Desert Island Dicks - NICK HELM

Episode Date: August 24, 2022

Nick Helm joins us to decide who and what would be the worst collection of people and things to be stuck with on a desert island. He's in Edinburgh, so if you're up there, or planning to be there, why not go and see him and have a lovely time? And if even the thought of laughing and being generally entertained makes you feel good, then come and see us for Desert Island Dicks LIVE, on Thursday 6th October in Balham, London, as part of the Cheerful Earful Podcast Festival - link here: https://www.designmynight.com/london/pubs/balham/the-bedford/cheerful-earful-podcast-festival?t=tickets Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements, or run a reproduced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Lipson Ads. Go to lipsonads.com now. That's L-I-B-S-Y-N ads.com. Hi, it's Dan from Desert Island Dicks. This episode features the wonderful Nick Helm. He's up in Edinburgh at the minute doing his show, so there's still time to go and see him. And yeah, I would have put this episode out sooner to let you know there's still time to go and see him and uh yeah i would have put this episode out sooner to let you know there's more time to see his show but unfortunately i screwed my back last week like an old old man and that's delayed things somewhat but look hey he's still up there

you can still go and see him so i suggest you do if i'm honest we had a bit of a catastrophe because um my audio turns out even though I recorded the whole thing when we come to play it back the file is corrupted so we only got half an hour of my audio so basically at some point during the podcast it's going to switch to some inferior quality audio I think you can get through it if you really put your mind to it so I think you can get through it if you really put your mind to it. So I think you should just crack on and just enjoy yourself and not even worry. By the time the audio changes over, you'll be so dialed in. I don't think you'll care. But, you know, I'm just letting you know.

It's a podcasting tradition to apologize for audio at the start of a podcast, I think. So, you know, I'm just following those who came before me in the grand tradition of our medium. Speaking of our medium, we're taking part in a comedy podcast festival in October. You can get tickets. It's called the Cheerful Earful Podcast Festival. We're kicking it off on the first night, which is Thursday, the 6th of October, with a very special guest who I know you'll love. So get tickets from the link in the description bit of this podcast episode information thing, or you can just Google Cheerful Earful Podcast Fest.

I've also put the link up on our Twitter, maybe also our Instagram. I need to check that. But look, I think I trust you. I think you can find it. So you'll get there. You're going to get there. We can do this together. And then hopefully in October we can meet up and hang out and have a drink and

just shoot the breeze. It would be lovely to meet you. So I hope to see you there. Okay. Enough of my waffle on with the podcast. It's Desert Island Dicks with Nick Helm. Hi, I'm Dan Benedictus and welcome to Desert Island Dicks, the show that sees you marooned on a desert island after a plane crash with the worst people and worst things imaginable. Who they are and why they're a dick is up to our guest and here to share their desert island dicks with us today is comedian, actor and musician Nick Helm. How are you doing? Hello, hello. I'm all right, thank you. How are you? I'm good, thank you. I'm good. So you're up in Edinburgh at the minute,

you're in the middle of things? Yes, I'm in the middle of the festival. From what i have heard that can be quite a draining experience so it can be a quite positive experience how are you finding it at the minute i i think it's always both i think or maybe it's not always positive i don't know i've always found it positive i'd not i can't speak for everyone but it is just exhausting just doing stuff it's really weird as well because you kind of like, my show's on at 5.25, so it's not like in the evening and it's not really the afternoon.

So I have quite a gentle morning that leads up to this one hour of doing a show and then I'm finished by 6.30 and it's absolutely exhausting. Do you know what I mean? It's like why is it why is it so exhausting I don't know but like having to I suppose having to do it every single day and it's not necessarily that that the show is exhausting it's that the schedule is just sort of like you've just got to it every single day it's like there's no there's no days off although i do get a day off on the 17th but yeah it's just sort of like you do that and then you do it again and then you do it again until yeah the end and i think everyone's sort of like proving what they

needed to prove in the first four days and so it's just mean really it's just a cruel festival yeah i can imagine i can imagine so i mean we're about to go through a list of people and things that you know you would hate to be stuck with on a desert island i don't want to i mean you seem like you've got quite a positive outlook in general uh from the little chat we're having before we started recording you know i'm anxious not to kind of put you in a bad mood and affect your show later on. But I mean, maybe it could be a cathartic experience for you. You know, you shed any remnants of negativity and then you're fully 100% feeling positive. Yeah, maybe, maybe.

