Chapter 1: What is the purpose of the podcast 'Ill-Advised by Bill Nighy'?
Good morning, good afternoon or good evening, depending on where you are on the planet. Welcome to the second season, who knew, of Ill-Advised by Bill Nye. And as always, the clue is in the title. This is a podcast for people who don't get out much and can't handle it when they do. It's a refuge for the clumsy and the awkward.
We continue on ill-advised in our mission to provide something for you that is entirely inconsequential. Our mission is to give you a break, frankly, and hopefully put the kettle on and take a break from anything that you might struggle with or even just normal stuff. You can squander time with me. That's our quest. I've always been good at loafing.
It's a superpower, which is quite handy if you're an actor because you do spend long periods unemployed, particularly when you're starting out. And I was already match fit in terms of loafing. Loafing unconcerned is another matter. But I'm pretty good at that now. But that's because I made some money. So, you know, that's not so tricky.
And as with season one, there will be several playlists and books that I will recommend, which you won't have to remember because it will be written in the show notes. And also there'll be a link to Spotify. Thank you for all your questions in Season 1. We were inundated, overwhelmed by the response, and we are grateful for that.
People from all over the planet had urgent questions to ask me, of all people, and I did attempt to answer them without actually making things worse. So, let's hear a question from somebody, somewhere in the world. Hi Bill, this is Gigi from Brazil. I've got a question for you. How do you feel about belly buttons? You know, that hole we have in the center of our bodies. I think they're ugly.
They freak me out and they are completely unnecessary. Okay, cheers. Bye. Thank you, Gigi. I couldn't disagree more, actually. I find belly buttons rather moving because they're just an indication that in the end, you know, we are creatures and we are all more or less built the same. I find them quite touching and attractive, to be honest.
But then let's face it, there are belly buttons and then there are belly buttons. So depending on, you know, I'm sure your belly button is more attractive than you imagine it to be. I don't think you should view it as a flaw.
I've never really recovered from Kim Novak in a movie before you were probably born, Gigi, where she had a diamond in her belly button, which when I was about 12 was deeply unsettling. My research assistants have looked into this, and apparently what you are or what you have is omphalophobia, someone who has an intense dislike of belly buttons.
There is another tribe to which I belong of people who are rather partial to a belly button, and they're called alvenophiliacs, of which I am proud to say I am one. Hello Bill, this is Michael. I'm a Brit and I've been living in Shanghai for about 30 years and visit London about once a year.
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Chapter 2: What are Bill Nighy's thoughts on belly buttons?
And I'm really glad to hear that you're back in the studio. Would I? I do. I fantasize about the album Before I Die. And I'm always thinking of names for bands, which is a sort of compulsion. My latest one is The Overlooked. I thought it'd be quite good for a band of blokes my age. We'd be called The Overlooked. It's got something to it. And yeah, no, I dream of that.
I think singers, it's such a hard thing to sing particularly. To be able to sing really well must be, I can't, I can hold a tune, you know, I'm a singer in the shower, but I would love to be able to sing for real. Later on, when I left the Love Ponies, they continued to perform as the Love Ponies. And in fact, they wrote a song which was called Hey, Hey, We're the Love Ponies.
And it was based on the Monkees tune, for those of you still alive who remember. Hey, Hey, We're the Monkees. Our song obviously went Hey, Hey, We're the Love Ponies and people say we pony around. So whatever you think pony means. I like the word pony, just generally speaking, because I like the idea of ponies. But I also like it because a pony is 25 pounds.
It's also, of course, part of the Cockney rhyming slang, pony and trap. In other words, you know, whatever you want to rhyme that with. Talking of band names, we'd like to introduce a new feature, which is called I'm With The Band. And what we ask for is for listeners to send in the name of bands that they've been in. and the lyrics from some of their signature songs.
I would suggest just one song, just to give us a taste. And I will read the lyrics out on the air as part of Ill-Advised by Bill Nye. And I will read them with love and respect and with great gravity. And if you believe that, you'll believe anything. You can send them in via our Instagram, which is at illadvisedbybillnigh. We look forward to hearing from you. I'm Mr. Nighy.
I have a hosiery question. Is there an absolute when it comes to sock length, or is it something that's situational or generational? Yours truly, Dan from Niagara, Canada. Hey, Dan, thank you for your question. Give my regards to Niagara Falls, where I've never been. I might have to do something about that. Now, it's not generational.
Although I did a job once, a long time ago, and the wardrobe department were... very young women, or rather I'd got older, and so everybody started to be younger than me. And when I put on my own personal socks at the end of the day, and they went up to, I guess, the middle of my calf, all of the girls... couldn't help themselves and they burst into laughter.
