Desert Island Dicks - JORDAN GRAY

Episode Date: August 21, 2023

Comedian and vocalist Jordan Gray joins Dan to share who and what she'd hate to be stuck with on a desert islandLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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, musician, actor and host of the Transplaining podcast. It's Jordan Gray. How are you doing? I'm all right. Thank you, Daniel. That's a wonderful introduction. I've also just realised in real time, is the podcast, does it have any relation to the fact that your surname contains the word dick of course was that even subconsciously a part of the decision no well it was actually my friend

james originally started and produced this podcast and hosted it um so you've inherited it but you're the perfect man for it exactly yeah but yeah we were together when he came up with it and i kind of bullied him into making it happen because i like the idea of it so much and then I must have unsubtly badgered him enough over the years that he gave it to me that's a great way of doing it desert island dictus I'd say just fully rebrand it's yours now have it or maybe I should go the other way and just rebrand myself and like really live my brand yeah you're right that's the way to do it nowadays that's an interesting surname well of course you've heard about the podcast i mean obviously as a middle class white man it's only so long talking to me before i mention i have a podcast anyway so much

as i get it in really early at the start that is how i mostly most of my conversations with my male white friends is on podcasts that that's 100 the case like straight white male friends we don't really talk except on a podcast where we talk for an hour about really emotional deep things it's funny isn't it how it's all condensed into just little podcast chats yeah so well if you don't want to talk to me on my podcast i'm gonna have to talk about my kids so you know it's up to you that you. That's the two things I've got for you today. That's great. That's good.

We'll go with podcast for now and see where we get. But Jordan, obviously, we're going to talk about people and things that get you riled up. I mean, are you someone who gets kind of angry easily? Do you like a rant? You know, because you seem like very balanced and considered on lots of things I hear you talk about. Thank you for saying that. I take a lot of pride in the fact that nothing really bothers me that much. But then it was really fun trying to figure out what I was going to talk about today.

It does make you go, what really annoys me and why? I don't like, I was, I don't know about you. What were you like in school? Were you the smart one or the funny one? Or were you bang in the middle? Or like, because I was the, I was a smart one, which usually means you were you bang in the middle or like because i was the i was a smart one which usually means you've also not got that many mates i was the smart little lonely one and because of that now i really don't like it when people are stupid because i'm like that's not fair because i

had to be like all i had growing up was my was being smart and i don't know like so i get really annoyed when people are stupid but they don't they don't know it yeah you know I mean I've got quite a low tolerance for stupid people I think um that's it I don't mind if they're stupid people going about their business but when they're somehow important stupid people and you're like what I mean you shouldn't there's no reason you should have a position of power where you make big decisions when you're thick like that's not fair I mean by all means be stupid and have a nice job and a nice life but like if you're telling everyone how things should be then let's get a fucking expert in here can we that's it that's it i don't want someone running the country that was sat on a different a different table to

me in school and those tables were delineations of academic ability do you know what i mean i want to be i want to be led by someone that was sat at the same table as me and had the same color sticker on there whatever do you know i mean i don't know how why your school did it i think we were like we all had animals okay like each each table was like a different animal but even then i've just realized this every table was a different animal. And they didn't want to say who the smart kids were and who the sort of A, B, C class kids were. But the animals definitely related to the smartness because we were like the owl table. Like number, table A was owls. And owls are smart, aren't they?

I don't know how smart they are in real life, but in a cartoon, an owl is always the smart one. The wise old owl. That feels like a teacher was like i've had enough of this i'm gonna i'm gonna make sure these kids know yeah it definitely is not healthy to like be on the smart table i'll tell you that much i i wonder if like with the animal stickers like what did the thick kids get was it like you're the worms or the maggots or something like that like i mean i don't i would say everyone's got different abilities and i think what happened was there were certainly tables where it'd be like the the panther okay so that's pretty cool these okay so these kids yeah it's like

physical prowess is being celebrated above brain power so it's nice it's a nice way of doing it but it yeah it does sort of instill in you your identity yeah i'm just i've grown up an owl i am an owl now nice well there's worse creatures to identify with i think they're pretty magnificent creatures so probably you know fair enough i mean there used to be this advert on it always used to come on um first dates they were sponsored by like some dating company and there was like a whole thing of like don't get matched with someone that's incompatible with you and there was just a man sitting in a restaurant sitting opposite an owl and i was always saying to my wife i was like i'd quite like to go on a date with an owl and it'd be quite nice just you know just sit there

going well i'm just next to a massive owl but um i don't know i just thought it was one of those adverts that good in theory but when they actually made it they're like this is quite a weird message we're putting out there yeah it doesn't what does that even mean it that could was it like did he say don't was it a picture of someone's face and they're sat watching like that like side on and they're looking over a table and you're like oh what they're looking at and they go don't get matched with someone that you don't like and then they pan out and it's an owl or you just sat there for the whole time watching a man sat opposite an owl i think it was the first one i think that there was other adverts where there was like a warthog and you're like okay well no one's going to date with a

warthog because they're ugly and like you know you could say oh that person looked like a warthog but an owl you're like well it's just a nice majestic creature it'd be quite i'll be fine with that but until they started regurgitating pellets. No one has ever used the word owl as an insult. Yeah, you're right. All right then. Well, owl's the animal to beat, shall we say. Yeah, yeah.

Anyway, well, I'm happy to be sitting across from a metaphorical owl today doing this podcast with you. So let's get into it. You know, your plane has crashed. You're surrounded by dicks. Who's going to be the first person on the island with you? Let's just go straight in with a big one. We've already spoken about idiots running the country. I don't think it's too obvious to say Rishi Sunak, is it?

