Desert Island Dicks - JORDAN BROOKES

Episode Date: November 2, 2020

Edinburgh award-winning comedian Jordan Brookes joins Dan to discuss all that is crap in this world. Well, not everything, but a few things that are crap in the world. Anyway, don't get bogged down in it all here, start listening and it'll all become clear. 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, recording this in my kitchen, where you might be able to hear my washing machine in the background.

If I'm honest, I worry that I put this wash on too late in the day, and I don't know if I'm going to get it all dry in time but that's the rock and roll lockdown life for you. Anyway on this episode we're joined by comedian Jordan Brooks who won last year's Edinburgh Comedy Award and I don't think that's the official name but basically he won the prize for having the best show because he's really funny. So I think you should go and look him up because he's ace. But make sure you still listen to this podcast as well. And if you've ever listened to these podcasts

and thought, I wish I could tell everyone who and what really annoy me, then now you can with our companion podcast, Compact Dicks, which we put out every Friday. And if you want to nominate your dick choices,

then go to dickspod.com slash contact and we could feature them in the next Compact Dicks. Whatever you do, though, you should subscribe to us and then you'll get the regular Desert Island Dicks and Compact Dicks downloaded automatically to your phone or your device. And then you're laughing, quite literally, if it's been a good episode. But now it's time to get on with this episode with comedian Jordan Brooks. 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 jordan brooks how you doing hi hello thanks for having me thank you for coming on yeah

it's a pleasure um how how do we find you today in this slightly shitty, wet Thursday? Yeah, I don't mind it. I quite like it. I've always enjoyed gloomy weather, to be honest. In the same way that I'm like, and I say this very quietly, quite enjoying the, not the pandemic, but the quarantine and everyone having to shut down and live in a state of anxiety. Because I'm like, no, that is a fair reflection of the human condition.

So I think sometimes it's nice to sit in it and feel it's sort of externalised. So you're like, finally I've found society's adapted to me rather than the other way round. Yeah, exactly. I've been sat in a room at a party on my own and suddenly everyone's turned up and i'm like well well well look who decided to show up it's everyone else fair enough and and how did you find the process of sort of choosing your uh your dicks for the island today um well i chose some stuff that

and i'm sure you've had this before there are there are people in there or things in there that I love but would obviously hate to be trapped with. Right. And then there are people that I despise or things that I despise and would equally hate to be trapped with. So I think I've been quite considered in my choices. Okay, great. I hope I have. Well, let's find out. Who's going to be your first choice to be stuck on an island with?

David Attenborough. David Attenborough. Okay, so this is, I think, probably quite a controversial one, I would say. Yeah, but we have to remember that he is an old man, increasingly sad about the world do i do i want to have someone who is a who is a mascot for the disintegration of civilization and natural life with me that's a very fair point forever yeah also i'll have to watch him die yeah i'll have to watch david attenborough die sad sad that he wasn't able to make the changes that he hoped for and then i'll have to bury his body that's a good point actually yeah because of watching a national hero with her in front of you

is going to be tough brutal yeah absolutely absolutely brutal also maybe you know i i only i only as i'm sure obviously most people, know him through narrating and presenting these documentaries. I don't really know what he's like as a person off camera. What if I discover that he's actually not a nice man at all, as it seems to be the case? Our entire cultural history has been disemboweled and forensically examined, and it turns out that no one is who we thought they were.

Nothing is what we thought it was. I don't think that my heart could take that happening with David Attenborough. Yeah, because I think you get sort of the word national treasure is bandied around quite a lot these days. But I feel like he's probably more loved than the queen you know um so there's a lot of pressure on there oh there's so much pressure imagine the pressure that he is under that michael palin is under they cannot put a foot wrong because right now they are all of us or rather they are the us we would like to be they are the sort of you know they are all of us, or rather they are the us we would like to be. They are the sort of, you know, they are an ambassador for virtuousness.

