Desert Island Dicks - TOM KERRIDGE - OLD DICKS

Episode Date: December 13, 2024

At a time where food is very much at the forefront of our minds, we’re republishing this episode of the podcast with Michelin star chef and all around lovely man, Tom Kerridge. Fun fact – Tom is the only guest to have appeared on Desert Island Dicks and Desert Island Discs! Recorded with Dan Benedictus back in 2021 - here’s Desert Island Dicks with Tom Kerridge. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, it's me, Harriet Kemsley, presenting you with another episode from our back catalogue. There's so many to look through, and I suggest that you do. But to make things easy for you, you don't have to trape through old episodes, we've found episodes we think you might like, and we're putting them to the top of your feed. At a time where food is very much at the forefront of our minds, we're republishing this episode of the podcast with Michelin star chef and all-around lovely man, Tom Kerridge. Fun fact, Tom is the only guest to have appeared on Desert Island Dicks and Desert Island Discs.

Is that true? That's crazy. I can't actually believe that. We need to we need to have fun in another crossover. That's that's going to be the goal. Recorded with Dan Benedictus back in 2021. Here's Desert Island Dicks with Tom Kerridge. 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 chef, restaurateur and he's also got a new book out, Tom Kerridge. How are you doing? I'm very well thank you my friend. I'm

looking forward to being marooned on an island or maybe I'm not, I'm not quite sure which one. Well I mean I guess the how bad it is sort of depends on uh on your choices that we're going to find out so uh yeah it's up to you i guess but um it might be quite ropey then it may be quite ropey yeah yeah exactly what sort of mood are you in today that what how do we find you today i'm i'm good like i've got to be honest i'm normally pretty i'm normally there it, it doesn't fluctuate too much. It's fairly, it's fairly standardly, I would say pretty much sits around 85% positivity. Okay. Yeah. Because I mean, obviously we've not met before.

The sort of the vibe we get from you, you know, I've seen you on telly and things like that. You seem a very upbeat person. So was it difficult choosing a list of people and things that you hate no quite simply no I mean I'm always quite good at being up um I'm yeah I have I genuinely wake up in normally a good space pretty much every day um but yeah yeah no I don't really dislike too many people. I like people, but there are certain people that, or there are certain traits about people. That's more like where I was looking with this, is traits about people that I'm not always big as fans of. So it's, and then you've got to find someone that fits into that.

And that was, some of them were easier than others. Okay. Well, I'm very interested to hear what we're going to get so let's get straight into it. Who's going to be the first person joining you on the island today? Well to be honest it was politicians right and it's not and it's not that they're not important and it's not that politics aren't important. I just get so fed up of talking and listening to sentences that go round and round in circles that have never answered a question and it drives me absolutely nuts and this isn't a political statement it could be from any

party and it could be because they're all they're all guilty of it however the one that I think is probably the worst and it was a toss-up between Matt Hancock and Gavin Williamson. But I'm going to go with Gavin Williamson because he's just I just I mean, it's almost toe cringingly, curlingly, embarrassingly the way that politicians behave or talk on. And it's been quite a weird thing during this pandemic and the whole because all of our lives comedians chefs restauranteurs musicians actors and like just like everybody's life has suddenly become run by politicians so all of a sudden people whose jobs were kind of existing to how you run your life and how you make your life but you're still making those decisions you get get on with it. And the decisions that politicians might make kind of half affect your life when they do and you vote for a particular reason in a particular way.

But then all of a sudden this pandemic has put politicians at the forefront of everybody's decision-making about everybody's life. And it's kind of exposed them for how, I mean, how ultra pathetic a load of them are, how not straight-talking, how not honest they are, how all over the place they are, and why they won't ever answer a straight question

drives me absolutely nuts. Yeah, yeah, because I guess, as you say, like, you know, in a lot of life, when things are kind of just sort of ticking along, you know, there's always some kind of crisis, but, you know, not on this scale. So it's quite easy to generally sort of bluff your way through stuff a lot of the time and it's like well that'll just you know get it'll get sorted out later whereas now it's like you haven't got

