Desert Island Dicks - TONY LAW

Episode Date: June 8, 2020

Comedian Tony Law joins Dan to share who and what he'd hate to be stuck with on a desert island. Be sure to follow the podcast @dickspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Or run a reproduced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Lips and Ads. Go to Lipsandads.com now. That's L-I-B-S-Y-N-Ads.com. Hi, I'm Dan from Desert Island Dicks. I'm really pleased to say that this episode features the brilliant comedian Tony Law and it was great getting him on. If you've got any suggestions for people you'd like us to have on, then let us know on Twitter or Instagram at Dickspod. And if you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe and leave us a review or a rating and feel free to tell all of your friends. And now here's Desert Island Dicks with Tony Law.

Hi, I'm Dan Benedictus and welcome to Desert Island Dicks, the show that sees you marooned on a desert island after a plane crash with the worst people and worst things imaginable. Who they are and why they're a dick is up to our guest and here to share their desert island dicks with us today is comedian Tony Law. Hello. Hello there sir. How are you doing? Yeah pretty good thanks pretty good. Are you having a good lockdown? It's going okay I feel like it's become fairly normal now you know. It's hard to know what is a good lockdown until we get another one yeah exactly i'm getting used to just child care and yeah coming up with new new ways to entertain a small child yeah i'm i'm um realizing how poor of a parent i am if it's taught me anything is that um for sustained long periods, I lack imagination.

Yeah, it's really highlighted that with me as well. It's like, right, let's go in the garden. I've run out of ideas here. Go for a walk? Yeah. Oh, I know, let's play catch. Yeah, I know we did it before, but this time there's a spin. Yeah, this time, oh no, that part's kind of rewarding and lovely.

And then once you get over the feeling sorry for yourself that all your gigs are cancelled, I mean, you just have to go online and see that everyone else feels that too. In a way, you've got no one to whine to because everyone else has got their own shit going on so you're just on your own going uh pretending it doesn't but you're fine yeah but you get used to it and if you build a closet studio the work should should start rolling in for voice work now that i got this studio yeah i mean i should say to the listeners i mean tony your your sort of cupboard studio is is beautiful i mean it looks uh say to the listeners, I mean, Tony, your sort of cupboard studio is beautiful. I mean, it looks, it's nice and sort of space-age

because you've got sort of a quilted silver material in the background, so it looks quite space shuttle-esque. Yeah, and it should stop me if the engine of the car that this isn't catches, because it's sort of, it's meant to insulate from heat in a car. Okay. It's the silver shit, yeah. Anyway, I don't know the science on it.

But it's industrial growth. Thanks for having me. Well, thanks for coming on. How did you find the process of choosing your dicks for the island? Because you mentioned in some correspondence that you're quite a cheerful person normally. Well, no, that's the thing. You see, I'm not a cheerful person.

I've got a real miserable side. And so I've kind of purposely gone out of my way over the last 10 years to try and get that out of me. And I can be quite a resentful person. So I've eliminated, I've developed habits of finding something positive about every single person that annoys me. Otherwise, I was becoming super, super unhappy. Like, you know, I can see Ed Gamble on TV and just go, fucking Ed Gamble. And then I could find reasons to be resent can see Ed Gamble on TV and just go, fucking Ed Gamble. And then I could find reasons to be resentful of Ed Gamble.

But I don't because I remember meeting him. And every time I've met him, he's been lovely. So they're fixed. That's fixed. So I haven't found anyone. And also, I'm at that age where the things that used to make me hateful don't as much now because I know that in a little while it'll pass or that that person will, on some level, have some redeeming qualities. Yeah, yeah.

You know, like I don't sort of write someone off. Like I even found myself with, actually it was difficult, with that Cummings guy who everyone is rounding on. And I just thought, oh, it feels like everyone's bullying. And then I listened to him for a while and I thought, I can't find enough to defend him, but I don't want to be part of the people who pile on him. So I just ignored it. So that's kind of where I'm at.

So I found it hard to single anyone out. And also, yeah, I've kind of cut myself off. I read The Guardian for like 30 years. When I first moved here, I wanted to educate myself. So I chose a broadsheet. And when I started reading it, I didn't really understand what they were banging on about. And I didn't even understand all the words. But I forced myself. And then after about like 20 solid years of reading it,

I was really into it and I became such a fan. But then around 1995 or 96, no, actually not that early, maybe, yeah, 97. I don't know. I just, something changed in me and i stopped reading it and so ever since then i've become uh out of touch and i mostly think about space quite a lot and history so i'm kind of cut off with like i go on twitter and then everyone's like oh this person's a bargain and then you you get i get a little bit excited about it. But then it fades too quick. Yeah. So having said that, I've decided to go back in time.

Okay. Okay. Well, I think it feels like you've got quite a positive mindset for it. Maybe one day we'll do a spinoff podcast where we go back through the episode and try and find the good in everyone. And it turns into a party. But wait, this is all me me this is all me trying i'm i'm putting in i'm um i'm employing all the methods i've used too but you get me going i can get pretty bitter so i think we'll we'll still get there i've got a couple of um i've got like a type of person that I wouldn't mind talking about later. Sure. I suppose, where could I start off?

