Desert Island Dicks - OLAF FALAFEL

Episode Date: June 5, 2023

Comedian and writer Olaf Falafel joins our dear sweet Daniel to share who and what he'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

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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 Lips and Ads. Go to lipsandads.com now. That's L-I-B-S-Y-N ads.com. Hello, I am Dan from Desert Island Dicks, which is this podcast that you are listening to. And today's episode features

Olaf Falafel. He's an author, illustrator and stand up comedian. He's in Edinburgh this year. He's got a show for kids and a show for adults. And he's got some books out as well for kids, which look very good indeed. I hope you enjoy this chat with him and I hope you enjoy this podcast in general. Thank you to everyone who's downloaded this. Thank you for listening and thanks to those of you who have subscribed and left reviews and things like that. It's always very much appreciated. If you're a new listener then hello. I hope you enjoy this podcast as well. I hope everyone enjoys it basically I suppose is what I'm saying. I'm not feeling very articulate today. But hey, look, luckily, I was a bit more articulate, I hope, in this podcast. So let's get on with it. Here it is. Olaf Falafel on 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, author and illustrator Olaf Falafel. How are you? I am very well. Really actually tired at the minute. It's been a weekend of football and celebrating. My team have made it to the Premier League for the first time ever. They've just had a celebration through the town, Luton Town Football Club.

Great. Yesterday we had an open-top bus, and the whole weekend has been quite alcohol-heavy. Fair enough. It must be a good feeling, though. I mean, I'm from Leicester, and Leicester just got relegated, so if I was a proper football fan, I'd be at the other end of the spectrum from you.

But I'm very much a fair weather fan. Probably not even that, to be fair. So I'm disappointed for them, but I'm OK. But yeah, it must be amazing to see your town just united in a huge celebration like that. Yeah, I think that was the overwhelming feeling of being at Wembley as well. Just seeing people from sort of all walks of life. that yeah i think that was the overwhelming feeling of being at wembley as well just seeing

people from sort of all walks of life luton's very it's very much a diverse town uh with huge white black asian eastern european populations and i saw people that i've seen because i've with my books that i do i visit a lot of schools and so I saw a lot of teachers a lot of mums a lot of parents that I've seen at various places uh so yeah it was it was really nice it was a lovely day lovely day for the town and the result was amazing now I hope we're not going to sort of rain on your parade too much a literal open topped bus parade uh by talking about the people and things that you hate. Was this, I mean, how did you approach the task?

Was it an easy task? Oh, no. I found it really difficult. I found it really difficult. I don't know whether it says something about me, but even things like foods, I struggle to find stuff I hate. I eat a lot, and I'm not particularly choosy. And then in terms of people, I thought, well, there's no one that I genuinely hate.

So I think the people that I've picked are more people that I would find annoying to be on a desert island with rather than people that I've actually met and know and hate. So a disclaimer, anyone who's listening to this, if I say that I hate you, I don't actually hate you. Because I find it can go two ways sometimes people find it difficult because they generally don't hate things or people that much and sometimes people find it difficult because they hate so many things and people so can it but i mean we're on the more positive end

of the spectrum let's get going and see see how we get along then um right who's the first person going to be stuck with you on the island the first person i would uh hate to be stuck on a desert island i think would be alan sugar yes and it's it's generally because of the jokes the bad jokes and i know there's probably someone writing them for him but i've got the feeling he's the kind of person who thinks that he could do them himself. They're bad jokes anyway. And I can just imagine I'd be there fishing or I don't know, I'd be trying to do something on the Island and he'd be berating me and,

but he'd be slipping in a really bad joke. Like, I don't know, if I was trying to fish and I wasn't very good, he'd be like, you are for the hook or something like that. You know what I mean? It'd just be constant. Every time I'm trying to start a fire, he'd be making some, well, yeah, you're fired. That's not a fire. You're fired. Yeah.

