Desert Island Dicks - LUCY BERESFORD

Episode Date: September 26, 2018

My guest for this week's podcast is sex and relationships author and broadcaster, Lucy Beresford. Be sure to follow the podcast @dickspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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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 James Deacon and welcome to Desert Island Dicks, the show that sees you marooned on a desert island after a plane crash with the worst people and worst things imaginable. Who they are and why they're a dick is up to you. And here to share their Desert Island Dicks with us today is Sex and Relationships author and broadcaster Lucy Beresford. Hello. Hello, how are you i'm really

well i'm very excited to be on the desert island because i'm assuming it's going to be humid and sandy yes and yeah i might never leave yes oh really okay is that where you imagine yourself often yes if i do my visualizations and i take myself to somewhere very humid and you know sound of water lapping and things like that i'm assuming there'll be a bit of trauma there with the plane crash but you know i'll i'll plow my way through that and get over it hopefully yes wow okay um lucy so let's dive in who's gonna be your first person my first person my first dick is tom hanks tom hanks tom hanks yeah i know Apparently he's the nicest man in Hollywood.

So I do feel a bit bad about this. But I'm sure he listens. So, you know, maybe this could be the turning point for him. It's not low-hanging fruit. So why Tom Hanks? Well, there are two reasons, really. Firstly, in my view,

he is exactly the same in every single movie that you ever have him in. He is Tom Hanks and he's got this ever so slightly annoying, oh, shucks, what, me? kind of persona. And that really winds me up. It doesn't really matter what film he's in. That's what he's putting out there.

Ultimately, even if he's trying to be hard, even if he's trying to be playful, it still never really quite works. And can you imagine being on the island with somebody like that? He'd go into kind of like Forrest Gump mode and he'd be like, well, you know, my mum said it would be like a box of chocolates.

I'm like, no, we're on this crisis island and we've got to kind of sort ourselves out and be like, no, chill. I just think there'd be just too much schmaltz on the island. Most of his movies are about schmaltz. Yes, they are. Toy Story and Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail. And it would just be schmaltz overload and that would make me really ill.

It is schmaltzy. He is a castaway, isn't he? Well, you see, that brings me to my second problem, which is that there is obviously something slightly jinx-y about him. Because when you think about the fact that he's linked to, like, spaceships, rockets, planes, boats, everything he touches kind of is a bit of a disaster linked to a desert island crash.

And I'm thinking, you know, obviously something would probably go wrong. If he takes a rocket to the moon, that gets fucked up. If he's landing a plane in New York, something goes wrong with that. He's even in that movie where he lands in an airport and his country gets kind of cancelled. The passport gets rescinded and he has to live in an airport and his country gets kind of cancelled. The passport gets rescinded and he has to live in an airport. So I kind of feel he's a bit jinxy when it comes to planes and stuff like that. And then there was the movie where he's on a boat. Even if a boat came to rescue us, you remember Captain Phillips?

Yeah, yeah. I am the captain now. Absolutely, yeah. I'd be like, don't get on a boat with Tom Hanks. Don't get on the boat with Tom Hanks. Don't get on the boat with Tom Hanks because something would go wrong. And then, of course, there's Castaway. Castaway and Splash.

My God. Are you Splash? It's not just Castaway. Where I would worry that he would be trying to make a movie out of our experience. And so he wouldn't be trying to get off the island as quickly as possible. He'd be like, no, what's my journey?

What's my character going to go through? We need to act one, act two, act three. I'd be like, come on, we just need to get off the island. And he'd be, no, no, no, we need to go through the whole experience. And he'd probably be talking about all the things he did to get into character for Cast Away. And I'd be his little kind of, you know, Wilson basketball thing. And that would be my role and that would just be

really deflating i think oh that's so sad so no i think um tom hanks it it would be it would it would be painful because everything about it would be about tom hanks and how he could turn it into the next movie okay the next disaster movie you think yeah so he'd be already thinking about how he's going to turn that into his yep how to play it um what the story arcs would be what traumas we needed to go through he'd find snakes he would find locusts he would he'd probably go hell for leather to make it a really mad experience and as i've just explained i would be quite looking forward to just you know being, being on the beach. Yes. Letting the water ripple over my toes. And he probably wouldn't think that would be dramatic enough.