answers and and this is unprecedented and you know now you do need to give a concrete answer and not just sit on the fence about stuff 100 you know it's like in a war or something well that's it exactly and i think politicians would be just massively exposed because quite often you could go with you know we are looking for answers and honesty and we're looking for straight talking decision making and quite often it never happens and and i do get i don't envy any of them like you know i don't envy i don't envy this government in any way in terms of what they've had to face this year like you know in terms of their decision making but and you hear it said so many times that yeah but you know you know it's been very very difficult for this

government everyone around yeah but that still doesn't excuse them being rubbish at their job does it do i mean you could still be i know it's a really difficult thing but if you're rubbish at your job but now we've just found rubbish people in charge of things where we need really good people we need solid decision makers and you know to oversee and i've picked on gavin williamson just solely because you know the way that i think the education system has been dealt with it it's it's not the health thing because you could always pick on that and matt hancock has had a very difficult he's talking about people's lives you know we're talking about you know health we're talking about life and death right and decision making he's making gavin williamson is talking about he's having to deal with um students gcses he's talking about

you know kids educations and he and it just seems that he's got so much of it wrong and then there's never been a straight talking answer to getting it right or admitting that they've got it wrong. Those are the things that drive me absolutely nuts. So it could be a generalisation of any politician that doesn't answer questions in a straight and honest manner. Or I've just I've just picked on Gavin Williams because I just find him. I think he's probably the worst. Yeah, I mean, as you say, stiff competition. It's a weird thing with politicians, isn't it?

Because most things it's like, right, you want to do this job. You need to do training for it. Like, you know, you want to work in a restaurant, you know, whether front of house or cooking or whatever, you know, you need to do the appropriate training. So you have the skills whereas being a politician it's like you sort of want to be a politician and then they'll put you in charge of something massive that you've got no expertise in it's like all right uh gavin well now you're going to be in charge of education i know it was something else before but this year you're going to be in charge of this huge thing with massive consequences that you've got no idea about you know and why should you because

you were doing something else last year and you never trained for this it's just such a crazy way of living isn't it it's absolutely bizarre isn't it i find the whole thing ludicrous and ridiculous that i know we then rely on the civil service to get it all right and for them to direct the politicians in the in the correct manner in the right way and with the with the helping them with their decision making but it is it does sound like you say it's absolutely ridiculous you know Gavin Williamson has not been a head teacher or a university uh a lecturer or or principal you know but all of a sudden he's found himself in charge of them all it's quite it is absolutely bonkers it's like saying to me right you're now in charge of Heathrow airport this year it's like what is that I mean how would that ever happen but it does yeah well i mean the food

quality's obviously gone up but the planes are very late yeah exactly yeah yeah they're taking off in the wrong direction no one knows where they're going is it yeah but everyone's having a lovely meal yeah yeah um yeah so i mean you know you said you're quite an upbeat person how would you feel about being stuck on an island then with gavin williamson i mean do you think would you are you the sort of person that would snap when he's just going around in circles or sort of bigging himself up for things that he didn't really achieve yeah there would come a point where i go look mate you just got you just have to be on it the one do you know what the one thing and this is what makes hospitality such a beautiful industry to work in,

and it's brilliant, because you can't blag your way. You can't pretend. You learn your trade and you get better at it. And the same as customers and guests that come in the restaurant, they're now educated. They understand food. People know what they want. They watch cookery programs.

They read magazines. They do whatever. They cook themselves loads at home. So people have an understanding of how to get to a process and people like good service and you can't pretend to be something else. And there's no excuse, there's nowhere to hide. And there's no, you know, so you've got the one thing about the hospitality industry, it's always full of like really straight talking, honest doers people that get things done and that and so in the end if you you know if if you weren't honest and and and straight and this is the biggest thing right i don't think many people in this country would mind if politicians went yeah i proper got this wrong

here like i'm really sorry this is what we've learned from this and we're going to move on from it do you know but but they don't they never they never admit they're wrong what they constantly do is just try and swerve it and try and blame something else or do something but that but that doesn't wash anymore i don't think we with us we kind of like we like honesty we like direct we don't like it because you can always forgive somebody if they go do you know what i really got this wrong we learned from it and next time we're going to do this or we're going to move on and that that's where i think that that's where i think the difference between hospitality industry and politicians are maybe maybe that's the difference between not just everybody and

politicians yeah i mean it definitely seems to be quite a standout trait. And I suppose, yeah, obviously it isn't an easy job, but I think if you just suspected that they cared a bit either way, you know, and just went, you know, yeah, I dropped the ball, I'm really sorry, but just sort of going, oh, no, I don't agree at all that it was a failure, you know. And it's like, well, you know, I know the media spin things a bit, but we've got a rough idea of how this went down, you know.

