Desert Island Dicks - NATASHA DEVON MBE

Episode Date: October 9, 2023

The most excellent Natasha Devon joins Dan to share who and what she'd hate to be stuck with on a desert island. Be sure to follow the podcast @dickspod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, my name is Dan and this is Desert Island Dicks and my guest today is the brilliant Natasha Devon. She's a writer, speaker, campaigner, activist and author. She's got a new book out at the minute called Babushka or Babushka, depending on how you pronounce it. Yeah, she was an absolute pleasure to talk to. She's so interesting and articulate and has brilliant viewpoints on things now this is my weekly reminder that we will be doing a special desert island dicks live as part of the cheerful earful podcast festival on thursday the 2nd of november it's less than a month away so you need to get your tickets now if you haven't before get Get your tickets now. Go to cheerfulearful.co.uk.

It's in southwest London in Ballam at the Bedford Pub, which is a lovely venue. It's less than a tenner for a ticket. Come on, man. And then we can all get drunk afterwards and have a good time. And you can tell me your Desert Island Dicks in person if you wish. It would be lovely to catch you there. So let's do it and you

know what else we should do? We should listen to Natasha Devon on Desert Island Dicks which conveniently is what's happening right now. 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 writer, speaker, presenter, activist and author of new book Babushka, Natasha Devon. How are you doing? I'm good. Yeah, I told you before we came to air that I'm just recovering from a cold. So I may sound slightly Lauren Bacall-y. I'm hoping that it's working for me vocally, but... It's working. It's working. You don't sound nasal or coldy at all I think you

sound fine so don't worry that's good to know I've I've had a sore throat for like so long that hasn't sort of become COVID or anything else and I'm just thinking oh is this just me now maybe I'm just the guy with the sore throat or maybe it's a terrifying underlying disease I need looking at but um we'll deal with that on another podcast, I think. Anyway, you're recovering from a cold, so you're sort of primed and ready to vent today. I have quite a lot of anger that lives in me all the time. And usually I try and do something productive with it. I think that's a big part of being an activist is sort of trying to take your rage and make it valuable. But I'm always about half a pint away from ranting about someone or something that I hate. So this is an ideal opportunity for me.

I mean, because you present on LBC, and I don't know how you manage to keep it in when you're talking to some of the people, you know, seeing clips of you, obviously doing your show. And I'm like biting my fist going, my god how are you so calm and rational with these people you know is that is that a very real worry that one day you're going to go look you idiot obviously we can't do that do you know what I find interesting is the impression that people get of what the show is like from the clips because the clips that do bits on social media and this is not just true of my show this is true of every lbc show are the ones where you're going i cannot believe

what this caller is saying i cannot believe that people like this exist in the world or where they're having a big barney about something and i think it makes possibly the show look more confrontational than it is or it gives a false impression because actually I feel like we've started to build up on a Saturday night, a community of listeners who are really quite thoughtful in their contributions. And I look forward to having conversations now with kind of like-minded people on a Saturday night,

because I've been presenting the show now for three years. So people kind of know where I'm coming from and what they're getting and how much I love sort of diving into the nuance on political issues. So those clips that you see where I am about to go and scream into a pillow during the outbreak, they are relatively rare. Good, good. Yeah, I think, I don't know, I just think I'd be very bad at dealing with sort of talk radio in general as a host, even if it was kind of a bit more nuanced and calm. So I admire anyone who can do it well.

I think that's why I ended up doing this podcast where I can just freely rant about things and people I dislike. But look, it's now your turn to start ranting. So your plane has crashed. You're on an island with three awful people. Who's the first one going to be? Jonathan Gullis MP. Good choice straight away. Okay, let's unpack Jonathan a little bit. For me, he is representative of a type of MP. He's part of the 2019 intake, that kind of post-Brexit, Johnsonian, Red Wall, sort of culture war loving, soundbite spouting.

And it's, I don't that he deals in such obvious sort of mistruths and these ridiculous statements that he comes out with, and then he has this kind of layer of smugness on top. And I don't know whether this is a fair thing to say, because I think most people would agree that he's a sort of terrible human, but I just really don't like his face either. So, you know, I could have equally picked, you know, half a dozen MPs of the same ilk, but I picked him because there's something about him in particular that I find really irritating and a proximity on an island I would find really difficult to deal with. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's funny, I think this sometimes, I think certain politicians annoy me so much. And I think I wonder if they had policies I agreed with, but I still find their face so inherently irritating. You know, like if Jacob Maurice Mogg just started talking complete sense and was really rational and kind, like, would I still just find everything about him so annoying you know but um yeah I think the thing is Jonathan Gullis I mean I agree that he seems quite thick but also just incredibly mean as well that's the the thing I think that caught

my attention because he's not despite the amount of airtime that he gets he doesn't have a particularly big job within cabinet or anything like that But there was a moment where a Labour MP called Tulip Sadiq was talking about the fact that almost 200 migrant children had gone missing under the care of the British government. So this had happened on their watch, these children were going missing. And then it subsequently came to light that the way that these people traffickers had got the young people is they'd gone to them in the hotels and said, if you don't come with us, you're going to be shipped to Rwanda. So it was government policy or the mooted government policy was actually helping them to enslave these children,