No. Who's going to play you in this film? Oh, God, what an amazing question. Someone, I don't know. I could be really conceited and think of someone really amazing and beautiful and talented. But I don't know. Maybe I could just do it myself if i was like on location i could choose the possible desert island location and make it in maldives or something let's make it

a really nice desert island and you could forge your acting career from based from that wouldn't that be incredible get my equity card that way hello thank you now we're talking thank you career tips yeah well you know holly Hollywood are you listening should you be in this situation I hope you're never in this situation thank you but uh should you be in this situation maybe that'll work out for you Tom Hanks I like I know um you've picked up on a lot of his sort of characterizations but doesn't he just seem so nice Tom Hanks well he even thought he started writing novels it's like well now what can I turn my, yes. So he's now got a novel out.

And there's a part of it, and there's novelists, there's a part of me thinking, no, you can't kind of monopolise all these careers. What would you like to do next? Have a cookery show or something? Yeah. Yes, but maybe it's the niceness that would get to me in the end that actually you just can't,

you need a bit of grit in the oyster don't you and there's a part of me thinking this this could be really painful yes okay just a bit too schmaltzy yeah a bit too schmaltzy tom hanks for the schmaltz okay um anything else on tom hanks before we put him on the island well i do feel a bit i mean i make it sound like i've seen all his movies um but he is definitely someone where I think, OK, if he's in that movie, I'm definitely not going to go and see it. So I rely on everybody else going, talking about it,

eulogising about it, and then just making a decision, no, that's not for me. OK. So that could be awkward. He'd arrive on the island, hopefully we'd both have been in, I don't know, first class or something. Nice.

And maybe he would expect me to know who he was. Or do you think he'd be really nice about it? Apparently David Beckham always introduces himself as David Beckham. Isn't that amazing? And maybe Tom Hanks would be the same. He'd be like, hi, I'm Tom Hanks. Yeah, okay. You're making me like him now this is not

working he's a dick he's a dick he's a dick this isn't what i meant to do sorry that wasn't my intention i just um i just i just really like tom hanks uh tom hanks and david beckham it's weird isn't it when do you stop introducing yourself it's a characteristic if you're quite humble person then maybe you think well when i've been doing i... I'm often invited to be a sort of talking head on various television programmes and I get invited to quite a lot of political programmes and I'm always very struck at how male politicians never introduce themselves.

They kind of assume that you know exactly who they are. Really? And I'm afraid I just don't. I'm not a political junkie in that way. No. So I think it's rather cool that you could be as world famous as David Beckham or even tom hanks um and that david beckham would always kind of go up to you and say david beckham just

in case just in case you weren't quite sure that's amazing i love that okay um so tom hanks goes on the island right and who's going to be your second choice well um it's a it's a group of people. It's a generic group, but it is exemplified by someone like Piers Morgan. Okay. And it's a group of people that I'm calling sexual prudes. Sexual prudes. talk about a lot. I talk about sex a lot. I talk about relationships all the time. And I am constantly amazed at how those three letters, S-E-X, really do seem to send people into a bit of a tailspin that you wouldn't ordinarily think. I mean, I can imagine that there could be some merry White House types out there who don't like to imagine that other people talk freely and

enjoyably about sex and try to encourage other people to have fantastic sex lives. But I am always amazed that sort of quite, you know, well, cosmopolitan people, one might say, seem to have a bit of a hang up about it. And I was thinking about this in particular, because I read an article by a Danish male writer called Belle Mooney, who could also perhaps also have been in this plane uh she might also be in the island and she was writing an article about the new bbc one dramas of wanderlust and bodyguard where there is quite a high sexual activity count okay shall we say um and she was basically claiming that these tv dramas are obsessed with sex, whereas real middle aged women are not. And that somehow they'd actually prefer to be sitting in bed with a cup of tea reading a book. And I

felt so saddened to think that there are people out there who are promoting that myth. Whereas, you know, when I was hosting a sex and relationship show on LBC, every single week, people will be phoning in asking me how to improve their sex lives because people want fabulous sex and they and they recognize that they kind of deserve it so i was thinking about this and why i mentioned piers morgan is again one of the other shows that i get invited on to quite a lot presumably after this never again was um good morning britain and i was on talking about some sex related theme and piers just started to really go off on one, a real kind of shtick about,

oh, it isn't all about, I mean, it isn't all about sex and how much you have. And I do know that the show is quite pantomime-like and you've got Piers and you've got Susanna and they kind of play off each other. And that is really good. But for me, it is just too simplistic to assume that once you hit a certain age

that somehow you're not interested in having sex anymore and actually even at the earlier age I've got this real thing about masturbation this is okay to talk about we can turn this into a sex podcast if you like no everything is fine I'm really enjoying this but I have