And if it turns out that either of them have done anything awful, I think there will be a collective outpouring of grief that, as you say, is probably going to be bigger than the response to Princess Diana's death. Yeah, yeah. If it turns out that David Attenborough is a paedophile, there will be people laying flowers outside Buckingham Palace for some reason. I suppose the only good thing about people dying of that calibre

is you get really good telly for a couple of weeks. My friend said he was really pleased when James Brown died because it was over Christmas and he had loads of really good programmes about James Brown to watch so he was actually quite happy about it all that's true although I wonder how much of what we'd see of David Attenborough's output would just be shows that basically the subtext of which is I told you so look look what I spent my life doing which was warning you and now I'm no longer here to warn you good luck yeah i feel like increasingly i just feel awful because i know that there are all these new

series he's done i'm like brilliant new attenborough but it is kind of going to make me feel sad so it really like new facts on why the world is awful yeah it really sort of like holds a mirror up to your sort of to your psyche doesn't it it's like oh do i want to feel miserable but also see the pretty birds of paradise maybe not tonight you know i just feel like an awful human being also as you say he is very old so probably not that useful on the island so you're gonna have to look after him a lot and you might end up resenting him because you're like oh you're sort of like an extra person i have to look after rather than chipping in and getting you know i'm sure he'd want to chip in but it's just you know he's what 94 or something like that or he's really old he has the but he has the

sort of tenacity that my my i'm not sure why my brain was suggesting I use this phrase, but my remaining nan has got... She's very fiercely independent. She drives still. She's very on top of herself and very much refuses help. And I think he would be like that for a very long time and it would be almost worse because then you're having to tell someone

who doesn't want to hear it that it's time for them to relinquish a little bit of control over their own lives David Attenborough is not going to go quietly no or just have to redo everything he started. Like, oh no, don't worry, I can

weave those palm fronds into a shelter and then you're going around going, it's fucking leaking again, Attenborough. I'm going to have to go and fix this. One of the saddest things that my nan, my departed nan, her eyesight was going and she was definitely

becoming a bit more senile in her later years and there was a great there was a sort of having to not not cover it up but excuse those those moments when you see her frag you know fragility you see her age she she once ruined one of my shirts because she she didn't notice that she was burning it and um i was really annoyed and my sister took me to another room and said you've got to not you can't you can't be annoyed at her she doesn't know what's going she doesn't know why you're in a bad mood or anything you have to just let it go so i just carried on wearing that shirt without probably for months after she died as well just in tribute fair enough oh that's nice. Okay, so David Attenborough is going to join you on the island.

Who's going to be joining the two of you? One of my ex-girlfriends. Okay. Why in particular? I mean, it's obvious why, because that would be bloody awkward. It would be terrible. Well, this one is one who

I mean, it was one of those ones that ended very badly. And, you know, it's the one that you sort of, that surprises you, where you're both like, hang on a minute, we were going to be together for a long time. This is stupid. And then somehow just didn't, we weren't able to reconcile. Our tendency after our breakup was to forensically examine every single detail, every single aspect of the relationship and the breakup. And I know that we, upon arriving at the deserted island, we'd still have our coats on when we're beginning our first post-mortem you know and i i just i would rather not have the stress of raking over that particular sadness yeah yeah it's one of those things it doesn't matter like you could both sort of arrive at the island you know with families and kids with other you know with another partner back on the mainland and still that relation that

bit of your previous relationship is never going to end is it it's like you're locked into that that bond with someone forever to do that yeah for sure i think we we sort of we sort of kid ourselves that you know time heals all wounds and we get over stuff and actually we never really do and these things do just sort of sit with us and they do inform who we become and so therefore we can't ever forget because we can't forget why we are now the way we are um and i know that having that person around would make me very sad it would be very sad it would make me very sad i think as well sometimes with things like with exes like even if they're completely fine with something you're almost second guessing their reaction for something you know like you'd be on the island going i bet they

think i'm just gonna fuck this up again like i used to fuck that up but but wait till they see this and they probably don't even know what you're doing but you're kind of like you're going through so much in your head going oh well wait until they see this that i've done that's not like the old me ha but it but it is or they'll you know it'll be something completely different that annoyed them about you you know yeah totally it's um because you start to I think the sad sort of thing about I mean there's no easy way of getting over someone in fact there is no blueprint for it and there is no let's be honest ultimately effective way of of breaking yourself off from that person so but when you but one of the sort of common ways is obviously in not in the kind of there's a yeah

there's a sort of casual demonization of that person because you almost have to go all right fuck it i'm gonna hate them then because what else can I do I'm going to have to leave it there I'm going to have to press pause on my image of that person and that image is the least favourable one because otherwise I will never stop thinking about this and so

you'll be yeah if you're trapped with them you'll be constantly thinking what do they see what person do they what person did i leave behind there yeah and how frustrating is it going to be to feel like no i'm a new person i'm different i've grown and they refuse to waver on the you know on the pause button yeah oh god it's such a messy thing and i mean also the other thing is you know you're stuck on an island together at some point you know you're going to crave a little bit of comfort.