Yeah, yeah, we can see it with our own eyes i mean yeah you may not be calling it a vaccine passport changing the word passport to certificate still we can see through this we're not that stupid yeah exactly exactly fair enough okay so that's uh that's one person you're stuck with on the island. And who's going to be the next person joining you? So I'm not. So I've always I went to a school where it was full of like naughty boys and I liked hanging around with the naughty boys and it was a good laugh. And I like people that are a little bit extreme and don't really live by the rules and just do kind of what they want their moral compass is in the correct place but don't always conform to society and get they get on doing their doing their own route going going their own way dressing how they want saying what they want doing what they want as long as it's not harming anybody else or being you know so i like people to break the rules and stretch your boundaries and do stuff

i like hanging around with that so somebody who's the complete opposite of that if i couldn't i couldn't think of anybody worse to spend time with. So you're probably, you might be able to, you know He-Man, like the cartoon. So like Prince Adam, before he's He-Man, has to be the dullest, most square, most boring person to spend any time with. That man is a fun sponge like everything about him is that I couldn't think of anything more dull than hanging out with Prince Adam from He-Man that's definitely the first time he's been chosen on here so I think that's a very good choice yeah I can't even really remember him that much. And I loved him when I was young. I love watching He-Man and stuff. But he's just a kind of a very normal do-goody prince, isn't he?

Oh, mate, he's just so dull. He's just the most, like, you know, stay between the lines, do the right thing, always be nice. Never, like, you know, never have a cigarette, never have a drink, never do, like like never do anything that's any fun ever. And you'll never, ever get told off. And it's just I mean, it's so mind numbing. But like the idea of spend like, you know, all right, two minutes with him and you walk away going, yeah, he's a really lovely, pleasant bloke. I wouldn't want to be stuck on an island with him how that and that's the first thing that'd be in my head so now i'm stuck on an island with him like

prince adam from him before he's now he man would be a different thing maybe maybe if we could create chaos and mayhem somewhere that he'd have to turn into he man like i don't know if you follow um grumpy skeletor on twitter right oh yeah if you don't you should because it's see grumpy skeletor i would want to spend time with and he is the complete opposite of he-man so maybe if you created something like chaos and mayhem he-man turned up then it might be a little bit better but when he goes back to being prince adam not for me dull dull dull dull fair enough yeah and i guess it's the same with his cat as well because Battle Cat before is Cranger,

who's like a sort of cowering tiger and everything. So it's like, that's a weird thing as well. And it's not like they, I mean, I suppose, how does he, he gets the power of Grayskull, doesn't he? So I suppose he has a sort of spell that transforms him. So I suppose that's the kind of, because I was like, how can you suddenly be so different you know but um i guess it's just witchcraft isn't it i was thinking actually like

the other day that um because i remember and i think they maybe did this on a couple of cartoons back in the 80s but i remember on he-man at the end there was always like a separate little bit that was like give you a little lesson, like a little moralistic story. Yeah, and remember kids. Yeah, do you remember when she was running without looking where she was going? She tripped over that rock and almost fell into the jaws of that giant spider. Well, remember, look when you're running. And it's like, I'm four.

Of course I'm not going to look when I'm running. Exactly that. See, I would not want to spend the whole, however long I'm trapped on this island with someone constantly moralistically pointing out to me that I should have been looking which way I was going before I was running. And be very careful when I'm setting fire

to something of the campfire. I mean, honestly, it would just be so dull. Like I'm already, I'm, a little bit of cold sweats about the thought of hanging out with Gavin Williamson and Adam from He-Man. It's like, that for me, it's pretty poor. It's bad, it's bad. That's a bad couple of people.

Yeah, because at least with He-Man, he'd be going, now, listen, Tom, remember, be careful when you're gathering coconuts over there because, you know, if they fall. I remember once I had to do this and he was like, oh, yeah, tell me the story about how something bad happened. And then you saved everyone, whereas you're only getting the first part of that story. Yeah, exactly. Just the vanilla version of everything.