I would say, well, I think Heinrich Himmler is a bad one, isn't he? I would hate him. Yeah. Like a lot. He reminds me that Cummings isn't far off. I'm not in any way. Just there's something about that middle management kind of sneaky. Just I bet he's judgy.

You just see how far it can go. I mean, he pretty much does what it says on the tin. It's Heinrich Himmler. Tell us what you don't like about Heinrich. Yeah, I imagine that would be pretty tricky to be stuck on a desert island with. Although maybe when he's completely out of context and he's, you know, far away from anyone else, he just becomes like, you know, quite a nice guy. I mean, I'm sure he doesn't.

I'm pretty sure he's bad to the bone, but I'm not going to start defending Heinrich Himmler. Put you in a really awkward position there. I think, you know, you get the feeling he wouldn't pull his weight on the island. We're on a desert island, right? Yeah, exactly. I don't know.

If I try and remove him from his crimes and just look at him, I mean, you shouldn't. You can't really judge him from the looks, but he's got a real chin. He looks like Michael Gove. Do you know what? It's been so long since I've looked at a picture of Heinrich Himmler Jumping on the looks, but he's got a real chin. He looks like Michael Gove. Do you know what? It's been so long since I've looked at a picture of Heinrich Himmler that I'm going to remind you. I'm just going to have a quick Google now.

Let's have a look. Do you know what? As well, I forgot he's got a sort of proto-Hitler moustache as well. It's like, God, talk about kissing ass. That's it, isn't it? He's a real ass kisser. Oh, I love your moustache, Hitler. I've got one just the same.

Not as good as yours, of course. And you know Hitler talked about him behind his back. He's going, fucking doing my moustache. But, yeah, he looks a bit govey. He's very chinless. things soft about him isn't there and yeah and uh i bet he's incredibly nice like polite to people but but just the dark meanness underneath it all i mean there's probably a fairly small cross-section of society he's nice to yeah i suppose if you're on his good side which is you know his his sort of aryan side you know then you're okay but he probably moves he moves through i don't know he seems like the sort of

guy who would even be polite to someone he was about to send to their death. He famously, when he went to a death camp, he fainted because he found it all too much, which I think says everything. And I don't think I'm ever going to come up with anything new on Heinrich Himmler. He has this sort of appearance of that, you know that classic Nazi who kind of, before when you're tied up in a chair,

he kind of starts with a, you're not so you and i that sort of thing yeah got that real look of that kind of guy hasn't he but he's so cowardly you don't think he could even carry out the wicked things that he gets other people to do i think he seems like the sort of person who you know people who really like eating meat but they hate any meat on the bone because it reminds them that it's a dead animal. Yes. It's that kind of mentality taken to the extreme, isn't it? Yeah, that's exactly what he's like. He's one of those people.

He doesn't mind it under the plastic. Yeah. You know, but the idea of he would hate Germaine Greer. And I imagine he would really, really hate Germaine Greer. And that's probably one of the nicest things you can say about Germaine Greer. But she should be lauded for, she goes and kills her own meat because she wants to feel more, you know, connected to it. And I thought that was fucking awesome. I love Germaine Greer.

I get very hero-worshipy about people, you know. And then I choose one from whatever it is. So, like, my favorite historian is Mary Beard, and no one will ever knock her off the top. So I, like, virtually love Mary Beard. And as far as top feminists goes, it's got to be Germaine for me. But nowadays she really enjoys winding people up on but we're not talking about germane we're talking about how much heinrich himmler would loathe her they're so very different

they're very different i think being stuck on an island with anyone who believes they're part of a master race is is gonna be gonna be challenging yeah but you know he would he would reveal you know we don't even think it really it's just a way to get people worked up you know and then we give them loads of methamphetamine although we don't call it that yet but it really motivates people and strips the humanity yeah on a what would you want like so if you're on the desert island and you don't know what he's about to become, that's more... Yeah, yeah. Because you wouldn't let him on.

If you know it's Heinrich Himmler, the famous Heinrich Himmler, and you see him, he's not going to make it to the island, is he? No. Because you and my other guests are not going to allow it we're going to see him coming in and i've picked some pretty horrific guests so you you've got to you're gonna have to make a hierarchy so like if you see if you see himler swimming towards the beach and you need to push him out you're gonna need to get one of the other guys that you find horrific to help you push him out and and i don't think i'd have any trouble convincing joseph jugashvili stalin to help out on that because there's no love lost between these

guys okay so stalin is your second choice for the for the island yeah so he's he's on the island and um damn him to hell i've always been far too fascinated by him which makes me some kind of horrible hypocrite but um and i've read the shit out of especially simon seebeck montefiore all the books he's written about stalin are incredible there's one my favorite one is uh well there's there's the young Stalin, which is really good, but then another one's called The Court of the Red Tsar. And it's so compelling, but so dark and soul-destroying that you can't put it down,

but also you feel like going into a forest and not coming back out. It's just so bleak and revealing of humanity's darkness. However, I think I know enough about him to know that I could, and I think you have to in some extreme situations, shut off certain knowledges to deal with Himmler together. Which I don't think Himmler is going to offer much off. He seems like he's a soft, kind of wormy guy.

So we just get a couple of big long sticks. You must let me up in the water. I'll tell you all. And just keep poking him out with the sticks. No, fuck off. Fuck off. You're not coming on here. There's not enough.