You've already had that with this person in that life. And if, just out of necessity, you slip back into that, just because you want to cuddle after a long time, think how complicated that's going to be. Oh, it's going to be horrific. And then have another breakup on the island. Yeah, exactly. Because things are never the same you know they're never the same once you've broken up it's very very

difficult to repair um you don't ever really forget because it's not the same because you're trying to go back to what it was before the breakup but of course it is not you can't because you are both changed by the breakup um so yeah you're right it just adds new new sort of chapters to this saga of of uh of trauma i can imagine you walking back to the campfire after after another blazing row david attenborough tries to comfort you by sort of comparing your situation to something in the animal kingdom you know the something something bird in Madagascar they mate this way not now David, sorry

not now David, you've still got half a head of shampoo because you couldn't wash it all off yourself I'm going to have to rinse your head under a watering can again while my ex shouts at me. Oh, this is already shaping up to be such an awkward environment. So this is going very well.

Who's going to be the third person to join those two then? The third person is a guy who I met in 2010. He was my neighbour when I was at uni. So I was living in a, I was living in a house share in Cardiff. And this is the first day we'd moved in. I was a little bit older. In fact, we were all like, not all of us were students, but we're all sort of early twenties. And an American football lands in our garden. And this is in a student occupied area so it's very studenty and a guy knocks on the door and says oh I think my my football's in the gone into your garden and we get it for him and we have a little chat with him and he's just moved in as well with a bunch

of people and we were kind of you know we were being friendly and I said and I was very at the time I was very insecure and I'd very I'd spent a lot of time on my own I was really still very much learning how to sort of socialize and I was very you know I was saying stuff but you know when you're kind of self-conscious and so you stay you say stuff in a very rigid way or a very prepared way or you know you stumble over your words there's a. There was a lot of that at the time. And I remember I said something to him like, what a great way of making friends, just throwing an American football into people's gardens and then coming around to collect it.

And he looked at me and went, sure thing. Wow. And I was like, oh, okay. Either he didn't hear what i said and was just saying a generic response or he heard what i said and was just shutting it down in that way that particularly and i i'm reminded of this particular genre of of mostly men in their early 20s who are very closed off and very dismissive of other people and won't give you the laugh easily. They're not very giving conversationally. They're not very generous interpersonally. So you almost feel as though there's a joke in their head

that you're not invited to. And they're enjoying it while they're with you. And it had that air. And I think about Shaw Thing. I think about that man, Mr. Shaw Thing. I think about him all the time, what he represents to me. And he may have very well been a lovely man, but I refuse to see the good

i am actively deciding that i i do not want him to be a good person i think it would almost be better if he kind of was openly kind of critical you know if he sort of said something like oh what are you a clown you know well we got we got a wise guy here i don't know why he's talking like just because he's got an american football he's suddenly part of the mafia i don't know yeah yeah no parliament why not yeah there's no smoke without fire yeah exactly um but you know at least if he was a bit abrasive with it you could be like okay you're just a prick but just like a sort of two line two word shutdown like that is like i mean there's something more psychopathic about it it did yeah it was absolutely like that because it and it was as i said it was so hard to tell whether whether he just didn't hear me or he was being an arsehole

but i remember him throwing his american football from one hand to the other as he as he said it you know that sort of like sure thing and through and uh i i yeah i'm i'm almost i'm almost certain it was it was deliberate i'm almost certain it was deliberate i wonder if like there's scope for you know you get like reality shows and it's like well we've tracked down that person for you but like for really sort of niche awkward encounters from a long time ago it's like we could have flown your nan here from australia but instead we've tracked down a guy from Cardiff. I don't know if this American football rings any bells. Well, he's here tonight.