essentially. And the whole thing was appalling and it's still appalling and they still haven't found them and not nearly enough column inches or airtime has been given to it but Jonathan Gullis heckled Tulip Sadiq and said well they shouldn't have come over here illegally then and I just thought that is an unbelievable lack of empathy that is borderline psychopathic you know yeah yeah because it's like I mean without going too deeply into all the the fates that you know may be waiting for kids who are human trafficked it's like regardless of your stance on anything do you think that someone fleeing a certain situation in the hope of a better life because it didn't confirm conform to your laws and your legal status is that okay for them to then meet that fate like it's unbelievable you know I almost

think it gets to the point where the people should be fined for saying these sort of things it's like right there's got to be a line you've crossed it just get out and have a think about yourself because this is just abhorrent behavior and see i think you should be speaker of the house get out and have a think about what you've done yeah yeah i'd love that but i don't think anything would get done in there because i'd just be sending everyone out all the time yeah and it is it's that pmqs is has become more and more preposterous i think since they realized that if they can just get out a little pre-prepared speech that's clippable and can be put, but he, he looks like what I imagine his masturbation faces. And he's kind of doing that movement as well. And you're like, what is going on with British politics? Like, how is these the people that represent us? Like he,

he and his ilk just make me feel ashamed to live in this country. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, there's that thing of, you know, when you sort of see America and, you know, you meet Americans, largely everyone I meet who's American seems really nice and well-educated and well-informed. And you kind of think, you know, sometimes you meet them and go, oh, God, I'm so embarrassed about what people think of our country. Ours is exactly the same.

You just think, oh, God, I almost want to apologise. You know, it's like, oh. I read that somewhere that Europeans see Britain the way that British people see America. Yeah, yeah, I think that's probably true. I mean, I've said this before, but I kind of think that the national idea of Britain, it's a bit like if you had like a school bully

who was like in the year above and thought he was really cool a bit of a dick and just behaved horribly and then you met him at like a school reunion years later and everyone had moved on and got jobs and he was still living in the same place came up to you give you a big punch in the arm or a noogie and went all right you bender how you doing and you'd be like, whoa, like you can't do that anymore. And I feel like that's how Europe looks at us going, sorry, you're not this big tough guy anymore. Like, what are you doing?

Like everyone is looking at them going, oh God, did you invite that? Did you invite Britain? Oh. That is so true. And the other thing, I was talking to my partner about this recently. We were saying how we have what is quite an admirable love of the underdog in Britain. But what that also means is that we have this affection for people who just put their flaws out there.

So we were talking about Barack Obama and we were like, he's as close to perfection as a man can be, right? Like he's good looking, he's erudite, he's intelligent, he's self-made, he's humble. You know, he thinks before he speaks, he reads loads, you know, like he is a really sophisticated human being. He couldn't run for office in Britain. We wouldn't know what to do with him. Like we need somebody who goes, yeah, I'm, you know, I'm really flawed to the extent that you'll have somebody who lies and also wears their very problematic history on their sleeve

and becomes prime minister, a.k.a. Boris Johnson. I think there's this kind of peculiar British mentality where we need to have somebody who we sort of almost feel sorry for in positions of power. But we managed to sort of achieve a kind of a double think as well, I think, where it's like being able to believe that someone who's had all of the privileges of life and education and wealth and things like that, still managing to think

that they're not a sort of establishment figure. It's like this sort of Nigel Farage kind of going, oh, well, you know, the Westminster elite. He's he's like look at your background what are you talking about how are you the common man like because like I've seen you in a pub with a pint is that is that like that's the level we're going for you're exactly right yeah and it's it's a cornerstone of fascism that actually it's be holding a position of power whilst pretending to be an everyman is a kind of well-worn trope. And it's not peculiar to us. You know, Donald Trump did that quite successfully as well.

But it certainly has that kind of, it has a very distinct flavour here in Britain, I think. And it looks like Nigel Farage. Yeah. So Jonathan Gullis on the island with you. I mean, it's just going to be infuriating because I think, you know, he's he's never I get the thing. He's never going to want to take orders from a woman. So even if you're coming up with ideas like, look, here's what we need to do. Could you just fetch that from over there? I'll fetch it. But just because I want to actually not because you've told me to and things like that. You know, he's I don't think he's ever going to back down and drop the act and just sort of become a normal person.

You could have a lot of fun if you do get rescued and, again, have to watch him try and get through an immigration system. I mean, that would be satisfying, I suppose. He's also, he doesn't strike me as the sort of person that would ever muck in. No. You know, he thinks he's special. Yeah, yeah.