No, but I'm not Himmler. Oh, here we go. I mean, he started a rigged long story about he's someone else. He'd try all the lies, wouldn't he? Yeah, I think, yeah, you're going to be easier to dispatch Himmler than Stalin. And Stalin's got a bit more heft to him. Well, he's not a tall guy, but he's got street tough. He was a street urchin.

And he's participated in quite a bit of violence. So he's a hard ass, and I don't think he's going to shirk away from the dark stuff. I'm not sure whether he used to do... I think he did. No, I'm thinking of Yezhov. One of his NKVD chiefs was Nikolai Yezhov. Yezhov, okay. He was five foot tall, but he used to go in sometimes and shoot prisoners himself just to get a buzz on. So quite the opposite of Himmler there.

Yeah, but, yeah, same end. But I think he's such a bully stalin and even if you're like one of the top henchmen he just plays all those he used to make them all we everybody probably knows now after seeing um the film but he used to get all of his henchmen and they would all go and eat these long meals, four courses of food, and then they would drink and drink. And he would keep them all awake, talking into the night. And he would go around the room just isolating different ones at different times, playing them off each other, you know, playing with their groveling up to him,

sucking up to him, and playing all these mind games on them. And just they thought every night was the night they were going to not wake up the next day. And yet they were getting drunk and then they'd have to laugh at his jokes. Then he would turn his mood like it just sounds like torture. Absolutely. I think I mean, being at the sharp end of any totalitarian regime just seems like I mean, just obviously there's lots of bad things about being at the sharp end of any totalitarian regime just seems like, I mean, just obviously there's lots of bad things about being at the sharp end of a totalitarian regime, but just exhausting. Like Khrushchev, you know, when he did the autocratic thing at the United Nations and pulled off his shoe and banged it on the thing, you just think, I'm amazed his mental health is strong enough just to get through a day. Yeah. Like after the thing.

I mean, first he's on the front line of the greatest battle in human history. He was in the Red Army, and he must have seen some horrific shit then. But then for the war to end and be a Stalin crony where he... This is as high as you can get. This is the best it gets, and yet you're still, every minute of every day you're terrified yeah definitely yeah and then i mean let's say that you let him out the water oh okay and you've got so you've got him and stalin on the island together i mean they're both the mind games between the two of them is going to be just phenomenal yeah well i think both of them need to thrive with see i think with stalin he he exists

because there is a certain amount of belief in his what he's doing and so so himmler doesn't exist unless he's got an absolute um like, loyal guard, loyal to him. So they'd have the SS guard looking out for him. And they're loyal to Hitler. So Himmler's like sort of, he's almost besides the point. But he is Hitler's choice. And they're madly fanatically loyal to this dude. So without them, Himmler's a mush, isn't he, on the island? And they're madly fanatically loyal to this dude.

So without them, Himmler's a mush, isn't he, on the island? He's a mush. He can't start a fire, I bet. Well, I can't, but... I wonder if he's one of those people who always wants to be the guy behind the guy, so he'd just turn into Stalin's lackey. He'd start sucking up to Stalin, for sure. And this is why you couldn't allow him to be on the island, because they would start, you know,

they would have all that in common with their murders. They came from very different backgrounds, I think. I think Himmler was a sort of middle-class, run-of-the-mill sort of, and I think Stalin was absolute dirt poor. You know, the alcoholic, abusive father. So there wouldn't be that, but they could bond over the death camps that they both had. I'm regretting these choices because, you know,

I feel like there's people out there who have really studied these guys. And could be a lot more eloquent than me. I'm just, you know, if you ask someone, who would you hate to have at a dinner party, those two jump out at you. Yeah, I think you're doing a cracking job. I mean, I don't think we need a huge amount of, you know, life research on these two to know there'd be a pretty shitty mate to have on an island. And some of the food... I went to... This is how old I am,

but I went to the Soviet Union when I was 17 years old on a high school trip. We were so fortunate. The Canadian government met our... what we could fundraise to send us over these kids from a small country town representing canada on a kind of exchange type thing anyway the food they gave us was like the best of their food to sort of show us look how good we are this is 1987 but it was pretty shitty actually yeah they they yeah because they weren't giving us their worst food like they wanted to impress us so they gave us

like a dry rye bread that if that was the best they could produce, it did make me feel extra empathy for the people who survived the siege of Leningrad or Stalingrad. Like, what must they have been eating? So it did make me really respectful of the Russian and other nations around toughness. What a tough people. Yeah, definitely. talk about being through the ringer yeah they do not get good governments so i wouldn't want any of that soviet food um well before we move on to the food wholesale i think we've still got we're still going to put one more person with you on the island okay now this one i just wanted to change it up a bit okay um and this one is like a type of person so during brexit i remember like i was a non wanting to leave the eu but i was getting a bit funny thinking god

everybody on all of the press seems to say that all the people who voted for Brexit breakfast are racists and bigots. And I just thought, the numbers don't add up. There's no way there could be 17 million people and they're all like that. And so I forced myself to go and meet loads of them wherever I traveled. And I got the strong impression that they weren't racist, that they did have some ideas that I thought were misguided about sovereignty and stuff like that. But it was a real thing anyway. So I found them to be really nice, normal people who just happened.