And I probably would end up killing him and it probably wouldn't be good enough the way I killed him. And he would berate me for the way that I've actually tried to murder him. Yeah. I can imagine like he does have people writing his jokes. They probably, I bet he always goes, wait, I've got a better idea. How about we do this? And they're going, yeah. It doesn't quite make sense that way. You know, like there's, I haven't watched The Apprentice in years, but I remember at the beginning, beginning he'd always go i don't want any steady eddies or cautious carols and you're like cautious carol isn't a phrase and steady eddie doesn't work in that context like there's so

many people working on this program and they obviously couldn't stop you just saying this crap well that's it i just imagine that whilst he has got those joke writers writing his stuff for him he'd be like now who needs them i'm here on an island i can come up with it myself and it would lead me to murdering him with a shell that i sharpened to a nice fine blade yeah yeah i think with him as well there'd be a lot of um stories where he's the hero. You know, you'd go, God, it's really tough here. Right, we need to make a plan. Don't worry, I pulled myself up on my bootstraps and I made me the man I am today. All right, Alan, but like in this context now, what are we going to do?

Or like you'd come back with a fish. Oh, that's not good enough. Blah, blah. I don't. What did you do today, Alan? You know, just a lot of bluster and not much actual use. Yeah, exactly. He'd be telling us about how he took that fish

and he turned it into 12 fish down some market in the East End. Yeah. And I'd be like, yeah, but practically we're on Desert Island, Alan. Yeah. And he'd probably insist on, is he Lord Sugar or is he Sir Alan? I don't know what he is now. I think Lord now, isn't he? Yeah, because that's above, is that Sir Alan? I don't know what he is now. I think Lord now, isn't he? Yeah, because that's above.

Is that above Sir? I don't know. I think he's above. I think he would insist on, even though it would be just me and him, plus possibly two others on this desert island, he would insist on us using Lord. Yeah, he's not going to let you drop that. Yeah, that again would contribute to me slicing him up with a razor sharp shell yeah it's

like that utter lack of um not self-awareness but just ability to like laugh at one so he takes himself so seriously you know and and kind of you know famously is always blocking people on twitter for a tiny thing and i love richard herring always pointed out how on Twitter, he'll always put the Spurs score on Twitter as if like, if you wanted to know the Spurs score, the best way would be to look up Alan Sugar. It's like, just why don't you realise that, you know, people aren't coming to you for everything like that. He's such an amazing character.

I think that's it. You're right. And the Lord title and I mean, I don't know him, but you feel like you get to know him through Twitter and through the program. And you just think the over overriding sense of self-importance isn't one of the qualities that you look for in a survival situation. Yeah. Yeah. He's one of those people who I think like, you know, we haven't really seen that many successes from him, but it's almost like people go, Alan Sugar, businessman. So it's like, you know, when he had some government role for a while as some kind of advisor and it's like, right, well, we do know better businessmen. But who do the public think is a businessman? Like Richard Branson? Yeah, we can't get him. Dyson, James, the guy does the hoovers yeah not him either okay guy off the apprentice yes the public will go for that they know he is

a businessman that's it that's his job it's on his business card his businessman yeah that's his superhero i'm businessman like that's all you've got really but i don't know like is he that good we don't know i've not checked up on government uh house to see how he's doing but yeah i can only assume he's doing well because yeah he gives off that aura okay well that's a good first uh person to be stuck with who's the second person joining you i can't remember his real name it's the the guy from the Go Compare, the opera singer guy from the Go Compare adverts. Because, again, it's just annoying, isn't it? You can imagine living on a farm

and being woken up by a cockerel at 6am every morning. You can imagine this Gio Campario guy just serenading the camp with Go Compare. Yeah. And are we going to keep him in character for the duration of that? For this? Yeah. Although actually there is,

he started to kind of come out of character now. I don't know if you've seen in some of those sort of more recent adverts, he is the Welsh guy that he is, which I'm sure he's a lovely Welsh guy. Nothing against the Welsh at all. I love the Welsh. I'm Googling him now. What's his name? name go compare man i think it's quite a welsh name go compare man hold on he is called win evans there we go you couldn't get much more work win evans

so he's kind of and he's in some of the more recent ads he he's himself. Yeah. So he's kind of transcended Go Compare Man. And he is, I think one of the ads that I saw, he was Go Compare Man and himself in a kind of face-off scenario chatting to himself. Yeah, it's sort of gone meta,

hasn't it? It has. It's gone meta. But yeah, I think for this, the win is probably a very lovely man. Gio Campario is just the most horrid annoying

advertising I mean it I'd take a meerkat over him if I was going for any annoying advert person I think he's the pinnacle yeah because even though it would be quite nice to have someone with a musical talent on a desert island with you i mean an opera can be you know ethereally beautiful but it can also just be very loud and you're not always in the mood for it i mean it would just be always practicing again but you know because he's the go compare advert that's the only song that's the only thing he knows it's just that yeah i'm there stalking some fish with a spear, trying to keep really quiet. And then all of a sudden you hear, I'm trying to think of the dynamic between him and sugar.

