Listener Caller (4:53)

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. Okay. 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.

Bill Nighy (5:40)

Thanks, 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, 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 at all. About your question. So any. 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.

Mom (7:37)

Dear Bill, Clara from Paris, as you can hear, I urgently need your ill advice.

Bill Nighy (7:46)

Where can I find a cure for

Mom (7:48)

people saying all the time things were better before? Usually it's men that say it.

Bill Nighy (7:56)

As women know perfectly well, it was not better before. 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, which by which they mean the 60s and the 70s was better, more exciting, sexier than, than it's ever going to be for the, the current young. And it's, it's a nasty and totally inaccurate idea. And know the idea that the 60s and the 70s were enlightened is almost entirely mythical. It was, you know, it was just as Martin Amos 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 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. You know, 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' 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 Maher 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 Ill Advised by Bill Nye. 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 forevermore 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. 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?

Mom (12:07)

If not, how do you contain yourself?

Bill Nighy (12:10)

This is a serious problem for me and I would like your advice. Thank you, 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 your 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, you know, in misery. A lot of the time I dance at home and I dance in my front room, which is quite, you know, it's 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, you know? I think it should be encouraged, dancing in the street. Come on.

William (Bill) from Croydon (13:11)

Oh, good evening, Bill. It's another Bill from. Used to be from Croydon, now Burchington. On seeing Thanet's coast, just question. Do you prefer to be called Bill or have you ever been called William? My first name is William, but since child 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

Bill Nighy (13:39)

than William, 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, but she hated Billy and she didn't want me called Billy. And if anybody came to the door and said, can Billy come out to play? She'd say, we have no billies 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 Willy, obviously is a slang term for male genitalia. There are worse slang terms for male genitalia than Willy. But it's also my name. So you can imagine that can be problematic over the years depending on, you know, particularly at school, given that they couldn't do my second name either. So I would be Niggy or Nidge or Nux. I used to be called Nux because I had funny hands. So they would call me Nux Nye, which was another thing. And of course, nervous, as we've talked of 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 Nye in the program. And I never thought anything. 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, you know, naff. But as I grew older, I thought it sounded quite cool. You know, it's 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 Nye. 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 took about 30 years not to pronounce my name as Naiji, Naigi, Nyleen or Nigbee, 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 Nye. 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 okay. 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 okay. 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. Willy. I have been called Willy 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, okay, yeah, I admit it. I talk to myself on a regular basis, particularly when I'm trying to encourage myself. If I get unnerved or scared, I always refer to myself as Willy. Okay? 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 J.D. 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 cliche at an art student party. Good God almighty, Scott, how did you fit that in? This was repeated several times over an extended buildup 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 okay I Caught up on Emails. And the first track is from Self Esteem and it's called Cheerfully Logic. 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 was 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 Jasmine Sullivan. Jasmine with a zed. 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 realized that everyone I knew had been playing many 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 traveling that I discover artists that everyone else has known about for a thousand years. Anyway, Michelle and Degio, cello 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 used 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 okay. I caught up on Email's 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 reach for my phone first thing one morning and learned that Danny Horst and Annabel Lily were dating, I was furious. I wasn't furious because I was in love with Danny Horst, or for that matter, with Annabel Lily. 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. 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 Ill Advised by Me. And I wish you well and thank you for listening and remember, it's nice to be important, but it's important to be nice. Bye bye everybody. Bye bye. Ill Advised by Bill Nighy is produced by Alice Williams and Chiara Gregori, with assistant production by Angelique Somers, pronounced Somas, and Charlotte Ross pronounced Ross. And it's an ipod. Studios production there's posh

Narrator/Announcer (27:10)

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Mom (27:39)

AI, 48 million people in the United States are adolescents between the ages of 14 and 24. They're working, parenting, leading, sometimes all at once. I'm balancing work and being a mom at the same time, and I'm still

Bill Nighy (27:57)

on track to graduate with my bachelor's next year.

Mom (28:00)

So what do today's young people need to truly thrive? Tune in to good things from Lemonada Media to hear the six part Thrive series.

Narrator/Announcer (28:09)

Howdy, howdy ho, and welcome to Fantasy Fan Fellas. I'm Hayden, producer of the Fantasy Fangirls podcast and your resident lover of all things Sanderson.

Bill Nighy (28:17)

And I'm Stephen, your bookish Internet goofball, but you can call me the Smash Daddy.

Narrator/Announcer (28:21)

And we are currently deep diving Brandon Sanderson's fantas epic Mistborn. But here's the catch. Steven here has not read Mistborn before.

Bill Nighy (28:30)

That's right. Hey. Hey. So each week you'll get my unfiltered raw reactions to every single chapter.

Narrator/Announcer (28:35)

And along the way, we'll do character deep dives, magic explainers, and Steven will even try to guess what's next. Spoiler alert. He'll be wrong.

Bill Nighy (28:42)

News flash. I'm never wrong. Episodes come out every Wednesday, and you can find Fantasy Fan Fellas wherever you get your podcasts.