And I met even some lefties and i've and i met like lots of people of color who actually were for brexit yeah so it just threw out all of the cliches and the quite nasty stuff but this this they're probably struggle to find a person who is all of these things you know so i'm sort of making a an amalgamation making a yeah composite of all the meanies on twitter the lefty meanies who make me uh ashamed of being a lefty i just think god you this isn't what we're supposed to be like yeah it's funny isn't it it just feels like more and more i just i i feel like i'm trying to adapt to a new kind of thinking which is a sort of positive nihilism,

where I'm just not going to care about anything too much beyond the sort of immediate reasonable things and demands of my family. You know, I'm just going to try and just not, because it's just, as soon as you get too deep into anything at the minute, it just becomes unpleasant. You know, you start off on Twitter going, I don't like this person. person what someone else said about them and then by the end it's just so like full of bile piece of your soul dies when it happens doesn't it and i think it's

it's usually because it's like you know like it's like someone will do a video and go look those people are laughing at us and look what they're doing and then you you go oh yeah yeah you oh that's awful that they're like that but then you can find that on both sides and i think it's it's just like social media never have before have we ever been able to collect all the opinions we don't like so quickly yeah yeah and put them together and so it can feel like the apocalypse is coming. Depending on what it is that you're afraid of that day, you can get all the evidence you need. And I think I saw, you know, you'd meet people who are like,

well, it's just the rise of the right, the far right, the far right. And I thought, is it though? I mean, it is on Twitter. I mean, there's loads of people who espouse really nasty ideals. And most people I meet are certainly not far right. And none of the Brexit people I met are far right. I think it would be better to minimize it and not say that there's a big... Because if you were sort of on your own going, oh, boy, I feel really far right. But I'm not going to join that kind of ideology because it's on the outside of society

and no one believes in that shit. I don't want to be exposed. But if then there's loads of people going, it's huge. There's loads of them. Everybody's doing it. It's the real. And then they'll go, yeah, well, might as well.

Looks like I'm right in thinking that then. I don't need to be ashamed of it anymore. then they'll go yeah well might as well looks like i'm right in thinking that then i don't need to be ashamed of it anymore and they'll just go for it yeah i think you try and ignore that shit and don't give it any you know and don't don't call someone who says something that you disagree with that's right wing don't ever call them fascist like don't dust that off save it for when it matters yeah because otherwise it'll lose its power on it that's what i feel like in some ways i mean obviously way too many people have died during this pandemic i don't like that side of it but i quite like the sort of neutrality of it you know you go this thing is bad none of us like it let's all do what we can and that's quite a nice thing to go oh it's a

classic good and evil story this is okay you know my neighbor gave me a loaf of sourdough bread the other day there's fewer cars on the street i quite like this sort of back to basics us us good evil virus bad and i just had this thought the other day i was like oh no when everything goes back to normal and you know it'd be great to save the economy but we're gonna have to talk about fucking brexit and we're gonna have to be in two sides again what it's i even it's some people are still trying to divide people up over and then i i'd have to ignore them. They're even trying to find this as a way to. But I think and I had some friends who were like pointing out all the idiots, the cove idiots. Look at these people. And I was saying, like, you could find loads of people who are behaving in a way you don't approve of and then cobble them all together and go those people but actually really the better way to think of is how remarkable

it is that people actually accepted the idea of being locked down you know for the sake of the health care and for the sake of old people isn't it remarkable that our culture did that yeah like you know not the only ones but i couldn't have imagined that that would happen. Yeah. Like, that people would comply, like, on the levels they have. It's a miracle, I think. Yeah. No, it is nice, I think.

I mean, well, it's weird talking about a pandemic being nice, but I reckon, you know, like I say, there are, like like little silver linings of sort of you know humanity i realize how uh unimportant stand-up comedy is but equally how much i really miss it um but it's a it's amazing that that people have complied to such that have got you know it's uh got behind it um um but there have it man, I experienced one thing that I don't think I'll ever get again was, um, it was during the day when I did it, but my mother-in-law needed her medicine and some food brought up to her. So I drove it to her, but she lives about, she lives a ways away and we couldn't find anyone else to do it. And I also had her medicine already. It was early in the lockdown. Anyway anyway i drove there and dropped it off wiped everything down dropped it on the porch and turned around and drove back without stopping but it was the roads were empty and it was the most free i've

ever been like you get that at night you're coming back from a gig and the roads are empty in the middle of the night but in the daytime is the weirdest thing yeah i had a real urge at the beginning of lockdown to just drive through central london to see what it was like but i was persuaded otherwise you know if you were doing like a film that had you know end of the society type yeah you know apocalyptic film that would have been a great time for people to be out there filming. Yeah. Like not filming scenes, but just filming. Just put a camera on the top of your moped and just ride around. Yeah. You wouldn't need to CGI out all the people with that.

That's what I thought. So, yeah, it's pretty shitty, the old virus. So we're going to go then. So we're going to say like an overly woke person on Twitter is going to be your third pick. Yeah, I wouldn't want them in. Because they, in some ways, share a lot of the kind of, I would point to them and go, and you and Himmler, you're not so dissimilar, are you? Apart from all the murder.

