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- [00:00]
Commercial Announcer
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- [00:32]
Verizon Advertiser
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- [01:05]
Bill Nighy
Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, depending on where you are on the planet. This is ill advised by Bill Nye. I am Bill Nye, and I'm going to take the opportunity to use this introduction to make an announcement. And the announcement is that I've retired from a few things. I've retired, don't panic, from Zoom. I don't care who you are, we're never going to meet on Zoom again. I've also retired, obviously, from FaceTime, and I've retired from lunch. Not all lunches, because there will be exceptions I expect. But I've retired from ever talking about work whilst my mouth is full, basically. So I'm never going to eat and talk professionally ever again. And I don't really want to have lunch because it's like, it's like a soft bomb in the middle of your day and then it's 3:45 and what are you going to do now? And you've spoiled your dinner. So lunch is over as far as I'm concerned. But the big one is that I've retired from stress. It's just over. I've had enough of it throughout my life, like everybody, and it's time to call a halt to it. So I am formally retiring from stress. So if you're going to bring pain of any kind, forget about it because I am no longer prepared to be A part of it. So that's the big announcement. So thank you very much for listening. I don't normally hijack a podcast in order to talk about personal matters. What am I saying? But on this occasion, I think it's important that you know. Thank you for all your questions and comments. And let's have a question now. Hello, Bill. This is Edith. My question is, how can you exit
- [03:03]
Commercial Announcer
a party politely when you've just walked
- [03:06]
Bill Nighy
in and you realize you made a
- [03:08]
Commercial Announcer
huge mistake in coming?
- [03:11]
Bill Nighy
Thank you, Edith. I feel you, as the young say, and I think anyone over 32 is not actually allowed to use that expression, but I just did. So forgive me, but it's a very good question, and it's something that I've had to deal with on many occasions, which may not surprise you. I think the best thing to do is immediately ask someone where the ladies room is, or if you prefer, where the bathroom is. I don't even know if it's okay to say ladies anymore, because I always feel I hear some other scoundrel man saying ladies, like they used to say in the 70s, I think when people would say, I'm bringing my lady like some sort of medieval prince, and they would dress in velvet and silk, which always made me. You can imagine, it was unsettling. But you ask where the bathroom is immediately, and then you just find the bathroom and see if there's a back exit. If there's not a back exit, just fake it for a while. Do a circle and just go to the door and just hold your head up high. It's not your fault that the party doesn't work and just hit the street and laugh all the way home. It's so exciting. When you leave a social gathering, I find I always have to remind myself that there's always the door. A great friend of mine called Alan used to say, there's always the door. And it's a wonderful thing to be reminded of. So you have every right to go home. I went to a social gathering, which I had to attend recently, and the writer Julian Barnes was there, who I know you know I know to meet occasionally. And he said to me, we were talking last night, and I was reminded of the time that you jumped over my wall to get out of a party. So this is the other suggestion, that if you make it to the garden and there's a garden wall that isn't too forbidding, leg it over the wall. Why not? Come on, Edith, you can do it. Maybe you should always wear leisure slacks to parties. I know my Team are open mouthed that I use the word slacks. There's nothing wrong with the word slacks. It's a generational thing. But if you wore sort of flexible or stretchy leisure slacks, now we're all in trouble. Everybody say stretchy leisure slacks three times really quickly. I bet you can't. No, neither can I. But if you had, you want to wear clothes that allow you to jump over the wall. And I apparently did jump over the water. He said. I said, did I jump over the wall? He said, yeah, you jumped over the wall to get away from my party. And I said, well, I did a lot of jumping over walls in those days, you'll have to forgive me. Anyway, it just made me laugh. I can't remember who that was that jumped over the wall. But then I can't remember a lot of things about whoever that was who did a lot of things. I remember driving past what used to be called Camden palace once, not long ago, well, quite a long time ago, on the way home from work, and I saw a queue around the block. It's a music venue in Camden Town, obviously in London, and there was a queue way around the block. And I just remember that I used to jump that queue on a regular basis. I would just blag my way in. I would never. We would never queue. We would always say, we're with the band or some equally unlikely, you know, and we would get in and I just can't remember how I. I would do something like that anymore. I've forgotten how to do that. Anyway, it's a lost skill. It's like when my friend. Because I don't remember anything, my friend rang me and said, do remember going to see Dr. Feelgood in Liverpool? And I said, sure. I sort of remember going, I know. I went, I can't remember anything about it. And he said, you must remember. He said, it's when you. When you invented the just go limp method for the bouncers. And I was like, what? He said, yeah, the just go limp. And apparently I invented the just go limp, which is you go limp so they can't pick you up. I mean, it's another lifetime, it's another world, but really you can just spin on your heel, just wait, you know, wait until they've settled down after the little ripple, after your arrival, and play with some party food or pretend to pour a drink and just walk out that door and rejoice, you know, Any party you can skip, rejoice is my view.