Here he is, it's sure thing. He comes out and he's like in his 30s, like I don't understand who you are. I don't remember any of this, I'm so sorry. Married with kids as well, being like I can't believe I'm being roped into this. Yeah, I thought I was on This Is Your Life life this isn't going the way i planned it um yeah yeah yeah it's it's just one of the when people sort of i mean no pun intended but when people don't play ball with this sort of conversational kind of thing it's so frustrating

because you're like well you know how this works like i was thinking recently this is a bit of a tangent but i was thinking recently i was at this wedding and i was standing next to a woman i hadn't seen in ages so i sort of said oh um where do you live these days and you know because i knew she used to live around europe and stuff she's like i'm not really sort of based anywhere and i was like right but i mean like where like you know where like where do you keep your stuff and she's like i don't really like have stuff in the end i said you know what i'm doing here we're at a wedding i don't know you that well can you please give me some fucking small talk please because this is how

it works and it's a different example but it's that like unwillingness to just do a human thing and just grease the fucking wheels a bit you know yeah that's totally it and it's it's a complete sort of uh yeah it's a complete rejection but it feels like a really unnecessary juvenile one it's like well come come on we all know what this is we all know what what game we're playing here i say something you say something and when we hit a common vein we both get really excited because our conversation is sorted for the next two or three minutes. And that's great for all of us. But if you're not, it's that sort of, I mean, I guess it is that sort of classic, you know, improv trope of yes anding.

Just yes and me. Just go along with it, please, for the sake of. It's such an easy win because you're shutting down someone's basic human desire to connect and that's a real shitty maneuver yeah yeah yeah it's oh man and in an island setting as well a survival setting and you've all got to get along you've had an argument with your ex david attenborough has gone to bed early and it's you and this guy and and that's it and every you just keep throwing balls up into the air and you're like nothing no fuck come on or you go on a hunting expedition together or you know you're going foraging or something and it's just that every day forever just banging your head

against a wall made of that guy it's just him it's just him either saying sure thing or doing this thing that um someone did recently uh it was my it was my flatmate's birthday and this is this is still when we could have a rule of the rule of six still applied and um a couple of his his mates came around and they were in their kind of early 20s mid 20-20s. And I remember I made a couple of jokes up top. And one of them reacted like he sort of went, hmm, like that. Instead of laughing, he went, hmm. Almost like he had taken the attempt at humour and instead of laughing, had made it his own private joke in his head.

But then he wasn't. And he was almost like laughing at me for trying to be funny. That's what I imagine this guy is like. Oh, man. I absolutely detest this man as well, whoever he is. In my head, he's called Sean Thing. 100%. in my head he's called Sean thing 100 but yeah I just think that kind of that kind of just daily tiny obstacle is just going to wear you down so fast plus you've already got this baggage

from so long ago already with him so to be stuck with him on an island I mean apart from a massive coincidence is just just a pain in the ass so uh yeah very frustrating so yeah he's in he's he's there okay good choice 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. Now, Jordan, mercifully, amongst the wreckage of the plane, there was some food and drink left over. Unfortunately for you, it's your least favourite food and drink in the world. What are they and why are they so bad? So the food is um is this meal that my sister

cooked for me a few months ago uh bless her and she's you know she's a good cook and but she's um her and her her boyfriend got into making weird meals i think they're both vegan now or they may have sort of wavered a little bit but principally vegan and they made this meal and honestly i i'll eat anything and i will finish most meals rarely do i leave a plate with food on but this thing i had to discreetly deposit most of it into the bin it was like a milky pasta with cone cone pasta shapes and then this sort of thick, thicker than milk, but very much overwhelmingly tasting like milk sauce. And it was white and there was also cashew nuts involved. And there, I mean, there probably were other things in it, but those were the only things that you could taste,

was cashew, pasta and milk. And if you imagine all of those three flavours together, they don't make anything substantial or palatable. Honestly, I was laughing as I was eating it because I couldn't understand. And then she came and she made loads of it and she said, do you want any more? We're going to have seconds. And I was like, what is going on?

I felt like I was being gaslit. I thought it was a prank. I was laughing at how bad it was. And I felt awful. But a bad meal is a bad meal. Yeah. I mean, none of those things make sense together. It just seems like one of those things you catch your student flatmate making

when you're like, okay, is that, yeah, go for it, try it. But yeah, as a grown-up in 2020? Yeah, it's like a sort of student meal, you know, when people get creative with super noodles. And it's like, it's still super noodles at its heart. You've still built a meal around a 90p pack of dry pasta yeah but um this uh this meal yeah and i remember actually i filmed i think i filmed myself um forking a little bit of pasta and then and then picking it up out of the sauce because the drip and the drizzle the sound of it and the sight of