No. Have you had Rishi before? Have you had a little cheeky Rishi before on the show? I haven't. And I think it's because quite often people shy away. People think, oh, everyone will have picked Donald Trump and Boris Johnson. They don't actually get picked as much as they deserve to be I think we've had we've had a few like Suella Bravermans and Priti Patels but uh but somehow Rishi seems to kind of evade this sort

of thing and I think that's part of the problem with him but let's go into it and what's your issue with him like most things if you really dig down I don't i don't like the man's weasley little face there's not like nothing wrong with a weasel like a weasel i love a weasel i do love a weasel i love a ferret i love any long sort of rodent animal but on a person it's odd it's unusual and it doesn't add when you're a politician you've got to look like a more majestic animal an owl perhaps not a definitely not weasel he doesn't seem like he'd be able to do anything on that island so i mean right so pros there's only one pro on this list of pros and cons is that he'd be taken out of normal circulation so he's not going to be running the country from a desert island so we've done you a disservice by you

choosing rishi and putting him on a desert island with me which i can't imagine is pleasant for anyone either but when he's on there he doesn't know how to do anything he's a billionaire millionaire whatever there is all the same after a certain number is all the same i don't think i can't imagine imagine him pulling his sleeves up for a photo opportunity but not actually to do anything practical on the island he's he says horrible things all the time under the guise of a joke he looks like a weasel and he's got too much power and money you could have one or the other you can have loads of power and no money like shea guevara i might just be talking out my ass but i think that's true i think he had no money

or you can have loads of money and no power like oh i don't know who's got loads of money like someone who's just won the lottery fine do it like but combining those two things is a recipe for disaster and he's you know what it's annoying about it he does look a bit like a weasel but he's also kind of like he's not the worst looking politician either he's quite like i mean he's he wouldn't come last in a beauty competition i don't think he'd win but he wouldn't come last well he was he was dishy rishi for a while do you remember when he came out and went oh dishy rishi until the day that there was a press a photo op where they zoomed out and everyone realized he was like five foot tall and everyone suddenly went oh oh oh he's tiny oh okay so no help and i think that sort of dampened the people's spirits yeah no no help collecting palm fronds or

coconuts then either so he's not even helpful in a practical sense on a desert island i'm imagining it's a it's a prototypical desert island with palm trees no help there yeah it'd just be a dick because he's right so he's dishy wishy in his own brain he's got loads of money which is now pointless so he's going to be annoyed that he's not got his money he's got no power certainly got no power over me um he does quite like i mean your listeners will probably i don't know if you can tell or not from my voice i've got quite a deep voice but i'm a transgender person and he's not a fan he's not a particular fan of all the old transgender people so us together on a desert island as i say not a pleasant experience but probably better than him

being on the mainland actually making decisions i think one of the awful things about Rishi Sunak is on the face of it he sort of he doesn't seem as bad as the ones we've had before like after Boris Johnson he seems sort of like a bit smoother and more capable and he doesn't sort of seem to stand for that much but underneath him like everything's going crazy you know like he's letting Suella Braverman get away with crazy stuff. Dominic Raab's being investigated for bullying. And he's like, oh, no, you know, he's fine. He's fine. He's just sort of defending all these awful stuff. And it's like, well, if you're the leader of that party, you're responsible for that.

End of. So whether or not we think you seem as mean as the rest of them, you are. There's no doubt about it. And things like attacks on trans people, migrants trying to make a safe crossing across the channel, things like the idea of political correctness being a bad thing. You know, when there was like, there's sewage being pumped into the rivers, people can't afford food and energy,

the world's on fire, you're granting new licenses to drill for oil and stuff. And you're like, oh, I'm doing all this bad shit. How do I distract from that? You could distract from all the bad, mad. If you were really determined to be a horrendous wanker, you could distract from that by doing something nice. But instead you just sort of go, oh, we're losing the election.

I won't do nice things. I'll just turn everyone against victimised, marginalised groups. Like, that's the answer. It's like, you fucking prick. it's like you fucking prick that's it that's couldn't put it better myself you know there's something to be said for in in a lot of situations it's quite logical and level-headed to say all right everyone calm down let's just see how things go and then we'll take it from there that's fine but if the way things are going are awful like migrants drowning in the sea the there's which is full of sewage these are

terrible things what are happening you to say let's just see how things go is tantamount to killing loads of people and putting loads of people into poverty but it sounds normal to say doesn't it goes no look come on there's two sides to this argument yeah definitely one of them is loads of dead people and one of them's people not being quite as dead and sad but but it's but it's when he comes out of his mouth he makes it seem normal for a second you're like all right let's calm down and just assess both sides of the story boris johnson wouldn't have done that he'd have made a he'd made a stupid statement with a an archaic word from the 19th century that you're not supposed to say anymore um and it would have been a big news story yeah rish is a bit more obsidious and weasel like yeah and Yeah, and it's very, it's like,

they're the most dangerous sort of people because it's like, it's not even under the radar because we know all this is happening, but somehow it's more under the radar than it would have been with one of his predecessors. So yeah, and I think the fact that, you know, he's in charge of the country, but he's worth so much money.

And like, you know, people will argue about the's he's worth so much money and like you know people will argue about the moral responsibility of having that much money like whether you're morally indebted to certain groups of people you know i kind of think once you get beyond a limit where you know so say if you start you know you get a pay rise i don't know if there's an argument you automatically have to give more to charity or not but i think once you get to the point where you're worth 700 million and you could never ever spend that much money and none of your ancestors your your descendants could ever spend that much money then yeah fucking give some of it away you know like make life better for some people and still have the best life you could possibly dream of for sure it's like it would it wouldn't even be it would be in a benefit you to give some away it would actually be a benefit i find that it would be that's just how evil the world is it would benefit you financially to give some away you would get amazing tax breaks by giving some away put that aside it

would help you a lot in the public eye to give some away but the dunning kruger effect as they say is very very real he's a man with loads of money he doesn't know the difference so he just assumes that we're all thinking the same thing is we just project our own lives onto everybody else which is why smart people are really annoyed by stupid people because as a self-appointed smart person i'll put my hand up and say i'm one of them annoying smart people i look at stupid people and go why are you not making better decisions it's not stupid people's fault I'm a person that's obsessed with making decisions because I'm one of them people that got told they were smart when they were little stupid people don't genuinely know any different that's why I don't like them because they are

blissfully ignorant and that's not fair stupid people get to live a more blissfully ignorant life and that gets taken away when you are eight years old and they put you on the owl table and tell you that you have to be smart you're not allowed to be blissfully ignorant anymore you're an owl yeah well look i think it's a superb first choice for the island i feel i could spend the rest of this podcast ranting about rishi sunak but um let's move on and find out who the second person joining you is going to be i think it's pretty obvious who the second person joining me is it's obviously the character of biff from back to the future one two and three um you could argue that those are different people but he is in number three it's the wild west version of biff he's a descendant an ancestor sorry we've both done that thing he's an ancestor of biff so i guess biff from one and

two that man is on an 11 out of 10 from the moment he wakes up. I'm not sure that character sleeps at all, especially in two, in two Biff, junior, junior, junior, whatever is a psychopath.

