Desert Island Dicks - OLD DICKS - ELIS JAMES

Episode Date: April 14, 2023

We've been fortunate enough to have some very talented guests on this podcast and if you're a new listener to the podcast we've like to take this opportunity to present to you an OLD DICK - this is an older episode of the podcast we think you should hear. This week it's the excellent Elis James from January 2022! Be sure to dive deep into the back catalogue, you never know what you might find... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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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, I'm Dan from Desert Island Dicks and this is an old dick. This is a episode we put out, I think last year and uh we thought you know what we enjoyed it so much we're going to put it out again just in case you missed it the first time around it is of course the wonderful ellis james you know ellis james is a comedian podcaster broadcaster and uh everything he does is very good i think and i really enjoyed this chat with him there's some really funny stories in there.

And I think it was just a really good episode. So here you go. It's Old Dicks 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, podcaster, actor and broadcaster Ellis James. Hello. How are you doing? Very good, how are you? Good,

I forgot I agreed to say that Vibe Merchant in there at the beginning as well. Yeah, if you could chuck that in please. And Vibe Merchant, Ellis James. And Vibe Merchant, Ellis James. How are you doing today? I'm good, I'm good. Well, actually, I'm quite wound up because this morning I had to think of the worst people, foods, drinks, songs, films and animals to spend my time with on a desert island. So I was actually quite chilled when I woke up this morning, but I've just been running through a sort of rolodex of things that I loathe in my mind. So, yeah, I mean, I'm looking forward to the podcast, but it's put me in a very odd frame of mind, I'm afraid. I'm sorry about that.

I mean, I'd like to think that maybe once you've got it all off your chest, you'll be okay for the rest of the day, but it might be that, like a bad song, it lodges in your mind and these choices repeat over and over again. Well, I'm playing Five Aside later on, so I don't know, maybe this will translate into my game and I'll start making very rash challenges, all sorts of lashing out.

Yeah. Well, I don't know. We'll just have to go and see how it goes. And if something amiss happens with your Five Aside later on, just get in touch and I'll sort out some kind of compensation. I don't know. I don't know quite how we'll work it out, but, you know, I'm anxious not to affect your personal life too much. I mean, generally, are you a kind of someone who manages to not explode and rant a lot, or do you need to sort of have a little safety valve of ranting to kind of

maintain an equilibrium? What, in general or on the Fiverr side pitch. Just in general. In general, I'm quite placid. But I realised this during the pandemic, actually, that I really need time on my own. If I spend too long with lots of other people and I don't get to recharge on my own, then I can find myself getting slightly impatient but in in general a fairly

happy placid laid-back sort of person I think okay I actually reckon I'd be quite good on a desert island if you could still get your own time to yourself then that's okay I guess it depends on the size of the desert island yeah and wi-fi yeah I mean if I had Wi-Fi, I'd be absolutely fine. Absolutely. I mean, you know, you have children, so I think most people with children would sort of enjoy the first week of isolation, I think, a little bit. Yeah. Before you started missing them terribly, obviously.

Please rescue me in a bit. Yeah. Okay, Ellis, well, let's get into it. Let's hear who your first dick is going to be. Okay. Well, in terms of people, this took me a long time to narrow down. So what I'm going to go for initially is when John and I started on Five Live, we used to get lots of very angry tweets from listeners,

which we get far fewer of them now. But especially if I was getting them to my personal Twitter account, I would often look at the bio. And there were always certain themes. Certain themes would emerge from people's bios, from the people who were tweeting us very angrily in capital letters when we first started on the station. And you would often get Proud Dad. Proud Dads don't like it. Proud Dads, Patriots. But the one that always used to stick in my head,

because this is actually more common than you'd think, it would be Andy, Sheffield United fan, 48, contrarian. Can you imagine being on a desert island with a contrarian? So there's two of you. And you're like, OK, so, I don't know, let's imagine the scenario. The plane has crash-landed, sort of lost style, and you're the only two survivors. And

you've survived alongside a contrarian. So he's, so you're saying, I think we should build some shelter. Well, I don't actually. Okay, fine, let's not build a shelter. I think we should, I don't know, maybe sort of a fishing rod or something so we can eat something. Well, I actually don't think a fishing rod would be a good idea in this scenario.

Within an hour, it would be so deeply irritating. And contrarians often, in my experience, they think that they're the clever ones. And that they think that they've got all of the answers and that we're all, you know, we're just a bunch of sheeple who are blindly following the lead. And they're the ones who've really drilled down into what, you know, the real world is actually like. And occasionally they might have an interesting perspective or point of view. If it's just the two of you and survival is paramount, I just cannot think of anything worse than being with someone who would disagree with consensus. Because I think in this situation, you're stressed, you're anxious. There has to be a certain amount of consensus.