- [08:04]
Commercial Announcer
Hello, my name is Elena, a Basque
- [08:06]
Bill Nighy
living in Hastings, and I confess that
- [08:10]
Commercial Announcer
I judge people by the cleanliness of their shoes. I find that people in the UK do not care much about shoe shining. In Bilbao, where I am from, dirty shoes are a sin that would ban you from polite society. What are your feelings about this, Elena?
- [08:26]
Bill Nighy
I understand. I was at a wedding not that long ago when somebody that I've known since I was young came up to me and said, I never thought I'd see you in a pair of black shoes. Because when we were young we only wore brown shoes, because black shoes. You would have been an outcast had you worn black shoes. And if you'd have worn black, shiny shoes, you'd never get a girlfriend. Forget about it. You had to look like you didn't give a damn that you were so sensitive and so concerned with the state of the world or with art or with nature, that you didn't have time or inclination to attend to your personal appearance. All of which was fictional, obviously, because we were all intensely concerned about our personal appearance. So I don't remember when I started shining my shoes, but I must have got to a certain age where it just became too daft to continue to have scuffed looking shoes like, I don't give a damn. Because it was such. It was so sort of embarrassingly obvious that you did. I did actually say to a friend of mine once, stop impersonating the poor. It's bad manners, you know, it's vulgar. Because he had lots of money and stuff and he drove a car, which was actually an ashtray and he wore rags most of the time. And I had to say to him, impersonating the poor is not a thing, you know, it's not something you should be involved in. And he was well past the age of attempting the I don't give a damn. And he was. In no way did he give any indication that he was sensitive to anything. So therefore I'm with you, really. If I see one of my contemporaries walking along the street and they're still doing that thing, I. I cross the street, to be honest with you. So to conclude, never trust anyone who doesn't polish their shoes. It's that simple. Because if they don't polish their shoes, they're up to something. Don't worry about it.
- [10:39]
Matt from Lewis and East Sussex
Hi, Bill, Matt here from Lewis and East Sussex. Now, I share your points on too much coffee being a bad thing, but worse is calling it espresso, which I notice you did in a recent episode. I'm really sorry. It may have just been a slip of the tongue, though, after one too Many espressos. Or if I'm being really pedantic, an Italian espressi. Now, sorry for being a pedant about this, but it prompts my question and it also relates to your banning of certain words and phrases. What are you most pedantic about? And conversely, what are the things? Are you aware that you have a mental block or a blind spot about? If it helps, you've prompted me to stop using the words amongst and whilst. Thanks, Bill.
- [11:26]
Bill Nighy
Matt, thank you. Yeah, no, you're quite right. I was thinking about it. I was writing the word espresso the other day and I looked to see. Because somebody had brought it up in a text and I looked to see how they'd written it and they had written expresso and I was about to write espresso, but I changed it to expresso just to be polite, you know. But I know that expresso is wrong and it's good of you to point it out and I'm grateful for it, but I think expresso has entered the language. I don't know whether we're ever going to rid the language of it, but we will put it on the banned list. How about that? As for espressee. Come on, Matt, give us a break. But that is a blind spot. You've identified it. Have I got other blind spots? I don't think it's a blind spot. I think it's just righteous. But when people say bored of, it gets to me because I'm of that age, it's bored with. Anyone would tell you that. But I think it's too late. It's now you see it written by, you know, quite grown up people, you know, it's sport of. But it just goes through me like a. Like a thing. It really. It makes me physically uncomfortable. Gifted. I expect we'd put that on the band list. You know, gift was got by perfectly well without being verbalized. Pedantic is a harsh word. I think particular, my colleagues suggest, might be a more accurate way of describing my relationship with objects. For instance, I do like things to be aligned. I am particular about. I'm somebody who does the washing up halfway through dessert, you know, and I leave my. Not that I ever give dinner parties, but when I used to have to attend dinner parties, I would be doing the washing up well early because I couldn't bear the idea of all those plates not being washed up. It's why dishwashers were never a thing for me. I remember we got a dishwasher once, but the idea was you had to wait until the dishwasher was full up. So there was. On occasion you'd be required to go to bed with a box full of dirty clothes, crockery under the sink. And you think, I can't. How am I going to relax? So I would secretly go into the kitchen and quietly wash up and hope not to get busted because it used to drive people insane. Used to make them, I mean, incandescent. They'd say, we have a dishwasher. But I never got used to a dishwasher. I don't have one now. And actually there's nothing to wash up because I never cook or eat at home, I always eat outside. So there's only ever one teacup, one saucer and one spoon. That's the only washing up that ever takes place in my apartment. So which is the way we like it or not? We. That's the royal we. Other than that, you know, you're getting a picture is emerging. I'm pretty pedantic about