it was repellent. And I was like, I've got to immortalise this for all time. I've got to have a video clip of this. And also, I mean, the nuts is a weird addition. But I mean, a cashew is particularly sort of, you know, it's got a creamy nut. So to have that with a milky sauce, it's not like even something like something to act as a counterpoint to this sort of the creamies that like, I don know what hazelnut walnut other nuts but i mean the cashews it's too creamy already it's what is that what was part it's part of the it's part of the same gloopy beige food group as all the other

things yeah it was foul it was almost like they'd gone right we like this one thing. What are a load of other things that are like that thing to enhance our experience of that first thing? And it did nothing, you know. I wonder if it's like some very, you know, specific Sicilian peasant dish that's kind of, you know, found its way into, you know, Carluccio cookbook or something. It's like, here's something my mother used to make. It's called crema alla something.

No, no, no. Yeah, but the backstory of that is the mother hated her children. Yeah. Just like my mother used to make and then laugh as we ate it. Yeah. To ensure that we all felt lucky as children, once a week we would have an awful meal. To balance all the other lovely Italian home-cooked meals we enjoyed the rest of the time.

Exactly, yeah. Yeah. Oh, that does sound bleak. And, yeah, on an island as well, it's, I mean, it's very close to just having only porridge all the time. You know, I like porridge, but something, you know, the beauty of porridge is it's a vehicle for other things. You know, it's like a base for toppings. But without that, you've just got gruel, basically. Yeah, it's like having pizza dough every day or something.

Yeah. It's foul. Just the vehicle. Yeah. Now, the drink that I would hate to sort of... If this was the only drink available on the island um something like uh something alcoholic but more ale or a pint of lager i think i would get i would very quickly tire of that i'm not a big drinker and i would be i would be so annoyed that in order to have

some sort of sustenance to have any kind of fluid in my system i would have to also be drunk would be very frustrating yeah yeah definitely and i think you know it's something like lager especially it's got quite a narrow operating window of temperature so to have it outside of that is is you know gonna be gonna be difficult also i mean you know if you're not a big drinker but at some point you might just want to get pissed just as a something to do a different change of state and it's going to take a bit more effort with something like you know lager or ale or something because especially ale sometimes it's like three percent or something it's going to take quite a long time to get there so to struggle through however many pints it's going to take quite a long time to get there. So to struggle through however many pints it's going to take

to give you a bit of a buzz to distract yourself. Exactly, yeah. And also I'm used to it as well because I've been drinking it all day just for hydration. Yeah, like in the Middle Ages when it was better than the drinking water, you know, they'd have a table beer. Yeah, it's salt water or Boddington's. Between a rock and a hard place.

Yeah, I think that's... We've had a few people pick things like lagers and ales and stuff, and they sort of feel controversial on the surface because I think as an island nation, we have fetishised these things to the level where it's almost like, I kind of think it should just be added to the flag, you know. And maybe now post Brexit it will be.

I don't know, you know. But, yeah, I think when you sort of take it apart, like if it's not in the right setting, yeah, I think there's a lot of issues with it. So on a desert island, a big sort of warm ale would just be red. Oh, just so foul foul so flat and so much of it yeah and it tastes how it looks and the island would smell like the day after a party or like an empty nightclub as well it would smell like a brewery with a minor leak yeah that hadn't been dealt with for months yeah okay and also god i just bring it back to your food choice as well like the idea of those two those two the creamy and the fizzy and oh washing washing down a

gloopy cashew nut with a with a sip of of warm ale tropical warm ale oh god yeah yeah that's a yeah that's a good a good strong choice okay well i need to distract myself as as much as anything now so i'm going to move on to the next bit because 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 so my least favorite song is uh angels by robbie williams oh yeah good choice now now as a song i'm like it's you know it's fine i can understand why people would like it but it's um it's very haunting and it very quickly becomes annoying. And I discovered this when I was, well, between the ages of about 10 and 15,

when I was really excited about Christmas and I was trying to get to sleep on Christmas Eve. That would be the song that would play in my head. You know, when you're trying to get to sleep and something will inevitably kind of pop up to distract you or keep you busy. That was that song. And I wouldn't be able to, I couldn't stop thinking about a hand picking up the needle

on a record player, placing it down, it playing in its entirety and then going back to the beginning. And I would be like, I'd be like trapped, you the beginning and i would be like i'd be like trapped you know i'd be five o'clock in the morning listening to rob williams's angel and trying to do anything i could imagining the record player getting smashed up imagining robbie williams being eviscerated just anything to to put a full stop at the end of it but nothing ever worked and so you're like i'll i'll sacrifice christmas if it means i don't have to