Yeah. And if He-Man was there, like at least you could mess around with his massive, like his great big sword, smashing up stuff stuff cutting things down doing stuff you could have a ride on battle cat you could do you know all of it you could have a bit more fun but if you were with prince adam and cringe like this dull cat that was just asleep by the fire and some bloke telling you some really uninteresting story about how to look left and right before you cross the road i mean it's just not that's it that, it's just not... That's not a space I'd want to be. I'd try swimming, I'm fairly certain. I would just leave, swim and keep going. And then I'd get into trouble

and then He-Man would come and rescue me. Yeah. But I wonder if maybe he couldn't, I mean, because I guess does he have to be at Greyskull to get the power of Greyskull? Can he just get it anywhere or does he have to be sort of in the right sort of area? Yeah. I don't know if he needs to be at Greyskull to get the power of Greyskull can he just get it anywhere or does he have to be sort of in the right sort of area in the right postcode

or it doesn't quite work yeah he has to be like in zones 1 and 2 in London otherwise it doesn't reach that far yeah like a bad wifi signal or something yeah because I think often on this podcast like what I find is quite often it's like

things that can sometimes be the worst thing as something that's very close to being brilliant, but just not quite there. You know, and that's a perfect example of that, I think. Yeah, yeah. I mean, because like I don't necessarily I don't think Gavin Williamson is a bad person and I don't think Prince Adam definitely not a bad person. Just dull. Yeah person just dull yeah just dull yeah yeah definitely i mean i think in this in the setting of a desert island you know you could forgive a lot of people's past lives just to sort of concentrate on the here and now but they've got to come with some chat you know yeah they've got to have a bit of banter and they've got to have some form of personality i think that's a

really good choice and who's going to be the third person rounding off your selection for the island so last one is it is it is a character um annie wilkes now i don't know if that rings a bell or not so annie wilkes is a character played by kathy bates in misery have you ever seen misery so misery is the movie where um there's an author, a very famous author who has a car crash in the snow and is really badly injured in the middle of nowhere. And then he wakes up and he's been rescued by this woman and wakes up in her house. And it's and he's very grateful for rescuing him. But he finds that he's badly injured and he's beginning to heal. But she's actually like a mentally crazed super fan that is hugely obsessed, that would have a massive amount of restraining orders out on him and all sorts.

And so she then is obsessed by him and the books that he writes and does not let him escape or leave the room or the house that they're in to the point where there's a bit where she puts a big block between his legs and snaps his ankles with a mallet where he tries to get it. lunacy and so someone who's um a slightly obsessive or massively over obsessive crazed um super fan that would be prepared to smash your ankles with uh with with sledgehammers is someone who i would not want to be uh trapped on an island with unless of course she was a massive super fan of Prince Adam that's a very wise choice yeah it's you know what I'd forgotten that's the character's name but as soon as he as soon as he said misery I was like hobbling that the word hobbling when she does the thing to the ankles it's just I think I can't remember much of the film but that bit will stay with me forever yeah I mean to be honest not much else happens in the film or like the bloke tries to escape and he not he's not allowed to leave she doesn't let him

leave and he knocks uh she's got all these like weird little trinkets in the house and he knocks i think it's like a little porcelain penguin figure over and then he picks it up and he puts it back but his face in the wrong way so then you go oh no she's gonna know that he's facing the other way and then he gets back in his room and you know that's the point that you think she knows and that's the point where she goes to smash his legs so that she knows he can't escape she just doesn't want him to escape or leave ever and apart from that i don't really know i can't think what else happens in the movie apart from it's quite psychologically full on pretty horrible fan obsessive

and it's a bit but you do think of the hobbling bit it's horrible, it's a horrible movie but I think someone like that with that kind of personality on the island, I mean obviously that's not a good person to have on the island but I think they'd really lull you into a false sense of security as well because it'd start off and you'd be like

do you know what, she's alright, maybe she's got better like i think you know she seems quite kind actually and then one day she'd be like now tom don't go over to that side of the island again because uh and she'd give you a reason you're like okay and then the next day she's like where'd you get that coconut i think i told you not to go over to that site and you're like oh no you know so it's kind of built, you know, at least if she was just crazy from the beginning, you're like,

right, I know what I'm dealing with now, but you'd kind of be lulled into that sort of sense of like, Oh, maybe it's okay. I don't know. Yeah. Do you know what the worst thing about it is?

