transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:04] Good morning, good afternoon or good evening, depending on where you are on the planet. This is illadvised by Bill Nighy, and I am Bill Nighy. And I'm here to answer your questions without actually making things worse. And it's a great day in London town. Spring has finally arrived, and it's a great day to give up smoking. It's a refuge here for the clumsy and the awkward. And if you're socially adept and enjoy healthy relationships, there's nothing for you here. If you enjoy dinner parties and are good in bed, there's nothing for you here. If you wear shorts to the theatre, there is nothing for you here. If you do wear shorts to the theatre, at least don't sit in the front row. Particularly if I'm in the show. I was once in a show with Anthony Hopkins, playing his Australian sidekick to his South African tycoon, who was relaxing in his fabulous home in Weybridge, in a kimono, practicing a fictional martial art called Toyinka, which involved a six foot bamboo cane, which he would swing violently around and bring it down sharply, mouthing impenetrable Japanese grunts. And there was a young man in the Olivier Theatre at the National Theatre in London, who not only wore shorts to the theatre, but he had the terrible idea of crossing his ankles on the stage. He was in the front row, so he just sat there and put his feet up on the stage in front of Anthony Hopkins, who's carrying a six foot bamboo cane. And he crossed his ankles on the stage, so he could relax, like he was watching TV. And I saw Anthony spot him, and I feared for the boy. And Anthony screamed in some kind of Japanese and brought the bamboo cane down so violently within an inch of this kid's head, that the boy's legs retreated into his torso. He got his legs off that stage, as quick as he's ever done anything in his life so far. And he was absolutely terrified. And the silence was, you know, deep. No one was breathing in the thousand-seater. And my next line, I was in theatrical heaven. I was in bliss because my next line was, people are beginning to worry about you, boss. And I knew that I had the answer to this whole problem. But I waited because I knew that life was never going to be this good again. And as soon as I spoke, it would go off like a bomb. But then it would be over. So I hung on to it for just longer than I ought to have done. And then I said the line and the whole place erupted. Not because I'm particularly brilliant, just because it was the perfect line. And we had to wait for some time before we could resume the acting, the story. So yeah, don't cross your ankles on the front of the stage, particularly if you're wearing, you know, manosphere shorts. Thank you for all of your questions, let's hear some.

Speaker 2:
[03:21] Hello Bill, it's Peter from Rhode Island, and I just listened to your advice about traveling on an airplane. Because you travel so light and you travel a lot, what is your take on bed sheets where you are sleeping not in your own home? Is just any cotton ok? Do you have a prohibition against any polyester? Do you have a care about it either way? I'm just wondering because I, when I travel with my sweetheart, she insists on bringing bed sheets because she wants really good cotton sheets to sleep on. I've never been particular, but I think she has a great idea. Just wondering what you think. Thanks.

Speaker 1:
[04:09] Peter, it was quite late in life before I actually went shopping for sheets because I regret to have to tell you and I am ashamed to say that for a long time, for the bulk of my adult life, I allowed other people to do that. And when I did, I just went straight for the highest thread count available in the store. But I'm not squeamish about hotel linen, bed linen, and I take what I'm given. It's been a long time since I've had any problems. There was, many years ago, there was a short trend, a brief period, where nylon sheets became a thing. And my mother and my grandmother, they thought that nylon sheets were a miracle. They thought they were just an act of God, because you didn't have to press them. And because they were so much easier to maintain than regular sheets. And they always seemed to be kind of mauve, mauve or pink. And if you went to a digs, like a boarding house, where you were staying in a room, you could end up on the floor, because they were so slippery. If you stretched, you might end up, at least with one foot on the floor. Similarly, when my mother and my grandmother thought that drip-dry shirts were a miracle, they were like, finally, God has our attention. You know, finally, he's done something, he or she has done something to alleviate our pain, because you didn't have to, you know, they drip-dry, you don't have to press them. Anyway, that doesn't really help you, does it? But it's all about your question. So, I don't have a problem, you know, and your girlfriend is much more refined than I am. I pretty much take what I'm given.