I think someone with a lot of opinions on things but not actually very good at doing them you know like a lot of mansplaining yeah we're gonna have to have you know coconut water mansplained to me several times i think oh man oh unbearable right well i think it's a very strong choice and obviously you know we could pick any one of his sort of uh for the cabinet as well but i think yeah he's a perfect choice just because he's displayed such a degree of uh his psychopathy as you've said so uh a good choice uh who's going to be joining him who's the next person a similar theme actually so i i um do a lot of traveling for my my day job when i'm i on LBC is I go to schools and colleges throughout the world.

And I work with teenagers on issues related to mental health. And I conduct research with young people as well. So I get a lot of trains and I also fly a lot, unfortunately, kind of have to, to get where I'm going. And there is a certain type of oblivious, arrogant travel dick that I definitely would have been on the plane with before the plane crashed onto the desert island. So in a plane scenario would either stand up to queue at the gate way too early or way too late. So they either don't listen to the people very patiently saying, we're going to call you by your group. So if you're not in groups one to three,

don't stand by the gate. They've got no time for that. They're just trying to get on the plane. Or they equally do that thing of, it won't leave without me. It will leave without you. Like just, they've got absolutely no sense of there being a system

for getting everybody on the plane in an orderly fashion, will not have thought about the fact that they might need a few things in a separate bag from their cabin bag. So they'll be standing up rummaging around in the cabin at the point where they're telling everybody to sit down and put their seatbelts on, thus delaying everything. There was a plane that I got recently that had one of these travel dicks on it. He immediately got off the plane and we had one of those buses to take us to the terminal

because we were quite far from the terminal. He got off the plane and lit up a cigarette next to a jet engine. And if I hadn't been in close proximity with lots of other innocent people, there was part of me that was like, well, I hope you die. Yeah. Because that's such a stupid thing to do yeah that's sort of no consideration dick yeah yeah definitely yeah i think we've all we've all uh we've all met people like this and it's just

the thing that just makes what is such a spectacular uh invention just so mundane and irritating you know like like jet jet aviation is this incredible thing i mean you know it's kind of bad for the environment isn't it but it's what's been achieved is this incredible thing and then it just sort of gets slapped down a few levels by people like this just making everything like this boring annoying slog and like you have like a little vendetta with someone in your head the whole journey and you think i just want to enjoy my flight but i just i loathe this person look at the way he's doing this stupid idiot and i and i there's something about the i'm not sure what it is but there's something about flying that

magnifies that irritation if you were in a different scenario with this person you probably wouldn't find them so irritating but the hatred intensifies I think maybe it's something to do with air pressure maybe like the pressure cooker effect of it all but I suppose other things you could just like other modes of transport if there's a train you could sort of get up and walk away for a bit you know you could kind of escape them find a spare seat you can't do any of that in a plane it's like you have to sit here at this time for this length of time and you can't move away. And that's that. And you're just sort of simmering with it. Usually a bit more tired because you've had to get up earlier.

You know, there's a bit more stress and a bit more administration to go through. So, you know, you're generally feeling a little bit like cattle at some point, you know, all the checkpoints and procedures. So I think, you know, we're never at our best when we're on a plane, really. So any little thing will just niggle at you and and then they're at our best when we're on a plane, really. So any little thing will just niggle at you and, and then they're sitting opposite you and you can just see them being idiots and complaining that they can't open their nuts, even though the person next to them is allergic or something like that, you know. Do you know what they also do? As soon as the seat belt sign goes off, I can understand if you're in an aisle seat, standing up straight away, getting

in the aisle, that helps the flow of people. But regardless of where they're sitting, they will immediately stand up and sort of loom over everyone else. And the thing that I find uncomfortable about flying is not being in the air. I don't mind that at all. It's the being trapped in a sort of tin can. And that makes me feel really claustrophobic when I see people standing with their heads bent against the top like in being John Malkovich like we're all kind of marionettes waiting to get off of the plane and I'm like why can't you just sit for another five minutes like why this kind of spring to your feet as soon as the seatbelt sign comes off like what just calm down I agree I agree

I once in an airport someone lost it at us we're on one of the little buses that you're talking about you know that drives you to the to the edge of the plane and uh I was with my son was very young at the time and I think there was like a dispute over whether we could sit down or whether this man could sit down even though he was just on his own and not holding a baby and he we sort of said I'm sorry but we're getting knocked around carrying this toddler do you mind if I sit there and he was like oh for god's sake and then got up and moved and we were like holy shit right okay well okay well thanks and we sort of sat down with with my son and then after the flight at the baggage handling he came up to us and went

do you know what I'm so sorry I don't know what happened to me I was just really tired and I was just in a terrible mood I feel awful about about that. And it was almost like, it was so unexpected. It was worth him doing it. I was like, it put me in such a good mood. I was like, oh mate, don't worry. That's okay. And I felt like, I always felt bad for him. So it's like, there are people out there, I mean, incredibly rare who kind of realise it afterwards, but I'd say 99.9% of them are just dicks. Yeah, I love that. I love that he reflected on his behaviour and apologised to you.