Right. I don't think we'd ever be able to escape either. That'd be the problem because she's obviously a super fan. She, she's a super fan obsessive of prince adam gavin williamson and myself right that's that's that all three of us she's a super fan of all three of us that then when you see the ship that's coming that's perhaps coming to rescue us she would make it go away she was able to make no no they're all we're all fine we're all just staying here

because it would ruin her her plan of us being able to escape and get on with our normal real lives so yeah i think if she was on there i don't think there would ever be any escape ever yeah i just like the idea of like someone with that that personality and then someone like gavin williamson having a conversation it's just such a odd combination of people. I think it's brilliant. Yeah, and then Prince Adam explaining to her that smashing people's ankles in with sledgehammers is moralistically unjust.

And, you know, the moral of the story is you must always let people make their own decisions and walk away if they want to, or something really boring. Yeah, and then even when she gets bad, he can't help you because he's not he-man you know he's almost he-man yeah it's just a pathetic shell of he-man a husk of he-man oh that's a really good trio of people i think that's a very good awkward choice for the island okay well tom mercifully amongst the wreckage of the plane there was some food and drink left over unfortunately for you is your least favorite food and drink in the world what are they and why are they so bad well it's gonna be i mean it's gonna be two things that

probably people really love and first so it could be lobster right so obviously there's loads of people who'd be loving that thing it's the best thing ever. How could you not have a lobster on it? I mean, lobster's amazing. It's almost like the king of the sea. It's this crustacea that's been around for years and years and years and it lives for such a long time and it cooks beautifully. You could cook it on open fires.

You can poach it. You can do all sorts with it. It takes on wonderful flavours. It's an amazing thing, except i've got a shellfish allergy so i would have to spend the whole time obviously being the chef cooking it so i would be smelling this lobster cooking the lobster obviously for gavin uh prince adam and and uh annie wilkes uh but never ever being able to eat it so it would be it would be it would be yeah lobster is the food that i would is is my yeah my worst nightmare for head to have there because i mean as a chef for you even though you

know it's basically poison for you is it also still impossible for you to see people cook it badly would you have to step in and go look come on you can't treat that ingredient like that i've got let me do it exactly even if you hated these people yeah exactly that i can't bear watching other people cook things badly like you know you're around at friends houses or or the in-laws or my mum's house or something you know and they go to cook lunch or something you've got i've just got to do it because it's just it's less fuss it's a lot easier it's what i do i know i know i'm doing it's going to be the end result's going to be better i just can't bear to sit back and watch somebody else do it even if it's something that i can't eat so i i would i would spend my days constantly cooking

lobster for free people that i don't want to be with it sounds like this is the this is this is turning into the worst nightmare ever yeah watching people you hate eat incredible food that you have cooked and can't eat. Yeah, exactly that. Yeah, so lobster would be there. And then the drink would be something that is incredibly trendy and everybody, well, I don't know, everybody kind of, I think they pretend they like it

or that they want to drink it because it's so it's healthy and it's trendy and it's great. It's kombucha. So for me, I am not a kombucha fan, like something that's fermented and bubbly that is like, that is supposed to be good for your stomach. I think it just gives you wind or the shits.

It's just not, I am not, I am not a kombucha fan. I gotta be honest. It's just, it's, I, it's, it's just not i'm i am not i am not a kombucha fan i gotta be honest it's just it's i it's it's not diatonic or see i haven't i'm not a drinker i'm a non-drinker now i haven't drunk for nearly um nearly eight years so it's kind of like you know it's it's not canistella either is it if you want something that's got bubbles and fermented a little bit why aren't you drinking lager yeah it's a weird thing isn't it because

it's like if i want something i'd rather just have an overall healthy diet than have to add that into my diet do you know i mean i think there's other things that are good for my gut health that i can enjoy you know like kimchi or something but then like but having like these sort of drinks i'm like can i not just be healthy in other ways? Do you know what I mean? Because if I'm going to go to the shop and buy a drink, it feels annoying to then not have something nice come out of that. It's like when people go, oh, these goji berries are really good for you. They're better than this many of an equivalent fruit.