Oh yeah. I think they would wind each other up, something chronic as well. Oh, absolutely. Put a sock in it with all that shouting. I'm trying to think of some opera kind of bad opera puns that, tenor, I wouldn't give a fiver for you.

It's a horror scenario. Oh, awful, yeah. You'd be bouncing between the two of you, and you'd get sick of Alan, so you'd go off and talk to the opera singer, but he's too much. It's a real rock-and- place scenario i think with it with him this is a really sadistic podcast having to imagine this worst scenario i'm sorry i mean you can take comfort that you know in the real world you're not stuck with these people luton

town have still been promoted you know is okay and and it won't last everything's good in the world i'm not stuck on a desert island with go geocampario alan schumer plus another okay well let's find out who the other is then well the other one i i thought i don't want to appear to for it to be all boys on the on the island and so i was trying to think of a female and i'm sure this person's really nice in fact she's uh it's rachel riley the the countdown person okay it's again it's just the the skill that she brings is maths and whilst maths is great it's just not needed we need something tactile someone i need someone who can make stuff and i mean you see all these kind of tiktok people who like make things out of i don't know whether it's just my feed but my my tiktok and instagram feed tends to be full of people who've converted a caravan into a

a home and go off to the wilderness and survive there with a penknife and a lighter and i just don't imagine rachel riley's got that in her locker she might well she might well i might be doing her a huge disservice she might be out on the brecon beacons whenever she's not filming but i've just got that i've just got the feeling she would just be throwing algebraic equations at me or something something wholly impractical yeah i don't think i'd have much to discuss with someone who is really good at maths. It's really just such a massive blind spot for me in my life. I don't have an awful lot of, you know, I don't have a love of numbers or even a vague understanding of

them that we could sort of go, oh, here's an interesting brain teaser. Try this. You know, she's trying to keep us active like keep our brains going you know good for morale like here look you don't you don't want to sort of vegetate like here come on let's do some like quick fire rounds and i'll just go rachel i just i can't stop us yeah stop us from all going a bit cast away wilson she's she's using a stick in the sand to do basic mathematic equations and mathematical sums and she's telling us that in the sand to do basic mathematical equations and mathematical sums. And she's telling us that we have to solve the brackets first.

And did you ever see these things they put up on social media where what is the answer to this sum? It's always something like two times three brackets, one minus two. And some people are saying 17 and other people say, no, it's 21 because of the order in which you calculate the stuff and because i've got i've got two daughters who are going through high school so we're almost having to relearn a lot of the stuff that i learned in high school and a lot of it is to do with the order in which you work out the sum so i can just imagine her telling me about they call it bid mass or bod mass.

Oh, that rings a bell. God, I remember that word. Which is brackets, indices, divide, multiply, addition, subtraction. That's the order in which you're, that's why you get these sums on social media that are put there as a, basically as a comment bait for people to put the wrong answer and people to argue why want their answers correct but i can just imagine her with a stick

in the sand me geo campario's given his voice a rest alan sugar his nurse hasn't brought him his medicine medicine yet and uh we're all sat there the sun's going down, and Rachel Riley, looking resplendent in a grass skirt and a bra made out of two halves of a coconut, is using a stick to teach us the correct order of mathematical equations. I don't know why, and this might be unfair because I don't know the man, I just feel that watching Alan Sugar interact with Rachel Riley is going to be problematic in some way. I think it might be a bit old-fashioned.

Yeah, I was going to say, the kindest way to say it would be old-fashioned. Yes. The kindest way to say misogynistic is old-fashioned. Yeah, yeah. And you'll just constantly be like, you know, I could fetch that for you. I'm in fact much closer

to this. Like I could do. No, no, don't worry. Or go the other way where it'd be like, oh, you won't be able to pick that one up, sweetheart. Let him do it.

I can imagine him not actually catching any fish or do it, but expecting Rachel to do all the cooking and cleaning because she's the woman. Yeah.