Otherwise, it's going to be very, very difficult. Yeah. People who call themselves contrarians, it's like you're still living by most of the societal norms that the rest of us are. That's a good point. So it's not like... You've still got pants on.

Yeah, you're still wearing clothes, you live in a house, you go to work, and it's like you're not really subverting the norm that much. It's not like you've gone completely off grid. You're on Twitter for fuck's sake. Like how contrarian are you? And also, you know, it's like a lot of people have also

put their age, which team they support. So straight away, you're quite normal in that regard, you know, as a contrarian. I'm a big Beatles fan and I do have a slight problem with, not with all,

not with everyone who doesn't like the Beatles, but there is a certain kind of person who doesn't like the Beatles who is doing it to get a rise out of the general public. And, you know, do you know what? If you like classic music or jazz music or whatever and they don't float your boat, that's absolutely fine. But there's a certain kind of person who delights in singing. Well, I actually think they're just no more than a bloody boy band

who got bloody lucky, actually. I would listen to the Beatles, but I'm too busy yawning because I'm so bloody bored. Yeah, well. Not as good as Eric Clapton, in my humble opinion. Yeah, well. Well done. You're really brave.

I think there's something as well about people who proudly describe themselves. You know, because you get an idea of who you are, but I don't think I have enough nailed down certainty to say in my bio, this is me in one word. You know, it's like people who go, oh, well, I'm a bit crazy. They're never very crazy. No, yeah. People who sort of go, well, this is well, I'm a bit crazy. They're never very crazy. No, yeah. People who sort of go, well, this is me.

I'm a contrarian. It's like you probably aren't. You're probably just a prick. You probably just like arguing. Yeah. Andy, 48, a prick. Yeah, yeah. Put that on your bio.

Yeah. You know, because we're reading between the lines here. According to my wife and son, a prick. Yeah. After a while, I suppose it could be quite entertaining trying to get them to just go in circles and sort of disagree with themselves or, you know, contradict themselves a lot.

You know, a contrarian, it doesn't mean that you disagree with everything. It means that you tend to disagree with the sort of the general consensus. But in my experience, the people who describe themselves as contrarians will just disagree with everything because they seem to like arguing.

So I think what would happen is you would eventually have to... There'd be a lot of double bluffs. There'd be a lot of, I don't think we should get a safe source of clean water. I think that would be a bad idea. And then you'd have to sit back and let them think that they've come up

with the idea on their own. And then obviously we can all move on and progress. But it's a very sort of sixth form attitude. It's also, it might have been quite male. It's often blokes who are like this. And I just haven't got the time to disagree that much.

I don't like confrontation enough. Yeah, yeah. I learned someone who's that confrontational. Because I think, you know, on the face of it, a lot of the things that contrarians would have issue with probably exist in the modern world. You know, lots of things like, okay, today there'd be things like vaccines, politics, Brexit, all these kind of things.

You think maybe removing them to a desert island would sort of take all that ammunition away from them. But I think they'd still bring it up, though. I think they'd still find a way of sort of shoehorning it in. You know, even if you're just sitting there looking at a lovely sunrise, they might say, oh, yeah, well, you don't get this back home. Of course, some people will tell you that's down to pollution, both from cars and streetlights.

They're actually wrong on two counts there. And they're just really crowbarring shit in like that. You're in your hammock and you're covering your ears because this bloke is going on and on and on about Britain's relationship with the EU. Mate, I don't care. I don't care about the common agricultural policy. You know, we're marooned.

Yeah, we have literally left the EU now, there's no doubt about it. There's no arguing anymore. I'd love a trade deal. Okay, well, I think a contrarian is a brilliant first choice. Who's going to be joining the two of you then? Okay, for a long time when i was thinking about this it was going to be a specific person who once cut my hair um he wasn't my usual hairdresser and i said um i was just making small talk i said so uh do you like uh music he went no i was like oh um okay do you like sport no He went, no. I was like, oh, okay. Do you like sport?

No. Oh, so what are you into? Like films, is it? No. Telly? No, I don't have a telly. Okay. Cars?

No. All right, then. Poetry? He's like, no, no, not really. I haven't done poetry since school. Okay. And I said, so what are you interested in then? And he said, I just text my friends.

Now, he would be difficult to spend time in a desk with. So I thought, I was in the show and I thought, great, I'll choose that hairdresser. And then I remembered something Izzy told me. Now, Izzy, my partner, who's been on this podcast, she studied drama at college and even though she went on

to do mainly comedy stuff like you know, Peep Show and Man Down and Damned and all that kind of stuff. When she was at college, obviously there was a huge emphasis on, like, not, you know, they were doing plays, but also they were doing musicals and stuff, lots of singing and dancing.