But I wouldn't doubt that you're a few steps away. You know, like, oh, I'll tell you what got me thinking about that was in canada racist people towards uh our natives our indigenous peoples used to i remember during brexit listening to people how they talked about people who voted for brexit and i thought this sounds so familiar and actually it it did sound the same way people used to talk about natives in Canada so they would well they don't understand what they're voting for they just they don't get it I mean they're you know they were just talking about how ignorant they were and how tacky they were and how you know how easily led they are and those are like the nice things they'd

say about them well of course they just don't and all of those things i just thought god it sounds like a a bigot talking about a a cree yeah you know so that anyway i didn't want to forget that i thought i was going to be able to weave that into a really clever sounding comparison but i think uh well a few years ago i got caught speeding and i had to go on one of those speed awareness courses to sort of to not have the points on my license yeah and it was this half day thing and i couldn't have engineered a more perfect cross-section of society in that room of sort of i don't know 15 20 of us and everyone was so nice and i remember thinking i came away from it and my wife wife was going, how was it?

Was it really dull? And I was like, you know, it was life-affirming. Because I came away thinking, maybe we're all going to be all right. Because there's like, you know, there's a full cross-section of like ages, gender, you know, ethnicities. And we all got along fine. But I bet if we went to the pub afterwards and started talking for, you know, a couple of hours, the more we found out about each other the you know the more cracks there'll be and i i just

think maybe there's something for just keeping a very superficial level of interaction with everybody you know withdrawing further and further until all we've got is just sort of a basic hi how you doing oh he seemed nice and that's all we've got you know we don't pick away too much and we'll be okay yeah that's that's yeah i guess that's the problem with got you know we don't pick away too much and we'll be okay yeah that's that's yeah i guess that's the problem with twitter is there's too many opinions and we if you don't know everybody's every single opinion about something it's way much easier to like each other yeah yeah because when you're in the in the flesh you you don't immediately just start going you know what i think about this whoa like you use your manners yeah and you know you sort of gauge it just sort of out of context thought thoughts those driving things are great they're

a bit like going to an aa meeting i don't go to any meetings anymore but um that was the same thing as you go god everyone's in this together yeah yeah i just think good maybe that's something good for the the health of the nation is just every now and again, maybe every quarter you just have to go for half a day, nice chat with a group of people. Yeah. And I always tell the kids, like, you know, when you have a glass of water, you know what it's like if you've got to teach them about stuff. And then you have to teach them, like, where water comes from.

And then you end up having a new deep respect for the infrastructure and all of the things that go on to allow us to live not in chaos. And you just think, oh, yeah, there's millions of people, and I don't know many guys who anymore. So you think to yourself, well, you know, if people who build the roads mostly want Brexit, well, there must be something in it. There must be something in both sides. I don't know. I've made myself sound like a judgy fucker, but by wanting to achieve the opposite. Not at all. I think, I don't know i mean as i said

i'm just enjoying the simplicity of lockdown so you know everything gets more complicated the further away we get from it so yeah it's um yeah i'm not sure that i when it when it ends that i might feel a bit kind of because i'm i'm quite liking the safety of not having to go anywhere yeah not having to socialize that that suited me down to the ground yeah like a lot of people talk about their dads and dads it seems like older dads in their 70s or 80s are loving it they're just like they get to my dad gets to sit and not talk to anyone. This is the best thing that's ever happened to him. Apart from he can't see mom because she's in hospital.

But let's not go down there. But I think part of me, my old man sort of anti-social side is really like that. But then you get a little lonely and then you go online and just read everyone's opinion then it makes you oh no it's fine okay well we'll go on to something slightly less complicated and uh and um potentially i should have just brought a person like piers morgan well he's had his time on the island anyway so i heard yeah i listened to um eleanor tiernan's because i love eleanor tiernan and she brought out the peers so i thought that is done 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 Lipson Ads. Go to LipsonAds.com now. That's L-I-B-S-Y-N-Ads.com. Well, let's move on to the food. Amongst the wreckage of the plane, there was some food and drink left over. Unfortunately for you, it's your least favorite food and drink in the world.

What are they and why are they so bad? Baked beans. Baked beans. So especially if loads of breakfast stuff survived and then they were able to put on a breakfast buffet and then a big old, one of those big tins, one of those big pots that's being heated from underneath. Yeah. Full of beans. Soup jar thing.

Oh, it's disgusting. Just looking at beans. And then they put it. The full English is. Look, people love it, but I cannot understand how beans makes it in there. Like, when is beans being a breakfast thing i mean refried beans maybe in a huevos rancheros i can tolerate but just baked beans mixing with your egg what i've always struggled with them a lot i find them a bit of a strange a strange beast and and they sort of get a bit of a skin on them sometimes

don't they when they're in that sort of that breakfast buffet pot that just keeps them hot yeah and that that skin can get off and it can perfectly fit over one of your teeth like a cap have you ever had that one or it's like a cap on your teeth and it's and then you gotta get it off you gotta get your finger yeah and i don't like how it mixed with your runny eggs. Like, for me, my eggs and it's the toast soaks up the egg. And the bacon adds a bit of crunch. But you put a liquidy beans on there. It's not right.