Um, but you can see it in one. He's, I can't imagine talking to him for more than five seconds. Everything is like, it's back to the future. So a lot of it was overacted anyway. It's a film love me some back to the future but there's a lot of big overacting in it and i don't think it did wonders for the character of biff whoever played biff i

always forget his name bless him i can't imagine it did well for his mental health because he just comes in and he's mcfly mcfly everything is like a 12, 13 out of 10. And then in two, it's like he's completely unhinged and he's in a different film. So then by three, he's completely insane. I would worry for my... I wouldn't want to sleep.

I wouldn't want to go to sleep around Biff from Back to the Future. Yeah, I mean he's... Not just because of what he'd done in that first film. He's... When you're young, you have school bullies who are like the child version of of biff yeah and as you get older bullies obviously still exist very much so but they sort of take a slightly more like subtle form he's he's like the school bully who

grew up and never changed isn't he it's like that sort of thing yeah i feel like on the island with biff and rishi he's gonna just go after and Rishi, he's going to just go after Rishi because he's like the smaller, weaker person. And you're going to end up going, do I protect Rishi? Because I do feel bad for him because he is sort of being chased around the island by Biff all the time.

And like, he can't climb a tree to get away from him. And he's not strong enough. He can't swim very well. You know, actually he probably can swim because there's that thing about his heated swimming pool recently but anyway he's getting bullied by biff and you've got to make a decision about do i save this awful person from the bullying you're right i kind of now want to see rishi like like ball up his fist in anger like like mcfly's dad did you know that bit where he gets really angry oh god i always forget

the actor as well i'm terrible with actors whoever played mcfly's dad yes i'm that's why i can't jump in and help you i've got no idea what anyone's name but that bit was really angry and then he sucks it to him oh that would be yeah i'm glad i've chosen those two i didn't even think about the interaction between them but that would be a sight to behold rishi sunak punching biff from back to the future yeah and then sort of getting the girl and then that a sight to behold rishi sunak punching biff from back to the future yeah and then sort of getting the girl and then that photograph of me and rishi were all disappearing it comes back i'm making the photo and i'm my whole family's reappeared oh great this is turning out to be quite a quite an eventful desert island i still want to go to

sleep but i mean probably half because i don't want to get attacked and half because i don't want to miss anything it sounds like it's going to be a dramatic turn of events yeah well yeah i think just having that energy on the island like there's i mean i could sort of see in the real world you could probably end up having a normal conversation with rishi after all was put away you know you're like we're here now let's just get on with the job in hand you know he could probably have a normal conversation, right? Biff, he's never switching off, like you say. So you're never kind of getting to the point

where you can be even close to matey or having a regular conversation with him. No, he's got no gears. There's no gear to him. He doesn't go subtle ever. I think he says exactly what he's thinking all the time, which is kind of comforting because that's the opposite of Rishi Sunak.

But no, yeah, you'd never be able to get in a chat about anything deep or philosophical. Just sitting around the campfire, I don't think the man has ever sat down in his life. Even in the film, he sat down for like one frame, and then he gets up off his lunch chair, McFly! He loves saying McFly.

That's his favourite line in the film, is just saying the word McFly. And just like bashing you on the head, like giving you noogies all the time yeah there is of course the other the danger that rishi sunak uses his skills as you know leader of the to sort of tame him you know he's like maybe he's just got that knack of kind of getting nasty people to work for him. And actually what happens is the opposite. And he, you know, you see him riding Biff around on the island like a, like a sort of, like a bull, you know. Yeah.

Run into that palm tree and knock down some coconuts, Biff. Okay. And he's just like headbutt a a palm tree get him some coconuts like in a video game when you're like batman and you jump on the back of a big brute and you're supposed to like steer him into a pillar and then jump off before to knock it that's you're right that's definitely what would happen um and yeah i mean he would i dare say that biff is a conservative at heart but he doesn't really know what that word means in american terms he'd probably be like a libertarian but again he wouldn't know what that was like why can't i drive my truck into a shopping mall full of children i could do what i want that's because we're on a desert island because

there's no shopping mall and no truck that's why biff yeah you're right you're right yeah that's a good mix yeah this is the sort of person who'd finally catch a fish and just punch it and then let it go just no use sorry if that was loud in my mic um you're right he doesn't know the difference he just wants to eat he just wants his meat he wants his all-american meat fit for him fish is a vegetable to be he wants his he wants his hamburger and his milkshake yeah he wants it to be the 1950s again when you could say whatever you want exactly and you could pick up a bully and shake him like rishi and imagine him pick imagine picking rishi sunak up like a bully and shaking these lunch money and just seven million pounds falling out that's what would happen yeah or it's all like stocks and bonds and you don't really know what to do with them because you're like what what is all this paper like even more frustrating yeah what are these norsey oil contracts my homework

rishi yeah i've got this this bond i don't know it doesn't know it is okay well look i think the first two the interplay between these characters and i love the the jeopardy like it could go either way like will he be bullied will will Rishi be bullied? Will he be controlling Biff? We don't know. But I think either way, it's not a pleasant situation for you. Who's the third person joining the three of you on the island? I think for balance, the third person joining us would be a morally neutral character.