Yeah, you just think, oh, right, maybe the world's OK. Maybe we're all just having a bad day. And, you know, if we get the chance to make up for it, we'll all be all right. You know, you just think, wow, humanity's going to be fine. Spoiler alert, it's not um but yeah i think having someone like this on the island is going to be really irritating i think more than anything it's just a sort of lack of self-awareness isn't it and it's sort of well i don't see why i can't do this it's perfectly fine for me to behave however I want at any time and I think that energy with Jonathan Gullis pretty bad yeah I mean they're the same person aren't they really Jonathan Gullis probably is one of those travel dicks I mean I hope I haven't libeled him there maybe he's delightful on a plane

but I strongly doubt it yeah I mean it'd be weird if he was a nice person in a very specific environment do you know what? When I'm in a plane, I stop being racist. I don't know why. I don't know why. It's a weird thing. But anyway, right, who's the third person going to be? So the third person, again, it's a type of person. And I know I look at some of the comments for this podcast,

and I know that sometimes people get annoyed when you don't pick specific people and you pick types of people but all the specific people that I would have picked like Piers Morgan and Boris Johnson you know they've already been done several times so yeah um yeah I decided to go for another type of person which is pick me bitches I want to be with a pick me bitch on the island. I mean, I don't want to be with one. But I should begin by saying that, you know, often what we dislike most in other people is something that we recognize in ourselves. And I definitely used to be one of these women. And fortunately, there was a point where I saw the error of my ways, but it was a long, long road to get to a point where I don't feel like I have that much of it in me anymore.

But because I have been in that situation, I find it so irritating when I see it in others. And it's women who they're trying to get positive affirmation from men, but in doing so, they throw the sisterhood under the bus. And there's so many of them in media because they're useful, because one of their main sticks is denying that sexism exists. So they're the kind of women who say, there's not really a gender pay gap, you know, if you look at the figures in a certain way, or I find it flattering when I'm sexually harassed. And because they're women, they're so useful to the denial of sexism because it has more credibility coming from a woman than it would do coming from a man. So they're platformed endlessly. There's so many of these types that have columns in newspapers.

And it's so damaging to the progress of feminism. But I think that I've thought about this a lot because of writing Babushka, which is set in the year 2000, which was a very weird time because we'd kind of had the 90s and we'd had the zig-a-zig-a girl power feminism, but we'd also had lads mags and

it was this weird time of where it felt very free and liberal but there was actually a lot of misogyny to to deal with and that was a time when it was a badge of honor to say I'm not like other girls and it was definitely when you had that the kind of surge of the manic pixie dream girl you know in in films where she's just one of the lads but she's also really sexy and that's what you were told you had to aspire to be and and sort of distancing yourself from other women was um you know it was was something that was applauded and was rewarded. And so I think I, for a while, was very much a product of that culture. And a lot of women my age are still that way. And I think that that's where it comes from in a lot of instances.

Yeah, it's an interesting thing. I'd only just heard the term the other day, actually. It was a stand-up Celia AB who mentioned it. And I was like, oh, right. But it sort ofia AB who who mentioned it and I was like oh right but it sort of made sense when I heard it I thought oh right yeah I totally have seen that and it is a weird thing um and I could totally understand how it must be incredibly frustrating when you see it in action as well yeah it because it's so um see, having sort of written those types of articles myself before in the past, I can tell you that it feels really good because there's this internalized misogyny thing where you will, um, if you are told that you're clever by a man, you take that on board more than if you're told you're clever by a woman. And so what you'll get if you say something like not all men, for example, you will get a horde of men telling you how clever you are and, you know, how well you've done not to be sucked in by the cult of feminism and that you're truly a free thinker. And that feels really good. That validation feels really good.

And, you know, there's a lot of work in it because it's a very convenient narrative for the media. So I completely get why some women do that. But in terms of your contribution to the kind of advancement of women's rights and the work that still needs to be done, I think that they're actually one of the biggest barriers. And that's, you know, that's ultimately why I stopped doing it. But yeah, imagine being on an island with Jonathan Gullis, the travel dick is male in my head, and then a pick me bitch. Imagine that. Oh, man. Yeah, terrible. And you a pick me bit. Imagine that. Oh man. Yeah. Terrible.

And you're just going to be that opinionated person over there. Who's always going against what we think and the right way of doing things. I mean, you're not like that, are you? And then, you know, that sort of behavior just all the time.

Yeah. And she'll say that, that it's patronizing. Cause you know, I read this book that was for kids the other day that really annoyed me it was a book about feminism for um like four-year-olds or something and in it it said oh feminism is about treating everyone the same and I was like no it's not that you like you've begun with a lie any kind of equality is about trying to ensure equality of outcomes. So like,

if I was trying to explain it to a kid, I would say, say I'm talking to an able-bodied child, I'd say, right, if I took you and your friend who uses a wheelchair somewhere, and we were at the bottom of a flight of stairs, and I said to both of you, right, let's walk up this flight of stairs, that would be treating you equally. But it wouldn't be fair, would it? Because I said to both of you, right, let's walk up this flight of stairs, that would be treating you equally. But it wouldn't be fair, would it? Because I have to make allowances for the fact that one of you is a wheelchair user. So in order to get you both to the top of the flight of stairs, I have to treat one differently from the other to ensure equality of outcome. That's what equality actually is. And, you know, there are certain things that make the experience of being a woman different from the experience of being a man.

