk.

Look up, search my name, Dulwich Estate, and you'll find me detailing it. And that, to me, that insidious impact of these private schools on the neighbourhood in which they are a part sums up everything that I've come to hate about them. Yeah. And, I mean, because I live quite near there as well, and I was driving past Dulwich College with my son a while ago over the summer, and he's only three and a half but he was

just like what is this place and I was like that's a school and he's like my school doesn't look like that and it never will son no and it never will because you're not going there but it's unbelievable and they've even got a sort of a toll road through it it's like how how oh yeah the toll road is part of Dulwich estate I mean you know at the at the very least, they also have charitable tax-free status. What's that about? Yeah. That needs to end. Yeah.

If people want to do this and therefore drag, I'm sure, teachers who could be rather good if they are educating everybody's children out of that system, then the least they can do is pay for it in their own taxes, by paying tax.

Yeah. I just think the one place where you should be encouraged and nurtured is, you know, in the school room. And I think teachers who sort of casually or otherwise just sort of put people down and make them feel worthless. It's just, yeah, just an awful breed of people. So I absolutely applaud your selection. And Michael Lampire represents all of that but particularly because he he will have thought himself a bane and a mate of the boys not a tormentor but no mate you were a tormentor yeah fair enough fair enough okay well moving on from people now and a category that no doubt people will be interested to hear your views on because mercifully amongst the

wreckage of the plane there was some food and drink left over unfortunately for you it's your least favorite food and drink in the world what are they and why are they so bad so the food and and you can imagine this tumbling out of the cargo the damaged cargo bay of the plane uh and on the one hand you think well at least it's going to survive for a long time because it's canned you're a podcast listener and this is a podcast ad reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from lips and ads choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a reproduced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Lipson ads. Go to lipsonads.com now. That's L-I-B-S-Y-N ads.com. But then it's Heinz baked beans.

Right. And I hate them. I hate them. I've always hated them. It's a very specific thing. It probably extends unto those sort of cheap home brand versions of baked beans. But Heinz baked beans are the other totemic ones.

I hate the texture. I hate the the flavor I hate the sugariness there is there is nothing nothing about them that I like um and yeah I'm I'm you know given what I do for a living I am a restaurant critic I'm a write about food in many guises I once wrote a book called a greedy man in a hungry world and you know I'm a man of appetites you can see i'm a chunky fella um but there are a couple of things i do not like and but prime among them is heinz baked beans horrible horrible horrible horrible horrible that's not because they are an everyday food it's not because they're an ordinary food believe me give me a plate of finders crispy pancakes and i'm there um you know i i can go face down in a bag of quavers it's not because they come from a particular it's not because they're not roast

swan or larks tongues it's just them it's the product it's horrible yeah i i've always struggled with them as well and like and i remember kind of like sometimes at school dinners they're seen as like a treat and it was like oh we're having baked beans and you think this is i don't get it you know beans on toast and everything and if if they're on a full english i just like they just swim around and ruin everything and everything gets damp and you know and you get that sort of skin on it if it's been left for too long and and it's weird because you know i i have no problem with other kinds of beans or pulses even if they're in a tomato sauce but it's just that bean in that sauce no absolutely i mean if i go to um you know one of those u.s barbecue low and slow places where they're putting huge chunks of meat through a

smoke or whatever and there's american u.s style barbecue beans i will probably order them those i like it's it's it's not even all baked beans it's those it's heinz baked beans i will probably order them those i like it's it's it's not even all baked beans it's those it's heinz baked beans i think the heinz corporation will probably survive this i have to tell you but i can't bear them yeah it's like even if i say if i'm making if my son quite likes him if i make some for him and you know i get a bit on my hand or something and i lick it off even that is just a bit too much that's just disgusting yeah christ alive look i've had to think this through the last thing you have to do is taunt me with it yeah and i think especially in a on a desert island i mean just a plate of of baked beans is the the last thing you want to be dealing with i mean this sort of sums up where