And that is just one half of any single set of twins. Doesn't matter what twin it is, but just one out of a set of twins on the island so they could be famous not famous but if it's just one out of yeah a twin set okay cause that'd be horrible because first of all it'd be really sad you know there's a twin somewhere going where's my where's my twin so you've got one half of a you've got a tragic situation built in every conversation is going to be about their twin who's like it's like having her i mean right i love me a twin if there's twins listening which statistically speaking there are you are beautiful and unique

all on your own but there is an argument to be made that if you get washed up on a desert island it's like having half a person wash up because a set of twins is the most bonding you can have isn't there i've known twins they're they're linked i mean you're within your rights to talk about your missing twin as much as you like but that's going to get draining after a while because you'll be like i know i know they're not here they're not they might as well be because you look exactly like them but they're not here so let's just keep a lid on it it's weird isn't it as an adult because when you're at school obviously you see both twins as an adult you often meet just one twin oh my god you're so right and then like you know i went to uni with a girl who was an identical twin and we had no idea and then

occasionally it'd be her birthday and you'd go up to her and be like hey how you doing and you'd get this blank look and be like you're her sister right of course oh my god or like i remember my friend went up and like this friend of ours she was quite physical she's always like just she'd always like go up and punch my friend it'd always have like dead arm competitions even though we're in our 20s and we shouldn't be doing things like that my friend went up to her and punched her really hard in the arm and it was her sister and uh you know and it's just a bewildering idea like oh my god i've known you for 10 years and there's another one just like you what but at school obviously you just see both of them so it is an unsettling thing you're right and when you see

them when you see them at the same time you can pick a tiny little distinctive feature and that's fine but you're so right that's happened to me i was very lucky enough to once have a very brief romantic dalliance with one half of a set of twins um and then bumping into that twin that twin's twin the other twin um perhaps a year later and being like why on earth don't you remember oh it's because it's not you but then a little bit of your brain's like i'm not to be rude or anything obviously i never say this out loud but i was i was romantically entangled with someone that looks like there's you that's just you a version of you but you've got no memory of it i mean again you would never say that one because it's not true and two because it's very inappropriate and weird but there is something unusual about that it's like when you are a twin you're carrying a lot of responsibility with you for that other person all the time psychologically in reality

the first conversation probably twins probably have when they couldn't speak is like let's not make too much of a thing out of this twins let's just like be our own people and also there is a there is an argument to be made that like if there's's such a thing as twin pain, like telekinetic, they can feel each other's pain. Having a twin on the island is not the worst thing in the world. Cause you could like send signals via a twin. Yeah. You could like,

you know, like when you write something on someone's back and you've got to guess what they're writing, you could do that on one twin. Like S O S. S O S. And if they feel it, I don't know how they're going to find you with

that information but they know something's wrong yeah they probably know something's wrong because their twins are missing but i mean i wonder if like if you have grown up as a twin and you've always struggled to find your own individuality maybe being on the island is just your chance to absolutely thrive as your own person you know it's like no one knows you're a twin like you might not find out for a few months and then it's like have you got siblings yeah yeah yeah my sister i mentioned her and um yeah she's my twin actually what like you know i had no idea and uh maybe that's just when they start being their best selves yeah you're so right the reveal of someone saying they're a twin is odd because right so unless they, if they pull them out of a cupboard and go, here's a twin, that's amazing.

You go, wow. If they just say, I'm a twin, probably the first thing you say is, oh, right. So like, what, male or female? And they go, oh, no, like, let's say that this twin is a male. I go, male. Oh, so like you're born at the same time? No, we're identical twins. Then it ups it up a notch, doesn't it?

Oh, yeah. Oh, hang on. Right. There's different kinds of twins there's two sperms get into two different eggs and make two babies and then there's a sperm gets in one egg and then that splits into yeah so that's the identical one is it one egg isn't it so yeah and um but it's funny when you meet twins because it's so hard not to like just say exactly the same fucking things you've always said you know like oh are you identical do people did you ever pretend to be each other at school is it like this did you dress the same blah blah blah and it's like why am i saying this

i've i've met twins before like they've had this so many times it must be like being famous in a way just like what was it like working with tom cruise you know it's like you get the same questions all of the time but you sort of can't always ask that to every twin i meet every set of twins i'm like what's it like working with tom um yeah you're right it's like being a tall person i was very lucky enough to bump into steven merchant um this year i'm a big fan of and like it gets the same things all the time and even if you're trying to be clever and say the thing that no one else has said 10 people have already said that even if you're trying to make like a little joke we were at an event where we were the two tallest people there because i was in heels and i'm transgender so i'm already quite tall so we were that our heads were just above everyone else's heads and we just kept nodding to each other and

i was like i really want to go and make a joke about being tall but he's heard them all it's not gonna he's not gonna get anything out of that at all i'm just gonna ignore it i'm gonna leave it so on the island then with the uh with the with one of the twins i think it's that thing of you know like you're always gonna think like there's always gonna be things on your mind that you're not asking or like you kind of want to are you might have you might run out of conversation and just end up talking about twins and you're like oh god sorry i'm doing that thing again so it's just like i just think it's like a very low level underlying tension you know like there's just always kind of there you know it's like oh you're missing home yeah i am yeah we must be harder for you because you're a twit oh god sorry you know don't mention this thing oh sorry I forgot

yeah the one that looks exactly like you so we've got you've got like an arch villain in Rishi you've got a maniac in Biff

and then you're right just sort of a low level tension there's no relief on this island that's three dicks that's like the goldilocks of dicks you've got one's too big

one's too small and one's got an identical dick somewhere else in the world so it's like it's the perfect Goldilocks of tension on this island yeah yeah I think you've got every sort of level so you're never going to be that comfortable wherever you turn so I think it's it's brilliant work so far Jordan I've got to say okay well look we've got we've got a superb

trio of dicks here but we're going to move on because 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? The worst food and drink. Well, the first thing you're going to go for probably is a drink because you're dying of thirst. So I'm going to reach for the drink. What have I got in my hand?