I feel bad even saying that because, you know, I'm going to be alienating a lot of people who love beans. Yeah, I've always been a bit of a anti the bean. I feel also that a full English. I haven't done the research on this, but it feels like the beans would have been the last one to kind of muscle in there on the plate. Yeah. You know, the other the other ingredients have always been around, you know, sausages and bacon and eggs. We've always had them toast.

Nowadays, you're getting hash browns, which they're probably fairly late to the party. That's an American addition, I think. Yeah. But the tomatoes aren't good tomatoes. No. They don't do good to the tomatoes. Those shouldn't be in there either.

No. It's a tricky thing, isn't it? Because if you go to a cafe and get a sort of traditional greasy spoon full english none of those things if we're honest are cooked you know there could be a better version of every one of those things on the plate but then if you get a posh full english that's not right somehow that doesn't doesn't quite work you know it's sort of you know you've kind of posh it up too much but i feel like the beans someone added them in i bet it was you know sometime in maybe like the 70s and it's just been adopted in and we forgot but it doesn't it doesn't

sit right with me it feels it feels like something when people finally started getting enough money to go on holidays to spain it feels like someone out there was just struggling to go what can we what more can we give them these people have worked hard for this holiday i want to give them more we'll chuck some beans on there yes yeah good british beans well yeah but people have those that like at a supper where they don't want to put any effort in yeah but we want to give them the real glamorous you know like they're getting something on this holiday yeah chuck them in breakfast then and then they're easy give on this holiday. Yeah, chuck them in breakfast then. Then they're easy, give them protein. No, it's a terrible thing that we... It's one of the things that embarrasses Britain, wherever.

When people come from abroad, I don't want them to see our buffet breakfasts. I still quite like the idea that some people would have, at one point, come back from holiday in Spain and goneain and gone oh it was fantastic you got beans with your breakfast look i'll show you a photo yeah and it just spread from there yeah yeah because what people had a different they had different tastes then i mean there were some people that were only having spaghetti for the first time weren't they they, in the 70s? Yeah. So beans is, yeah, no good.

And not a good desert island food either when you're hot and no one's wanting some nice hot summery beans. I mean, if it's hot and you love your eggs and breakfast, some spicy refried beans can go in there. But black beans are better. Yeah. I did like a hot breakfast in Guatemala and places like that. They seem to do it really good. But beans would have ruined it. Yeah. I think of all the beans, these are, I think baked beans are the worst type of beans.

I'm going to have to say. And as you say, it is a controversial opinion for many, but, you know. Somebody in the bean industry had a connection to governments, and they've been given contracts, so it's corrupt. And what would you wash them down with? The bean lobby. Oh, what would I... at breakfast. I mean, just for your desert island worst drink what

would what would be washing the beans down on the island oh well for me it would have to be alcohol because i'm an alcoholic so so i'd have to be like like there was nothing else to drink but booze and i suppose by that point i was just saying well i'm i'm here with freaking hitler and no i'm with himmler and stalin and and and uh an amalgamation of all the things that annoy me from the 21st century um these three dicks um i might as well drink and that would and that uh yeah that would be a shame. I'd feel like I'd lost. Yeah. And also imagine all your, you know, all your attempts to kind of stay neutral

in the midst of these awful people on the island and then, you know, you add a bit of booze and it's not going to help things. I'd compromise myself at some point. And I would probably, I would be funny and I would probably let my morals down a bit and I'd allow myself to become friendly with them. And I would, as soon as I started getting laughs off them, that little, that sad part

of me would be like, oh wow, they think I'm funny. And I'd start overlooking all of Himmler's crimes. And then I'd feel really hungover and shamed at myself and then i'd drink some more go i'm gonna kill her and i'd have him by the throat and stalin be good news you must give him and then i go why did i do a terrible slavic accent i'd be funny though if stalin would have to take off the suit yeah i wonder what he'd wear yeah yeah that's your suit anyway yeah you they're also they're all such sort of serious looking people you can't imagine them sort of dressing

down at all can you well apparently stalin was very funny though oh really he had a wicked sense of humor and could be quite funny although that's in a regime where if you didn't laugh at him you got shot so yeah those people were applauding and they just applauded for like 15 minutes and there was a guy who stopped first oh man so um yeah that that would be number one beans and booze i'd hate to have booze on there yeah fair enough fair enough now uh tony fortunately you won't be without entertainment on the island the planes entertainment system continues to work but just your luck it only has two working settings one is your least favorite film of all time and the

other is your least favorite song what are they and why oh sugar i forgot to think about a film. My least favorite song. Oh, damn. I had it sort of anything radio poppy. I guess anything by, what don't I like? Anybody by like someone who's won one of those competitions. Yeah. So something fairly sort of insipid pop yeah i think i've we can go for a category if that's easier my 20s and 30s i would have had a top 10 of things that i despised and were negative for society but i'm so uh healthy now mentally that I don't even know.

Anything that was poppy and in the charts, I think I've always disliked, probably. Something a bit too saccharine and... Oh, anything by Beyonce, for no good reason, just that loads of people dig her. Just, no, fuck that. Everyone seems to have a really strong opinion on beyonce and uh if if if by putting her there winds up anyone then that would be worth it beyonce any of her socks i'd

hate also i mean there is the small chance that you'll get stalin and himmler drunk and they'll start dancing to beyonce and although you know you won't have an audience to see that, just for the imagery alone, I mean, that's worth having. Well, Himmler would want to know if Hitler liked it. Yeah. So he wouldn't even know how to commit. He'd be really confused. I think Stalin would love it.