He'll try and spear a wild boar but fail massively and Gio Campario would probably scare it away before we even get a chance. But if we were to fluke it, she would definitely be the one that Alan would want cooking it and cleaning up the plates that we've made out of banana leaves or I don't know. I don't think the interaction would be great. No. You know, I do think she seems, on the face of it,

like quite a pleasant person. There's no obvious character flaws that I can see in the way that I could with the Go Compare guy and Alan Sugar. So I think it would just be unpleasant to watch the interaction between the two of them as well. I think that's all it is as well. I've got nothing against her at all. I think it's just when you think of her, you think of her main skill set as being maths, which is something

wholly unsuitable for survival again. And also you're right that the group dynamic would be awful. Exactly. Okay. well, obviously, another important aspect of survival is the food. And mercifully, amongst the wreckage of the plane, there was some food and drink left over. Unfortunately for you, it's your least favourite food and drink in the world. What are they and why are they so bad?

I like a lot of stuff, so I did really struggle over this. But I think canned tuna okay even since childhood it's always had a bit of a kind of an icky cat food type and i don't know whether that's that was that's the reason because when i was younger i had a cat and its food was very similar to canned tuna it might be a mental thing and it's not that bad i don't mind tuna steak lovely fresh tuna wonderful so if we are fishing and we catch tuna i don't know is that possible where where we're located well i don't know i mean i like to think it's a tropical island but obviously tuna is

quite a beast isn't it they're huge yeah um so i don't know it depends how deep you can get i suppose and how strong your makeshift rods and lines are my raft yeah yeah for some reason it's the tinned tuna just really there's something it's something mental it's not it's nothing to do with me not liking fish or it's just something about tin tuna i don't know what it is and so if i don't know if our plane crash or boat crash was just one big crate of tin tuna i'm sure i'd get to to love it but well i'd get to tolerate it but that would be that would be the worst i mean i quite like tin tuna but when i realized how much mayonnaise i add to it to make it palatable in a sandwich or like on a potato or something. I realized then that probably on its own, it's, you know, it's lacking quite a lot.

You know, it needs a lot of like oomph to make it interesting. Yeah. And, you know, like we're saying, you know, a tuna is this like big, majestic, deep sea fish. You know, they're fast, they're powerful. And you see, you know, like in japan they're so kind of revered you know there's this deep red meaty flesh and they can cost thousands and then the idea that they're just like condensed down into this sort of grayish meat in a tin that's just on the supermarket shelf seems really unfair to them you know yeah i think that's it so it's the great is that when you have tuna in sushi lovely when you have a tuna steak lovely when you see the sort of that you're right it's the

gray mush that's kind of in this brine or sunflower oil or whatever it's in you just think yeah i think that i think that's part part of it for me is the fact that it's the odds and ends chopped up, mushed up, packed into a tin. Yeah, not for me. Yeah, it's a real step down for a majestic creature to end up like that. It's really unfair. What would you wash it down with? What's your drink choice?

You're a podcast listener and this is a podcast ad. Reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Lips and Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a reproduced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Lips and Ads. Go to lipsandads.com now. That's L-I-B-S-Y-N-ads.com. My drink of choice is Uzo. Again, it's not quite a childhood memory. It's more a young adult memory of one of the worst, not hangover, but just like general drunkenness, sickness, and apologies, but the vomit as well well and the smell of the vomit and just everything about it was just horrific and I don't think I've touched it since I was 17. There's something about local spirits if it hasn't made it onto the world stage in its own right you know like whiskey okay

it's Scotland's drink but everywhere's doing it you know like whiskey okay it's scotland's drink but everywhere's doing it you know like people love it or hate it but you know it's got around the world and it's accepted ouzo's still localized you know yeah you gotta think what's the reason for that yeah why is that like you know it's like you go on holiday like oh here's our local spirit you know turns out it's not that nice like you know if you go to Eastern Europe and your local spirit is vodka, then fair enough. Let's, you know, let's hang out. But I don't know.

There's just these, sometimes they're a bit niche and you're like, is it like rocky and things like that? And you just think, yeah, there's a reason this hasn't caught on. I think that's it as well. It's the tiny bottles of it. It's like, I remember just the tiny bottles of it it's like I remember just getting little bottles of limoncello

whenever someone came back from Italy and you kind of taste that and it's a bit and it was like oh no no everybody has this after their dinner in Italy

really but yeah Uzo's the same it's the aniseed it's that horrible aftertaste and again it's a mental thing it's associated with

drinking too much of it when I was young, being sick and just the smell being all-encompassing. Yeah, it's like a difficult one to get back from. Same with Sambuca and things like that. I feel like it's slowly dying out, isn't it? Like when I was little, you know, you could go to a sweet shop and buy aniseed balls. I don't think they even exist anymore.