Oh, it's a Malibu, isn't it? It's a's a bottle of malibu oh what a lovely drink for a desert island no it ain't it's horrible it's the first thing i ever drank as a teenager and it's gone in biochemically into my brain as being something that is poisonous you know like that happens to you you have too much and then that's it anything that coconut a bounty um it reminds me of it so malibu the thing i think it was coconut mickey fins is what i drank but that's essentially the same thing as like a cheap or like a it's a precursor to malibu so malibu in anything you'd say you'd think it'd be a desert island treat but i can't go anywhere near it if it's spelt if it's spilt in the sea and it and it diluted out to the surrounding ocean

of the island that would make the experience that that's that's when i'd go i've had enough now even being on desert island with no water if the water around me was malibu i'd i don't know yeah i'd stand under a coconut tree until something fell on my head but that's the thing it would put you off eating the one source of food you've got as well, the coconuts. Because you're like, oh God, all these nuts taste of Malibu. I mean, that's not a line that I've said for the first time. Yeah, it's not a pleasant experience at all, is the old Malibu. It's just too sickly, it's too sweet. It's like a food in a drink.

It's a coconut, it's a food. I don't want that in liquid alcoholic form also you die if your only source of drink was alcohol wouldn't you yeah i think so i mean it's one of those weird drinks where like i like rum i have no problem with coconuts but like if you made me a coconut flavored rum cocktail i would be fine with that but like malibu is just shit it's like it's not good it's like the worst of it's not it's not good rum it's like synthetic tasting coconut stuff do you know what i mean and it's like you've managed to really fuck this up oh man and you're right it's just it smacks of childhood and that kind of like sickly kind of like yeah the stickiness of teenage booze you know yeah

underage so there's a there's a tiny little bit of tension in your stomach again more tension of the island you drink it and you're just reminded of a time when you weren't supposed to be drinking it in a place and all while we go it's a mix of excitement and tension of how we're going to get caught or you're in someone's house and and the person that you fancy doesn't fancy you back you're right it's just all it's it's a it's a drink laden with terrible memories and probably if it's coconut based a good chance of diarrhea you don't want that you don't want that in an island didn't that happen to tom hanks on the on the island that he was i mean the character that tom hanks played in the film castaway didn't happen to castaway had too much coconut

and then he's obviously and then he's talking to these football and he's like that's the thing about coconut it gives you diarrhea I'm sure maybe I'm paraphrasing I might just made that up oh really I don't know

I don't remember that bit I'll have to go back and watch it but how have you got a podcast called Desert Island dicks and you've and you can't remember what happens in castaway no i have i have watched it recently i remember watching it over lockdown and it's like the thing that surprised me the most was how much chat about logistics there was at the beginning because i'd sort of forgotten about i think the first time i saw it was like halfway through and it's just the fun island bit where he's like working out how to

survive and you're like oh this is cool and then the sort of bookends are quite weird because at the end it's quite sad you know it's kind of bittersweet and at the beginning there's just loads of bits about how he works for DHL or UPS or whoever and he's like really into his job dealing with global logistics and like and he's always wearing a big jumper even when it looks too hot but um and that was and I just got so stuck on that that's so true and i just thought wow this is this is really much more of the film than i need you know i i just want to see the desert bit but uh so i got stuck on that no it's like that bit on the island when he's got the jumper on you're so right i've watched that and i'm like oh that feels like that's horrible that's probably all wet and salty and everything and he's and he's a jumper is it i just take it off

take it off tom yeah yeah you've been through enough stop punishing yourself exactly so yeah they're malibu for me thanks malibu it's a strong choice we're going to put it in this sort of special teenage drinks cabinet along with southern comfort and archers i think you know that's that's very much where it belongs it's the sort of drink that needs like a reverse proof of id it's like are you over 18 yeah no sorry you can't drink this you gotta have some proper rum you know that is such a good joke that is such a bit man don't forget that that's really funny that i can as a comic as a comic who's writing a second show that is such a good joke well if it fits into your show you're allowed to use it so oh bless you that's a second show, that is such a good joke. Well, if it fits into your show, you're allowed to use it.

Oh, bless you. That's very kind of you. That's such a clever joke. That's really funny. Well done. Thank you. Okay, what's your... That's a joke note.

Sorry, go on. Okay, well, look, we have got Malibu on the island with you, and it's a horrendous choice, which makes it a very good choice. What's your food choice going to be? It's calamari. And I know it's not pronounced calamare. calamari with an e ironian and it's because it's an octopus and i love an octopus it's not because i don't like them it's because i think they're amazing and and research came out recently and i mean in the last five to seven years that would suggest that the way that a calamari an octopus feels pain is it's got a cell on its

body for every single cell of its skin is controlled by a different cell in its brain. Its brain evolved independently to any other brain on the planet. It's called convergent evolution. So the way a bat and a dolphin can both do echolocation, but they're not common ancestors. One learned how to do it in a completely different way to the other octopuses evolved a brain different from every all of our brains every brain that's in any other animal so they feel every single inch of their skin and then we boil them alive so there's something to be said for they that the death of an octopus got to be one of the most painful things anything can experience um i'm a vegetarian anyway but even before as a vegetarian calamari was the first thing i stopped eating because it you can just hear it screaming in my brain did you see the

boys have you seen the boys uh no i haven't no so it's the superhero comedy thriller horror show on i can't i don't remember who makes it but there's a bit where when someone eats an octopus that's alive but he can hear it speak and it's like we octopus that's alive but he can hear it speak and it's like we can't hear it but he can hear it and it's like that's what i feel like if i see someone eating an octopus i'm like it's probably smarter than you are like that thing is probably smarter that thing could definitely get out of a bottle faster than you can get into one yeah so and then we're eating it yeah even more than a pig not that a pig could get into a bottle there's that korean film old boy where he eats like a live octopus or one that's still moving and that i like really freaked me out i think though i'm sorry i'm gonna be very pedantic here

i think calamari is squid and i think octopus is just octopus so i reckon but we can put them on just we can we can give you both just as like a sort of a creepy seafood platter if you want i've never been shot down so hard for somebody that came onto this podcast and labeled themselves as sitting on the owl table to then have mistaken i'm so sorry i think i might even cut it out because i feel like an awful awful mansplaining bastard you're so right you're so right though that's the thing i can't believe you're right i mean still don't eat squids but squids are not as smart as octopuses so yeah a creepy seafood platter alongside a malibu i think sounds like a hell yeah yeah but you never well maybe the the worst one would be like some of it's

some of it's squid and some of it's octopus. And, you know, you're never going to know which is which. So some of it you could eat, but you can't because it could be the octopus. How's that? To make it really freaky. That's like Saw 7. So we've run out of ideas. It's all about food this time.