But, you know, I've been thinking about, I can't remember when you asked me to desert island is either too true to say out loud or no one else really bothers me. So maybe I'm just going to think about it from an Edinburgh point of view and I'll see how I feel about it. Okay. Well, hopefully it won't make anything too awkward And I see how I feel about it, yeah. Okay, okay. Well, hopefully it won't make anything too awkward. Or maybe, you know, if anything awkward happens and people realise you're talking about them or alluding to anything they've done,

then maybe it'll do you a favour and they just will never deal with you ever again. So who knows? Yeah, sure. Okay, right, your plane has crashed. Who's going to be the first person with you on the island? The first person? I mean the island the first person i mean it's a weird question as well because i'm literally picking people that i wouldn't want to

be on an island with are you the guy in charge of um of putting these people on the plane with me yeah i guess i'm probably the person you know i don't know what do you call them they're like is it the steward the person who takes your ticket and sends you off down the ramp i don't know yeah and the architect yeah but you're like yeah you're like the god of this game right so i could lie to you and i could just say three people that i really like and then i'd be stuck on an island with them but that's not the game is it it's not really the game i mean you could if you can if you know if you can convincingly say well there'd be a pain in the ass and then you know the jokes on me later on. But I mean, I don't mind.

I'm not too strict about it, Nick, I'll be honest. It's a lighthearted throwaway podcast. No, it's not lighthearted. That's the thing. You've asked me to do this and it's involved a lot of introspection here. Now, here's the other thing. Am I the only comedian on the island? It's a desert island.

And there's just going to be me and these three other people on the island. That's right, yeah. If I'm in charge of entertainment, I would say one of the worst people I could have on the island would be an over-enthusiastic audience member. Okay. Why are they so bad? What, an over-enthusiastic audience member well an enthusiastic audience

member is fantastic um but an over an over-enthusiastic audience member can be as disruptive as uh an angry heckler okay so i do like audience interaction and i bring people up on stage and i talk to them and you find that there's sort of like a sweet spot that you hit with someone that's enjoying it, but not enjoying it so much that they're sort of a frustrated performer themselves. And so when I get people on stage, I sort of just want them to be natural and just to sort of like do what they're being told to do. And then if they follow sort of like the instructions, then they end up looking like an absolute superstar.

However, you sometimes get people that want to add a little bit too much and then they end up sort of like derailing the entire show. And when you're sort of on stage trying to pick who you're going to use, you know, you've got to be kind of like instinctive about it. So I always, whenever you see people on the front row or in the second row or, you know, I don't always pick people on the front row. You look at them and what you want

is you want someone that's enjoying the show but not enjoying the show too much and someone that's not enjoying the show too little. You just want just the right amount of enjoyment. So if they're overenthusiastic, they can kind of like absolutely destroy it. They can destroy everything. And then the whole audience ends up hating them. And then you as a performer,

as the person that got them involved in the first place, you look like you've done it deliberately to sort of like show this person up. And that's not the intention. The intention is to make them look like a superhero but yeah sometimes they they destroy it all by themselves and you can't do anything about it yeah yeah so knowing your limits so i guess yeah if you're stuck with this sort of person on the island and they're a bit over enthusiastic and towards your comedy uh your performance then kind of feels like they're just going to be a bit unbearable for the rest of the time as well maybe just a bit over sure of

themselves a bit too kind of yeah just a bit tiring yeah well you just know straight away you say uh hey how about you would you cut and they're like yep and they're up on their feet before the evening and you're like oh no no no no no not you not you there needs to be someone with a little bit of self-doubt in them to kind of so that they can overcome it and they can be like um a success story yeah rather than someone that's pushing you out the way and and taking over and kind of destroying it all well i think that makes sense i just think that that sort of the sort of person that is too enthusiastic, one, they've been picked out of an audience at a comedy show,

is also, I just think the sort of traits that makes that person that enthusiastic is just going to make them quite an annoying person. And as you say, maybe a frustrated performer or maybe just overconfident with no reason to be. So you kind of think, what else are you going to be annoying about? Yeah. Oh, gosh. Now I'm understanding the implications of this imaginary audience member

being too enthusiastic to get on stage that has a knock-on effect for every aspect of their entire life. Okay, fair enough. Well, let's move on to the next person and see how they get along with the first pick. Who's your second choice?

My second choice is, now we're in the festival, is people that walk slowly. People that walk slowly and have no spatial awareness in terms of other people. So there's three of them walking along a pavement towards you and you're on your own and then you end up walking in the road to sort of get around them. People like that. But in Edinburgh, there's like thousands of them wherever you go. You're literally, I'm quite safe because I live about 10 minutes away from my venue.