i am with this it's not the idea of it's not just the idea of having to eat baked beans day after day that's horrendous just the first day would be appalling yeah would be absolutely appalling um god the thing the thoughts you put in my head dan it's just not fair okay well i'll distract you what would you try and wash them down with what would your drink choice be well i wouldn't would i i wouldn't want to i'd drink seawater because look what else has fallen out of the cargo bay it's a couple of crates of gin gin okay now this i i actually wrote a large piece about well not large it was one of my columns i basically said i i feel like i'm i'm you know outside the party because i am a grown man and i don't have my favorite gin. We are living through the gin age.

I am willing to accept that this is a failure on my part, that if I look at my booze choices, I suspect I run away from anything that's too interesting. I don't like Negronis either. That was the other thing that was close on my list. But in the end, I realised gin gin negroni is a very particular thing whereas the world is swimming in gin it's too floral and actually i made discovery i i felt like an idiot for not realizing this uh which is that the majority of gin basically starts as a

white spirit to which flavors are added some very good gins are that that's how they are produced they are distilled in and of themselves but the vast majority of you know gin companies all these new gin companies are buying in vodka which i love and then ruining it yeah and you know the addition of botanicals suck on a hedgerow i'm actually of the opinion that most people don't like gin either which is why there are so many flavor gins that don't taste like gin yeah i honestly do respect the idea that some people like gin that's fine there are some great companies out there making some great products i can't stand it and um i've lived remorselessly through these gin years being gifted gin.

There are a lot of events, you do an event, or they give you a goodie bag. Yeah, listen to my terrible life. And there in it, weighing it down, is a bottle of gin. It's another bloody bottle of gin. I hate gin. Don't like gin.

Don't like gin and tonics. Don't particularly like the taste of juniper. Don't mind it with venison, but don't put it in my drink. So, yeah, hellish. There's another thing as well. well sorry i'm just ranting now that's quite all right um so obviously we are in the age of the artisanal food producer yeah um where people want to get you know prove their their spiritual credentials by going and living somewhere in a rural area i'm very much an urban person um even though most of that artisanal food

is actually produced in a porter cabin, which is strip-lit, somewhere off a ring road, probably near Reading. But anyway, the thing about gin is that it's artisanal food production for people who don't want to leave the city. Right, yeah.

It's a way of proving you're, I'm an artisan and I care about my food and drink, so I'm going to make gin. Probably from a reconditioned warehouse in Bermondsey. Yeah, I like gin, but I find that there's so much sort of image around it now, which I struggle with. There might be a section of a pub bar that's like the gin bar

and there'll be some guy in a tweed waistcoat and a flat cap, like his interpretation of someone from the 20s you know or like there's a picture of a bicycle on the label and i just think just it's just a drink come on like i don't want you know i don't want a whole hedge in my glass i just want a nice drink now that's it i mean it is it is sucking on a hedge i don't really have a problem with all the marketing because if I did, I think I'd be undermining the entirety of the sector in which I work. You know, vodka tends to be advertised using iconography culled from Russia,

pre-Soviet, post-Soviet, ice queens and all of that sort of stuff. Whiskies, tweed and peat moors, that's fine. And you're right, gin has its its hovis cobbled lanes and men in waistcoats not waistcoats waistcoats uh and all of that and that's fine marketing is what it is i just don't like the taste of it yeah um and i don't want to ever drink it please don't make me fair enough i. I also have... You know, obviously, you know a lot about food and drinks,

so you might be able to sort of help me with this. The balloon goldfish bowl glass that gin comes in these days, that feels like a very recent thing. No, this is basically you asking me, a little bit like you ask me what goes on at orgies. I haven't been to one. Because I haven't... Because I don't partake, I didn't know.