Yeah. Yeah. You know what? Like, they just seem too clever to eat. And I know people say pigs are very clever as well. i guess we shouldn't really eat any of the animals um i i don't eat octopus having watched lots of documentaries about how brilliant they are but it's quite like because i do still eat meat and stuff and it's quite a sort of an easy um what's the word uh an easy sort of justification just like oh I don't eat octopus because they're

too clever and it's like yeah how often do you get tested with that it's like very little sometimes you go to a tapas bar and it's like octopus is on the menu I can be like I don't actually eat octopus because they're so clever like maybe once once every six months it comes it comes near me so it's very easy to sort of avoid and like still of be like... There's no drive-through. Yeah. I've got values that are very, very easy to maintain. I mean, if it was like I gave up eating pigs, it would be much more difficult, you know.

But yeah, I think it's a good choice. I think it's a good choice. Also, imagine just Biff just shoving it into his mouth. Alive, definitely. Oh, he'd eat it alive, yeah. a good choice um also imagine just biff just shoving it into his mouth just shoving octopus yeah oh he'd eat it alive yeah yeah but um i think it's a good a good combination and just the idea of like a lot of seafood and malibu together is just making me feel quite funny i think just that's what yeah that's a queasy sentence you'd be morally it'd be morally more superior to eat biff than it would to eat

an octopus or a squid probably to be fair or yeah or any cephalopod any mollusk yeah i think definitely biff would be better for food than an octopus so i think it's uh yeah yeah go for it all right now we have got your menu sorted uh but you need some entertainment unfortunately you won't be without entertainment on the island the planes entertainment system continued 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 i'm one of these people where um i quite like most things and so it's the things that that my my least favorite of most things is it's still something i like but for i don't like it for it right i'll just get into it should we go film

my song it's what would you prefer a visual or audio entirely up to you i think if single ladies by beyonce was playing non-stop i'd be i'd draw i'd pull my hair out and that's a big feat because i have a lot of hair because it it's Beyonce and she's amazing. And then it's single ladies. It's actually, it's a bop. Somebody thought to stick a constant, I think it's called an arpeggiator. But it's basically a... In the background of that song, it's like's like a south end arcade like you've walked

into an arcade like a penny arcade and it's just playing constantly on a loop it's a brilliant song take out that cacophony of noise in the background simply red used to do it a lot as well if you listen to like um fairground or whatever there's some stuff in the background you're like what is that and it's because they've gone oh that interesting. Let's bulk out this sound a little bit with a... And I can't hear single ladies without hearing that. It's like the... Sonic the Hedgehog jumps on a TV

or whatever, and he goes really fast. And it's that sound of... It's a sped up eight bit loop of sound in the background underneath what is otherwise a really enjoyable song. So it's a ruined song in my humble opinion yeah it's like it's that weird sort of squeaky sort of squealy

sound isn't it that's just like in there the whole time that i find really odd like yeah it's one of those songs that's really popular and i've always found a bit strange you know like i think beyonce is great you know it's not my style of music but i just think i just as a person i think she's brilliant you know and but that song it just feels like nothing really happens like it's quite sort of like like it is very sparse and interestingly produced but i just find it quite weird and then it's a bit sort of in the chorus it's a bit kind of i'm not a musician you would probably be able to explain it better than me but like it's kind of discordant somehow like a little bit atonal or something that's the word that is the yeah like it's sort of a bit jarring somehow i don't know like like i suppose like as a pop song it's quite an impressive thing because there's not much going on but there's a lot going on at the same time if that makes sense you know

it seems sparse but there's lots of ideas arguably too much yeah yeah i think that's what every generation says that to be fair you always get i mean when run dmc came out and they're like they're playing two songs at once i'm like it's called sampling it's not it's normal but at the time people didn't like it and the equivalent now there's a song by halsey is it halsey i'm too i don't know who anybody is i am not a woman I'm a god and it's got another atonal

descent in it that is just on this constant loop and any other producer would have gone that one note doesn't sound right

but some in the studio they've gone yeah there's a bop that sounds really good and it's the same thing as on Single Ladies there is just

it's just an interesting sound someone's decided to stick in and they're probably when you are when you do produce a song you sit and listen to it 200 times they've heard it so many times it doesn't it doesn't spike in their brain anymore as being wrong and then you put it on the radio and people go oh that doesn't that doesn't sound correct right you have to listen to it 100 times we've heard single ladies so many times now it doesn't really hit us the same i agree with you that nothing really happens in it as well the dance that comes oh chef's kiss that's great is a that's a great little dance could done it do it over a different song yeah i mean who am i to

criticize actual queen b but man that's an annoying that's an annoying sound in an otherwise great song yeah i agree and i think um i've had other people say things like you know like in house of pain or like like various cypress hill songs and there's that kind of squeal you know it's like i know that drives some people mad you know and you get a lot of sort of like public enemy that kind of like that just constant like you know squealing kind of noise you know that just some people can't deal with it's skrillex made an entire career out of yeah yeah i think if you're on the desert island though as well because obviously it does have like verse chorus but like it's kind of within the same framework so it's not like because it's sort of like nothing much changes in it it would just be a bad song to hear over

and over again anyway even if you liked it because you kind of it's not like you get to the chorus and something changes it's still like basically the same isn't it exactly it's just it is uh it doesn't ramp up or ramp down it's just that sound drops in and out that weird sound drops in and out that's not i mean it's done well it's done well for itself yeah i'd be i'd be sitting there listening to it annoyed of how that it's done so well that it's made it onto a plane that's traveled around the world with me and crash and that's the only thing that survived i'd be annoyed that it was that successful as well yeah yeah because i always get that feeling like i hate it when like i often feel quite out of step with public opinion you know with like you know like everything the neptunes did and it was like like i always thought everything the neptunes did i just thought yeah it's fine it's