And you're like, I'd rather have more of the other fruit that tastes nicer. Yeah, exactly. an equivalent fruit and you're like i'd rather have more of the other fruit that tastes nicer yeah exactly yeah i don't i mean i do get the power of superfoods and i do get how it helps and boosts and all this sort of stuff but do you know i mean can't we just have extra orange juice in the morning you know what can't we you know what about just some yogurt what about some you know things that it's just not for me so kombucha and and lobster is not however i'm pretty certain that prince adam lives off that do i mean i'm fairly certain like i mean he's a fine specimen of human being i mean he's he's got shoulders like adam pt the swimmer and a six-pack like you wouldn't believe uh like i mean he's super fit isn't he so he's definitely

all about gut health he's definitely drinking loads and loads of kombucha and you know he's super fit and he so he's definitely all about gut health he's definitely drinking loads and loads of kombucha and you know he's a prince so he's he's got to be caning lobster breakfast lunch and dinner so you know it turns i would end up just being prince adam's um personal food and beverage manager um by the looks of it i love the idea of prince adam's all about gut health. That's a great quote. That's a really good quote. But yeah, I mean, I just think it's so cruel to have to cook something delicious that you can't eat for people that you hate.

I just think it's such a perfectly nightmarish scenario. I think you nailed that, Tom. So fair enough. Yeah, this desert island is getting worse by the minute. The more we talk about it, it's horrible. Okay, well, I'm going to distract you, but again, with something unpleasant. Because 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 um it's got to be and there's so many songs right you could have picked like Barbie Girl you could have picked I mean there's just so many like Rubber anything by Mr Blobby anything by Jive Bunny and like all these like awful awful however I I gotta pick mustang sally like i i just cannot bear it so i was born in the 70s and grew up in the 80s in the early 90s was probably the point of going out out proper for the first time like being and that's kind of when karaoke was kind of becoming quite a thing and it's also when the commitments, the movie,

now the commitments movie is all right. Like in terms of the kind of movie, it's all right. Like it's an all right film about musicians. And it's quite, so it's quite a little, it tries to be edgy, but it's not that edgy,

but it's not. But the Mustang Sally bit that people just see like pub singers, like blokes that think they're really good singers that whole i mean what's even about mustang sally i mean what are we talking about here i mean we're in northern europe we're free why are we singing about american car it's just i just cannot bear that track at all in fact i just everything about it makes me it makes me curl crin like i i can't i can't i just imagine really poor bad karaoke from the 90s with people singing mustang sally and that's that i couldn't i mean i it would drive me more i'd rather eat the lobster and die

than listen to mustang sally more than twice on repeat you make a good case for it definitely i think yeah it's that sort of thing like as you say like someone at a karaoke doing it badly and you know outside they've got like a bit of a ropey muscle car that they've imported and they won't stop going on about even though they live somewhere with really small roads and it doesn't make any sense yeah you go and they probably still live at their mum's yeah but in their bedroom they've got like some like you know cow horns hung up or something you know yeah and cb radio yeah yeah with a nice call sign oh you know call me text like no yeah yeah called jonathan yeah exactly that yeah exactly that that kind of that false pretend heard of it all like i can't bet and it's just that that track is just i just find it i i can't bear it like i just can't bear it because

there's some other good songs in that sort of soundtrack aren't they like it's quite sort of you know it's good like some good soul and stuff like that but yeah that that really sort of snuck in there yeah no there is some brilliant kind of soul music. It is not a bad film with some good tracks. There's just something about that track, everything about it, I just cannot, I can't bear it. I can't bear it. I think it's in the same sort of camp as like that Black Betty song, you know, the Ram Jam.

Yeah, exactly the same. And people do that at karaoke as well. It's like, what is this song? Why are we playing this? Yeah, it's so bad, isn't it? And there's a lot of them that sit in that camp, that karaoke. Everyone kind of half knows the words. They want to be involved in it.