Is that what's going on now? They're now serving it in enormous goldfish bowls? Yeah, if you go to a pub in central London and ask for a gin and tonic, you get these huge sort of goblets, which, you know, it's just not a very nice thing to drink out of. It's like, you know, I don't mind just a normal tall, what do you call it, highball or something. But it's like a goldfish bowl,

and it just enables them to put even more like twigs and rosemary and grapefruit and everything in there then set fire to it um yeah i mean you know certainly gin has acquired a whole bunch of accessories around it which have nothing to do with the drink again as i say i feel a little uncomfortable being too down on all that stuff it's the gin in the glass okay that i mean it wouldn't matter to me whether they put it in a goldfish bowl a television a dog's bowl it would it would still be gin i'd still hate it fair enough so gin and baked beans are your food and drink choices now um fortunately you won't be without entertainment on the island the planes

entertainment system continues to work but just your luck it only has two working settings one is your least favorite film of all time and the other is your least favorite song what are they and why i thought very long and hard about the film because i have quite a tolerance for terrible movies there are some terrible movies i've quite enjoyed sitting through if you give me a big disaster movie um and it's crap i'll still enjoy it uh i was thinking for a while about the third in the matrix trilogy which i resented hugely because i'd invested so much in the first one and the law of diminishing returns was huge with that. And it was long and it didn't go anywhere. But I'd probably watch it for the special effects

and that would be okay. And eventually I settled on a whole genre and you're going to want me to choose one film to define that genre. And the genre is a Western. Right, okay. I can't bear Westerns. I think, again, possibly it feeds into this lack of patience

with a certain form of masculinity. I have never watched John Wayne do anything that I found remotely moving or plausible or interesting. It's always tiresome. So it's going to be true grit. Right, okay. It is the film I choose to not have to watch, to bury my head in the sand

as the entertainment system went on and on and on. I hate Westerns. I hate John Wayne. Yeah, I just find them such a long-winded sort of vehicle. A Western, it feels like they go on forever and their nature is just quite slow and maybe it's to sort of echo the kind of landscape. It's kind of slow and dusty.

Yeah, you're meant to take in the landscape and you're meant to be drawn up in the frontiers of spirit and that primeval sort of battle of good against evil and real men against evil men. Oh, leave it alone. Nothing happens. There's always some long lingering shot. John Ford working the camera like it's his own horse.

Horses. Nothing. There's nothing. I mean, even some of the... I suppose I've got a little bit more tolerance for some of the more modern ones. I think Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven in the 90s attempted to give you a different version. But really, the Western, no, no, no, no, no, and no. Yeah. No John Wayne and no True Grit. Just no. Yeah. I just think, yeah, it's the backdrop. Yeah. And no John Wayne, and no True Grit, just no. Yeah.

I just think, yeah, the backdrop, everything about them feels unappealing to me. You know, the backdrop, it's not a sort of an oeuvre where you could ever sort of feel like, oh, this looks cool. I'd like to be a part of that era or anything like, you know, just sort of,

everything just looks difficult and dangerous and dusty and unpleasant and... Boring. Dull. Yeah. Dull, dull, dull dull there's nothing going on and um and the same with the movies because they seem to have no plot at all or it's the same plot it's you know it's barely a three-act structure tedious in the extreme i would be so bored i would be crying with boredom i'd be so bored I'd be actually

having a conversation with Michael Gove just because I prefer to have a row with the obnoxious little scamp than I have to watch the bloody film. I can imagine Gordon Ramsay would be getting stuck in like, I can't believe you don't like this stuff, Jay. Come on, come on. Call yourself a man.

No, Gordon, I do call myself a man, just not your kind of man. I'm sure you're right. I'm sure Gordon loves a bloody western. Yeah, turned up really uncomfortably loud. And Michael Lompria would criticise my analysis for being slightly lacking in insight. And what would

your song choice be? So, some people may know I have a sideline playing jazz. I have a quartet, the Joanna Quartet, and we do draw on the Great American Songbook. And I love it dearly. I love that repertoire. I know it very intimately.