But if you try and point that out to a pick me bitch, they're like, oh, you're just being patronizing. You know, just treat everybody the same. And that's what's going to happen on the island. If I say, look, I've got really bad period pain. I can't build the hut today. I'm not getting any allowances made for me. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I can see this. this is an absolute nightmare of an island I think you're doing a superb job yeah I find it such a fascinating idea this person but uh I think you've you've uh described it so well

and uh yeah I certainly kind of I'm sort of stuttering for things to say now because I'm just kind of thinking of all the different ways I've sort of seen it you know but I think you've done a superb job and yeah just the interplay of them the way it's going to make you feel I just I mean they're not just dicks it's going to be frustrating every day you know in a very sort of deep way I think so yeah well Natasha you nailed that and we're going to move on to another section because mercifully amongst the wreckage of the plane, there was some food and drink left over. Unfortunately for ease, but I'm not actually. My rule is that I don't eat anything that I couldn't kill. Okay, that's fair. That's my rule.

And I appreciate that it's probably a very flawed and hypocritical way of thinking. But for example, if I was really hungry, I could kill a chicken, but I couldn't kill a duck because it's cuter. Yeah. All right. So my rule is I don't eat duck, but sometimes I do eat chicken. I don't eat a lot of it, but sometimes I do. I don't really have any empathy with a fish. I don't cook a lot of fish at home, but when I go out to a restaurant, I'll usually pick the fish, you know, as a treat. And I don't eat any mammals at all the thing that i hate most is food with a face so anything where you can tell what it was so for example um if you order calamari and you know sometimes they give you a little tiny baby squid so it will be squid rings

that are breaded but then they'll give you like a deep fried baby squid so it'll be squid rings that are breaded but then they'll give you like a deep fried baby squid so it's like the whole sort of tube it's like a tiny octopus i know yes oh yes yes yes i remembered and you're like what what are you trying to do to me you've given me empathy for my food i can't i can't eat it now so i'm guessing on an island you know there's going to be a lot of seafood involved so i'm going to pick any seafood where you can see what it was so a big prawn with a face or yeah i'm not going near that or you know um you know sometimes you get octopus tail and it's still got the suckers on oh yes yeah yeah yeah anything of that ilk no, or when you just get served a whole fish with the head on and everything instead of filleted.

No, no, I'm not happy. I don't have a problem with the whole fish thing. I just, I'm really bad at taking it off without eating every single bone in it by mistake. Like, oh, I've got it off neatly. And then I'm just like, oh, God, it's like spitting feathers out, but just tiny bones all over my face. Yeah, it's a weird thing, isn't it? With seafood, I guess because you can't just cut chunks off them as easily. Obviously, you can fillet fish, but it's not like cows.

You just carve a bit off. There you go. No idea what it looked like. There you go. But with a fish, it's more intricate and delicate. You know, prawn, you just get the whole thing. So I go. But with a fish, it's more intricate and delicate, you know, prawn. You just get the whole thing. So I guess that's why we've got it.

But it does really kind of put it in your face. I mean, I think a lot of stuff from the sea just looks insane anyway. You know, it's just there's just so much weird stuff going on down there, you know. And I think that's why we kind of think, whoa, holy crap, that's a weird looking thing. You know, like lobsters, just bizarre, you know. But they're also so insanely fiddly to get the meat off that you just kind of go, I haven't got time for this. Eat it. There you go. I've just boiled the whole thing. I just get the whole thing. There you go.

We'll pretend that it's more rustic. It's nice like that. There are so many weird things that live in the sea though right like and i don't understand people i mean i'm very glad that there are people who love deep sea diving because they're very important to understanding our ecosystem and how the world works but i can't imagine anything more terrifying than going down where it's dark and being faced with things that look like they should be in a horror film oh yeah yeah yeah like the underside of a crustacean is just horrendous you know you go aliens of course you just went what's a lobster look like let's make it even scarier it's a good it's like it's a bit like a spider it's a bit like a scorpion but it's bigger and it lives somewhere dark that we don't understand. And imagine it jumps on your face now.

Yeah, it's so true. Yeah, I don't want to eat that. I don't want to eat any of that. So that, yeah, that's my food choice. And then my drink choice is something that I love, but a bad version of it. Okay. So I really like a white wine.