And I didn't go to drama college, and when I was studying, I didn't realise how hard they worked. I thought it was a bit of a doss, but they're constantly in rehearsals because they're always putting a play on or they're always putting a musical on or something. There's always some performance that they're working towards. So they're often in very early and they're rehearsing all day.

But as he said, they just love to perform so much. She was saying that she'd be in the canteen at like midday because they've got an hour off for lunch and then they go back to do more rehearsals. But people she was at college with would love to perform so much. Often someone would just jump on a table as everyone's trying to eat like a sandwich and have a can of Coke and just go, luck be a lady tonight.

Just start singing songs from the shows I dreamed a dream in times gone by no no that is that is my idea of hell yeah so you're next to a palm tree

and the bloke you're with the contrarian he's fucked off to the other side of the island obviously and the other bloke you're with or the other person you're with, the contrarian, he's fucked off to the other side of the island, obviously. And the other bloke you're with, or the other person you're with, is hanging from a sort of palm tree and singing, you know, sort of something from, I don't know, Les Mis or Cats. Can you imagine a song from Cats or something? Yeah.

I just cannot think, or West or something yeah I just cannot think or West Side Story I just cannot think of anything worse because obviously I you know I do stand up

and all sorts of stuff and I'm a performer but you've got to have an off switch but some people and stand ups in the main are actually quite good

at this you've got to have an off switch if you were on a desert island with a performer who didn't have an off switch. If you were on a desert island with a performer who didn't have an off switch and was constantly singing, and I once did a gig where it wasn't just comedy,

there were singers as well, and one bloke on the stage, and he was an opera singer. And I don't know if you've ever been in the same room as an opera singer. It's extraordinarily loud. Like, they are. It is inhuman how loud they are now the idea of sharing as much as i appreciate it as an art form it's not really my thing but you know you can't deny that it's impressive sharing a desert island with someone who's got that kind of vocal ability would be deeply irritating for about 15 minutes. Yeah, definitely. I think it's maybe something about our culture. It just doesn't quite sit

well with us when someone's that confident all of the time. I had a friend who, their friendship group involved a lot of these people who were very sort of confident performers and did improv and things like that. And it was just slightly unnerving because it was just a bit like every laugh was a bit too loud and a bit like a bit over the top. And it was just really like, no one's that confident. Like now you're performing, you've gone past being yourself and you're on stage here in the pub. And it's like when you're imposing your confidence on somebody else.

For instance, I used to live in a very studenty area of Cardiff, and you'd always see it. First-year students were particularly bad for this. You'd be in Tesco or something, and they would be very loudly and performatively discussing their booze choices for the rest of the aisle to hear. You're like, mate, I don't care that you've bought Drambuie because you're going to a party.

It could not be less relevant to my life. I think I'll probably end up drinking eight pints of gin and tonic. Yeah, great. You know, do that. I couldn't care less. But you're performatively discussing your choices in front of, like, there's like a taxi driver and a postman and a nurse.

We're just trying to get our ready meals so that we can go home and watch telly with our feet up. And that really annoys me. Like, when I first started doing stand-up, when I was an open spot, the other open spots I was always drawn to, the ones I liked, were the nerds who just liked comedy who actually weren't very confident and often were quite bad performers but had good material.

The ones I could never really relate to were often the ones with acting training who appeared bulletproof on stage and appeared bulletproof off stage because of their acting training, even if the gig had gone badly. And I used to think, you must accept that we're in Northampton and no one's been laughing. And yet you've got this painted on rictus grin. I'm like, come on, come on, mate. They were throwing chicken kebs at you

please i cannot acknowledge that this has gone badly i mean the idea of them doing musicals at college like a drama college in the canteen i sort of understand it just because that's sort of how musicals work like you're in an everyday setting and then someone starts singing so maybe the temp maybe it's just the overwhelming temptation like i've worked in factories before like when i left uni i worked in loads of sort of like industrial like factories and warehouses and stuff and i always used to just think god imagine if this place burst into song it would be perfect but i don't even like musicals but like just because it looked it looked like a set you know like for someone like me and dolls yeah and it's probably just because like i'm a set, you know, like for someone like me. Guys and dolls.

Yeah, and it's probably just because, like, I'm an awful middle-class person who hasn't been in many factories. I was like, wow, it looks amazing. So maybe it's just that energy in anything that's vaguely, like, not like just a very plain room. I just, if I'm going to be sung at, I want it to be my choice when that happens. Absolutely, yeah. I don't want to be sung at, I want it to be my choice when that happens. Absolutely, yeah.