Speaker 3:
[06:05] Dear Bill, Clara, from Paris, as you can hear. I urgently need your illadvice. Where can I find a cure for people saying all the time things were better before? Usually it's men that say it, as women know perfectly well, it was not better before.

Speaker 1:
[06:28] Clara, this is something I've struggled with as well. And one of my least favorite phenomena is people of my age or maybe younger explaining to young people, trying to sell them the idea that their youth, by which they mean the 60s and the 70s, was better, more exciting, sexier, than it's ever going to be for the current young. And it's a nasty and totally inaccurate idea. The idea that the 60s and the 70s were enlightened is almost entirely mythical. It was just, as Martin Amis once remarked, it was just a new way of men getting away with everything, like Baby Be Cool or Love The One You're With, one of my least favorite songs. I mean, homosexuality was only legal in this country from 1967. And even then there was an enormous amount of prejudice. The whole idea, you know, governments and shady political figures have always tried to sell you the idea that it was really, really great just before, usually about a generation back. It was really great. And apparently someone told me that this has always been the case throughout history. Like a monk in 1670 would write something bemoaning how the world had gone to pot. But it was really, really great at the turn of the century. They've always done it and it's always like a generation before. And it's a very easy baby talk idea that you can sell to voters every election time by trying to sell them the idea that you're going to restore the world to when it was really, really great. It was never great. It was always exactly pretty much the same. People don't change. We are very ingenious in terms of technology. But apart from that, our response to the world and the people around us hasn't changed at all since the 1400s. There are things that happen now which you could easily say might have happened in the Middle Ages. And as you say, it's like I heard Mitch Landrieu, who was, I believe, the mayor of New Orleans, was on the Bill Ma show on American TV. He was explaining, you know, the make America great fiction. I mean, they've been doing that in my country since I was a kid. We're going to restore it to when it was really great. It's the comma again that might trouble some people. You might want to run that past the African-American community. You might want to run that past the women. And he did it with such class and grace, and I wish he'd run for president. Anyway, it's the last time I'm going to mention anything political on illadvised by Bill Nighy, but it just comes up within the context of my answer to your question. So how do you survive that? I think my cure has been to avoid those people forever more. Because you don't really want to be around anyone who doesn't know that that's nonsense and or that it's a crass thing to say to a woman. If you don't know that, I'm presuming this is people with penises. If you don't know that, then they don't deserve your company, frankly, Clara. And I think you and I should spend more time together. That's what I think, because I understand. And you're called Clara, and you're French. And I'm not going to say anything further, because my colleagues are looking at me as if I were not only insane, but sleazy with it.

Speaker 4:
[10:18] Hi Bill, it's Rebecca calling from British Columbia in Canada. Seeing as you have some serious soul, my conclusion after listening to your snake hips playlist, do you ever find yourself dancing in the streets? If not, how do you contain yourself? This is a serious problem for me, and I would like your advice. Thank you.

Speaker 1:
[10:44] Rebecca, this is an urgent matter. Don't restrain yourself for crying out loud. Why should you? If the impulse is strong enough to overcome social inhibition, grab it with both hands and dance in the street, dance wherever you'll move to dance. I have danced in the street. I did it the other day actually. I can't remember why. I think I do it mostly to cheer myself up. Not that I'm in misery a lot of the time. I dance at home and I dance in my front room, which has got a good floor and you can spin on it. I do sometimes dance naked, Rebecca. I know it's too much information. Try not to think about it, but it's better if you've got shoes on because then you can spin. It always makes me feel very, very good. But Rebecca, keep dancing and who cares? I think it should be encouraged. Dancing in the street, come on.

Speaker 5:
[11:39] Oh, good evening, Bill. It's another Bill from, used to be from Croydon, now Burlington on the Seine, Thanet coast. Just question, do you prefer to be called Bill? Or have you ever been called William? My first name is William, but since childhood I've always been called Bill or Billy. Now I'm 69, I prefer to be called William again, but perfectly happy to be called Bill. So yeah, I'd just like to find out what your preference is, and how long have you been called Bill, rather than William?