So I leave my flat 10 minutes before, not 10 minutes before, but like 40 minutes before I have to go on stage. I get to my venue half an hour before I go on stage. I do it all. I do my stuff, do the show, and then I leave and I come home again. And so I'm quite like in and out but in the few times I've been caught in it when you need to get somewhere then either people that are walking slowly or people or the other thing about Edinburgh is that it takes you so long to get anywhere because you know everyone so you bump into people every ten feet and you end up having to have a long conversation or not even a long

conversation but everyone has the same conversation they all go like hey how you doing how's your show going and everyone talks about how the show is going and everyone's got like a thousand thousand yards stair where they're kind of like staring off into the middle distance because they're all shell shocked by how exhausted they are or how badly their show's going or how amazing their show's going but they don't want to sort of like tell anyone or brag about it and so i just think like um maybe maybe the answer to this is um if i was to be trapped on a desert island it might not be with um anyone that would choose to spend a summer at the edinburgh festival because

because i think there's a certain level of um uh masochism involved in spending an entire month up there yeah okay well i mean we could go with those we could go with those two people if you want so you've got an annoying person with a lack of self-awareness in public and you've also got a fellow performer at the festival um or someone who decides to spend a month at the festival i'm very pro i'm very pro performers at the festival i'm a performer and i think it would be disingenuous for me to throw this all under the bus but um we are annoying as well i mean i you have to flyer you have to flyer and flyers you know um get treated well i don't know how they get treated i've not met my flyers this year i normally take my flyers flyers out for a drink but um but flyers um are sort of uh yeah i think they're an easy punching bag so i would never say flyers but when you've already accepted the same flyer already and then you say

oh i've got that one and then they persist with the sales pitch it's kind of i don't know i mean i don't i'm really clutching at straws here i don't have a problem with i don't have a problem with anyone and when i'm at an arts festival if someone was annoying someone else with my flyers i'd be really grateful so so i don't know maybe it's just maybe it's just it's audience members when they're not in a show okay sure all right well we can go with that i used to work uh i mean my job i don't i don't have to go into the office anymore but it was based in central london and um after work if i work late often the worst thing to be caught with is when you hit the theater traffic and everyone's

been to a musical and you know you're trying to get on the train home you're really tired because you've been working late they're all happy because they've seen a musical depending on which musical you could make judgments on their sort of mental state or the sort of person they are I don't mind how quickly or slowly someone does something but it does sort of directly affect you you know when you're going this is my goal to get to this place and someone's just, just sort of blocking you subconsciously. Yeah, I think that the speed of the person is not the issue. It's when it's combined with lack of awareness

of what's around them. And then it's like, hang on a minute, you are actually going out of your way to stop me from doing what I want to do. That's the problem. Slow people are fine. And walking around in London is really quick. But when you're in the middle of the festival

and everyone is walking kind of like, everyone's got their own agenda. Everyone's got their own show that they're late for. Everyone's got their own uh show that they're late for everyone's got their own thing that they're doing and and and it doesn't um it doesn't gel with what anyone else is doing so it's just absolute chaos and then if you're on your way somewhere and you know where you're going and then people just stop dead in front of you and uh and then you've got to sort of work your way around them i just find that unbearable.

Yeah. I mean, if we put it into an island context, you know, your shelter's blown over. You've got to go and get some more palm fronds from the area where they grow very quickly to repair it. Because, you know, there's a storm coming and this guy or woman is just in your way just constantly going oh yeah okay and you're just just trying to get past them to get things done it's just it's just annoying you know it is but i also feel that by being non-specific i'm actually um offending more people well i don't i don't think that i think the thing i think you're okay because i don't think anyone identifies as this kind of person.

No one thinks, oh no, but I'm like that. Yeah, I walk really slowly in people's way. You know what I mean? No one's that person. It's always someone else. Everyone thinks they've got cat-like reflexes. Like you're not the sort of person that comes and stands in front of someone in a gig.

But you know, everyone hates those people. It's like, oh, I just fucking stood right in front of me at a gig. But no one goes, yeah, actually I do that do that oh well they're people aren't they when you're at a gig and it's sort of like um where was i i went to see something at coco in uh in london and um someone was coming through and i stepped aside so that they go through and they just took the space that i was stood in and just did that. And it was like, I've only taken half a step and I'm sort of leaning on the person I was stood next to.

There's not enough space for two people. There's enough space for one and a half people. And now there's one and a half people stood there because I'm taking up half a spot. Yeah. People like that, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's fine.

I think you're allowed to offend those people because. Okay. Right. Yeah. Because they're assholes, right? Yeah, exactly. So I think it's fine. I think you're allowed to offend those people. Okay, right, yeah, because they're assholes, right? Yeah, exactly. Okay. Sure.