the placement of stuff and I don't want a lot of it about on the plane, when they don't come and take your tray away, I get up and take my tray as soon as I finish the food. I don't want anything around once it's finished, I want it gone. And I'm not alone in this. I know there are other people like me. Maybe one day we'll meet and we might become friends and we might do things together and we could take trips and certainly we could eat together calmly and successfully without mess. And we could form an association. We might have a tie made with an insignia on it. We could form a club, be a very exclusive club, and it would be intensely private and very, very, very tidy. Talking of ties, it makes me think of something that's been on all our minds here, ill advised for some time, which is something I get quite excited about, which is what they call merch. And I'm keen to start making decisions about merch. But it's a tricky business and it must be approached with care and with gravitas, obviously. And I might need some help. So if anybody out there has any idea for merch in terms of Ill Advised by Bill Nye, would you please contact us on ill advisedbybill Nye on Instagram. And if you have any ideas for items that you would like us to produce, we have some ideas of our own, but we need help. So please put your thinking cap on and think what we might produce. It's exciting. In fact, a thinking cap is not a bad idea. What are we Gonna put on the thinking cap. Maybe you could think about that. And now it's time for what could be argued is our most popular feature, and that is the banned words list. These are words or phrases that our listeners passionately want removed from the English or indeed any other language. And we have one from Jade. And she says, as if bottomless brunch wasn't bad enough, I heard somebody on the radio the other day refer to it as Botti B, exclamation mark, exclamation mark, exclamation mark, exclamation mark from Jade. Or even staggeringly worse, a cheeky Botti bee. It took me a minute, says Jade, to understand what they were talking about. I was absolutely outraged. I think I'm absolutely outraged. I think I'm actually absolutely outraged with you, Jade. I mean, how could people. It's so elaborately awful. I mean, it takes thought to be that embarrassing. Anyway. Other banned expressions from the get go. I think we all agree that that is. It's been a long time coming and it should have gone a long time ago. So from the get has been up before the entirely fictional permissions committee and has been banned from the English or any other language. My bad. Yeah, come on. We've used it, we've abused it. I haven't personally, just for the record, I have never said those words together. My and bad, but my bad I thoroughly agree with. But remember, I'm just the mouthpiece here. These are sent in by significant listeners to the ill Advised podcast. I'm just the mouthpiece. So some of them I agree with, some of them I'm quite relaxed about. We've just referred to cheeky as a problem. And now we have. Somebody has sent in cheeky in itself as a bandword, as in having a cheeky glass of wine or a cheeky Nando's a cheeky Nando. It's childish and pathetic, says our listener, and needs to be stopped forthwith. Well, I think fourth with might be a contender for the band word list right there. With all due respect, This episode's playlist is called I'll hold you'd Coat, and it's a lively handful of songs which I hope will bounce you around the kitchen, including a song by Prince called Breakfast Can Wait, which is one of my favorite Prince songs. I think we all probably can guess why Breakfast can wait. Breakfast can wait because you know what I'm saying. Come on, don't make me spit it out. But apart from anything, it's a really kind of unusual. What we used to Call beet and it will swing you around the kitchen while you blend your juice or whatever it is you're doing. We might have to knock up the permissions committee for blend your juice. The second song, not in any particular order, is from Sarah Shook, which is a great rock name, and her band the Disarmers, which is also a great rock name. So from Sarah Shook and the Disarmers, Talking To Myself, which contains the verse, I got bones in my backyard so I stay shut up in my house I got a five for a high card Got a gun in case I go out which makes me laugh. And another song on this playlist is Louis Lui, a very, very famous rock pop tune which everybody has recorded, everyone my age and some younger. But you've never quite heard it like this before, and it's very satisfying. And then a song called 17 by an unpronounceable band. I did actually Google the pronunciation once. Maybe I should do that again. They're called S J O W G R E N. So I challenge you all to pronounce that S J O, W G R E N. There's a phrase in it where she sings don't worry, and it just makes me go weak. The way she says, don't worry. She says, don't worry, I'm not in a hurry. I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going anywhere. It's really the way she says, don't worry. I find it completely irresistible. If she said it to me in real life, I'd be her slave. And the name of the song is 17. The playlist is rounded off with Blue Jean by David Bowie, one of my favorite David Bowie dance tunes. And the video for this, or at least his appearance on British television when it was first released, was a sensational performance and deeply influential in terms of my dance floor technique. He did a couple of moves on there, which have never really left me. I think if you watch the. The video, the official video for another favorite David Bowie song called Boys Keep Swinging, which just makes me laugh. Boys know when to go