all right not really i don't really like it that much but like there wasn't there's some statistic that like for five years they contributed something like 20 of all american radio play because they were so successful and i'm like yeah i don't really get the neptunes and it's such an isolating experience so it's the same as something like single ladies i think something went something where you think not that oh i could do that myself but i'm not sure what it's adding to my it's not what value is that adding to my brain that's not already in there that's sometimes the case but then that's popular music right yeah i love me some coldplay i absolutely love coldplay and but i can see i know why it appeals because if coldplay comes on the karaoke there's not a person in

that room that can't hit those notes sing those notes remember those words it's like it's just it's easy it's nice quite well i think quite well produced and well made coldplay um it's not going to set the world on fire but yeah it's all right well i've seen chris martin do a few performances where he's not hitting those notes so i mean i think he's left the door wide open for everyone i think it's very kind of him you know he has a generosity of spirit in that regard but um i'm not going to start bashing him now because i've done it already on previous podcasts um but look what is your film choice going to? My film choice is the semi-obscure Wes Anderson film, Isle of Dogs. And I realise, as I'm saying that, actually, that that's a double whammy because it's about people getting stuck on an island.

I think they go there of their own volition, though. They go there of their own choice. So that's even more of an insult to injury that I'm there on an island accidentally and they've chosen to be there. The reason it's on my list is because, again, I love Wes Anderson. I just watched that latest one, Asteroid City. Absolutely love the whole back catalogue. Isle of Dogs, it makes me really annoyed that I don't understand

what it's about. I can't enjoy it. I'm watching it. I get that there's dogs on an island. I don't get the themes of it. I don't understand why he made it. And that bugs me so much. I love the fantastic Mr. Fox, which is another claymation.

Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs is about, I mean, I can't tell you what it's about. I know it's about some dogs and it's all claymation. And Jeff Goldblum does one of the voices, which is great. Love Jeff in anything. But that's it. They go to an island. I'm not quite sure what happens then. Just loads of running around

trying to figure stuff out oh it's set in um japan i think which again normally i'm a big fan of all that oh all that imagine that i'm a big fan of all that old japanese stuff but i do like it and i love its influence on american cinema i don't i don't get it so I'd be sitting there for the for the rest of my life watching a film I didn't understand and that made me feel stupid for being on the owl table yeah it's um because I haven't seen this film I have to be up front straight away before I get caught out down the line um it's a film like because I quite like Wes Anderson films I feel like the tide is slightly turning against him a bit. But that might just be because I recently recorded

with comedian Rob Copland, who's just gone completely the other way against him and dislikes him a lot. Right, right, right. I find there's something a bit unsettling about when he turns his kind of style to animated stuff. Because he's got such a sort of clear aesthetic which is instantly identifiable there's something about like it's that same style of animation in like fantastic

mr fox that i find a little bit creepy for some reason i don't know maybe because it's quite sort of old school isn't it yeah the uncanny valley and the way that like the fur is always kind of moving all the time because of the animation process and it's just something a little bit like it's still got the hallmarks of wes and Anderson there but I just find it a little bit unsettling somehow like it's going to all turn dark at some point it is all it's very haunting and because of the nature of his films as we all know like if you're a fan you know that most stuff is either shot everything's mapped out perpendicularly so people are either delivering directly to camera or in profile is usually the case um and when a human is looking into a camera with their human eyes what we recognize to be

human eyes it's quite it's fine it's not off-putting i guess when there's an animated character with this soulless eyes of a shark little tiny plastic eyes constantly looking at you that is quite off-putting they blink they blink with their little plasticine eyelids but a human's had to decide when to make that person blink which is probably just guesswork as well isn't it there's no average to the amount people how many times do people blink 182 times a minute because of course that's why blink 182 are called blink 182 but in a film that would be way too much so yeah the animation at the best of times claymation is quite a haunting medium under the guidance of wes anderson who's already quite ineffable in a lot of his stuff yeah i agree it's weird which is why the isle of dogs particularly is just really hard to access i

don't get it i don't get what it's about thematically either so i've got no feelings towards it other than looking at a little dog what sounds like jeff goldblum looking at me you're right it's just haunting it's just like what's it gonna do to me why is its fur moving and being stuck on an island with a film that you don't really get by a director that you otherwise love is just going to be so annoying it's like you know i love david bowie but some of his work i mean i think he's got the biggest ratio between the greatest stuff and the worst stuff of any artist perhaps you know like if i got stuck on an island and just had the laughing gnome by david bowie i'd be like this is fucking killing me because i could be listening to something that i love by him you know so it's sort of that same thing isn't it just being like oh fucking hell there's also

something like apparently he only came up with the idea for isle of dogs because he was in london doing some editing or something and he saw a sign for the isle of dogs and he thought oh that's funny you know obviously we don't even notice it anymore if you live in london or around the area it's just normal and he went ah imagine an island full of dogs and i don't know why that annoys me so much but find it like a bit silly that actually fills in a massive gap for me right that makes sense if he's if he's seen what he believes to be a tiny little obscure sign and has and blown up in his mind and gone i'm the first person to think of this an isle of dogs not realizing that every british person has driven past that sign at

some point in their young lives in the back of a car and gone an island full of dogs mama papa no it's not really it's just not it's just called the isle of dogs that makes a lot more sense i mean it still doesn't change my opinion on the film but at least i know why it got made in the first place so thank you for filling in that gap for me well yeah i think you make a good a good uh point about uh about this film and um i don know, hopefully he can fix it all when he comes out with his sequel, Elephant and Castle. But yeah, okay. Well, look, we're almost done, but I have to put you through one more task, Jordan, because finally the island is overrun

by the biggest dick of all the animals. Which animal is it and why? I'm not going to get any headlines for saying this, but the humble wasp i mean i've chosen rishi and i've chosen wasps i think the theme is these are touchstone awful things the wasp it's already awful for lots of reasons but a lot of people like to defend the wasp it helps the ecosystem so does a rat who cares right i gotung by one. So I've got an emotional reaction to one. In the last few weeks,