He's a pretty artistic guy. He was meant to be a very good poet. You know how Hitler was a shit artist? Yeah. Stalin was actually a good poet. Oh, right. Yeah, in Georgian, albs. But yeah, he was good at poetry.

I think it got less good as he grew more paranoid. Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, that would happen. He would listen to the song over and over and critique it and underline bits he didn't like and tell me again when she refers to her jelly what what does she mean what is this jelly um yeah so yeah i i should have brought up uh i don't have a song i hate no that's fine but we're going for us i will say beyonce a beyonce hit slash x factor contestant winner yeah fuck that shit i feel very strongly and vaguely about that okay and then movie though yeah

oh least favorite movie um oh you know i don't like any of the cartoony um all of those you know the marvel ones i can't i can't do those and because i've got the kids watch all that stuff yeah i really really loathe them there's too much going on there's too much uh explosions and stuff it's like it's too computer gamey like the sort of avengers films and things like that yeah loathe them because a friend of mine would say i'm not really into that that canon of work but they're i mean they're increasingly long as well aren't they so my friend yeah my friend who does really like them it was his birthday and as a father of one you know he just wanted some time on his own, so he just went to see the new Avengers film.

That's so classic parent. Yeah, there's like, what do you want for your birthday? I want no one around me for a few hours. So he kind of went to see. And he said by sort of hour two, he came out, went to the toilet, and just thought, well well i know there's probably going to be more twists and turns but i'm happy with the ending at this point i'm just going to walk off because he'd seen enough and he thought i'm happy with it i'm sure that there'll be more

twists and turns but this where it's ended now at this piss break feels right and that's someone who likes these films couldn't even make their because they're like three hours long now it's like a thing that could be happening all the time and you just dip into it and watch it and it's it's they all you you'd be hard pressed to to see what's different about what like which one you're watching yeah unless you knew at the beginning like star wars you can turn it on you can go oh it's one of those three one of those three yeah or one of those three i mean the good thing about star wars they tell you exactly where you are at the beginning of each film which is a device i wish more films used right here's the background let me bring you up to speed instead of starting with a long time ago in a galaxy

far far away they might as well just start with let me bring you up to speed in that yellow font that goes up the screen and that's it yeah and and like okay you remember you remember that that guy right so that's with that language that would be great yeah um yeah i don't i don't understand those and same with those my son was watching uh Hobbs and something, which is like those. Oh, it's like a Fast and Furious spin-off, isn't it? Hobbs and Shaw, I believe. Yeah, and it's kind of cute, and you hear their banter. But you just think it's the same thing just over and over and over.

And as soon as they do the chases, it gets so, like, I don't know. Stalin was also a big film buff. Really? So he would probably love whatever it was and watch it over and over because he used to make his henchmen sit and watch. When they'd been drinking for all night and they were all drunk but too frightened to sleep, he would say, now everyone will come and they would watch a Western or something together.

And he wouldn't let them sleep. Oh, man, that is so tricky. So we'd be watching Fast and Furious with Stalin and we wouldn't be able to fall asleep or not watch it. Oh, man, man. Nightmare. Yeah, I think things like that hobson shore just to me it just looks like it's it's basically two testicles blowing stuff up it seems to be what it is um but yeah the avengers all that sort of that era that that body of work should we say

just yeah it's big and confusing and long and don't understand it, and it just makes me feel old, and I just want it to stop and go away. Yeah, you can't believe in anything. You could be looking at a wall, I think. Yeah, yeah. And I knew that I couldn't trust myself with video games, so I've banned myself from those too. So it's a bit like watching it is like a thing I've even banned. God, I'm a judgy person.

But I just think as soon as I got into it, that would be me. That would be it. I'd be gone. And they remind me of what I'm missing. Like you watch those and you think, I should be playing this. Yeah, yeah. When you watch one of those Avengers type things. I should be moving the guy.

But also, those sort of films used to be kind of, you know, it's gentle escapism. You know, you watch some sort of comic book style action film. But now you have to know so much about the backstories and the origin stories and the spin-offs and you can't just sort of dip in it's like you have to do research now to to know what's happening because i get i get that side of it but but surely the comic book is is already the best form for it you, you read the comic book and you can read it at whatever pace you want. You can allow the information to go in. Kind of like the way I read history, you know?

You can go nice and slow. Like if I listen to a podcast or an audio book, it doesn't give me the satisfaction. I have to read it really slow so it goes in and then you connect this and connect. So I understand that desire for that kind of working, puzzling stuff up. But the movie seems to me like it's just, blah, blah, rather than, yeah.