I don't want to be sung at when I'm eating a Kit Kat and drinking a can of Sprite because it's my lunchtime. Yeah. And I think some of the best things in life are when you're with a group of people that you'll get on with and there's spontaneous humour. But when it's someone like this, I don't think it'll ever be spontaneous because they know at the back of their mind like I want to sing this tune from Cats Okay so the drama student with no self-awareness joins you on the island

and who's going to be the third dick? I once did a corporate event I did stand-up at a corporate event and I had to sit with the director and have the dinner before I got up and did comedy and it was the president of the company

and I was sat next to his wife and she said, what do you do? and I said, I'm the turn and she said, are you a singer? I said, no, I'm a comedian actually and she said, oh, I hate comedy of all kinds. And then she nudged her husband and said, don't I? And he said, yes, yes, she does.

She said, I hate it all. So I thought, oh, I'll choose her then. I'll be, you know, someone who hates to laugh would be an issue. Then I thought, what would be more annoying than that? I thought, oh yeah, Don King, the boxing promoter Don King. Because as I'm almost, because I'm not really suited for desert island life, as I'm almost certainly, you know, breathing my last. I haven't eaten properly for days.

I smashed my glasses on impact, which means I can't see very much. I'm uncomfortable because I'm being able to change my pants in weeks. I don't need a hype man in that scenario. I don't need a hype man to tell me that this is the best desert island I've ever crash landed on. And also, a hype man who's got links to organised crime. Because not only is the hype irritating, I'm very frightened as well.

I can't relax. I just don't think we'd get on. I'd find out that somehow on the desert island, I don't know, he's embezzled funds from my bank account or something. So yeah, I just I've watched a lot of boxing documentaries recently and he never really comes out

to them in glowing terms. And also just, I don't think I'd need my morale lifted. I think I would need someone to be very realistic about my about our situation. And I don't think he would be someone to be very realistic about our situation. And I don't think he would be able to be realistic. Oh, man, this is the greatest uninhabited small island

that anyone's ever crash landed. Does it feel that way, Dan? I feel very vulnerable, actually. Because it's wildlife I don't recognise and we haven't got any access to food or water oh this is the greatest okay I reckon

first thing in the morning it's like people who've got loads of energy first thing I can't when I do the school run if I get there and there are other parents waiting in line, I often haven't said a word. And I will try not to say it, because it actually takes me about an hour and a half

before I'm able to speak properly. Oh, yeah, minimum. Yeah, so in the morning I might say, go on, eat your toast. Eat your toast. No, you can't have apple juice. You can have a glass of milk or you can have some water. No, you can't have a smoothie because it's too sweet.

So that is as much as I can do. And, you know, when I used to live in house shares, most of the people in house shares, like in my late teens and twenties, were similar to me. But every now and then, if you were at parties when you were staying over, there'd be someone who would, even if they were hungover,

they would sort of jump out of bed. Hey, what should we do today? We're not going to do anything today. Why would we want to do anything? It's a Sunday and we only went to bed at five. Why on earth would you want to go and play crazy golf? It's absolute it's you know etc etc yeah so i think that don king would have an element of that yeah absolutely it's weird

isn't it because there's lots of things in life where you know if a joke is told too many times or like a bit is done too many times it loses its impact and its resonance but with someone like don king it's like if he stops doing that, he dies. Don, we get it. It's an exciting boxing match, but we're all going to watch it anyway. It's all right. It's just the biggest match of the year.

You don't have to, no, but, and you couldn't, yeah, I would love to see that energy transform to a mundane space, like him shopping or something. This is the greatest printer paper, 80 GSM printer paper you've ever seen in your life. It is the HP laser jet printer that refuses to quit. And you'd know that, like, something was really wrong. I mean, he'd be a good barometer for, like, the mood of the island

because the day that you're like, Don don you haven't said anything yet today he's like i just don't feel like it today and you were like oh my god don are you okay yeah yeah you've you've taken your brocade waistcoat off what's what's going on like where's the musical guy luck be a lady tonight you know just his his hair just slightly sort of drooping down you know it's like the signs of a healthy looking dog or something it's like bright eyes wagging tail and like i think if don king's hair just droops slightly and like you know maybe sort of isn't sort of wearing a waistcoat and a really shiny jacket you're like oh no this this site the signs yeah of a happy boxing promoter his hair's sticking up oh his cigar's almost gone out yeah it can't be it's in a bad way oh god he hasn't spoken in rhyme for ages yeah i wonder because also if you imagine if

you're a boxer and you're like doing that that thing where you have to get really close to their face, which I imagine, even if you're going to punch this guy a lot and you believe that you're stronger and better than him, I still don't know how they're comfortable with that sort of nose-to-nose kind of thing. And then you've got Don King just spinning around wildly behind you, just shouting a lot. I don't know how that's not really distracting. Do you think afterwards, like, Don, come on, I'm like, I don't know how that's not really distracting. Do you think afterwards they're like,

Don, come on, I'm trying to get in the zone here. I've got to fight a really hard man here. It's weird, isn't it? Because with boxing, I feel like the World Cup final or the Champions League final, the FA Cup final, the fixture is the event.