Speaker 1:
[12:08] Hey William, I am a William obviously, and I have never really been called William. William used to mean I was in trouble. My mother I think, my mother liked to call me William, I was named for my grandfather, her father. She hated Billy, she had a brother actually called my uncle Billy, she hated Billy and she didn't want me called Billy, if anybody came to the door and said can Billy come out to play, she'd say we have no Billy's here. And you can kind of measure, you can kind of judge how long people have known me. I've always been called Bill, but there is Bill, there's Billy, there's Will, which my dad favored because he felt it was a sort of Dickensian name, like Will, and he wanted me to be called Will, but nobody ever called me Will. And then of course, come on, there's Willie. Which my highly paid and high-powered colleagues find difficult to survive. They're like children. I'm now looking at a room full of people almost choking, trying to stifle their laughter because Willie obviously is a slang term for male genitalia. There are worse slang terms for male genitalia than Willie, but it's also my name. So you can imagine that can be problematic over the years depending on, it's particularly at school. Given that they couldn't do my second name either, so I would be Niggie or Nidge or Nux. I used to be called Nux because I had funny hands. So they would call me Nux Nighy, which was another thing and of course nervous as we've talked about before. Nobody ever asked me when I got my first job as a professional actor, nobody ever asked me what do you like to be called? So they just put Bill Nighy in the program and I never thought, I didn't think anything about it. So there I was and I was Bill and then when I worked on a little bit and had a few jobs and I got a job on the radio, BBC Radio 4, and they actually said to me what do you like to be called? And I said, I thought, oh here we are. Because when I was a kid I thought William was a bit naff. But as I grew older I thought it sounded quite cool. I was quite distinguished William. And BBC Radio were the first people who ever asked me this question and they said what do you like to be called? And I said well I'd like to be called William Nighy. Sorry that's mispronouncing my name, William Nighy. So they called me William Nighy on the thing. I'm kidding of course but actually the BBC announcer. I think about 30 years, not to pronounce my name as Nighy, Nighy, Nileen or Nigby, which is fair enough. And then you would get people coming up to me saying, this is this bloke on the radio, and he's called William Nighy. And you go, yeah, well, that's me, you know. Anyway, so it didn't work out. So I went back to being called Bill. I think something's happened to Bill over the years. I think it's become ok. I think Bill was sort of not really that great. For a while and I think they mutate, I think names and other things obviously in the language, they mutate over time and they become mistaken for something that's ok. And I think now Bill is sort of even, you know, I don't know, I don't get out much but I think it's probably almost cool but you're not a Bill, you're a William so we'll stick with that. Thank you Willie. I have been called Willie by people close to me and it is a term of endearment and I really like it. And also when I talk to myself, yeah, ok, yeah, I admit it, I talk to myself on a regular basis. That's particularly when I'm trying to encourage myself. If I get unnerved or scared, I always refer to myself as Willie. Ok, that is categorically too much information. No one needs to know that fact. But now you do. I know you want to turn back time but it's too late. And now, it's time again for our feature, a highly popular feature, I'm With The Band, where listeners send in the name of their teenage band and the lyrics to their signature song. And this week, there's a contribution from Scott Brown in Dundee, Scotland. And he says, hello there, my submission for I'm With The Band. I used to play in a rock band called Writers I've Known. The name was taken from a line in JD Salinger's Franny and Zooey, which I read not long after the band formed. The phrase was capitalized in the sentence for emphasis, and I knew immediately that I had to insist to my bandmates that we use it. It was often misheard by promoters and venues, back when gigs were arranged over the phone, as we were listed under names such as Waiters I've Known and Razors Unknown. Lyrics of one of our signature songs, Scott says, I can't recall the entire song, or rather my brain refuses to, but I came up with this line from a song called Cartwheels of Enthusiasm. And the line is, Your internal clock just melted like a Salvador Dali cliché at an art student party. Good God Almighty, Scott. How did you fit that in? This was repeated several times over an extended build-up of palm muted guitar chords. Wow, that sounds good. We eventually abandoned singing altogether and became an instrumental rock band instead. Much to everyone's relief. Well, that's very, very, very funny and very good, Scott. It reminds me of, I read once that Bob Dylan and Sam Shepard, the playwright, sat down to write songs