That's usually my drink of choice. But there is a particular type, and it's a very expensive type of white wine that's usually my my drink of choice but there is a particular type and it's a very expensive type of of white wine actually that people you know they talk about it as though it's a treat called sunsair yeah to me that tastes like sore throat that's the only way i can describe it it's the taste of a sore throat so i I'm imagining a scenario where there's this thing that in theory is one of my favorite things but it's one that is a warm because I've crashed on a desert island and be a type that I really don't like I feel like that would be a very particular sort of torture yeah yeah I I really like wine and i find it so frustrating sometimes like just how difficult it is to be sure sometimes you kind of think okay this is a nice bottle i've spent a bit on this

and i enjoyed this one last time and you open it up completely different and you just think oh this is this is rubbish and that was my friday night drink and i can't go out now because the kids are asleep and my wife's out and you just think fucking wine just be consistent like why can't I know what I'm getting every other drink I know what it is damn you wine um you don't get that with Ribena do you no and I read a thing recently saying that apparently all like the really like entry-level wines that you see in like news agents and whatever they spend loads of money making sure like there's always the same every time and they're quite important to the wine industry because it's like lots of people's gateway in but then when you get get up to the you know get above that you know the lofty sort of 10 pounds and above sort of marketplace oh fuck it just whatever these

people are still drinking it they like it when it's weird so yeah I know what you mean it's um sometimes yeah especially it's so close to the thing you like and it's just it's not there it's the most frustrating thing in the world I actually had a wine expert tell me exactly that same thing that you just said that if you are a lay person you should never spend more I think they said than 12 pounds on a bottle of wine because he said in sort of a slightly condescending way, it's not for you. Beyond that price range, it's not for you. You won't know what's good about it.

Just stay in your lane, essentially. Thanks for making it even less accessible. So we're trying to demystify the world of wine here. You just made it even worse. Yeah, I'm trying to think. I do like white wine here you just made it even even worse um yeah i'm trying to think i don't i do like white wine i don't drink as much of it as as i do with red and stuff so i'm um but i've always thought the sancerre has been quite posh and kind of a bit more like fancy but i couldn't tell you exactly what it's like but bad white wine is hard is a harder thing to battle through than bad red i I think. Yeah, I agree with you.

And red wine would be okay at the temperature that it would be on the island as well, whereas warm white wine is not the one. Yeah, even nice white wine that you've enjoyed and then suddenly you come back to your glass and you're like, oh my God, who's peed in my glass? This is awful. But yeah, it's like there's a fine operating window for it.

So yeah, yeah. I can imagine Jonathan Gullis gulping it down though and just sort of, you know, saying how expensive it is. You must like it. It's expensive. Oh, you probably like Lambrini. It's my favourite. It's my favourite type of wine because sophisticated men like it.

I was thinking actually about your food choice in Jonathan Gullis. I kind of imagine he's someone who at once is very squeamish, but also thinks we should kill and eat everything. Do you know what I mean? Sort of like the blokey, stupid side of him is like, oh, come on, just like, don't be some namby-pamby vegetarian on the island. We've got to survive. Oh, no, I can't look at that until it's cooked.

You know, sort of a weirdo like that okay well i think you know it could be like a nice glass of white wine and some seafood and the right setting could be delicious but this is not the right setting so a horrible meal awaits you but fortunately you won't be without entertainment on the island the planes entertainment system continues to work but just your, it only has two working settings. One is your least favourite film of all time and the other is your least favourite song. What are they and why?

Film, I'm going to go with Shallow Howl. Mm-hmm, yes. What was that? Like, it's such a good concept for a film as well. The idea that you could, if it wasn't a comedy, you could look at a guy who had internalized all these ideas about how women should be and how it would reflect on him if he was with the quote-unquote right woman,

and then had his perspective changed and started to see the inner beauty in people and how that impacted his evolution in his life that could have been a really good film but instead what we got was just loads of fat jokes and no no one really learning anything just it's awful film. And it has Tony Robbins in it as well, who I have multiple, so many issues with as a human. But the idea that, you know, he's the gateway to becoming less sexist, I have an issue with as well.

Yeah, because I remember the poster was kind of, it's Jack Black, isn't it? Is it Jack Black? Yeah. And something happens to him where he then he doesn't see Gwyneth Paltrow as a fat person is that what I say yeah he's so he um for reasons which we're not entirely sure of because he's not he doesn't play a character with a great deal to offer like he's not super intelligent or super wealthy or anything like

that he's just a bloke but he has very exacting standards when it comes to the women that he will date and so he's hypnotized by Tony Robbins to see inner beauty and it changes his perspective and then for some reason he then exists in a world where all the people who are conventionally attractive are hideous people. And all the people who are not conventionally attractive have inner beauty. Because obviously that's how the world works as well. Yeah, 100%. And it's, yeah, a lot of the comedy comes from his friends laughing at the fact that he finds people attractive that he didn't before. Yeah, yeah. Because I remember the poster for it or like the cover, the picture on the cover. It was like him sitting in a rowing boat with Gwyneth Paltrow.

And because she's so heavy, the boat's all tilted up with him at the top because, whoa, she's so fat. Remember, she's fat. You have to remember this. That's the bad thing. But he doesn't see it. That's why it's funny because she's a big person. And it's like, yeah, I don't know. It just feels like quite a lot has changed since then.