So, you know, no matter who plays in the World Cup final, the fact it's the World Cup final is the event. So, you know, no matter who plays in the World Cup final, the fact it's the World Cup final is the important thing. But obviously with boxing matches, unless the boxers are fighting for a second time, there's no precedence. It's all about the personalities of the fighters. So you

constantly need to be creating drama and story. And I just think that on a desert island, I think you'd have to have some quiet time I'd be like I'm not sure yeah please you know just chill

I think the only time he's going to calm down is if he's sort of like trying to work out a rhyme of like how he can promote it like there's going to be valent sunny Ireland does that work just that might be the thing that like drives him mad yeah you have to he's going bright red we need to we need to come up with a tagline quick he won't rest until he's got one and then so you'd sort of have to be co-opted and then once

he's got one he's off again and yeah should i have done that i don't know anyway it's a very fine 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 lips and ads.com now that's l-i-b-s-y-n ads.com now mercifully amongst the wreckage of the, 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?

Initially, I was going to go for pears because I don't like pears. I will eat most things. I'm not particularly fussy and I like more stuff. I just cannot get on with pears. Then I thought, no, no, no, no, no. There's something far more depressing. And it's a legacy, I think, of sandwich that are sold in garages on rural a roads and when you bite into these sandwiches they're wet and you don't really they used to get them a lot in service stations on motorways but food and service stations has now to um largely improved but there's it's like you'd be driving through i don't know mid wales or something and there hasn't been a shop open for miles and then you see a little petrol station hasn't got a spa attached to it or something it's just a small petrol station and the sandwiches

in there will always be absolutely disgusting and when you bite into them they're too cold and they're sort of moist yeah and you think well this goes off today how long has this been here for and those sandwiches just depress me and the idea of just eating this there's it is purely food that you eat to keep going before you can get your destination and maybe get something better so just living off them it would be so unremittingly bleak and depressing. So those sandwiches, a couple of pairs have been chucked in there. In terms of drink,

I think the worst one would be, I mean, I haven't had it for years and years, but Red Bull. Can you imagine if you only had to survive on Red Bull? Oh God, yeah, yeah. It's awful. So you're on a desert island i'm assuming it's sunny so you're going to be thirsty so you need to quench your thirst you can't drink water from the sea because obviously that's salt and stuff so you need to drink the

drink that sort of crash landed with you in the plane now i don't know what the bare minimum you could drink on a desert island would be to keep you alive. But if it's all Red Bull, by mid-morning, you're going to be anxious. You're going to be stressed. Your heart's going to be going like the clappers. I'm assuming there's going to be toilet issues. When it first came out, I was a student

and I just thought it was a normal mixer, like sort of Coke or something. And I must have gone out and I must have had like seven or eight cans of it. I remember walking home thinking, this is a very, very weird feeling.

I'm not sure this is normal. And then the next morning was an absolute car crash. So you're on a desert island, you've got stuff to do, you need to sort of shelter, you need to sort of food source need to sort of um food source um etc etc etc you need to you need to write sos in white pebbles so that the plane overhead can see you all of the sort of general admin have been stuck on a desert island you've got don king talking about how red bull is the best drink ever um i just think there's no way

that after about two days you wouldn't be completely sick of it Don King and Red Bull can you imagine that combination and the drama student as well I mean fucking hell it would just be a really hard drink to drink a lot of on a desert

island I think I just think with Red Bull it's weird because they obviously invented it and they went oh we've mixed all this shit together and this is what it tastes like all right well people it's the first of its kind so that's fine diabetics can't drink it no but then people started trying to copy it and then making bad versions of Red Bull and it's like but the the normal the baseline isn't good it's just that that's what it came out as. It's its own weird flavour. It's not like they tried to make Coke and it went, oh God, it's this taste. Yeah.