I think everyone who's ever eaten those has kind of found something else or passed away. I think you're right. Aniseed as a thing is dying. And I've not thought about aniseed. When was the last time you thought about aniseed? It sounds like a campaign. Stop.

Have you thought about aniseed? Yeah. What is aniseed? I guess it's a seed. But is it a seed of the anise? I don't know. Is it just called aniseed? It might be. It's the seed of the anise, as in star anise. Aha. Yes, of course. That makes sense, doesn't it? Of course it does, because star anise tastes like that as well. Yes. And which star anise is used in a lot of Chinese and Eastern cooking. Yeah. And I'm fine with it like that.

But yeah, it feels like things like that and licorice, I just sort of feel like they were useful things before we had better options. You know, like a rich tea biscuit. Like, I don't think it needs to exist anymore because look how many lovely biscuits we've got. You know, I think you have to be struggling before. Before you plump for that. Yeah. Yeah. You just think just think you know if you go to someone's house and they've got rich tea i'm like what about the other 20 biscuits on the shelves of any shop these days wasn't appealing to you you know it is it is the linkedin of biscuits you've got all of these wondrous things out there and rich tea i always say that the only use for a rich tea biscuit is if your name is Richard

and your surname begins with the letter T and it could be an edible business card. Yeah. Yeah. I had a friend once who, when I was sort of slagging off the rich tea biscuit, he was like, oh, I don't know. They're really nice if you spread lemon curd on them. And I was like, am I talking to you from the 1920s what is this but uh you know i just think there's better options and again with with aniseed as a flavor and i think i think we've we've come a long

way and i don't know if we need it that much so i think it's got sitting out the air raid siren in your makeshift bomb shelter vibes yeah the whole licorice and rich tea and yeah lemon curd it's it's i mean some things there's a i've got nostalgia for but but yeah licorice and antsy aren't one of them no no fair enough all right now fortunately you won't be without entertainment on the island. The plane's entertainment system continues to work, but just your luck, 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? First of all, my least favourite song is The Going Gets Tough, but the Boyzonezone version that's a very solid choice uh let's get into it um what is it i mean it's kind of obvious what's bad about it but what is it in particular it is

kind of obvious but when you go through songs that you would hate to have, there are so many awful ones, like the Crazy Frog Rintone, or like Barbie Girl by Aqua, or Baby Shark, all those kind of stereotypically annoying ones, which I could have chosen, and rightfully, and I'm sure people will choose them, but there's just something about the way that Ronan Keating sings,

it's like he's it is like he's trying to force out a poo or something is it's this voice it's amazing isn't it i mean it's it's like that kind of that very i think they call it a y'all you know you get a lot with eddie vedder you know that kind of her and it's it's like he's taken that into a boy band setting and then he's covering Billy Ocean. He's covering Billy Ocean and he's channeling Pearl Jam and a kind of I don't know what it is, whether it's kind of an Elvis-y kind of

growl and so on, but it just sounds awful and it's comical. Was it for comic relief? It had a tie-in with something. Yeah. Did they do it for no good reason? Or did they have a good reason?

So I'm just Googling it now. I think their good reason was money and fame. Yes. This is the Billy Ocean one, which was for The Jewel of the Nile, the sequel to Romancing the Stone. Oh, I had no idea that was for that. Great movies. Yeah.

Come on, Wikipedia. No, I can't seem to find it. The world wants us to forget about this. Yeah. For some reason I thought, oh, it might have been for Red Nose Day. Okay. I can see the video and they're holding a big red ball.