There is one song in there which I hate with an absolute passion, and it is My Way. Okay. I hate My Way not just because it's a dirge, but also because of what it has become uh i love frank sinatra if you look over this shoulder yeah you'll see a picture of a young man and that is a mugshot of frank sinatra uh in his early 20s a police mugshot uh in hoboken um the offense for which he has been brought up is seduction. In other words, he

fucked somebody else's wife. Sinatra at the Sands, which was not long before the offence of My Way, is one of the greatest live recordings of all time, as far as I'm concerned. But My Way has become

this, and again, I think it goes to a certain view of masculinity, for pathetic men to make excuses for themselves. You know, what they're really saying is, I've fucked up at life. I've been a terrible husband. I've been a terrible father. I've been a terrible person,

but at least I did it my way. Well, why don't you do it somebody else's way? The song is poorly written and annoying and just really gets on my tits. And then it's the way that it has become adopted. And it's the people who cling to that version of Sinatra that also drives me nuts. You know, they go, oh, I love Frank Sinatra.

I love my way. And you go, no, you don't understand. that was the point at which he became shit everything else before that was all brilliant you're not even paying attention the capital recording songs for stringing lovers all of that stuff the jimmy dorsey's you're not you don't actually love sinatra you love this terrible terrible terrible song which speaks to a certain kind of man. You can just imagine Gordon Ramsay, when he gets to 67, standing up at a party, taking the mic and singing My Way to a terrible backing track and being really pleased with himself, and I can say no worse.

Fair enough. Yeah, I think it's... Because isn't it famously one of the most picked songs at funerals as well, I think, in the UK? And I just kind of think, I hope one day that song gets buried with the whoever chose it as well, I think, in the UK. And I just kind of think, I hope one day that song gets buried with the whoever chose it as well, so it's gone forever.

Because it's just... And it's so long. It takes so long to get to the kind of swell of it. And even then, it's just... It's not worth the wait, I think. It's not worth the wait. It's not worth the time. I don't have much time for the great rock rock and roll swindle the sex pistols movie

apart from that bit where they do my way and take the piss out of it remorseless i love that bit yeah yeah i'd be okay with that version i think but yeah it's just i don't know it feels like it's just it's a song for people with no imagination because it's like yes yeah and no capacity to engage with their own emotions there it's second-hand emotions yeah now obviously a lot of songs are and the reason we like them is they they give voice to an emotion that perhaps we have not necessarily managed to codify for ourselves but the emotion of my way

I've been a jerk but at least I did it my way oh god help me it's such a cheap one such a lazy one it just makes me as you can hear angry and cross yeah I just feel it's a very sort of generic go to so what's your favourite poem Kipling's If, what's your favourite painting as you can hear, angry and cross. Yeah, I just feel it's a very sort of generic go-to.

It's like, what's your favourite poem? Kipling's If. What's your favourite painting? Mona Lisa. What's your favourite song? My Way. And there you go. Done.

Yeah, yeah. It's an attempt to the hinterland for someone who doesn't have one. Very well put, very well put. Now, finally, Jay, the island is overrun by the biggest dick of all the animals which animal is it and why it's burmese cats a burmese cat okay yeah because burmese cats are so fucking pleased with themselves they slink around thinking aren't i gorgeous

aren't i beautiful aren't i slinky aren't i aren't i no you're just annoying and attention seeking you're tiresome you knew in a really annoying way i am someone who's had cats we stopped having cats when we realized that over 20 years they had been claimed by the road and this was no longer a good thing to do in london so we don't have cats anymore but i rather liked living with cats they were always you know tabbies of various concoction a bit heinz 57 varieties the burmese the pedigree burmese cat talking because it thinks it's got something interesting to say you know showing itself off slinking up against your legs as though you give a toss attention see i've said this already haven't i an island completely overrun yeah by these