hear this again that's what i want for christmas no christmas so that i don't have this recurring nightmare thing exactly exactly um so that so that song in particular sticks in me like a like a thorn yeah it's a bad one i i feel like with that song there was a period where when i was young and take that were a thing they were a boy band and you like them if you like boy bands, and other people who didn't like boy bands or pop music, you could say they're shit. And then at some point, there was this weird changeover where they aged a bit, and Gary Barlow became this sort of

revered songwriter, and it was okay to like them as grown-ups. And it was like, oh no, but you know, he's a really good songwriter and it was okay to like them as grown-ups and it was like oh no but you know he's a really good songwriter and and and that sort of era and it happened with Robbie Williams as well like and I remember I work in radio and when I was trying to get some experience before I worked in the industry and I was working at this little well someone I'd met said I could come along and help out on their radio show in Brighton and And I was really excited and it was a big deal. And they had some local performers in there who were about my age. And I remember saying something disparaging about Robbie Williams and Angels.

And this guy who'd come on to play a song, he went to music college and he was just so condescending. He was like, well, actually, I think if you'll listen to Angels properly, you'll find it's a really brilliantly thought out piece of songwriting and just gave me this like real put down. And because I was kind of just this sort of like lackey in the office, I couldn't really say like, are you fucking joking? And to give you an idea of this guy, he had a tattoo on his arm of like of a female angel, but she was in chains because it was sad because he was,

do you know what I mean? Say no more. Yeah, absolutely. angel but she was in chains because it was sad because he was do you know what i mean say say no more yeah yeah absolutely yeah uh and so i just i can't think about that so when i hear that song it's either that fucking guy oh you had dreadlocks as well and was white um so it's either that guy but there's also like sort of like a drunken lad thing with that song, isn't there as well? Like blokes suddenly kind of it was OK for blokes to sing along like, Oi, it's your first major production. Oh, man.

That's exactly the sort of thing it is. Yeah, it's and it's it's interesting that the yeah, that sort of unconscious elevation of Gary Barlow and Bobby Williams' talents. Yeah, I see no evidence for it beyond just Gary Barlow doing a lot of songs. I didn't realise prolificness was a sign of genius. I've got a theory. It's to do with how many times people see you behind a grand piano on telly. It's like, do you know what I mean? Because before, like in the early days, they were just boys. Sometimes they had their tops off or they're leaning on each other

or they're lads, they're good time boys. But over time, you know, like maybe some of them are on stools. Gary Barlow's retreated behind the keys. And like, hang on a minute. I know what you're doing. I know what's going on here. Someone's had children. Yeah. Someone on a minute. I know what you're doing. I know what's going on here. Someone's had children. Yeah.

Someone's a father. Yeah, and it's like, they're still the same songs. Like, can't anyone see this? It's just a fucking piano. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I would, yeah, I'd love for that song to, I mean, I would hate for that song to be joining me. Yeah, it's a perfect, perfect choice.

And what would your film choice be? My film choice would be something big and grand like Inception or another Christopher Nolan film like Dunkirk or the Sam Mendes film last year, 1917. Anything that's like a big epic because after time they get very tedious to watch i could watch a bad film multiple times and you you it almost provides you with a blank canvas from which you can sort of spin your own understanding of it and look for meaning that

isn't there you can be kind of playful and creative with it. With a film like Inception, I think I would tire very quickly of its bombast. Yeah, because I think things like that rely on the scale and budget and intrigue the first time. Or if it's one of the wartime ones, then it's kind of the shock of it all.

But yeah, over time there isn't really anything else to enjoy in it after you've seen it the first time I don't know how many people re-watch Dunkirk and things like that yeah I don't know I watched 1917 again for the second so I saw it in the cinema and I was transfixed