It makes them all of a sudden feel that they're really cool musicians and they're singers because they know a few of the words. It's just, I hate it. I can't bear it at all i think this might be the one that i've seen you like get the most angry about i think so yeah it drives me nuts that yeah i definitely it definitely conjures up a certain kind of person who i think in their own right could just be on the island as an annoying person so yeah do you know what'd be the worst about it is if it was gavin williams

favorite song williamson's favorite song and he loves to sing it at karaoke you could imagine that though he's the sort of person that you're like oh look people might might think i'm this straight-laced politician but uh i've actually got a collection of over five pairs of cowboy boots you know that's his thing yeah well no that is a vision that i'm not sure i'd want to see i've got to be honest and and i do a really mean mustang sally sing-along right yeah now this is getting this is getting a lot worse this is getting this is getting a lot worse okay what would your uh film choice be then it's a genre right so i mean i mean you could pick any one of them um and it's musicals i mean yeah now i get i get movies and i love them i love

watching films they're brilliant and i i quite like going to the theater i never quite 100% get into it weirdly i find theater just a little bit it's everything's a bit over acted it's a bit over because you've got to reach the back of the auditorium and you've got to get like I get it but I like being in theatres I like going to watch stand-up comedy or I like going to watch live music and I love all of that sort of stuff but I don't like um I mean huge support of the arts and but musicals I just don't get right because there is that bit between you're telling a story right so act the story tell the story be the film do where why are you singing me a story like i'm i'm 47 i don't need a lullaby i just why why why are you why are you singing this i don't i

don't i i just don't get it so the movie could be it could be greece it could be les mis this isn't my world this isn't one that i i appreciate that these guys have trained very hard they're incredible singers it's amazing but you're singing me a story i'm out sorry i'm out yeah because it's sort of theater for people who don't like theater and music for people who probably don't like music that much. I don't know because it's like there's a real style of musical singing that is different to it's like

technically I get that you've got a strong voice and you're in tune but there's something about it that I can't put my finger on. It's really like you could sing any song in that style and it's just like it's like a bit too loud and a style and it's just like oh i just don't like it's like a bit too loud and a bit too sort of something a bit brash about it and yeah it's just like any

song that i love in sung by somebody who does musical theater it's just like oh it's weird isn't it see you could say that when you see things like not that i'm his biggest fan or anything but i have seen a few times things like things like The Voice or Britain's Got Talent or whatever. It's when someone sings a song and they're really good. Like The Voice is a prime example. You've got people that sing songs and they're great. And then you have someone from musical theatre who comes on there and sings what is essentially a well-known rock or pop song

or something like that. And it suddenly takes it into this weird space, doesn't it? It makes it become a performance. It doesn't feel real anymore. I think that's what it is. I like realness. And the moment you're singing me a story, you're now out of character.

You're not the actor or something. No one in real life. I don't sing to my friends that I'm going to the petrol station to fill my car up. And whilst I'm there, I'll buy some pork scratchings. Do you know what I mean? Like no one sings that in their life, do they? station to fill my car up and whilst i'm there i'll buy some pork scratchings do i mean like no one sings that in their life do they so you come out of character and you become this something

else and that yeah so i don't i don't i'm not really into musical theater yeah i tell you what it's funny like because see like opera is you know like the sort of high end of these things and i i've been to a couple of operas like uh like it went with my mom on her birthday once and what i thought is funny is because it's all sort of generally in like a foreign language they get away with loads but then like you know they have like the subtitles sometimes they have like a little screen above and like there's this man just belting out this incredible voice and it's really powerful but there's loads of stuff that you don't realize until you like read it that is just setting the scene And he's like belting out and he's like, here in the square, it's a lovely day. Woman selling flowers over there. There's the baker. Hello to everyone.

And it's just like mundane shit, but it's delivered in this incredible, huge voice. And you're like, oh, right. It's just he's just talking about it's a nice day. And it's not even got to the bit about like, there is the woman who I love and I must, you know, must defy all others for her heart and all this. He's essentially reading a child's book in a foreign language, but singing it. That's essentially what's happening. It's like a child's reading book being sung at the best as he can in Italian.

I mean, what is that about? I think it's a very good summary of it. Yeah, definitely. That's my heathen example of what opera is yeah my understanding of opera is that someone essentially sings a child's reading book in a foreign language as loud as they can oh fair enough nice okay so musicals are going on with you then. Fair play. Now, Tom, finally, the island is overrun by the biggest dick of all the animals. Which animal is it and why? Yeah, I think it's probably got to be, I mean, of all the ones that you don't want to be on an island with.