And, right, can we get a final one out of it? Do you think we can ring out a final person joining you on the island? Yeah, Finn Taylor. Finn Taylor. Okay. Okay, what is it about Finn? He has been a guest on this podcast recently. Yeah, right, has he? Yeah.

Yeah. I would hate to be I was stuck on an underground journey with him once and it was absolutely insane um before we went on it um he uh before we went on the tube journey um there was a little we'd done a gig in Putney and there was a little booth on the uh and this happened like eight years ago and I'll never forget it. It was a little confection sort of booth before you got into the actual tube stop. And so he bought himself a large bag of Doritos heat wave crisps and nothing else. And it was like a 40 minute journey. And I was like, are you going to get like a drink or anything?

Because, you know, Doritos heat waves, because they're like heat wave as well, they're like the driest, they're the driest crisp I think that you could get. And I was just like, are you not going to get a drink? And he said, no. And then we, I couldn't believe it.

We got on the underground together and I just watched him eat a grab bag. This is a grab bag. It's not just a regular bag. A grab bag of Dorito chili heat wave crisps. And he just ate the entire packet in front of me. You know,

like he, it just casual like, you know, like it didn't, like it didn't phase him at all. And I just thought he must have like, just the driest mouth on the planet right now. And he just seems to be sort of like so nonplussed by it all. I just thought that, that, that casual, that casual kind of like, you know, throwing his own hydration at kind of like the mercy of a packet of Doritos was kind of, I thought it was mind boggling, really.

To be honest, though, now that I've said it out loud, he'd be the exact sort of person that you'd want on a desert island. Because he can obviously go for days and days without any water. so he could sort of like be the hunter and gatherer maybe he'd be like a like a covert kind of like benefit maybe in some ways as long as he was out doing stuff as long as he was out doing stuff and i wasn't sort of like having to spend lots of time with him it was it was absolutely astonishing well you know i mean you say you might be an asset on the island i'm just hearing that story i'm not feeling i'm not thirsty but i've had to take a sip of water just from imagining that situation so i mean you're there trying to bust your ass like getting drinking water and obviously it's great if he's not you know he's not annoying you

by taking all the you know more than his fair share of drinking water supplies sure seeing him you know working away maybe having the odd swig of seawater now and again you know it's just i think it would just make you feel horrendous well yeah but i think even you when you were describing that back to me you must have been thinking that would actually be an asset to have. Yeah. Like if you could, if he could just drink loads of seawater, he would sort of act as like a filtration unit and you could actually drink his piss, couldn't you?

I mean, that would be, so maybe having Finn Taylor around would be, this happened eight years ago and it's haunted me. It's haunted me ever since. Have you brought it up with him ever? Yeah, loads. I brought it up with him loads. I haven't talked to him in a while. I'm pretty sure he thinks that I've got over it by now,

but I haven't. I will never get over that tube journey from Putney to central London, where he just, and I was just like, I was begging him, I was begging him, Finn, please, please, if not a Coke, then a water, a bottle of water, something to wash it down with, you know. But he just, you know,

I guess he just likes enjoying stuff separately like this is these are the crisps and then once i've done that i'll might have a drink later but ah yeah it was it was frustrating and it was it was a nightmare i don't use these words lightly it was a nightmare tube journey from hell i mean nick it seems like you're a very compassionate person so i think even though it would be an advantage on the island, I think it would just, it would do your head in just watching him. I think you'd just be begging him to drink. Like you'd be worried about him, even if, you know,

he is this machine like creature that we've sort of imagined him to be where, you know, he doesn't need normal human rates of hydration. You know, it's like as a parent, you know, seeing your kid go out without a coat, you know, come on, but you're going to need it. You're going to you're going to take on this father figure role. But, you know, that probably caused some animosity down the line. And it's just it's too much. Yeah, I mean, I mean, if I wasn't worrying about him full time, he'd be creating fresh nightmares every day for me to sort of have to have to deal with and and if i haven't

got like a therapist on the island then um i just need easy going people that eat crisps with soft drinks do you know what i mean yeah and i think that's just that's fair that's very fair it's too much okay all right, we have your people picked. And I know that was a tricky task for you. So we're going to move on. Mercifully, amongst the wreckage of the plane, there was some food and drink left over. Unfortunately for you, it's your least favorite food and drink in the world. What are they and why are they so bad?

Okay. Well, my least favorite food, I would say, you when um you're going to sainsbury's and you get like a melon medley um uh pots selection yeah and you have like three different types of melon sometimes when you open up the watermelon it's quite fuzzy and furry yeah not visibly, but to the taste, to the bite. So I would say fuzzy watermelon is on my list. Yeah, because it can be such an incredible thing, especially when it's hot, it's so hydrating. It's hydrating. It's absolutely hydrating.