I thought it was so good and then I watched it again and I still really enjoyed it but there was a drop off there was a tangible diminishing returns on it. I think I would rather watch Cats repeatedly for all time than 1917. Because at least with Cats again, it's so bad that you can sort of find new little nuggets of your own personal enjoyment

whereas when a film's good when it's good when it when a film sets out to achieve something and succeeds there's nothing in it for me as a viewer yeah it makes sense and especially with this sort of with the the war-based ones i mean like i don't know they just make me feel like i just sit there going cowering just going oh i'm so comfortable and weak and shit i couldn't do this god if there was another world war like i said to my wife the other day like if there was another world war i'd probably just run away you know or i'd do something i'd look after you guys but like i'm not joining up she's like what if it was like a real classic good versus evil, like dictator wiping out all of a whole race

and is coming to our island? I'd be like, then maybe, but I'd still try and do something where I was basically just fetching and carrying. Yeah, I'd still hastily go to medical school and try and retrain as a doctor or something. Yeah, it's like, oh, I work in the media. It's essential because we provide entertainment and that lifts the spirits it's moron and i i had to i had to change the conversation because like you know she's very supportive we've been together 15

years but i could just sort of see her her sort of idea of who i am as a person just slowly withering away and i was like oh look over there's a robin but and i do just find that i think sort of watching it over and over again, you're just like, oh God, you're already suffering on the island and you're watching other people suffering. And yeah, it's too much. Yeah, it's just too much.

It's too much. And also, I mean, I assume that on this desert island, I'm watching this on a screen out in the open. So there's, you know, the sun is bouncing off it. It's a tiny little screen, is bouncing off it it's uh it's it's a tiny little screen is it on the is it recovered from a plane you say yeah just like one chair you know you have to see yes one little cinema chair yeah so you know watching an epic on on a plane is is irritating even when it's in the sky and functioning so sat in the sand somewhere

on a tropical beach with david attenborough squinting to make sense of any of it no thank you very good yeah good choice again uh now jordan finally the island is overrun by the biggest dick of all the animals which animal is it and why? Slow Loris. Slow Loris. You know what? I watched a programme on these just the other day. Yeah. Yeah, explain. They're not as cute as people want to believe they are. Their big eyes are very deceptive. They move in a

sinister way. And they're very unfriendly. And they're also very easily spooked. So if I... If there was a slow loris, I wouldn't be able to bond with it at all. It would just be this weird, creepy little thing living its own independent life on the island.

Yeah. And occasionally I'd see it, you know, from like, it would suddenly just appear from the bushes and we'd both look at each other. And it would be, because it's got those big wide uh eyes that are almost like a space for you to project your own assumptions onto it but obviously it doesn't have a clue what it doesn't it's not thinking in the in the way that you think it is and it's so there's this sort of like you can't make sense of what it's thinking or feeling. Yeah.

They're so almost cute, but at some point it takes a squirt. So if people aren't familiar with the slow loris, they're like, I think they're, I don't know, what you might call like a bush baby. I think, you know, they're like small sort of furry mammal type things. Huge eyes, cling to a tree look very vulnerable but yeah these are like the creepy cousins it's sort of like there's cute ones yeah and i don't know what they're called but these are definitely like there's something sinister they move in this very slow deliberate but sort of slightly awkward way yeah they're like monkeys with rheumatoid arthritis yeah and they sort of have this yeah grabbing the branch in a very sort of considered way but they're it's like

you could sort of imagine a cartoon about them where like they're the evil ones you know they kind of but if someone comes along they can switch it on really quickly so sort of you know integrate themselves into the society yeah that's that's a really good point yeah they're very you you can imagine that they would be able to get they'd be the ones who'd be assigned to get rid of the cops yeah you know um i yeah i think there's something very i think there's something very, I think there's something deeply, deeply unsettling. And also evolutionarily, they have made those eyes for themselves for whatever reason, to be cute, to be seen, to be sort of vulnerable.

I don't trust that. Yeah. It's like evolve to be strong and quick witted, not just look like I'll evolve so that people feel sorry for me. That will work. Yeah, exactly. Yeah,

yeah, yeah, exactly. But also they don't do any work. You know, it's like, you know, if you think sort of like a cat is, they have evolved to revere us so that we'll revere them. Like they've worked it out. You know, if they keep us sweet, we'll continue to adore them. A slow loris hasn't figured that out. They just have these stupid bulbous eyes and nothing else.

And I mean, in this setting as well, we're saying the island is overran by them. So I mean, to see a lot of those in one place, just slowly turning their heads to look at you, clinging onto a branch, I mean, it's just... Yeah, I imagine how many times you'd accidentally lean on one, turning their heads to look at you clinging onto a branch. I mean, it's just, yeah. Yeah, I imagine how many times you'd like accidentally lean on one,

lean back against a tree and you can suddenly feel something warm and furry on your back and it's a slow loris clinging to the tree trunk. No, thank you. Oh, and just having to finish it off with those eyes as well, just like to just put it out of its misery.