Now, I'm not normally into animals, but I've got a five year old sonold son who absolutely is mad about him. He loves him. So I'm learning more about animals than ever. Like I ever paid any interest in it when I was at school. However, he's mad into anything, carnivores. He's mad into anything that kills him. He's just all over it. He loves them. He loves watching, not like cartoons of it, like the real stuff, like on YouTube,

like animals eating stuff. I'm like, all right, what is it? I mean, it's all right what is it i mean it's real life is it but the of the more the one that's like the most crate a hungry polar bear i mean that is someone who you do not want to spend time with that is like that is somebody who's i mean irrespective i mean they are they just you know your time on that island is not going to be there very long if you are sharing it with a hungry polar bear so i'm going for the animal that i really don't want to spend any time with uh is a hungry polar bear fair enough yeah and uh i mean i do you know what i think bears are

one of those things that they sort of can look quite cuddly and nice but then also terrifying and especially like to think about the proportions of a polar bear they they sort of look a bit less scary than like a grizzly bear you know because their head's slightly smaller something's a bit proportionally there's something a bit more cuddly about them well they're also the sort of thing that kids toys they're white and they're fluffy and they sit and they're lovely and people associate them with winter and they're on christmas cards and they're all of those sort of things you go oh polar bears they're amazing but they're like twice the size of a grizzly bear. Aren't they the biggest bears or something like that?

And then if you actually watch like proper wildlife programs with polar bears in them, they're not actually white. Most of them are a little bit grey. And then when they've eaten something, they are red. They're covered in dripping blood and bits of animals. There is nothing cuddly or Christmassy about them. They're like vicious animals, predators that will tear you limb from limb. Yeah, and I heard this thing about, I don't know if it's all bears,

but I heard this thing about bears that, like, most animals, like a tiger or something, will kill you and then eat you. A bear doesn't bother, it just starts eating. See, that makes it even worse. Yeah, they just go, okay. He's just eating you. I mean, he's just eating you. They'll just stand on you and then just keep eating and that's like i don't know if it's all bears as i say in case you know in case any sort of in case you offend a koala yeah i don't yeah i don't want someone

to write and go you got that wrong about bears i mean i would say our audience is fairly tolerant about me just mouthing off about all kinds of shit but yeah that is like just such a chilling thing to know about them so yeah that makes it loads worse that you you could be pinned watching him eat your arm like i mean you could you could have at least have the respect of like chewing through my throat first so that i died and then eat my arm but no you're like you know what what happens if he likes feet first what happens if he looks like what happens if he likes white trainers and toes first and then like you're proper done and you eat from the bottom up I mean that's even where you take ages well I suppose maybe because you know people like the dark meat or the white meat on chicken there's

no reason that polar bear doesn't have the same thing yeah i gotta be honest though of all the delicacies that you're gonna eat off my my feet and the but they're not my strongest point i gotta be honest if you were gonna eat anything first i'd have gone for the arse that's the one with the most meat on it and also plenty of fat and padding so if i if you're any polar bears out there that's gonna get stuck on an island with me and you want to eat me just eat me from the earth first because that's that that would be that's the best meat yeah well tom i think that's that with that that's probably a fitting place to draw this to a close i think yeah uh that's great thank you so much for coming on desert island dicks today now um what have you got going on at the minute because obviously it's been like a tough sort of a tough period for for chefs and people in hospitality but um what's what's going on with you at the minute? Because obviously it's been a tough period for chefs and people in hospitality.

But what's going on with you at the minute? So we've got the new book coming out, which is great. It's all about outdoor cookery, which would probably work brilliantly on a desert island. So, you know, it's not just barbecues. It's all sorts of bits and bobs for cooking outside. And it kind of features loads of recipes and dishes from around the world. So that comes out very soon. And it's got loads of lovely flavours in it. And it's most definitely the sort of thing that you should pack with you to take to your desert island. It also is quite thick. So you could use it if you had enough

copies of them, you could build them together as a life raft and use it to escape from Gavin Williamson, Prince Adam and Annie Wilkes. Perfect brilliant well like if we didn't need any more encouragement to buy it that's a you've sold it beautifully. That's great well thank you once again for coming on Desert Odin Dicks it's been an absolute pleasure mate thank you. Dan it's a pleasure, Chief. Thank you very much, mate.