I mean, we're back on hydration again. But yeah, when it's not at its full potential you know it's the same with like i love apples and when there's an apple that you think is going to be crisp and then you bite into it it's that sort of flowery yeah soft dry thing is and you never know until you've bitten do you never know it's like russian roulette basically yeah i think any time when you're you're dealing with something that you know could be amazing and it's just not quite there it's just an incredibly frustrating thing it's like you'd rather not have it at all i'd rather just not be teased like that sure yes i mean they've they've

set a rod for their own back really haven't they because you know a watermelon has set such an incredibly high standard for itself that anything less than the absolute best is unacceptable yeah we know watermelon's got it in him or her exactly okay and what would you what would you wash it down with what would your drink choice be funnily you should say that my uh the worst drink that i can think of is diet coke with cherry yeah now i'm a massive pepsi max cherry fan um uh i've got a routine about it in my show i uh take photos of it um almost every day and on and put it on instagram when i'm in London, but in the festival I'm doing something else with my Instagram. But I love PMC, Pepsi Match Cherry.

It's absolutely the drink of the gods. And also when I was a kid at school, I used to really like Cherry Coke or Cherry Coca-Cola. I used to really love it. And I love those machines that you get in kind of like Five Guys or at the cinema where you can kind of like um you know press all the buttons and make your own drinks so i don't have a problem i think coca-cola or pepsi and cherry is a perfect combination but there's something that they do with diet

it's because it's not called cherry diet coke or diet coke cherry or whatever it's called diet coke with cherry like it's this additional flavor that they've added into it and the cherry doesn't taste like cherry it tastes like it tastes like really watery chemicals it's like absolutely this it's like you've already made a successful drink for 40 years called cherry coke and then all you need to do is take the sugar out of it and there's something that's been absolutely lost in translation where it tastes it tastes gross it's disgusting so diet coke with cherry is my my drink of choice it's weird isn't it with all those drinks because there's so little natural in all of them but you get it right and

it's it's an amazing drink yeah you know it's like you get it right and it's an amazing drink. Yeah. You know, it's like in a science fiction film. Hi, it's Dan. Sorry to interrupt, but it is at this point which my audio corrupted. And so we're going to have to revert to the backup recording. I hope it doesn't annoy you too much, but it's better than not putting out the episode at all. That's what we think.

So anyway, on we go with slightly different audio well nick we're going to move on from your food and drink choices because fortunately you won't be without entertainment on the island the planes entertainment system continues to work but just your luck it only has two working settings one is your least favorite film of all time and the other is your least favorite song what are they and why now i don't know if it's my least favourite song of all time but what i would say is that i really hate it uh it's careless whisper i i hate it is it a sax solo um yeah i was in edinburgh the other day and for the rest of my life but i am i was i'm in edinburgh and my headphones were on shuffle and Baker Street came on on shuffle and I was like oh this is an incredible sax solo and then I was just thinking

do I like any other sax solos and then um it brought me straight to Careless Whisper and even when I was a kid I was just like I hate this song I think it's probably because when I was a kid and Wham had first sort of come out Wham were like a fun group and um and I don't even know if Careless Whisper is Wham or if it's just George Michael but it was like a grown-up song and then and I knew that like my my mate's sisters who were like older than us, I know that they used to like Careless Whisper and I just thought, well, it's not for me, but maybe one day I'll grow into it. And I'm 41 now and I've never grown into it.

I've always just hated that song. I've never quite pinned down why it makes me feel like this but it makes me sort of think possibly it played when i was in one once but it makes me imagine like a really depressing bad carvery you know just everything's a bit shit do you know what i mean when it's like it's not quite a weatherspoon but it's sort of like it's just a bit too quiet the pub's a bit too big for the amount of people in it. You know, everything's too dry or too watery. Sure. You know, and that's in the background and it's like,

because it's a classy joint. You know, I think, I don't know if these places still exist. Going back to the sort of, these sort of places when it, when the song came out, but you can sort of see what the movie is. I think they still exist. For me, it just always reminds me of someone on the dance floor at the end of the night having a sad, lonely wank. George Michael, you know, he's not complete, you know,

he's done some good stuff as well, but I feel that's, I don't think we can overlook that. I'm not saying anything about George Michael. I'm saying that this specific song and we made it the hit. All he did was wrote it and recorded it. Right. But we made it the hit that it was. It tended to an absolute monster.

Maybe it's his biggest hit. Um, I hate it. Yeah. It's terrible. And it's a, it's a bad song to be stuck with as well. I mean, it's, it's, you know, it's not upbeat. it's a bad song to be stuck with as well. I mean, it's not upbeat.