I was doing the Latitude Festival. Sussex? Suffolk? Where is that? I can't remember. And I went for a grape. I went to get a cheeky little backstage grape. And then I got stung by what I thought was a thorn, like a rose's thorn. And it took me a second to go,

grapes don't have thorns. That's not a thing at all. But that's what it felt like and then i took my finger away i was like this still hurts i've got it down by my side at this point like oh god but i looked at it still there and it's like in it's like latched on and it's like it's horror it's a horror film isn't it i mean i don't mind bugs that much but there's a thing on me that's trying to hurt me that is alien to me in every way and it's got its little stinger in me and pulled it off and uh i had to then go on it was five minutes before i was going on stage to

play piano um which i mean your listeners might not know but the fingers are quite important to the process of playing a piano so i was like i went on and just one of my fingers it was this finger um was lifted the whole time so i mean this is an audio medium but for the listeners i've got one of my one of my fingers lifted like I'm sort of swearing at Daniel and it's the songs it was missing something

do you know what I mean it was just missing that that note from most of the chords because this little finger decided that my hand was a grape I don't like it

it's incredibly impressive that you managed to carry on and play the piano whilst holding a finger in the air as well but yeah Jesus the show must well but um yeah jesus the show must go on man yeah yeah they're such tricky little bastards i mean my wife just was at a

festival the other uh the other weekend she said she got one like a friend was being chased by a wasp and at that moment when someone came over and patted her on the back but accidentally patted a wasp into her back managed to get stung That's a memory that's never going away. Yeah. But, you know, you say they're good for the ecosystem. I have no idea what they do. Like, are they pollinating? Because I never see them on flowers.

Like, I see them around food and sugar and stuff. Obviously, sweet drinks and things like that they love. I don't think they're pollinating. I think they're eating pests. I think that's people's argument. They eat the things that eat those flowers. And I don't know, apart from like the Marvel superheroes that they've inspired, who are pretty cool.

I love me the wasp. She's pretty cool. What are they doing? Yeah, they've got a great aesthetic. If you're making a Cronenbergian horror film, your brain goes wasp. Like give it a tiny little thin waist and a big thorax but yeah they look it's annoying that they look cool but are awful like rishi sunak it's like the dishy rishi of bugs it looks cool except a little bit too pointed a little bit a little bit too pointy

it looks more like a wasp than a weasel now i've said it yeah i mean i like you're right aesthetically i think they look great i mean they're purposeful they look mean you know like they they are cool looking things you know they look fast and evil um but you know like a Maserati yeah I can deal with like a wasp in a room and if one lands on me I don't freak out I can sort of deal with that but when you're in a situation where there's just loads of them like I've probably told this story before now but like a friend of mine had a birthday party there was someone making mojitos and there was just this table covered with like half empty sugar-filled glasses and i think every wasp in the uk was on these glasses at that point and it's like what like just what do we do i'm a grown-up we grown-ups. Like, how do we fucking deal with this situation?

Like, no one's ever had to deal with this many wasps. You know, it feels like a programme on National Geographic. We need an expert to come in and take away the wasps because we can't deal with this. And that's what your island's basically going to be like, minus the sweet relief of the mojitos. You know, so I think it's a superb final choice. No mojito.

All that Malibu is not going to help. God, yeah, the stickiness of the Malibu. They're going to be all over you. All I can imagine is we roll Biff in Malibu until the texture of his skin has got the tackiness of flypaper and just set him free and hope that the wasps go after Biff. That's sort of like closing a loop there. That's great.

The wasps will get him. His little photo will disappear. that's sort of like closing a loop there that's great the wasps will get him his little photo will disappear it's out of the photo great yeah look i think it's a superb final choice from a selection of great people and things to be stuck on an island with great in the sense that they'd be fucking awful and you've created a perfect island hellscape for yourself jordan so superbly done well done um now look you And you've created a perfect island hellscape for yourself, Jordan. So superbly done. Well done. Now, look, you've got your fingers in so many pies. You do so many things.

What are you up to at the minute that you'd like people to know about? You've got a tour coming up in September, October. That's right. Yeah, the big tour. I took a show to the Edinburgh Fringe last year called Is It A Bird, which is the best pun. It really is a good pun. Living up to that pun is gonna be hard um so i'm

taking is it a bird on tour around the uk september october i think the last date's the beginning of november so it's mostly september october tour tickets are available jordan gray live.co.uk i suspect or you can look online and you can google me if you do google me put your safe search images off on put them on because i did appear um quite prominently on friday night live um in a state of undress and that will be the first thing that pops up almost certainly um but yeah the show is a is an hour of comedy and i'm in it in fact i feature quite heavily because it's my solo hour so i'll be in the whole hour of the show if you decide to come and see it yeah yeah don't complain that't complain that there's a lot of you in your solo show if you go and see it. I think that's the message.

Yeah. There's a lot of me. There's none of Daniel in the show. No, there's none of me. Which is sad, but there's none of you in it, which is at the show's detriment. Jordan, if one day this meeting leads to a future collaboration, I would be very happy because it has been an absolute pleasure talking to you today. So thank you so much for coming on Desert Island dicks thank you and this has been a proper

giggle it's really really nice to talk to you good luck with the show it's a great show and uh hopefully yeah get a chance to see you soon thank you i did i did a peace sign on an audio medium i've done a little i did a little because you can see me i can so i gave a little peace sign that's right i was just i was just really busy thinking do I apologise for the calamari octopus thing again so that's where I was don't ever no

that's what these podcasts are about it's truth when truth came out turns out I'm not as smart as I think I am Jordan thanks a lot wicked

alright man so there you go another podcast into the ether filling up the world with more podcasts which is the only way we can survive as a species i think we all understand that it's very important to keep podcasts going because otherwise what the hell. Would we talk to each other about. When we're getting a hipster coffee. I don't really know what I'm saying. So let's just. Finish there for today shall we.

Yeah we don't need to go on and on. And on and on and on do we. We've just had an hour of podcast. Let's just leave it. and go out into the world and yeah I hope you have a lovely week as well Desert Island Dicks has been a SinkClap production it was created and produced by

James Deacon produced and presented by me Dan Benedictus big shout out to Chris Attaway and an even bigger shout out to the big man John Deacon have a lovely week bye bye