I mean, that might excuse them slightly. Yeah, but they still did a bad job, you know? So I can forgive a novelty song for charity, but it feels like they still took it quite seriously. Yeah, it's not a novelty song, is it? They've not addressed it as such. There's a kind of almost an Alan sugar-esque sense of self-importance when they're singing it like we're gonna do the best goddamn cover of this and we're gonna our voice is gonna be

almost like a bad pop singer yeah it's very odd in fact i'm sure i've seen or heard an advert for them where that's been included in the selection of songs. So I think they still probably stand by it. But I think Ronan Keating always has a bit of that delivery in his voice, but it feels really ramps up in that version. Like he was really just, I don't know what it was about that song, because it's not like the original has any of that. Or maybe he's trying to distance himself from it

and make it his own. Put his own stamp on it by sounding like... By stamping on it. ...he's constipated, yeah. Yeah, it's dreadful. That on the island the whole time. And then you get Alan Sugar. Well, as I said to you, if the going gets tough,

referencing it all the time. Stop putting it on, Alan. It's bad music. And then Gio Campario trying to sing along, but only ever singing, go compare. Yeah, occasionally he manages to sing go compare to the tune.

Yeah, so it'd be when the going gets tough, it'd be when the go comparing gets tough. Yeah, he just can't get out of his mould. And I don't know what Rachel Riley would be. She'd be doing long division somewhere on the other side of the island I feel like she's someone who would give it the benefit of the doubt and that would also be annoying because I think of all the people you've got she's the one who you've got the best chance of actually having a normal time with and hanging

out with a bit yeah I think so but I can imagine her going oh you know I used to like Boyzone. You're like, oh, but come on, Rachel. That's not the point. Don't put it on again. Okay, what would your viewing choice be for your film? Well, this one is probably controversial, but I've just never, and it might be the right time to do it, actually. It might be the right time to try again because all I've got is time.

It's the Lord of the Rings movies people love them people or I'm guessing people love them or they hate them

which is the same with most things in life but yeah I've never got them which I like Star Wars which is kind of I know it's not

the same thing but it's kind of people love that in a similar way that they love Lord of the Rings. There's a kind of a fandom. I just never got it. I watched them at the cinema, never fell in love with them, never really.

I kind of got a bit bored, felt they were too long. I guess if I am going to watch them, then this would be the place to re-examine them. But they would be my least favorite choices now but perhaps thinking about it if i am on a desert island that would that it might be the the chance for them to redeem themselves as a movie franchise yeah i mean i'm not a fan and i feel like if you were stuck with them on a desert island and you thought let's give them a good solid go as an adult you know with all this time you would still just think god why have i got these long boring films on the island and nothing else you know it's it's uh because of course we're

going to give you the box set well i'd much rather have the star wars box set even though it's it's fatally flawed in lots of different areas but there's enough there that i would happily put up with the phantom menace and all the politics and just because you you know there's enough good ones in there whereas I can't say that about Lord of the Rings I just found it dull yeah I agree and it's not like I'm I'm not anti-fantasy stuff I don't have like a blanket rule about any of these things same I quite like star wars but i don't necessarily like all things set in space or all kind of sci-fi but everyone was going so mad about it and i just couldn't understand why you know and it was when i was at uni and people would be going oh yeah we're really hung over we're going to go around mine and watch the whole box

set and i was like but but i'm hung over and i want to hang out with someone but now but i'm not i'm not going to do that because everyone will get annoyed at me talking through it and it's just fucking boring. So it feels annoying when you're out of step with something, but I think Lord of the Rings is very love it or hate it and with everything that's like that, you always get someone who goes, oh, I think it's just all right. But I don't think there's many people on the fence with it.

No, you're right. It is one of those things where you definitely have a strong opinion either way. And I think part of the reason I don't like it might be because people love it. And I'm like, no, not for me. And when someone really likes something, it can push you further the other way more. And I think that might be part of it. Yeah, I remember coming out of cinemas and everyone just going wild for it and just thinking but i want you know when you can't get it off your chest after you've seen a film you've sat through quite a long film you just want to go oh my god

that bit mate and everyone just goes oh yeah it was great wasn't it it's so unfulfilled you've got this potential energy that never gets released so yeah sitting there with all of those would be very difficult and you know you're having to explain it all to alan sugar the whole time go compare guy keeps singing through it all it's and again i think rachel will be giving it the benefit of the doubt i think actually she's probably very nice i think her niceness might get on my wick yeah as well so yeah yeah it's it's not great scenario we're painting here it can only be made worse with one more addition which would be i don't know some kind of animal okay well

let's segue neatly into that the island is overrun by the biggest dick of all the animals who's it going to be or what's it going to be well when you say the island's overrun the animal is actually tapeworm oh my god that's from experience if you've ever i don't know if you have children i do i have two yeah have they ever had a tapeworm no you know it's weird i was thinking this i think just in the last couple of days i was thinking i'm sure this is something we'll have to deal with because one with. Because one of the mums in the playground recently was saying, oh, yeah, you know, my son had worms and we all had to take this medicine. We all had to take the tablets, yeah.