It's droney and slow. And I don't know if it even is that long, but it feels long. Yeah. You know, even if you don't buy into the soul of the song, it's still going to sort of make you feel downbeat and introspective. Yeah. And you can't, like like dance with someone for it. It's such a, it's a song about deceit and,

and loneliness and deception. And it's kind of like, it's not like a romantic song that you're meant to sort of like, so it was almost like by its intent, you were meant to listen to it and enjoy it. If you can enjoy it by yourself. Yeah. There's nothing wrong

with that i just think it's a bit of um it's a bit introspective maybe it's just a real mood killer yeah it's a mood killer it's a buzzkill if you've had a great night and then you get into the cab and they've got that on the radio it's just like you know and you've got a long journey it's really hard to remain upbeat without putting your headphones in or telling him to change. Yeah, everything's a little bit shitter when that song is playing, I think. Yeah, I hate it. Yeah, yeah. It's a strong choice.

Okay, and what about your film choice? The film choice. Now, I'm not sure if this is really fair because I started watching it the other day and then I never finished it. 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. I was watching a film called The Internship,

starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson. Okay. I almost hated it on sight. As soon as it started, I just had a bad feeling about it. And then we got about halfway through, and it's just like, actually, no, I'm not going to finish this. Yeah, I hated The hated the internship for a while there was that relationship with vince vaughn and owen wilson i think when they did the wedding

crashes and it was probably like to capitalize off the back of that wasn't it they did the wedding crashes and i think it was pitched as sort of like not a sequel but like um hey you like that well then you'll like this it's the same team behind the wedding crashes. But the thing about the wedding crashes was, and it happened like 10 years later. So it did sort of like, it was capitalizing on it, but at the same time, it was sort of like too late. The thing about the wedding crashes was the wedding crashes was,

and I don't know how well The Wedding Crashers has aged. I suspect it's aged very badly. But it was really entertaining at the time. I haven't seen it in years, but like, it was a sex comedy. And so they decided that they were going to make a sex comedy. And it stars Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn. And you've got Vince Vaughn, who's sort of like the bad boy, and then you've got Owen Wilson, who's the romantic lead,

and it sort of like has its cake and eats it. It's sort of, you know, and the fact that there's two of them sort of benefits the story. And then you've got the internship, which feels like it was written for one person, and then they've just split them in half. And it's like a 1980s big business comedy where a couple of slobs turn up

and then they, well, it's slobs versus snobs. So it's sort of like Caddyshack or Ghostbusters or something like that, where you've got a couple of guys that are trying their luck at something and then they go against the establishment and they succeed. I imagine that's where it's heading.

I've only got halfway through. But so it's not a raunchy sex comedy. But what they've done is they've tried to sort of like shoehorn, oh, here's a scene where they all go to a strip club. And you kind of go, well, none of the rest of the film is like that. Also, it's just a massive advert for Google. So they didn't make up a company that they work for they get a job at google and then they're just advertising google for the entire

film and then there's like oh and um you remember the wedding crashes that was all had sex in it well we've got one scene shoehorned in within a strip club and then everything else is like an advert for google and you've got owen wilson and vince vaughn that are trying to spin gold out of absolute there's no script there's nothing and there's not even like two their way of like turning one character into two characters it's just that they're in every single scene together and they just split the lines up between them it's like they don't have like different personalities or anything like that. You know, there's a scene where they do an interview where they're on sort of like a Zoom call

and they're doing the interview over the internet. And that's aged badly because we're all really used to what a Zoom call is now because of the pandemic. So it's not their fault. But it's kind of like they're having this job interview with Google and you're just thinking, why are they doing the interview together i've i've never seen an interview where two adult grown people are like that they're like we were partners at our old job so we're gonna go for a job interview at google it's not even

a job interview to get an internship at Google so that we can kind of like start a new career, but they're both being interviewed to get, it just, it doesn't make, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. It's like you're watching it and you're going,

well, why would they do it like that? And that's why the whole thing feels like it was written for someone else entirely. Like maybe it was a 1980s Bill Murray vehicle but they've written it 30 years later and yeah, it's awful. I wonder if it was just found in the back of a ring binder somewhere

and they just went, do you know what? Like, I think this could work. I think it was exactly that. It was meant to come off the back of Ghostbusters but instead of that they went, you know. Have you ever seen the Rodney Dangerfield film Back to School? I don't know that I seen the Rodney Dangerfield film Back to School I don't know that I have