bloody animals oh it'd be hell the only upside i have to say is that they would possibly be a better source of food than they baked beans although they're always very scrawny aren't they they're a very sort of slim cat like i've when i've come into contact with them they're not even that fun to cuddle because they're quite sort of bony and stiff somehow. Yeah, they are bony and stiff. In various markets, particularly in northern Spain, when they sell rabbit in the market, they always have to leave the furred head on so that you know it was definitely a rabbit and not a cat. Wow. And you could just imagine,

if you've run your hands along that skinny frame of a Burmese cat, that if you flayed it, it could quite easily pass as a rabbit. Mind you, not a bad idea. Not a terrible idea. It would be better than looking and listening to them. If Peter now get in touch with me, bad idea not a not a not a terrible idea be better than looking and listening to them if peter now get in touch with me you have to understand we were merely talking in a hypothetical version of life in which i've crashed on an island i've got michael go michael l'empereur and gordon ramsey of the company give me a break fair enough yeah there's in in around my area every now and again

i'll sort of look out the window and i see this couple kind of acting a bit strangely kind of sort of peering into people's front yards and they're walking on a bit and then peering and i said what's going on and they've got a burmese cat and i think it i don't know if they're taking it for a walk but i'm pretty sure it's that it's taking them for a walk because i i don't know what it is like if it's a house cat does that exactly i mean it's so it's the burmese cat which is sort of demanding you know, oh come and follow me. Or the only other explanation is it's so precious

that they can't go out without, you know, it can't go out without, you know, it's carers. And either way it just seems like the most high maintenance thing. All the other neighbourhood cats are just running around having rows and this thing has got its chaperones with it all the time. Yeah. High maintenance. That is the way to put it absolutely high maintenance absolutely an island infested with them would be a terrible terrible place i agree i agree now jay thank you for this

you've put together a wonderful collection of awful people and things to be stuck with i think you've done a particularly fine job um and you've really built uh quite a large rod for your own back so you've you've you've done brilliantly um but now is the time in the podcast i like to ask people uh what you're up to at the minute and where people can best sort of keep in touch with what you're doing at the moment all right well i'm going to mention one thing in particular which is just before this lockdown i was doing um a run of my one-man show My Last Supper which is based on my book now out in paperback it's about my last meal on earth and what I would have give me props for continuing to perform a show about you know what you'd eat before you die into the teeth of a

murderous pandemic um it's but it's a jolly show and I was meant to do five nights of it at uh the Crazy Cocks at Breast Roosterele i actually was the person who closed it on that wednesday night before the second lockdown came in on the thursday but we we filmed one of those performances and we're streaming it from november the 28th uh from 6 30 for a week in aid of the food chain which is a brilliant hiv charity of which i'm a patron um it's a small charity giving nutritional advice and support to people with hiv there's been a massive demand for their services while resources have been in supply so i'm trying to raise a bit of money for them you can find a link to tickets on my website jayrayner.co.uk and i do hope as many people

as possible can have a watch because a it's a good cause b there's some entertainment uh and so you don't actually have to watch it at all just give me the money and then i'll pass it on to that okay and we'll also put a link to it in the description of this podcast that would that would be brilliant that would be brilliant and uh if you're listening to this now uh it's this coming saturday so the 28th yeah 28th of november um so do i also get to mention that i have a podcast darling you do yes i've been listening because because what what would it be a modern male without a podcast? A modern person without a podcast? Quite.

So mine's Out to Lunch, in which I take a well-known person out to a restaurant that was in normal times and grill them to a turn. And some of it now is over Zoom and a takeaway. I think the next one that's coming up probably daro brin uh coming up on just as this drops and that one is is over zoom i had to send him a very big steak your podcast you just it's all imaginary my podcast i have to send them actual food yeah i know i just let you vent and then sort of leave you with your your murderous thoughts afterwards so yeah it's the worst deal i think being on. But it's been a pleasure having you anyway, Joe.

So thank you very much for coming on Desert Island Dicks today. I feel a lot better for getting all that off my chest. Thank you for having me, Dan. Good.