And I just think I've got a real phobia of things like maggots or little squirmy things like that. And if I see my kids itching their bums and I know that I can give them medicine, that's it. But if I actually have to see any of it and deal with that, I'm never going to forget that. So I'm quite scared of it. I've seen it.

And it is just not pleasant. And I can just imagine it's not pleasant in real life, let alone on an imaginary island scenario where it would probably cause you to be malnutritioned and dehydrated but it is just the it's the itchy bum it's the fact that you have to take the medicine it's the fact that everyone in the house whether they've got it or not it's like when one of them had knits you'd all have to have the knit comb and you'd all have to have the shampoo and everybody's bedding would have to be stripped off and all the towels would have to be cleaned and changed.

But yeah, tapeworm, it's the same. It's just, what's the point? What is the actual point of it? I know, yeah, because I get that they're getting something out of it, but it's not like some things are disgusting, but they're also useful. Like, okay, maggots are horrible, but they're performing an important role in decomposition. Right. A tapeworm is just out for itself and it's disgusting.

It is a parasite. So you'd probably get on well with Lord Sugar. Yeah, I feel like there's some there's a lot of instances in my adult life where I just go, fuck, I'm the grown up here. I have to deal with this. And I just think I'm just about to go, hey, can you? Oh, no, no. The buck stops here here I have to deal with this and I just think I'm just about to go hey can you oh no no the buck stops here I have to deal with it and the idea of my kids getting worms is one of those one of those scenarios where I just think fuck why isn't there another grown I mean there is my wife but you know like why isn't there a level above us who could just come in like don't worry guys you go out for a pint i'll deal with this it'll all be dealt with by the time you get back that should be a service that should be like dial a mum where you just if you if you were a grown-up but you still think that you you're not quite ready for this your

toddler's got an itchy bum they do a poo and you see this white thing wriggling around in it flailing and you're like oh like somewhere something between a sort of a butler, a nanny and a handyman just all rolled into one. That's what I want. Like the other day I was in my garden, I was hanging out washing and it happened a few times. I kept smelling this awful smell outside. And I was like, is it drains? It's not drains. It's like a death smell.

And I thought, fuck, maybe like a rat's got under the decking or something but oh hopefully nature will take its course but i can't see anything and then i realized because the grass was really overgrown and it was like it's a fucking horrible dead rat in the garden like and it had been there for like a week and it was one of those like oh like i'm the grown-up now so i had to like get it on a spade and i sort of chucked it right in the bush at the back of the garden i thought like behind the shed and i thought hopefully or just you know in a week it will have gone away or something and then afterwards i was like oh i should have buried it but then again i can't get it back out again and also like what

if something digs it up you know at least yeah we'll see i mowed the lawn so it was almost like it was completely gone there was no trace of it the lawn was all fresh and mowed my garden looked neat i looked out the next morning and had my cup of tea and i was like oh doesn't the lawn look nice i was like fuck what's that on the lawn fucking fox had brought it back again and i had to do the same thing again less than 24 hours later I'm like where's my butler nanny handyman yeah that that's a service that's definitely a service there's an app there's like an uber style app where you can locate the nearest butler nanny handyman and they're like five minutes away when you need the shed creosoting or you need uh yeah tapeworm sorting out or whatever it happens to be yeah just

practical non-screamish people i think you and i have uh you know gotten to something quite big here potentially and i'm happy to workshop the idea with you at a later date because i really need this yeah i think i think there's a lot of people who need that you're right it's grown up it's a proper grown-up yeah for people who think they're grown up but possibly aren't grown up enough and it's things like if you've cut your hand really badly on a piece of glass or and you're like oh what do i do or if it's the mains that the electricity, you don't know which one to switch off. Obviously, you need a trained electrician when you're fitting lights, but if you're trying to do something yourself,