And it is quite a medicinal flavour as well. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's very associated with like extreme sports now. And documentaries about extreme sports. Like they've got their own TV channel and stuff, which is quite weird because my memory of it when it first came out was that it was something that students used when they were up all night

writing essays or long distance lorry drivers would use it, you know, as they were driving to Rotterdam from Grimsby. We have a telly that's got like, you know, different apps on it. And one of them's like the red bull channel yeah and i quite like watching all that kind of stuff so but you forget that it's anything to do with a drink after all because it's just such this big brand you know they don't sort of

like ram it down your throat all the time by having little adverts red bull or anything but quite often someone will just do like something insane on a bike and then afterwards they'll be drinking a can of it. The thing that that guy has just done, which is terrifying and exhausting, they've hurtled down a cliff on a bike or something. We've seen the same documentary. The last thing you want to do is have that to drink. You want just a nice big pint of water or something.

Yeah, this bloke has been training for two years, and he's going to ride his bike off a cliff but he's got a parachute on his back and the bike also has a parachute attached to it and he's going to do four flips have a red bull after the second flip and then and then he's going to land i don't know in a sort of in the crevice of a ravine yeah yeah i've i've i've also watched those documentaries and it's a very funny bit of product placement. There was one on there about a guy who swam round the UK, and it took quite a long time, as you'd imagine, and there was all these little video diaries of his checking in and people submitting questions on Twitter,

and he was like, OK, so on day 48, just going to answer some of your questions here, and someone had gone, do you actually drink Red Bull? And obviously Red Bull had had to keep that in because they were like, well, no, because we want to prove that it's a useful thing. And he was like, yeah, well, you know, all these studies that show that a certain amount of caffeine, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I realized the amount he was talking about was such a small amount that he was taking each day. He'd obviously thought, well, if I like the research has shown that and he was having the equivalent of like maybe one espresso a day which is like you know like a fifth of a

can or something i was like uh hang on he said the milliliters i'm on to you yes so yeah red bull and the packet sandwiches as well is just i don't know it's something about the wet cold misery of it as well because it's you know when you're eating at a petrol station, it's because you're desperate. You know, you need something to keep you going. And if that's all you've got. I used to know a bloke whose favourite food was genuinely hot dogs from vans on the side of the road. And he would, he couldn't resist buying a hot dog

from a van on the side of the road. I met an Australian once he was really impressed like he he said in australia they didn't have packet sandwiches like that and he was like everywhere you go there's just these sandwiches it's amazing i was like right are you sure yeah but yeah what a country oh my god this packet sandwich is everywhere that's absolutely incredible mate yeah it was extraordinary. Anyway, I think it's a very good shit meal choice. Okay, 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? With the song I have a very very low cringe threshold

and I also have a very very low, almost a bit of a giggle threshold. So any novelty song especially the more successful ones I think probably in the last few years the most irritating one is Baby Shark. Thinking

back through my life, all of the ones that got to number one, it was seen as a bit of a laugh. So Mr. Blobby was also just horrible and I didn't find it funny. The most irritating one, and the one that I just could not understand why anyone was getting any joy out of it at all, was the fast food song by the fast food rockers. Do you remember that one? McDonald's, McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a pizza. I mean, I can't even. I just can't.

And if that is ever playing, you know that bit in Partridge where Lin opens his secret drawer and he dives across the bed to close the drawer? I will do that if it was ever played. So obviously I've got young kids, so I go to a lot of birthday parties and the music is, know inevitably terrible and it's a bit in fever pitch when nick hornby says because he's using some of his living as a rock critic he was like it's quite teenage of me but i i actually find songs i don't like sort of almost personally offensive yeah and that song in particular so it would be the fast food song by the fast food rockers but again any any of that kind of baby shark mr blobby sort of thing you know there are christmas christmas songs i don't mind actually i quite like a lot of christmas songs but there's

that sort of novelty record that makes a lot of wankers a lot of money just just does my head in i'm i'm very with you on this because i think in the last five days my four-year-old son somehow through a youtube algorithm discovered crazy frog oh my god yeah yeah awful and you know the thing about these songs is that you know they've got a shelf life and then they go away and this you know crazy frog was like what 20 odd years ago now yeah and i thought we'd never have to listen to that again suddenly i've got it in my house and i sort of adopted quite a hard line on this straight away and i was like oh no don't watch crazy frog again i really don't like it yeah and then he said to my wife you know mummy i know no one else likes this song but i just think it's really good and it's like and i felt awful for him you know, mummy, I know no one else likes this song, but I just think it's really good.