It was that tricky age, I can't remember, but I was probably like 49 or maybe 51, where you still worry about these things. Now, it's too late and I really don't mind if you laugh at my socks. But in those days I was sensitive and it hurt me. And I thought, oh, and it's when you find out how old you are, you live in a trance where you're still 28, but in fact, you're 49.
And it's those occasions when you find out, you're reminded of the reality of your age. It's like when I was about 50, probably around the same time, I was in a prison movie and I had to run in order to escape from prison. And I had to run down a corridor very, very fast. So on the first take, I ran down the corridor very, very fast and the crew clapped.
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Chapter 3: How should one navigate tight spaces in restaurants?
And there's not a lot really wrong with the real thing. There is one word that you can't use, and we all know what that word is.
A friend of mine, Rufus, in the 80s or around that time, when that word became a matter of some concern and debate about whether it was ever acceptable to use it, and it was generally accepted that it wasn't, if anyone used that term near my friend, he would go over and say, excuse me, Do you mind not using that word?
I happen to be one and I don't like it bandied about as a term of abuse, which is a perfect joke. You could say it to yourself now and you could use the word privately under your breath. You could use the word and you'll get the full impact of the joke because it's a major joke. It's kind of perfect. It's round, it's 360 degrees and it works from every angle. And now, time for some banned words.
These are words sent in by listeners, which they want removed from the English language. I passionately agree with this one. It is what it is, which is not a word, it's a phrase. But somebody wants it gone. And it was placed before the permissions committee and it now no longer exists. There's a word, a perfectly good word, heritage, which you can no longer use.
Not since they attached it to tomatoes, basically. Once it became a tomato, it ceased to be a word you could take seriously. And also it was used by shady enterprises to gull you into thinking that things were of a tradition, of historic. In other words, just kind of salesmanship. So it was corrupted. The word no longer can be used.
Here's something that's been on my mind and I didn't get around to it. The word so at the beginning of a sentence, it's time that was retired. It started, I don't know, I'm not very good at years, but I think it started about three or four years ago. And everyone would say, so, at the beginning of every sentence. So that's gone.
Unless you're Irish, apparently it's okay if you put so at the beginning of the sentence if you come from Ireland. But I don't understand that, really. So, what would you say?
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Chapter 4: What are the proper protocols for restaurant etiquette?
So. So. So, Michael. No, I think it's the same for any language. I think once you ban it from the English language, I think it's banned from all language. It's no longer allowed. It's allowed in other contexts, but not at the beginning of a sentence in the way that we refer to it.
This week's playlist is called Shake Don't Shiver and it features Mink DeVille doing his probably biggest hit called Spanish Stroll. I went to see Mink DeVille years and years and years and years and years ago and he made the mistake of asking for a drink over the microphone. And he was drinking large, I think they were large Jack Daniels or large wild turkeys.
And he ended up with like 20 shot glasses at his feet from members of the audience. And of course, he had to drink them all because he was a big, strong rock and roll star. He was not in great shape by the end of the gig. And then one of the great lyrics of all time from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, a song called More News From Nowhere.
I try to pick songs that I feel are in the same kind of groove. Not so much groove as I'm going to risk the word vibe. Oh yeah. It used to be that you didn't want to stand too near to anybody who used the word vibe first time around in the 70s I suppose. But now it's been laundered by irony over the decades. So it's now safe to use that word. In fact, it's fun. It's fun saying vibe.
I find it fun anyway. And then a not so familiar song, perhaps from the artist we can't get by without, Prince. And it's called The Holy River. And then one of my favorite Ike and Tina Turner songs, their version of an old blues standard called Crazy About You Baby. And then from Raheem Devorn, a song I love called Marvin Used to Say. And what Marvin used to say was, what's going on?
Among other things. And save the children. Anyway, that's this week's. And that might, I think they would all warrant a shake around the kitchen, you know, if you turn it up and put the kettle on and you could, you know, snake your hips. This week's book is from the inestimable Zadie Smith and it's a collection of essays called Dead and Alive with a very beautiful photograph on the cover.
And just for the record, and she writes at one point about Kilburn and the essay is called Kilburn, My Love. And I'll read you just a little bit of it to give you the tone. Ungentrified. Ungentrifiable. So I wrote of my beloved Kilburn once, a long time ago.
Later, I realised that some people may have considered this to be a complaint that I wanted Kilburn to become more like, say, Queen's Park, with more opportunities to drink four quid coffees and ten quid smoothies, or... to be mown down by a red-trousered gentleman who is driving, for some unknown reason, a Land Rover Defender. But nothing could be further from the truth.
I live precisely on the border of Wilsdon, Kilburn, Bronsbury and Queen's Park. i was born and raised on wilsdon lane in my mind all roads lead to kilburn it is where i go for proof of god and proof of a bargain i consider it the best place to witness the old irish at rest and the young west africans at play
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