I'm really passionate about encouraging people to get in touch with their bodies and be really comfortable with who they are sexually. Because that is the perfect way of being able to ensure that when you go into a relationship, you can encourage your partner to do things that you really enjoy. And I started talking about things like this. And Piers was kind of very resistant. And I was so surprised because I can't imagine that he is sexually frustrated at all.

I've met his wife. She is absolutely stunning, really smart, very funny. I can imagine they have a fantastic sex life. Although, you know, who am I to say? But I just suddenly thought please don't, if you've got a position of either a

prominence or celebrity it would be great if we could champion amazing sex positive sex stories rather than kind of constantly doing it down and saying no we mustn't talk about it i used to get people getting in touch saying please don't talk about sex on the radio there might be children listening um and i think well actually as children that probably need to be talking about sex on the radio there might be children listening um and i think well actually as children that probably need to be talking about sex even more sex education at schools is really boring really functional it doesn't include things like emotions and foreplay and it certainly doesn't include masturbation i think masturbation should be taught in schools don't you james no i don't know yeah i mean um maybe it should stop blushing no am i blushing um no um i i certainly think that there is a school of

thought that says you know once you're 30 or 40 you're grinning you're grinning no i'm just finding this really funny i don't know why very rarely does the question come back onto me like that and especially about masturbation, I'm thinking, okay. Where is this woman going? Do I tell a story? But go on, you go first. Well, no, I was just thinking this idea that there is this assumption that once you reach a certain age, that somehow your genitals wither

and you have no sex. Yes, definitely. And somehow TV dramas on BBC One showing middle-aged people having sex is such an extraordinary thing. Whereas, in fact, you know what? It happens in lots of homes up and down the country every single night or every single morning, depending on your preference. But it really astonished me that Piers would play that shtick that actually, you know, sex is not something we should really talk about and let's try and keep it very straightforward and unexciting. So he was possibly going to be in economy in the plane.

Okay, at the time, in economy. There is no way he'd be in economy. This is true. Maybe he's barged into first class with me and Tom. Yes, but I'm not trying to change the subject because this is uh this is very interesting how many of these sexual prudes are you encountering then is that is it a lot is there is it is it like a constant in your life i think the more i talk about it the more people freely admit areas of their life to me that they would probably never speak about to other people and therefore and

with that comes the acknowledgement that some people are going to say well no i never i never think about sex and i never talk about it and you're thinking what but we are all sexual creatures we are all we are all primed in a way to be desired and that i think is is the really interesting thing it's i i know what bell mooney was talking about when she was writing her article in the daily mail what she she was really saying was that women don't want just sex. They want the kind of the whole package. They want to feel desired. They want romance. But my argument is that actually it doesn't really matter what your gender is, what your sexual orientation is. We all want to feel desired. We all want to feel loved um and that doesn't stop whether you're 26 or 76

yes okay so clearly you're obviously this being your uh being your job uh you're you're very open to this and you're very uh you can talk very freely about sex when when was that in your life that you you felt like you could just be so open about these things. Funnily enough, I did have a teacher at school who, Mrs. Remington, and she had a sort of policy that, you know, what got said in the classroom stayed in that classroom. We had this really wacky subject called personal and social relationships, which I'm sure doesn't even exist nowadays. But it was designed to get you talking and thinking about yourself, thinking about your views, your opinions,

and being able to articulate them. And there were very few options, really, in my school for that to happen. So that one class once a week really stood out for me. And we talked about sex a lot. So maybe from then on, I think I've always been pretty chilled about it. In terms of, I mean, that's not to say I haven't had, you know, dating disasters and, you know, uncomfortable experiences or awkward experiences, because we all have to go through those really challenging times. And certainly on my radio show, I talked all the time about, you know, relationships that hadn't worked out, people I'd fancied who didn't fancy me back. But at the same time, I think as long as you can communicate about it,

as long as you can talk about what really works for you, what turns you on and what makes you feel sexually fulfilled, then you're going to have a better sexual relationship with whoever it is. Okay. Which brings me back to masturbation. Yes. Everything leads back to masturbation. Was it a mixed go? I'm just curious. It was. Does it, um, was it mixed school?