Yeah. And thank goodness it has. It's just such a wasted opportunity because i like guinness paltrow or i did pre-goof and i like jack black and i like the concept of the film it could have been great but it it's actually just a festival of fat shaming and it's not funny it's just it's just a dreadful dreadful film yeah yeah and then you've got the people on the island with you going come on can't you take a joke look look she's heavy the boat's gone up he's tipped the boat up yeah i'm gonna get called a feminazi for not appreciating the

film yeah for sure also it's not even that accurate think how heavy you'd have to be to tilt a rowing boat that high up i mean it, it's just inaccurate. Yeah, it's defying the laws of physics. That's my main issue with it. Stop getting it wrong. Yeah, so I think that would, I think a lot of these choices are great because they really play in well to the company that you're keeping on the island. And I think this is a great example. Just, oh, come on, it's just a bit of fun. You're telling me that you wouldn't find that version of her more attractive than the other one? Come on, do me a favour. That's exactly what they would say.

That was scarily good, you know. I'm one of them. I'm sorry. This is just a pretense. You know, I'm actually very right wing and awful. And what would your song choice be? My song choice is going to be Dancing Queen by ABBA. Okay, yep.

So I have an interesting relationship with ABBA because my parents hate ABBA. So my parents, really into soul music, met because they were into the well I guess like the disco scene back in the 70s um but they said I always remember being told growing up if you wanted to clear a dance floor back in the 70s you put ABBA on there you know cheesy cheesy cheesy music and so I grew up thinking that ABBA was dreadful and then it's only in adulthood that I've actually properly listened to them and gone some of this is actually really good and I can see how it's innovative as well and it's different from other stuff that was happening at the time and and there are some of their their tunes that I think are absolute bangers but Dancing Queen is not one of them and I have a very specific memory attached to Dancing Queen because it's always for some reason

I'm not sure why when I came of age in the late 90s early 2000s it's the song that they put on at the end of the night before they turn the lights up in a club. So I just sort of associate it with, you know, looking at who's pulled and who hasn't. And how am I going to get home? And in a minute, I'm going to see how sticky the floor is. You know that feeling? Yeah. Yeah. That's what I associate with that song. It's a weird song. It's quite slow and kind of like, I don't know. I find it quite laborious.

It's sort of some of this stuff, like gimme, gimme, gimme, I think is really funky. I think it's brilliant. I've only discovered it in the last few years. I mean,

I'd always heard it, but you know, when you like suddenly hear it again and you go, Oh my God, I think I fucking love this song. This is incredible. And it's one, I love it now,

but yeah, Dancing Queen is just a bit like, I agree that it sort of has a bit of sadness to it. Like it feels like watching other people have a nice time while you're feeling a bit down. I don't know. You're so right that it's one of those songs that I think probably is really sad because quite a few of their songs are,

there is a darkness and a melancholy to them but people just kind of take the the headline of dancing queen and and think oh we'll put this on for the ladies you know it's what is one of those isn't it um and it's yeah it it's sad it makes me feel sad in my Yeah. Because I just think the thing about ABBA is just sort of like unashamedly upbeat, pop, well-produced, just a bit of fun, you know. And that is just, yeah, I don't know. It doesn't have any of that. And I think that on an island is just going to sort of make you feel sort of nostalgic

and sad at the same time, you know. Yeah. You know, obviously the pick-me-bitch bitch loves it has to be in opposition to you but but you're right yeah i've gone the same with abba like these days i think they're great but i remember like one of my cousins is really good at the piano and he's in an abba tribute band in australia and i remember like flying over there my aunt making us go and watch them and i was like oh come on i'm 18 I don't want to go and stand in a working men's club in Australia watching my cousin play in an ABBA band and now I've kind of shed my self-consciousness a little bit more you know in my 40s it's like oh I can enjoy this now but you know I think no band is without fault you know

so it's fine you know I love David Bowie and some of his early stuff is horrendous. You know, The Laughing Gnome? Awful, awful. Yeah. Even Prince wasn't 100% on top of his game. Yeah. I never really trust people who think certain artists are infallible. You know, like all the big ones. You know, I was going to say Michael Jackson,

but of course that's a bad example. But, I mean, just in terms of his work, you know, Earth Song, come on, it's rubbish. Although I do think in David Bowie's defence, what you can see is that he had to do the bad ones to get to the good ones. So you know how everyone slags off Tin Machine? I do think there's some good Tin Machine tracks, but I can see the criticism of it is valid but that's exactly what he needed to do to get to the good to get to like heathen yeah yeah he needed to go through that phase absolutely listen i i could sit and talk about david bowie all day i think is is you know fantastic in so many ways and part of that is like just not really

giving a shit what other people thought you know it's like the best thing about him. Like, I'm going to I've done this. I'm going to go and do something completely different now. Yeah, I'm over here now. Didn't see that coming. But yeah, I think there's some stinkers there. So but anyway, enough about Dave Bowie. Dancing Queen is your song.