And I felt awful for him, you know, because you like it. And we're just going, stop listening to Crazy Frog again. So maybe I should let him listen to it. But it's not like, I mean, the good thing about small children is you can introduce them to good music. And they're just open to anything. So, you know, you can listen to the beatles or something you know interesting but then yeah we've done that quite successfully actually i i love my daughter's taste in music the only the only difference is when with little kids they there's repetition

so she likes penny lane so we we drove to see her grandmother and so now we're in 40 minutes and there's now we're 40 minutes back. So we listened to Penny Lane 60 times. And I love Penny Lane, but by the 40th time, you're completely numb to it. And then we went for a drive when we were there and we had Penny Lane on again. It's amazing how they will just listen

to the same song again and again and again. So thankfully, it's a song i happen to like by a band i really love but yeah i mean if it was baby shark or one of those things i think i would just say i'm afraid we we're not doing this anymore yeah i just i had to be blunt with him but um yeah unfortunately he's found the bit of youtube where it can show like what you listened to last so he can go back and find it again whereas before it was like oh yeah i don't know that it changes all the time i don't know where it is now sorry yeah what was it i can't remember what it was called i can't find it so i can't even light him but yeah i mean that fast

food one is insane though it's like i mean because you forget who was buying that what sort of thicko is buying that yeah maybe it's just like some record exec or something and their kids start singing it in the car and they're like hang on say that again i think we're on to something what was that last bit mcdonald's change burger king to mcdonald's and i think we've got a hit um it's a good choice okay what would your your film choice be uh i've never managed to watch more than the first three minutes of love actually oh yeah yeah and you're very lucky in that respect so probably a couple of times i've sat down with someone who did like it and after three minutes to leave the room and over christmas so i'd seen the first three minutes probably twice maybe three times and then it was on over christ Christmas I was flicking through the channels and we were probably

I remember I looked at my watch, we were like an hour and ten minutes in, so I was in uncharted territory, I'd never seen this part of Love Actually, and again I watched for about 90 seconds and I had to turn it off, so I've got about a threshold of about 90 seconds three minutes for Love Actually

so I'm on a desert island I'm bored, I need entertainment, I haven't got my computer, I haven't got my phone, I haven't got any books, I haven't got my records, etc, etc. I need to watch something. I am. Could I sit through it? I mean, looking at the form guide, you would have to think no.

If it was the last film on Earth and I'm doing it to get away from Don King, someone who's always singing songs from the shows and a contrarian, I don't think I could actually. And there's a certain kind of Englishness that's in films that I find very irritating.

And I live in England. I've got no problem with England. But it's the René Zellweger voice in Bridget Jones, which just goes through me. And Love Actually is full of that voice. Yeah, yeah. And it's a sort of England I don't really recognise. And, oh, my God, it just, again,

I've got a very, very low cringe threshold and it just makes me cringe. And it's a Richard Curtis film. I mean, I absolutely love Blackadder. There's a lot of Richard Curtis's work I really like. Blackadder in particular, but bloody hell, man. That film. And I can't even discuss what I think the weaknesses in the film are because I haven't

seen it. I just know that I've seen enough after the first 180 seconds so it's not like, there was a piece in one of the papers over Christmas about how love actually was you know it was a kind of

critical analysis, it really stuck the boot in. I read the article and I couldn't even relate to it or empathise with it because I'd never got that far. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, and there's a lot of quite good actors in it as well, from what I understand. It's got a great cast, yeah. It's got a good cast.

There's a smugness to it that I just can't abide. Well, there certainly is smugness to it that I just can't abide. Well, there certainly is in the first three minutes. I don't know, maybe the other 117 minutes is absolutely brilliant, but I don't think that is the case. It's so sort of heavy-handed and it's that sort of, as you say, that idea

of a certain kind of Englishness where you sort of expect someone to kind of be walking along in london a bit sad and someone goes cheer up greatest city in the world it's that kind of like like that's the sort of like market trader yeah come on love it's not that bad cheer up fuck off mate yeah and it's like you know I've lived in London for like 12 years or so and it's taken me

a long time to get to really enjoy it you know I just tolerated it for a long time and now I really do like London but none of the things

I like about London are in a Richard Curtis bit it's just his idea of London is the idea of someone who probably hasn't really or either hasn't lived in London

or has lived in a very specific isolated part of London for a long time. There's never anyone smoking weed at a bus stop in Richard Curtis films.

Exactly. It's unrealistic. Or doing a wheelie outside a chicken shop. Yeah just riding an electric scooter really fast down

the pavement. None of that. I mean electric scooters in his defence. Electric scooters didn't exist at the time of Love Actually.