I'm just curious. It was. Was it? It was. And what about the rest of the class? Very enlightened. Yes, it's good. Down near Bognor Regis.

I went to a school that was very opposite to that. And so there wasn't any classes that this was really brought up. And I remember sex education was very, yeah, sort of very textbook. You know, it was like. This goes there. This goes there. sort of very textbook. You know, it was like... This goes there. This goes there and that's it. You know, there might be...

My worry is that that's what's actually happening in schools even now is that it's very factual, but there isn't so much about how to conduct relationships and how to set boundaries and how to work on your own self-esteem so that people who treat you like shit are people that you can walk away from confidently all of those sorts of things need to be educated we need to teach our young people that because they're not going to learn that by watching porn that's the

scary thing is how much porn is available to our young people today get it on their phone oh yeah they share they share material they don't even know what they're looking at and that's where they get their education so and that that actually isn't just even in this this country when i had you know when i on my sex and relationship show i would have people getting in touch from all over the world um because actually they're in i had this amazing little coterie of listeners from iran so they would be in Tehran, they have no sex education whatsoever, apparently, and they would all meet in each other's houses, listen to the show online by their computer, and then email in their questions or their comments. It's absolutely extraordinary. It's amazing. So I do like to feel that actually it isn't, you know, it's not just a

British problem. No. But I think we should just be having more sex and talking about it more. Yeah. How great that you could be part of their education as well and help them with that. That's amazing. Yeah, that was actually quite humbling. Yeah, that is great. Okay, cool. So sexual prude for the need to talk about sex more.

Definitely, yes. Are you listening, Piers Morgan? Yeah, okay. Anything else on sexual prudishness before we leave it there? No, otherwise I'm just going to say masturbation again. You don't need me blushing more. And you're blushed, exactly. Okay, and who's going to be your third choice?

So my third choice, again, slight cheat here, which is it's a group of people, but they are cyclists. Cyclists? Yeah. It's a big group of people. A very enormous group. And they're growing in number.

And obviously we should celebrate people who are very keen to stay in shape and save the planet and all of that. And I have to be very careful here because one of my oldest friends is a passionate advocate of cycling. Okay. Jeremy Vine cycles everywhere, talks about cycling all the time. And he and I are polar opposites on this topic. Because I find cyclists, particularly here in central London, but I'm sure the same thing happens in other conurbations, is that I just find cyclists unbelievably arrogant and entitled when they're on the road yes okay and there are two stories i would like to tell um which happened within 48 hours of me coming to this studio

so they're just happening all the time um first of all uh there was i was in regents park on sunday uh with my husband and we were walking and there were very big signs on the pavement saying no cycling certain paths in the park you're not allowed to cycle and we were just happened we just approached one particular part where these uh where the words were in the pavement and I could hear um some wheels turning behind me and I kind of half turned and I could see it was quite a little child on a on a bike and I thought well if I say something you know his parents might sort of stop the child um cycling down the path which of course by this stage is full of people walking down the path because they are entitled to. And I turned and I said, oh, no cycling here. And at that moment,

a grown up on a Boris bike, which of course is not actually now a Boris bike, it's a Santander bike. But if I was the chairman of Santander IB that's not money well spent um and I so I said my sentence oh there's no cycling here and the and the grown-up just overtook the child and cycled over the cycling the word saying no cycling and just carried on uh so I called out again and said it says no cycling he says yeah it. So then my husband joins in and says, so why are you cycling, mate? And the guy just gave him the finger. And that to me just sums up the kind of people that I'm talking about. They are very, very kind of arrogant and entitled.