I just think, my dad would do that. My dad would know how to do that. I just don't have that skill. I'm not practical enough. But I think there's a call for that. Well, look, I mean, I think from something that's not potentially that positive, you know, we have created a very positive ending

because we've come up with this new thing, which might in years to come save a lot of people's bacon. So, you know, I think we've done well here, Olaf. And, you know, if this is the last thing people hear at the end of the podcast, then it's a positive. So, you know, we've come out the other side smiling, despite your great choices for an awful, awful island. Yeah, I've made an awful time, but you're right,

there's a silver lining. And you know what? Back on the mainland, I'm sure Sugar can help us get this off the ground. I'm sure Rachel Riley, she can work out the algorithms or, I mean, she can be the face of it or no she's not really she's not that good who would be the face of that app who is that grown-up responsible come here we'll deal with i'll deal with this i don't know but we've got to keep the go compare guy away from it because

this can't be his new calling at all costs he's not he's not involved he won't survive he wouldn't survive a week win win evans i'm sure you're lovely but you're not surviving a week on my island well look i think you've done a great job here today so thank you so much for coming on the podcast and uh obviously you know you've got a new book out at the minute and you've got loads of things loads of irons in the fire what are you up up to at the minute? So I've got a picture book called Blobfish, which is with Walker Books, and that's for kids who are sort of around three to six. I've got two chapter books

that are called Trixie Pickle Art Avenger and the follow-up, which was just out, called Art Avenger Toxic Takedown. They're both out with Puffin, and they're for slightly older kids. They're for seven to 11. And then I'm at the Edinburgh Festival in August, which is going to be lots of fun. Always good fun to go back and do that.

I'm doing two shows. One is a family show. Last year I did a family show for the second time and it was just brilliant. I had loads of, quite a lot of famous people bring their kids along and got really good feedback. It's called Olaf Valafel's Super Stupid Show and that is going to be at the Pleasant at 11.40. And it is just, it's a mixture of comedy, drawing, some stupid videos, some audience interaction and there's enough in there that the adults so the

the comedian adults who have brought their kids along have kind of said to me that it was pitched perfectly that it didn't feel like a kid's show it felt like there was enough in there that they could laugh at in their kind of hungover states so if you are a hungover adult with kids at edinburgh and you want something that isn't just baby shark or anything like this this is a cut above so yeah i'd come along to that and then i've got my own show so i've been putting on my own shows at the edinburgh festival i'm thinking it's been about eight or nine years now and this one's called look what fell out of my head and this one is at the Pear Tree at 3.45. I'm trying to think off the top of my head.

And again, my shows, it's surreal, it's strange, there's jokes, there's audience participation. I've not fully finished the show yet. There might be some kind of thread that runs through it. There might not be. It might just be a series of disparate things, it'll be fun and it always is and i'm quite lucky that i have a returning core audience of fans who will come along and put up with my rubbish so yeah that's that's what i'm doing i'm trying to think if there's anything else i've got um i think that's

it books and edinburgh yeah so if you're're in Edinburgh, go and see either or both of your shows. And depending on your age and yeah, go and read the books as well in the meantime. So Olaf, thank you again so much for coming on Desert Island Dicks today, mate. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you. Thanks for having me. And thanks for making me think of this awful scenario. Cheers. Thanks a lot. And that's it for this episode.

Thank you very much for listening. If you do have a moment to leave us a rating or a review where you get your podcast, that would be wonderful. And if you can't, then just tell your friends about us as well because that would be lovely. You can get in touch with us at any time by going to dixpod.com slash contact, especially if you want to leave us a submission for Compact Dicks, which is where we

use your submissions to do a little kind of listener generated episode. But we don't do them very often. But, you know, we might do one again soon. We always mean to. And it's one of those things that keeps slipping, slipping away from us. But we will do it very soon. So, yeah, send us an email and we'll get you on that way. You can also get in touch with us on social media at Dick's Pod on Twitter and Instagram. And I think that's it. Dick's Pod was a Sink Clap production. It was dreamt up by James Deacon, who also produces it. And it's also produced and presented by me, Dan Benedictus. It was beautifully edited by the quite beautiful Chris Attaway. So thank you for that, Chris.

And as always, a big shout to my man, John Deacon. He's not really my man. He's James's dad. But, you know, my man. I think that's it. I'm having trouble talking today, so I'm going to stop. But I'll be back very soon with another wonderful episode. Okay, bye.