Now, Natasha, finally, the island is overrun by the biggest dick of all the animals. Which animal is it and why? So, you know how my colleague James O'Brien on LBC has an hour every week called Mystery Hour? For anybody who doesn't know, if you have a question that you've always wanted to know the answer to, like, why do we do this or why do we say this? You can call up and then if you're listening and you know the answer, you're not allowed to look it up. That's that's the rule. But if you're listening and you know the answer you're not allowed to look it up that's that's the rule but if you're listening and you know the answer you call in and so it's like a pub quiz type thing but it's you know it's good old-fashioned fun and I can't call up mystery hour now because I work at LBC I mean there's no rule that says I can't but it would be a bit weird yeah which is a shame because I never managed to get through before and I've had this question that I really want to ask for ages

which is why have we evolved to find things that can and will kill us cute yeah so like lions are cute tigers are cute bears are cute and why like why do I want to cuddle a lion is my mystery hour question. Yeah. And I think that would be probably my dick. I think it would be really sort of Disney-looking Mufasa-y lions all over the island that I want to cuddle. I want to snuggle into their mane. But they're going to rip my head off. I know.

God, the idea of cuddling a big cat is so good. Like, you know, occasionally you see on YouTube there's people who've, I don't know, they've worked with them for their whole life and they'll, like, run up to a big field full of lions and the big male lion will just see it, like, really excited, bound up to him like a giant dog, and they'll just have this big embrace. i just think how good would that be i have left it too late now i haven't put the work in for that ever to happen you know but and i just think i'd there'd be a part of me would never be able to sort of be i'm too uptight i think there'd be a bit of me it would just smell

a tiny bit of fear in the background just kill me even though you know me all my life but that you know just sinking into that big fur and a big pause around you oh so great and I think that if you have to be scared of a shark it's so easy it's so easy you have to be scared of a lion like you're gonna see it and you go shit there's the lion we've got to run but god look at it in the sunlight doesn't it look just majestic yeah so true and I'm a big animal person as well like I love you had a guest on recently actually who I thought that's such a genius choice who said that they would have dogs that didn't like you on the island that is the worst isn't it when because dogs are so friendly as a general rule to everyone. But the idea that they particularly don't like you

and you'd be rejected by a dog, I thought that was such a genius choice. But I love nothing more than, you know, like if I've had a drink and I see a dog in the pub, I'm that person who gets down on the floor with them and I'm like, and I would miss that. But you can't do that with a lion.

And that guest, I can't remember who it was who who chose dogs, but they don't like you. I thought that's absolute genius. And this is a similar choice in a way, because I think I would miss that. I would miss the Wazzles. We call them the Wazzles where you're like with a dog or a cat. And it would be so close to an opportunity to do that but with the imminent threat of death yeah and i think a part of me would just always think that you know maybe one day we'd establish a bond if i feed it enough fish you know maybe maybe we'll learn that i'm the means to catch the fish but uh i think if i stop at any moment it'll just kill me my cat's the same would just

kill me at any point if it could i think you know and he's a lovely boy but i think you know i'm just one step away from him killing me if i make the wrong move luckily he's too small so it's okay but i mean he'll try he will try and i won't even blame him for it because i'm an idiot i'm just like oh well you do your own thing idiot i'm just like you know i was like oh well you do your own thing now i'm just gonna go over here he tried yesterday but i still love him i'm just a fool so yeah so so are we gonna should we settle on lions or sort of just a big big swarming plagues of uh prides of various big cats i think lions in particular are very cute and cuddly. Yeah, they seem to have like a real thickness to their fur, don't they?

Yeah. And I think other big cats might sort of at some point realise that you're both living on the island. I think a lion always has to be boss. Jonathan Gullis sitting there going, you know what, reminds me of me, that lion. Yeah. And did you know that lions are originally from England? Yeah. No, why do you think we have it on the football shirt then?

Genius, if you're so clever. Yeah. Natasha, I think it's a very good end to a wonderful selection of people and things that will make your life an absolute misery. So thank you so much for coming on Desert Iron Dicks today. We were talking very briefly at the beginning, I alluded that you've got a new book out, Babushka. Yeah. And it's set in the year 2000, like I say. So it's technically a YA novel insofar as the protagonist is a teenager. But I'm hoping that people my age will want to read it for a bit of nostalgia as well. Okay, so that's out from the 5th of October. And, you know, we can find you on Instagram and you've got a website as well.

You're up to so many things all the time. Of course, you're on LBC as well, so people can catch you there. You are a multifaceted individual. And yeah, it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. So thank you so much for coming on Desert Island Dicks today. Thank you for having me. So there you go.

I had a lovely time talking to Natasha. I think she's a really interesting person to chat to. So yeah, it was a real pleasure having her on the podcast there. Right, I think that's it for me today. Go get your tickets for Desert Island Dicks live and I will see you there in a few weeks' time. My name is Dan and this has been Desert Island Dicks. This has been a Sink Clap production.

It was dreamt up, created and produced by James Deacon. It was produced and presented by me, Dan. Thanks to Chris Attaway for occasional editing support. And as always, a big shout out. I see you there, Mr John Deacon. Hello, sir. That's it from us. We'll be back soon.

Thank you to everyone who's listened and have a lovely week. Bye.