And just as I was crossing Brewer Street to come here, a woman in a bugaboo is just just uh it can't be maybe it wasn't pro-history but it was just at a traffic light where you've got these little red cycle um lights telling cyclists that they're not allowed to jump the lights and a woman with a bugaboo crossed as she was legitimately entitled to do because it was a green man walking and the cyclist just dumped the light and clipped the bugaboo and just carried on and the problem is and i i get it when you're cycling and you've got all that adrenaline pumping through your veins and you're on a mission you're trying to beat your personal best on your commute home i get all of that but you are totally um ignoring everybody else who is legitimately allowed to be on that road yes and the thing i the thing that does wind me up is the number of times that other road users like

buses and cars, over time, a common code of courtesy exists whereby you do let other people in and you keep the traffic flowing by perhaps letting somebody cross your path so that they can go into a turning while you're stationary. Yeah. And all those things happen with other vehicles. They let each other go. And cyclists never do that because they're so fast. They're so pumped up.

And the problem is speed kills. And that actually I am always very, very upset to hear if a cyclist has been killed. That is a death that is completely unnecessary. And I'm on their side when there are motorists that are driving badly. But please, I think a lot of cyclists, and I speak now, kind of my psychology training comes in here, which is that if you put a certain attitude out there into the world, that is what is going to come back at you.

When you go to a party and you think, oh, this party is going to be shit, lo and behold, you have a certain attitude out there into the world, that is what is going to come back at you. You know, when you go to a party and you think, oh, this party is going to be shit, lo and behold, you have a shit time because that's the kind of energy that you're putting out there. I think a lot of cyclists put out very negative, the world is out to get me, everyone else on the road is a moron vibes. And lo and behold, that's what they get back.

That's what comes back. Yeah, that's their limiting belief their limiting belief is everybody hates cyclists and therefore that's what they get oh dear okay i think this is very good so it could be quite a busy island but i'm hoping that the cyclists and piers morgan cannot kind of just come to blows together, leaving me on the sun land. Mammals, they call them, isn't it? Middle-aged men in Lycra. In Lycra, exactly. That's the worry, is they've got the kit.

They've got that sense of entitlement that they're saving the planet. And they don't really worry about anyone else. No. So I used to live seven miles from work and I used to cycle in of a morning. Now, I'm not a keen cyclist. I bought a bike for the purpose.

I bought a helmet. That's always a good plan. And lights and a bell and made sure I had all the gear. But it really did shock me every morning just to see up close the risks that cyclists were just taking. Jumping the lights at a crossing or like just shooting across a lane or like, you know, almost racing a black cab down the road. And you just think, guys, what are you doing? It's ridiculous.

Just, you know, get your get your little get one of those little sit up and beg bikes with a little basket and still get the exercise. But don't worry about the 10 gears and don't worry about the sort of as you say all the like cricket just you know cycle and be a friendly user on the road don't worry about shaving three minutes off oh my word i didn't wonder what you were going to say there i thought you were going to say shaving get that extra streamlined velocity um okay cyclists anything else on cyclists i'd rather not no okay all Okay, all right. I'd be giving them too much air time. Okay, Lucy.

Well, thank you very much. 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 Lips and Ads. Go to lipsandads.com now. That's L-I-B-S-Y-N ads.com. Now, mercifully among the wreckage of the plane, there is 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, I am actually a bit fussy of food and if the food is a bit rubbish

i just don't eat it i always um i always carry a packet of oat cakes with me just in case food anywhere is rubbish okay um in fact have i have you got oat cakes with you yes you've got just in case your you know-course meal that we'll be having after this is not up to snuff. So there are lots of things I don't eat, but there are lots of things that I would sort of think, okay, if I'm an extremist, if I am on a desert island, I'm probably going to have to suck it up. But the one thing I just can't eat is Chinese food.

Ah, okay. So that's that whole country written off um and i i think it's because well partly partly because if it's very authentic then it will just be gross because it'll be like chicken's feet deer penis, soup made of lark vomit, all of those kind of classic dishes that they have. And if it isn't authentic, then it'll just be orange gloop. Yes. With bits of pork floating in it. And imagine it's going to be airline Chinese food as well. It's true.