together. And Sam Shepard would write out lines and some of them were very, very long. They were collaborating on a particular line. And Sam Shepard said, well, that's too long. And Bob Dylan said, don't worry, I'll get it in. Which is kind of thrilling because he could get anything in, effortlessly. This episode's playlist is called, It's OK, I Caught Up On Emails. And the first track is from Self Esteem. And it's called cheerfully Logic Bitch. And it's a very affecting lament, really full of irony and grief, with a beautiful musical setting. And then we've got a song from Beck, which is called Blue Randy, which starts with the lines, I was driving home in a Dodge Stratus to the contaminated side of town, which is not a bad way to start a song. The next song is from Guy Clark, who is a great country songwriter. And this is my favorite song of his. And it's called My Favorite Picture of You. And it contains the lines, My favorite picture of you is the one where you're staring straight into the lens. Just a Polaroid shot someone took on the spot, no beginning, no end. It's just a moment in time you can't have back. You never left, but your bags were packed. And the next song is by Craig Finn. And this is called Galveston. I really like the song very much. And the lyrics are great, as you'd expect from Craig Finn, including the line, I was hoping Galveston was more like the song, referring to the more famous song called Galveston by Glenn Campbell. And the next song is from another artist that I play a lot. She's called Jazmin Sullivan, Jazmin with a Z. And it's called Hurt Me So Good. And it's a I Hate That I Need You song. When You Know How To Hurt Me So Good, you know that thing. Then there's a song from the artist that I thought I discovered and then realised that everyone I knew had been playing her for 20 years. Which is a pattern in my musical life. Because I don't get out much. And it's only since I got a smartphone and started travelling that I discover artists that everyone else has known about for a thousand years. Anyway, Michelle Ndegeocello. And Outside Your Door, which is what we used to call in the old days, a major groove. Actually, it's what we didn't use to call in the old days, a major groove. Lots of the things that you say, we used to say in the old days, we didn't say in the old days at all. It's just an observation. That's the It's Ok I Caught Up On Emails playlist. I hope it gets you through a cup of tea. This week's recommended book is Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld. All the titles and writers' names will be included in the show notes. And it is a romantic comedy. And it's a very successful romantic comedy because it's very romantic and it's very funny. And it's sort of backstage at Saturday Night Live kind of thing where one of the writers meets a pop idol, as it says on the back of the book. But it's not quite how you'd imagine a romantic comedy might proceed. It's a very satisfying book. I'll read a little bit from the very first page, which might give you an idea. It goes like this. You should not, I've read many times, reach for your phone first thing in the morning. The news, social media, and emails all disrupt the natural stages of waking and create stress, which is how I'll preface the fact that when I reached for my phone first thing one morning and learned that Danny Horst and Annabel Lilly were dating, I was furious. I wasn't furious because I was in love with Danny Horst, or for that matter with Annabel Lilly, nor was I furious because two more people in the world had found romantic bliss while I remained mostly single. And I wasn't furious that I hadn't heard the news directly from Danny even though we shared an office. The reason I was furious was that Annabel Lilly was a gorgeous, talented, world famous movie star, and Danny was a schlub. He wasn't a bad guy and he too was talented, but for Christ's sake he was a TV writer, a comedy writer. He was a male version of me. He was pasty skinned and sleep deprived and sarcastic. And perhaps because he was male or perhaps because he was a decade younger than I was, he was a lot less self-consciously people pleasing and a lot more recklessly crass. At after parties he was undisguisedly high or tripping. He referred often almost guilelessly to both his social anxiety and his porn consumption. When he considered going on Rogaine, I had, at his request, used his phone to take pictures of the top of his head so that he could see exactly how much hair was thinning there. And when he applied the medication for the first time, I checked to make sure the foam was evenly rubbed in. And I was so familiar with the various genres of his burps that I could infer from them what he'd eaten recently. And now we come to the end of this episode of illadvised by me. And I wish you well, and thank you for listening.

Speaker 6:
[24:35] And remember, it's nice to be important, but it's important to be nice. Bye bye, everybody. Bye bye. Illadvised by Bill Nighy is produced by Alice Williams and Ciara Gregory, with assistant production by Angelique Somers, pronounced Somers, and Charlotte Ross, pronounced Ross. And it's in iPod Studios' production, there's Posh.