out Boys know when to stay in. I mean, it's just great. Boys can learn to drive and everything. It's just so droll and so witty. But the shapes he throws and the kind of frontman thing that he does on that, I think is the state of the art. I think it's just. That's all you need. I think it's because it's, you know, there is irony, but it's also very, very attractive. So that's this episode's playlist and I hope it gets you bouncing a little bit because they're all of a certain level of energy. You'll find all of these songs in the show notes and you'll also find a link to Spotify. This week or this episode's book is by John Cheever. It's called oh, what a Paradise It Seems, and John Cheever was an American writer who wrote through the 40s and 50s about American suburban life, middle class American life, and this book is called oh, what a Paradise It Seems and I'm going to read you a little bit. It's set in what might be described and in fact is described on the back of the book as an idyllic American village. But as you might suspect, all is not well in the idyllic American Village. Chapter One this is a story to be read in bed in an old house on a rainy night. The dogs are asleep and the saddle horses, Dombey and Trey, can be heard in their stalls across the dirt road beyond the orchard. The rain is gentle and kneaded, but not kneaded with any desperation. The water tables are equitable, the nearby river is plentiful, the gardens and orchards it is at the turning of the season are irrigated. Ideally, almost all the lights are out in the little village by the waterfall where the mill so many years ago used to produce gingham. The granite walls of the mill still stand on the banks of the broad river, and the mill owner's house with its four Corinthian columns still crowns the only hill in town. You might think of it as a sleepy village out of touch with a changing world, but in the weekly newspaper, unidentified flying objects are reported with great frequency. They are reported not only by housewives hanging out their clothes and by sportsmen hunting squirrels, but they have been seen by substantial members of the population, such as the vice president of the bank and the wife of the chief of police. Walking through the village from north to south, you were bound to notice the number of dogs and that they were all high spirited and that they were, without exception, mongrels, but mongrels with the marked characteristics of their mixed parentage and breeding. You might see a smooth haired poodle, an Airedale with very short legs, or a dog that seemed to begin as a collie and ended as a Great Dane. These mixtures of blood, this newness of blood, you might say, had made them a highly spirited pack, and they hurried through the empty streets late, it seemed, for some important meal assignation or meeting quite unfamiliar with the loneliness from which some of the population seemed to suffer. The town was named Janice, after the mill owner's first wife. One of the most extraordinary things about the village and its place in history was that it presented no fast food franchises of any sort. This was very unusual at the time and would lead one to imagine that the village suffered from some sort of affliction, such as a great poverty or a lack of adventure among its people. But it was simply an error on the part of those computers on whose authority the sites to fast food franchises are chosen. Another historical peculiarity of the place was the fact that its large mansions, those relics of another time, had not been reconstructed to serve as nursing homes for that vast population of the comatose and the dying, who were kept alive unconscionably through trailblazing medical invention. At the north end of the town was Beazley's Pond, a deep body of water shaped like a bent arm with heavily forested shores. Here were water and greenery, and if one were a 19th century painter, one would put into the foreground a lovely woman on a mule, bent a little over the child she held and accompanied by a man with a staff. This would enable the artist to label the painting Flight into Egypt, although all he had meant to commemorate was his bewildering pleasure in a fine landscape on a summer's day. So that's about the size of it for this episode. And thank you for all questions. I hope you've enjoyed wasting some time. I hope we have successfully helped you take a break, because that's our mission. And if you've got any comments, please do go to the Instagram thing, which I don't understand. And we do read them and we do get to hear from you. Ill advisedbybill Nye 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 Kira Gregory. Angelique Somers, pronounced Somers, is the assistant producer and Bill Nigh is the Executive producer. Acast Powers the World's Best Podcasts here's the show that we recommend
- [29:05]
Commercial Announcer
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- [29:55]
Bill Nighy
Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere.
- [30:01]
Verizon Advertiser
Acast.com think Verizon is expensive? Think again. Anyone can bring their AT and T or T Mobile bill to a Verizon store today and we'll give you a better deal. So bring us your bill, walk in running pogo stickin' teleport if you can ride on the back of a rollerblading yak or flyin on the wings of a majestic falcon. Any way you can bring your AT&T or T mobile bill to a Verizon store today and we'll give you a better deal on the Best Network based on RootMetric's best overall mobile network performance US 2nd half 2025 all rights preserved Must provide very recent postpaid consumer mobile bill in the name of the person redeeming the deal. Additional terms, conditions and restrictions apply.