It's going to be even worse. That's horrible. So that could be a disaster if that happens and i i often i have a theory that if you um well if you travel we tend to love the places where we also enjoy the food and conversely if the food is shit or the food is really difficult that often we'll say oh i didn't really like that place and that has happened i'm lucky enough to have gone to China a few times and I just find the food really difficult. And I was there giving a talk with a client who I worked with a lot.

So we went to Shanghai quite a lot. And I was always the person saying, oh, have you got any new tapas restaurants? Or I hear this amazing, you know know British pub in the French concession or something just hoping that they would pick up the hint that I just didn't want to go local or native and I think the only food that was ever worse than that was we went to North Korea once for three days wow three really really long days and and as you can imagine the food was quite hard work there so we lived off pringles thank goodness we had bought um a couple of tubs of pringles uh at beijing airport and that we

eked them out for for three days because the food was as you can imagine and even there i we felt really bad about that because obviously the food we were being given was was probably quite high caliber but it was quite quite grim can you like what kind of stuff there was a lot of shredded cabbage a lot of shredded raw cabbage like you know how white cabbage is in a dressing and things like that but it was it was just well it was i felt i felt uncomfortable complaining because they felt that they were giving us the best that they could. But it was just hard to identify things. Okay. Yeah, exactly.

Your face. Yeah, my face. I know, yes. I can imagine. You feel sympathy for us. Quite gruesome, yeah. Yeah. Okay.

So any tips for anyone going in? Donald Trump, for example, take your Pringles with you when you go. I'm not a massive advocate of Chinese food. I mean, I like chinese food occasionally but i feel like you've almost put me on a complete 180 the way you describe that orange gloop with bits of pork in it and i can just imagine the amount of times i've eaten that orange gloop with bits of pork and we have to assume that it is pork and but it could be anything else

so it's just the orange gloop covering it all up okay just don't go there okay take your oat cakes that's the thing if you're in a carry your oat cakes wherever you go and if randomly you're in a plane crash you are sorted okay okay that's my advice um top tips top tips masturbate and carry oat cakes not to be combined um lucy and what's going to be your drink choice so i tend to be quite boring i don't drink very much i drink a lot of water um and i don't really drink very much alcohol however i love if i go to a party and i'm lucky enough that they're serving champagne i love that first hit of champagne where it's really cold and really bubbly and prickly on your tongue so for me the worst thing is that if we discovered that yes they had champagne but for some reason it's warm and it's gone flat that's amazing okay wow just that just that the you've had this awful experience you're

on the island what have we got what have we got to drink it's champagne it's the it's the deflation it's the it's the way it kills the hope yes okay i see so you're brought up by the sight and then brought down by what you're about to experience okay champagne as a choice i don't think that's ever come up but it has to be warm and it has to be flat it's warm and flat i get you okay warm and flat champagne yeah that would be quite grueling um yes drink enough of it though maybe it'll pass some time i don't um okay um when have you ever had warm and flat champagne well that would probably be at the end of a very long party okay many student occasions where and of course it wouldn't have even been really been champagne it would have been like some kind of cheap carver or something right and you

and you know you know you've stayed too long at the party when that's pretty much all that's left someone's left a little teaspoon at the top. It's four o'clock in the morning. Most people have gone. You go into the kitchen and you see the bottle and it's got the teaspoon in it. And you think, this could be, I could be getting the last dregs. And it's not, it's warm, it's flat.

It's time to go. Taxi for Lucy. So not really a big drinker? Not really, no. I did my gap year in Peru and I loved Pisco Sours. And we're very lucky here in London that there are loads of restaurants, Peruvian restaurants that do Pisco Sours. So they taste a bit like margaritas, but with like egg white foam on the top. Wow. I'm not really selling it, am I? No. Egg white foam on the top and a sprinkling of

cinnamon. But it's just, just it's i think it just takes me back it's like a sort of proust madeline it takes me back to my gap here but no i can i'm not a really big booze boozy drinker i have never heard of that drink in my life you never heard a piece goes out there are loads of there's a um yeah just down the road in frith street there's a great restaurant called lima you'll have to try i'll go and try okay all right on your recommendation i'll try um okay thank you very much lucy fortunately for you you won't be without entertainment on the island great right but 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 you guaranteed that you wouldn't play the song

i'm not gonna play you the song because it's that bad it's that bad so the song i feel really i really feel really tricky about this because i actually fancy the person who sings it chris martin okay um uh but i cannot bear so i even had to bear... I even had to ask my husband what this song is called because I haven't even bothered to find out what it's called. It's called Clocks by Coldplay. Don't hum it, don't do anything. So when I first heard it, it reminded me of being ill in bed at three in the morning and slightly delirious with a temperature and having things going round and round and round in your head in a slightly distorted, hallucinatory way.