Exactly. Or like, you know, and then David Attenborough's misery exactly or like you know and then david attenborough is there and he's and he's narrating and giving me facts about them and i'm like i don't want to know more about these things i want to be able to dispatch them when necessary yeah yeah fair choice yeah that's a good good good suggestion yeah and as i said i was watching it i was watching a program about them the other day it's something with son. And even though he's three and a half and should just automatically find things like that cute, you could tell he was a bit like,

what the fuck's this thing? You could see there was a turmoil there. It wasn't quite sitting right with him. Show him a koala and he'd be like, yeah, okay, that's fine. But this thing didn't work. So yeah, there's definitely something going on there. There's something not quite right, isn't there?

Because it's, you know, it's still, as I say, it's obviously evolved this cute face. It's very open. But it's also got these weird claws, you know, and it's very sinewy as well. It's half, it's like a sort of cut and shut animal of like cuteness and also sinisterness. It can't make up its mind.

And therefore we can't make up our mind about it. And that, for me, makes it a danger. Yeah, I think... I can just imagine a film where you see these cute little babies, then one gets left behind, everyone else thinks it's dead, and then it comes back at the end, and it's been living in a sewer, and that's why it's a bit gnarled. I don't know, there's a backstory there that needs exploring but i don't want to you know there's

there's just unfinished business with a slow loris i think so yeah exactly exactly well look jordan i think you've picked a brilliant selection of people and things for this island and brilliantly terrible i think the combination is awful and it's going to give you a really hard time. So you've done brilliantly. So you've done brilliantly well on this. Thank you very much. Thank you. I'm not looking forward to being on this island at all.

Well, let's distract the listeners then from this setting. Where's the best place to sort of see and hear more from you at the moment? Well, I would say Twitter, but I just had my've, I've, I just had my Twitter hacked. Um, so I can't get into it, but, um, uh, George Brooks on Twitter would be if I can get the account back, which I'm waiting for Twitter to get back to me. Cause previously you had a bit of a sort of on and off thing with Twitter, didn't you with, um, where you were posing as a various, uh, as Boris Johnson for a while. Yeah, I was doing a few things well a friend a friend of mine said to me it's weird that you have a blue tick and I was like I know because I didn't ask for it

and she said she said what are you going to do to get rid of it I said why would I get rid of it and she said because it's not very you to have a blue tick and I was like okay and she said then she told me about um Jaboukie, this comedian who had had a blue tick and had messed around with impersonating the FBI and stuff. And I thought, oh, that's a really funny way to do it, to go out in a sort of blaze of glory. So I did, so I changed to a few people, but no one took my blue tick away.

And so I just kept going and still my blue tick remained. And then eventually I did i did pretty patel and i think she'd announced yeah she'd announced the particularly sort of egregious point system for people coming coming into the country and i did a tweet about it and then so this is you sort of changing your profile to look like pretty patel and sort of yeah yeah so posing essentially posing as them but breaking the the rules, I think, you're not supposed to do it. But all I thought as a consequence would happen

is that I would lose my blue tick. And instead, I think what happened is Twitter hadn't actually noticed, but the algorithm or whatever systems that, you know, automated systems they have in place, knew that there was something odd going on so locked me out of my account um and sort of reset my my profile so you know took my took the pretty patel photo away took the name away and i just couldn't get into it um so uh but

eventually then a friend of a friend of a friend said, look, I know someone who works for Twitter who might be able to help you. Because I thought it had been hacked initially. But I don't think that was the case. And I emailed this person and they said, yeah, sure, I'll take care of it. And then half an hour later, I had an email from Twitter being like, please reset your password. And I reset it and suddenly i was back in so um yeah i'm quite lucky and also very lucky that they didn't take the blue tick away still i still have it but then obviously it's left me

vulnerable to hacking because um it's it's it has it has i guess it has some value in terms of if you're if you're a bot, if you want to spam, it's best to commandeer a blue tick account. So, yeah, so the other day it happened. Okay. I got hacked for real, but hopefully I'll be back at some point. Okay. So we'll keep up to date with you there then as well.

Yeah, keep checking that Twitter account. And if it suddenly stops tweeting in Arabic, then it means I'm back. Brilliant. All right, Jordan. Well, thank you again for coming on Desert Island Dicks today. Thanks for having me. It was great. Cheers.