Rodney Dangerfield I can't remember when it was made like 1988 but Rodney Dangerfield is like a dad who's got to sort of take his son to school

and then he enrolls in a course and then he's kind of like this old guy on campus that's kind of more of a party animal than his son

and it's kind of like it's exactly that but then they've cleaned it up because it's at google and then they've gone but it's sort of a follow-up to the wedding crashes so then they've added these sort of like sex scenes in it and you kind of go well it's one thing or another and it feels like it was this script that they found and they said if we make that main character into two characters and we add in some sex then we can make this into our follow-up to the winning crashes and it's just awful it does sound horrendous it's not the sort of film that you know after repeated watching you're going to find little bits that you do

enjoy it's just it's going to get worse and what you're going to find little bits that you do enjoy. It's just going to get worse and worse. Because the premise sounds so flimsy. There'll be more and more instances where you just think, this is just fucking ridiculous, this scenario. Because it's basically endorsing Google throughout the whole film, they've sanded all the edges off of it so that every time there's any conflict or any conversation it's dealt with in the most superficial lightweight way and then all of a sudden you've got a team bonding exercise where

they all go to a strip club and kind of like perv over all these half-dressed women and then you kind of go well what's that doing in this film it's absolutely and did google sign off on that do you know what i mean and i was just thinking about kind of like a film that I really think is terrible, like The Master of Disguise starring Dana Car that it's kind of like you can't look away. Whereas the internship is kind of like, it's like there's nothing, there's no substance to it. It's like junk food. There's no nutrients to it. There's like nothing.

And you can stop the film halfway through and you can pretty much go, yeah, I've seen that. Yeah. And I mean, being trapped with that as your only film, one day you might think much go yeah i've seen that yeah and i mean being trapped with that as your only film one day you might think well i've got nothing else i'll just i'll watch the rest of it just as something to do and it might turn out to be the best film ever but it's not going to i'll never know no and that's fine yeah it's weird when you can just turn something off halfway through and just be completely fine with it. I've done it a few...

I've got such a short fuse with these things these days that I can do it quite easily. And it's that, this is my life I'm wasting now. It's not even a joke. It's my life. So it's got to go. And I would actually just say that I am a huge Owen Wilson fan

and I really like Vince Vaughn. And them two together is kind of like, you know, there's a bit in it at the beginning where Will Ferrell turns up and it's kind of like, great, you've got Will Ferrell and Vince Vaughn and then you've got Owen Wilson, whereas Luke Wilson was in old school with Vince Vaughn and Will Ferrell. So you've got kind of like a weird sort of reunion. And then you've got them three as well.

They were all in the wedding crashes together. So there's obviously there's this vaughan ferrell wilson collaboration thing where either luke or owen doesn't really matter who's free on the day uh and then we put them all together and they go and it's this scene that sort of like just goes on forever and ever and ever and it's just really sort of mean spirited and and horrible and it's oh yeah it's just going into it thinking, well, there must be a reason I haven't seen this. It came out 10 years ago and to have not got round to seeing it.

And then we were just in Edinburgh and we needed something to watch. Let's watch something, just whatever it is. We'll just watch something just to just to unwind at the end of the day enough fuck this let's go to bed we're going to bed yeah when putting yourself deliberately unconscious is preferable to finishing a film you know it's yeah you've got a problem okay fair enough um now finally the island is overrun by the biggest dick of all the animals. Which animal is it and why?

Cats. Every time, cats. I've had this before and it can fall into the sort of, I hate cats, or I love cats, but I still think they're dicks. Which camp do you find yourself in? I'm allergic to cats. So if it was an island that was swarming with cats, I think I would struggle struggle even if we're largely outdoors you know when we were growing up everyone seemed to have cats so every time we went around

for like a birthday party or something I just like my eyes would seal shut and I couldn't breathe and then I'd have to I'd have to go home so cats ruin sort of a lot of childhood birthday parties. And I think that their supporters are so vocal that they don't need me. I had a girlfriend that loved cats so much and every time she'd see one in the street, she'd stop and talk to it. And it would add hours to every journey but i do

find like when i'm very tired if i know when i'm very sad like depressed or if i'm tired because um i will watch a video of a cat on instagram or something and um it will cheer me up and then I'll go oh yeah you are feeling very low today Nick because this cat video has really hit the spot but aside from that like cats are always kind of bad news with me yeah that's fair I mean I have a cat but um I I can very easily see why he's a dick quite a lot of the time you mentioned your girlfriend who used to stop and chat to every cat that she saw. I know people like that. And it feels really strange when, even if you love cats, when there's never anything that remarkable about them.