And the opening of the song, which I think also carries on, but I don't want to have it. I don't want to hear it I don't want to hear it just reminds me of lying in bed feeling feverish and delirious and I have been known to for it to come on in a friend's car and this actually happened relatively recently it came on a CD that they had put together

so by definition it must be one of their favourite songs and I leapt from the back seat through the front seat and switched off the radio just instinctively because I cannot the worst thing about it is it's everywhere it's in lifts, it's in coffee shops it's sometimes in

boutiques and I just have to go, I have to walk out so I look forward to hearing back this podcast apart from that bit and then I'll have to go. I have to walk out. So I look forward to hearing back this podcast apart from that bit. And then I'll have to fast forward. Oh, no. Okay. That bad?

Yeah, no. I just really... And I have fantasized about maybe getting together with Chris Martin and becoming a muse for him so that he could write something better that would then supplant clocks and nobody nobody would ever play Clocks again. That would obviously make my life a little bit more straightforward. But that's possibly not going to happen. If I see that Coldplay's new song is called Masturbation and Oaks,

then I'll know. Then we'll know that I got in there. You've done it. That I got in there, yes. Clocks by Coldplay. How do you feel about the rest of Coldplay's songs? I think it's kind of scarred me. So I've never listened to any, just in

case. Because you know maybe they've got like a riff that they repeat in other songs. People are listening and they think, oh how funny he sampled that song as well. No, no, we can't run that risk. So no, I haven't really tried. And as I say, the problem is that actually I think Chris Martin is

adorable. And could I not just the problem is that actually I think Chris Martin is adorable. And could I not just have him? You could, yeah, but just ask him to never sing again. Yes, exactly. Okay, great. So Clocks by Coldplay. So what happened when you were so ill that time? Well, I had a temperature of over 103.

Wow. well i i i had a temperature of over 103 wow and i suppose the huge irony of this is that at the time i was looking forward to going to see barry manilow and i kept thinking gotta be well gotta be well gotta get through this you know this was on the like the first of december and barry manilow was on performing at the o2 on the 6th of december some years ago and i think i was just in such a bad shape that i heard this song and it just thought no that's what it sounds like it sounds like it's that earworm that you get when you're also ever so slightly feverish and nothing makes sense and it feels very hallucinatory that was the worry okay so yeah can we move on yes we can absolutely um and what's going to be your film choice? Well, obviously, anything with Tom Hanks in it.

That would be tricky. But to be honest, what would really be uncomfortable? His films are sort of bearable to watch, even though they're schmaltzy. I actually have a bit of a problem with war films. I think, I've thought about this a lot over the years because various people will say oh why don't we go and see Hurt Locker why don't we go and see Dunkirk

and I just, it doesn't really do it for me and I think that it is because my childhood was punctuated by Sunday afternoons watching war films because that's all the BBC seemed to show. And both my parents were in the war. My mother was an evacuee and my father actually was a prisoner of war in Singapore,

in Changi Jail. No way. So for them, these movies were hugely nostalgic, a very seminal time in both their lives. And I, you know, I had no siblings. So I'm telling a little bit of a sob story here to get my little So it was just the three of us watching these very depressing black and white movies. And I have rather felt that I've paid my dues over the years in watching war films.

But it does mean that I have missed out on incredible films, apparently, like Dunkirk, Hurt Locker. Catherine Bigelow is one of my all-time heroines. I would love her to make a movie of one of my novels. I think she is incredible. And also, I've kind of missed out on the camaraderie that comes from quite a lot of these movies.

Because a lot of people, I don't know about you, but a lot of my friends seem to be word perfect on some of these war films, like Where Eagles Dare, for example. Right, yes. Everybody seems to know every single scene and they have lots of lines that they quote to each other. Like, I thought the church was on the other side of the square. Oh, that one, yes.