And it's interesting what you're saying about your friend. I did that. My wife weirdly likes all of that stuff. So when the babies were small to give her a chance to go in and just have no one around and watch a movie and i had the twins in the buggy out outside but we were monkeying around doing other stuff yeah and she wouldn't couldn't last because she was she was just too focused on the children so she only lasted about an hour and yeah she's another one who loves those movies but it didn't hook her enough away from kids yeah there are also

films where sort of the the total death toll would be so much greater than whatever they're trying to save you know they're like the amount of buildings and infrastructure they just plow through and destroy and that's all kind of okay because you're getting to that one thing that you're trying to save or destroy or whatever it is yeah well i guess like himmler and stalin would find it all very like fine wouldn't they they'll be going yeah those numbers are pretty bad yeah they're playing top trumps against each other yeah it's so yeah because i like a long movie if it's like a historical one and and then there's got it it's and it shows you enough of the horrific

kind of nature of war or something i i like that kind of entertainment you know when they show like the darkness of humanity i can get i think you come out of that and feel enriched by the deaths. You feel more connected to your shadow. But you come out of those movies, I don't think you're connected to your shadow at all. You're just confused and tired, and you don't know exactly why you're so tired plus i think to make this island particularly irritating i'm going to say that it can be

one of a series of these movies but you're not going to get the ones either side of it so it's not going to make a lot of sense on its own in isolation there's me explaining to them what i don't know about yeah well star Well, Stalin, the thing is, you missed the origin story. Now, Wolverine here, he's got these sort of claw things. I think it might be the sort of thing I would treat Stalin to after we drowned Himmler. Right, right. And so as a way of just, I don't know, just having a rest,

I would do exactly that. I'd park Stalin in front of that film, and I would just have two and a half hours, three hours rest. Yeah. I can imagine him walking up the beach with you going, oh, now Himmler is gone. You mentioned you have a movie to watch. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it's going to be great. I'll watch it with you. And then I would sit behind him and just have a little nap with my composite character, who by then I would have got to know and would have realized, actually, they're not as bad as their opinions. Now, Tony, finally, the island is overrun by the biggest dick of all the animals.

What is it and why they're such a dick? Well, I wanted to go pangolin but um because i didn't even know about a pangolin and then i realized that they're eating them in the wet markets but it wasn't them that started the virus and i can't blame bats bats live in um you know they live in a dirty situation situation in caves and they travel a lot. And so they can carry viruses. A bit like, as my daughter said, like business people. They travel a lot.

They're really good at transferring viruses around. Yeah. So I'd say, yeah, bats are pretty, I don't know, they're too cute. The biggest dick of all the animals. Tough one. Who don't I like? The household cat? No. No, can't do that.

It's a popular choice, actually. A lot of people choose cats. Domestic cat, yeah. Cats and dogs come up quite a lot, considering they're the two most popular animals in the world. They're also the two least popular animals. That's like not wanting to support the band that's really popular. I don't like the Beatles. I like the Who.

So the... OK, I'm going to go for Crocodile. Crocodile, yeah. They're bastards. They are bastards. The mean old bastards. You know, and I've got the image of that one who's got a hold of that. Oh, no, the monitor.

No, the. Komodo dragon. Yeah, when it got a hold of that buffalo and it just it wasn't like hard enough to totally maul it and get it killed quickly like a crocodile would have it just had to slowly eat it while it was alive and made it suffer yeah so fuck that because don't they don't they just bite you and then they just wait for you you're cut to get infected and you to die something like that i just imagine you'd be standing there and it would just be what you'd come back to the village be like oh god look it got me it's like well at least you're okay you know yeah that was a that was a tough tough uh escape and a bandage it up and then out

the corner of your eye just see him watching they may be reading a paper or something just for three days as you as you uh slowly just what but then you'd be incapacitated because you get paralyzed by it yeah and he would then he would just start eating you while you were alive he wouldn't even wait for you to be dead like that poor old water buffalo start on your legs and you'd be just like can't move just going you are an absolute prick. Yeah. You're a rotter. Yeah, it's a real dick move. It's kind of, it's like you get the worst of both worlds because you get attacked by an animal with ferocious teeth, but you also die slowly of a kind of venom.

So you get both, you know. And then you would have thought he would have given you a break because you've just fed him Himmler. Yeah. So he shouldn't need to eat again for a while, but he's hungry again. So you've got to somehow work a way for it to be Stalin. Stalin seems strong there. Who's the bigger dick, Stalin or a massive poison-spitting lizard?

Probably Stalin. Probably Stalin, yeah. It's got to be stalin on that yeah so in the end it's just you and that other guy who's also from the 21st century and i guess together you could really work out all your all your issues yeah and we could maybe train train the lizard and we both agree that beans have no place on a breakfast plate. I like what you've done. I think you've turned it into like a happy desert paradise in the end.

Old improv instincts. Try and link it all up at the end. Fair enough. Well, Tony, I like your thinking. I like seeing your workings out. And you've done a great job here on the island today. And obviously, you know, as we speak, it's who knows what's going on, but we seem to still be in lockdown for a while yet. Where can people sort of see or hear more from you? If you're out there and it's the the autumn come see me in the autumn i'm gonna trying to redo my tour dates for the autumn from september fingers crossed but october november december all around britain but i'm i kind of like bob

dylan i'm constantly on tour so i can't wait to do that maybe come see me there or online i'd work at a oh i do a thing on sundays with phil nickel called the virtue chamber echo bravo where we just talk about how to heal but we don't know anything about spirituality so we make it all up um and then i do a shitty quiz on a saturday but yeah just google me great but come see me live that would be the best. Nice one. Tony, thank you very much for being our guest today. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me, man. Appreciate it.