Unless it's like a really massive cat that's unusual, has a very interesting pattern that you've never seen, or it's a kitten, which is obviously quite cute. It's really weird when you're like, that's such or has a very interesting pattern that you've never seen, or it's a kitten, which is obviously quite cute. It's really weird when you're like, that's such a normal thing. Or you're with someone who has a dog. Dog people do it as well. And they're like, oh my God, look at this little dog.

And it's just a very, very regular dog. I think that sort of person is quite unusual. Yes. I mean, not unusual in that there are a lot of them, but I mean, it's strange. No, i think it's a similar reaction to babies but like i understand it with babies babies are little people and and i think dogs have sort of like the personalities of people sometimes you know where they've kind of got with cats i feel like and I haven't got to know many cats that well but with cats I feel like you know they're kind of like above it all and I think that in terms of personality wise

they're not particularly warm animals you know they're not kind of like they don't need me whereas a dog would be like hey how you doing I can understand stopping in the street and saying hello to a dog dogs are starved of attention all you doing? I can understand stopping in the street and saying hello to a dog. Dogs are starved of attention all the time. They love it. And you're kind of like giving them something that they love and they're grateful for or whatever, you know. But with cats, it's kind of like, if they're not that into me,

then why am I going to bend over backwards to make a cat happy? Yeah. And I think just being stuck with with loads of them all that can make you ill and even if you just get so annoyed with the people that you're with you decide to kind of make friends with them or offer them a little bit of fish that you've caught you're still just going to have that feeling of like desperately chasing something that doesn't really care about you that much which isn't going to do wonders for your self-esteem no but i mean maybe maybe that's maybe that's

your journey in life you know maybe that's it you'd like to you want to pour love into a bottomless pit and not see any return and and that's its own reward i suppose in its own way but i think that um yeah and also i went around my friend's house that they'd moved and they hadn't vacuumed yet and they have these long-haired cats and I just literally my throat closed up and I couldn't breathe so like if you take all my feelings aside and and throw that out the window I still wouldn't want cats on the island because it means that I can't breathe yeah I mean that's that's a fair reason I can't really argue against that so So, yeah, it's a solid reason, and it's a good bookend to this podcast.

So thank you for choosing an island full of people and things that are just a despicable combination when put together. I think you've done a great job. Nick, you're still at Edinburgh now until the end of the month. If people are up there, when and where can they see you? I'm on the Pleasance Queen's Home at 5.25 every day. And my show is called What Have We Become? And it's brilliant.

Yeah, I love it. I'm loving doing it every day. And I've had really nice audiences so far. So come along and join in. But not over enthusiastically. Not over enthusiastic. Just the along and join in. But not over enthusiastically. Not over enthusiastic, just the right level of enthusiasm. Good.

Okay. And people can follow you on social media and the usual places and that kind of thing as well. Yeah, I'm on Twitter and Instagram. That's what I, those are my two, Twitter and Instagram,

but more Instagram than Twitter, I would say. I think that's, that seems like a good balance to me. Brilliant. Nick, thanks so much for coming on Desert Island Dicks today. It's been a pleasure.

Thank you for having me. Thank you very much. There you go. That was Nick Helm there for you, choosing the worst people and things to be stuck on an island with. Now, Desert Island Dicks is a Sink Clap production. That means it was created and originally hosted by James Deacon, although now he just helps produce it.

He doesn't host it anymore. That's me, Dan Benedictus, and I produce it as well. And do you know what? Once I've done that, I usually send it to a guy called Chris Attaway and he edits it all nicely and makes it sound better than it would otherwise if you want someone to edit your podcast you should give him a call

he's very good what I would like is a little favour from you I would like you to go and leave us a rating I know I say this all the time we all do don't we podcasters we're always saying leave us a rating. I know I say this all the time. We all do, don't we, podcasters? We're always saying, oh, leave us a rating in the review, hit like and subscribe and all that. But you know what? It would mean a great deal to me. I'm not going to

get into it. I don't want to guilt trip you, but it would just be handy in exchange for all the podcasts. Give us a little rating. I'm bad at doing it myself, but then when you do it, you realize how bloody easy it is. And, um, and it would be great. So if you could do that, I would be eternally grateful. And I think that's it. We're going to be back soon with another great podcast. We've got ones that I've recorded and we haven't even put out into the world yet. So they're going to keep coming for a little while and then we'll take a break at some point, but not yet. So don't you worry. You just keep subscribing and we only need to do it once you just subscribe and it will

come right to your phone without you even doing a damn thing. OK, thank you very much for listening. Oh, I forgot to mention thank you as well, as always, to John Deacon for his unwavering support. I couldn't forget you, John. Sorry I didn't put it in earlier. That's it. I'll be back soon.

Bye.