And I'm thinking, I don't know what you're talking about because I haven't seen the film. I haven't seen Battle of Britain. I haven't seen, you know, The Bridge Too Far. I just haven't seen these movies. And I guess I've missed out on a whole slice of British life as a result. I think you probably have been. You're scarred from those long, slow, grainy three-hour...

I know the films, yeah. I actually thought that the past was in black and white. I did actually say that to my mother once and she thought that was incredibly amusing. I suppose the combination, let's be honest, the combination of a Tom Hanks film and a war film. So I guess it would have to be Saving Private Ryan. Okay.

Which is also very long. Yes, it is. So let's go for Saving Private Ryan as a movie. Saving Private Ryan. And of course, presumably, Tom Hanks would want to watch it the whole time. Yes. Is there any sex in it? Not that I can think of off the top of my head.

I haven't seen it in a very long time, though. But Saving Private Ryan. Yes, and he could have a sort of actor's commentary throughout if he was there and he could just give you a play by play yeah this is what it was like these are the scenes he would then act out all the scenes that were cut or something i mean it would just go on forever oh it'd be horrible and then piers morgan would be like oh i've got to interview tom hanks and all the cyclists will be running around in light. Let's do life stories. Let's do life stories. Yeah. Let's do life stories now.

Okay. It'll be painful. Okay, Saving Private Ryan's going to be your film then. Sadly, yes. War films with a... War films with a subset of Saving Private Ryan. Okay. And finally, the island is overrun by the biggest dick of all the animals. Which animal is it and why?

Thin monkeys. Thin monkeys? run by the biggest dick of all the animals which animal is it and why thin monkeys thin monkeys yeah so that again is that widens the net but i'm trying to uh say that you know this isn't orangutans this aren't not gorillas not kind of big sturdy creatures that i feel i could connect with but i'm thinking thinking of monkeys that get everywhere. If you go away on holiday to certain parts of the world and they say, oh, you must kind of close your suitcases because we get monkeys coming into the room and they'll rifle through your suitcase.

And I'm thinking, what? What the fuck is going on? I want to have a stress-free holiday and now I've got to kind of keep my oat cake safe in case a monkey comes along and tries to get its bony fingers into my supplies. And I have had a couple of holidays that have been slightly spoiled

by very thin monkeys swinging on trees, kind of getting into the luggage and the fridge and causing mayhem. So imagine them on a desert island ruling the roost. And I would be okay with snakes. I have actually come across a couple of snakes in the past and you just stand still. You stand still and they wriggle past.

Snakes in the wild? Yeah, yeah, in Africa. Wow, amazing. You stay still. You don't look. And I'm assuming other things like crocodiles and stuff like that which other people might have chosen yeah i just think you know they're big enough they're slow enough you could probably walk away but a monkey was just like they'd be on your back yeah they've

been sort of a spider monkey like yeah exactly yeah they get amongst you yes and they've got so much confidence they're not scared of you at all i know yeah but what would be quite sweet the little baby see every time i think of something i'm thinking of what could be quite nice about it the little babies clinging to their mother's underside that is always very adorable that is nice but then the mother would be trying to steal your oat cakes to feed that baby wouldn't that be awful monkeys i don't i can't think that i've had that many interactions. I think I've been that close to a live monkey, but maybe I just need to travel a bit more. Thin monkeys.

Okay, so thin monkeys is going to be your choice. Yeah, with bony fingers. That's the key. Yes. Lucy, thank you so much for coming in. My pleasure. It's been a lot of fun. Lucy, you said about podcasts.

Are you starting a podcast really soon? Yes, so I'm starting a sex and relationships one about dating. Dating disasters and how to get it right. Okay, what's going to happen? Are you going to have listener stories? Exactly, listener stories. So yeah, we'll get you on. Get me on, yeah.

Talk about all your dating disasters. Maybe not. I could do, let's see. Okay, great. And if people want to find you Lucy where can they find you www.lucyberesford.co.uk and on Twitter okay

same lucyberesford on Twitter at lucyberesford excellent thank you so much brilliant thank you thank you Bye.