But it's just that sort of like, and Hugh Grant will be prime minister and he'll fall in love with a common girl. And who's that? Martine McCutcheon. She's got an accent, hasn't she? And it's just, yeah, I think it's an awful, awful piece of work. So it's a very good choice. Okay, Ellis, finally, the island is overrun by the biggest dick of all the

animals. Which animal is it, and why? Are you aware of the internet forum Quora? I've seen it. I've never... I don't think I've been on it. Okay. I googled something once. What looked like the most reasonable

answer. It's probably a bit of confirmation biases, but it was something that looked fairly interesting. I thought, well, I will read that. I can't remember what I'd Googled. And it was on a Quora forum. So it's a sort of question and answer forum online, right? That's seemingly what it is. But to read the answer in full, I had to register.

I thought, okay, well, it doesn't cost anything, so I'll register. So I read the answer. There we go. And then what it does then is, based on what you've previously clicked on, it will send you more or further questions on that kind of topic, but they'll get emailed them. And then because you've registered, you can click on.

And I don't know what i initially asked but but it's tailored very very weird questions to what it thinks my personality is okay so as i've said i don't know what i googled when i first when i first signed up to a website but now the only stuff i ever get emailed is could ridicbo the heavyweight, survive 90 seconds in a cage with an orangutan? And then he'd be like no, he absolutely couldn't. Even though Riddick Bowe is six foot four, blah blah blah

this is what an angry orangutan did to this poor woman at a zoo in Florida. And then there'd be a picture of a woman who's had her face ripped off and I get these emailed to my inbox. And I think it must be because I click on them occasionally. It's sending me more and more.

So based on whatever it was I Googled a long time ago, primates are very, very, very angry animals. Brackets, general. So any kind of pissed off primate, it would be absolutely horrific because they're very, very angry. They're much, much stronger than humans. And I think the final indignity

as I was getting my legs ripped off by a chimpanzee would be to sort of lie there thinking, we share so much DNA. It's like having my legs ripped off by my second cousin. Oh my God! They're just like these humanoid sort of fighting machines. Yeah, yeah.

So yeah, and I don't think I'd last 10 seconds with this sort of silverback gorilla. And that's the thing, I think, I find it really depressing when, you know, I was watching an Attenborough thing and it was, there's one where there's just a tribe of chimpanzees and they like invade another territory and they have this huge fight

and it's really graphic and horrendous. And I just think, God, and we're their closest relative. Like, there's no hope for us. There's no hope for us. And then sometimes they show the bonobos that have sex a lot and you think, well, maybe there is hope for us. And they wank loads. They wank loads. There's still no hope for us. There's no hope for us. And then sometimes they show the bonobos that have sex a lot and you think, well maybe there is hope for us. And they wank loads. There's still no hope for us.

You're on a desert island. You've got Don King hyping up how great the island is in rhyme. You've got someone singing Luck Be A Lady Tonight. You've got a contrarian and just a wanking monkey who could kill you at any time. And you're sitting there eating your wet sandwich thinking to yourself, well, I can't even, I can't even tempt him with this.

The Red Bull's only going to make things worse. And just, I've never seen, I've never seen a primate wank to completion. But I imagine there's loads of it. It's just the sheer volume will be horrendous. There's monkey spaff everywhere. You're like, I'm crying out loud. Again?

Chill out. And then you're trying your best to stop this. Because every now and then you will read about like a mad millionaire who's raised a lion from a cub. And the lion will be relatively tame or a tiger or something. So you think, okay, well, a lion or a tiger can't be that bad. Or maybe, you know, clearly it would be.

But I just think, I reckon there's some animals I could outrun or I could climb up a tree. Yeah. You don't have that option. Some monkeys either wanking or fighting. You think to yourself, either way this is going to be unpleasant, potentially deadly. So, yeah, not a lovely environment to live in.

No, I think you've done a superb job, Ellis, of picking an incredibly inhospitable environment. Yeah. The interplay between the characters and, yeah, I mean... Your last few seconds soundtracked by the fast food rockers performing the fast food song, talking about food you can't even eat. I think it's flawless, really.

I mean, you know, sometimes on this podcast I have to sort of really sort of stretch to, you know, to agree with what our guests choose. But I think in this instance, I'm absolutely with you every step of the way. Thank you very much. Thank you very much indeed. Ellis, obviously, you know, having heard this,

our listeners will want to see and hear more of you. Where's the best place they can do that? I do a five live show every Friday with John Robbins between one and three. So you can either listen live or you can download the podcast. I also do a podcast that's nominally a sports podcast, but we

discuss sport for about 15% of it, called The Socially Distant Sports Bar. But we just make each other laugh, really. And you can get that wherever you get a podcast from, that. And you can get that. Yeah, wherever you get a podcast from, that's where you can get it. Brilliant. Ellis, thank you again so much for joining us today.

It's been a real pleasure. A pleasure's all mine.