252. Marooned With My Music: James Thompson

Summary

Luke’s English Podcast – Episode 252: Marooned With My Music: James Thompson

Podcast Host: Luke Thompson
Guest/Castaway: James Thompson (Luke’s brother)
Date: January 16, 2015

---

Overview

In this special episode of the “Marooned With My Music” series, Luke Thompson sits down with his brother, James Thompson, for a warm, candid, and frequently humorous exploration of James’s life, all through the lens of choosing eight songs he’d take if stranded on a remote desert island. Modeled after the classic BBC “Desert Island Discs” format (with tongue-in-cheek references to copyright), the episode is both a celebration of James’s personal musical journey and an informal mini-memoir, tracing his upbringing, adventures, career twists, and musical obsessions.

---

Key Discussion Points

The Premise & Format

• Setting: James is invited to imagine himself marooned on a remote tropical island, having managed to save only eight pieces of music (in vinyl!) from a shipwreck (03:39–06:19).
• Concept’s Origin: Playfully acknowledging “Desert Island Discs” as inspiration, with quips about legal issues and musical mood-setting (03:39–04:58).

Childhood & Early Influences

• Growing up in Reading & Ealing: Luke and James reminisce about a “pleasant version of childhood in West London,” blending idyllic play with the ambiance of UK youth TV like Grange Hill and Bash Street Kids (09:01–09:53).
• Transition to Countryside: Moving to rural Warwickshire at age 11 brought culture shock, especially due to James’s “slight London accent” amidst Brummie classmates (13:54–14:36).

School Days & Adolescence

• School Experiences: James describes his early schools as mostly positive, with fond memories of BMX, roller skating, and pranks, and a relative lack of nastiness (13:03–13:23).
• Adapting to New Schools: Challenges included being an outsider, some teasing, but quick friendship-building (14:32–15:00).
• Academics: Called himself “pretty average academically… Not bottom, but not making enough effort to be top either,” and enjoyed subjects like history, English, and art (22:01–22:47).
• Art & Creativity: Struggled with the misconception that all art must have deep meaning, eventually settling on the idea of boldness and enjoyment over analysis (22:47–23:09).

Teenage Rebellion & Musical Awakening

• Adolescent Angst: James admits to being a “difficult teenager,” illustrated by Luke’s joking exposé of his moody, antisocial behavior (29:48–30:07).
• Cultural Identification: Key bands became “part of you,” representing moments of identity formation and self-expression, from Madness to Beastie Boys (32:15–32:36).

University, Wine, and Early Career

• University Life: Studied English and Graphic Arts in Cambridge (not at the famous university, but at Anglia Polytechnic – a recurring sibling ribbing point) (37:37–38:16).
• Good Times vs. Good Grades: “Far more focused on having a good time all of the time” than academic success (40:42–40:49).
• First Jobs: Worked in Cambridge wine shops, enjoying learning about wine (and drinking it); took wine exams and lauded the shop’s hi-fi system (44:45–46:03).

Design, Entrepreneurship, and Life Abroad

• T-shirt Company: Founded a clothing company with a friend—designed shirts that reached fancy shops and even made it to the Glastonbury Festival stage, but the business ultimately fizzled due to “artistic and financial differences” (52:17–56:08).
• Further Study & Freelancing: Returned for a design course at the London College of Printing, then freelanced as a designer around London (59:25–68:11).
• New Zealand Adventure: Moved to Wellington, joined a band, and landed a job as an in-house designer—“really set me up as a designer and artworker” (62:00–64:03).

Musical Life Map: The 8 Desert Island Discs

1. “My Girl” – Madness (09:53–12:30)

   • Chosen for its connection to childhood and the feeling of “someone talking directly to me about what life is probably going to be like as a grown up.”

2. “Dennis and Lois” – Happy Mondays (15:28–18:13)

   • Reminds James of his teenage years and social awakening; recalls first gigs, mates, and parties.

3. “Hole in the Sky” – Black Sabbath (25:39–27:32)

   • Reflects primal energy, “immensely powerful” music; “not heavy metal, despite what a lot of people think.”

4. “So What’cha Want” – Beastie Boys (32:50–34:15)

   • Crossover of punk and hip hop; “felt like they were part of you… you’re on the same wavelength.”

5. “Clap Your Hands” – A Tribe Called Quest (41:11–43:34)

   • Chosen for brilliant production, “lyrical flow,” and influence on his musical tastes.

6. “Xtal” – Aphex Twin (46:29–50:22)

   • Represents electronic music’s best, “ethereal… mood enhancing,… ambient techno.” James reminisces about playing this track to open the wine shop (46:29–51:13).

7. “Saint Angel” – Goldie (56:14–59:19)

   • A shout-out to the jungle/drum and bass scene: “dark, funky, a physical experience.”

8. “No Feelings” – Sex Pistols (64:09–66:57)

   • Credits school friend Richard Sexty for turning him onto punk; lauds the raw, anthemic energy.

   Bonus & Final Choice:

   • “Fisherman” – The Congos (69:22–71:55)
   • James’s ultimate pick if he could save only one; “It'd fit the environment… a bit of everything: soul, disco, rock and roll.” (76:56–77:06)

Later Life & Reflections

• Returning to the UK: Further design work, successful freelancing, designed the logo for Luke’s English Podcast (with jokes about being paid in beer vs. Nike-level fees) (68:11–69:19).
• Favorites and Influences: Waxes lyrical about favorite artists (e.g., William Blake for literature), friends’ art, and books like Jake Arnott's “The Long Firm” (73:39–74:56).

Desert Island Luxuries and Books

• Books: Complete Works of Shakespeare and, controversially, The Bible for the narrative interest (73:10–73:26). Personal pick: “The Long Firm” by Jake Arnott (73:39–75:38).
• Luxury Item: His skateboard, with the idea of eventually building a ramp from ocean debris (75:51–76:07).
• Philosophy on Survival: Feels he might “quite enjoy” the solitude but recognizes the psychological and practical challenges (“It’s the calories that would be the hard bit.”) (72:12–72:58).

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On being a guest:

  “So these interviews are normally done with famous, successful people. I haven’t done anything.” — James (07:28)

• On art:

  “I thought all art had to have some deep meaning behind it. I didn’t realize you could just paint anything you like and work out the meaning later.” — James (22:35)

• On adolescence:

  “He was a bloody nightmare. Moody, you know, used to answer back, hide in his room playing loud music… It was awful, basically.” — Luke (30:07)

• On Beastie Boys:

  “It felt like they were part of you. Whatever you were doing, you kind of thought you get them and they probably get you.” — James (32:15)

• On university:

  “Far more focused on having a good time all of the time.” — James (40:42)

• On setting up a company:

  “Just so you know, sometimes when you get into business with a friend, it’s not always the best thing.” — James (55:21)

• On punk:

  “It’s just brilliant, isn’t it? Anthemic, you could say. Like, doesn’t give a toss what you think of it.” — James (65:41)

• On the desert island scenario:

  “I don’t know, I kind of think I’d quite enjoy it but I think the not knowing would get to me… Am I ever gonna be rescued?” — James (72:15)

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Intro & setup: 03:39 – 06:19
• Childhood & moving: 09:00 – 14:36
• Adolescence & music: 15:28 – 30:07
• University & early jobs: 36:12 – 46:15
• Entrepreneurship & T-shirts: 52:17 – 56:08
• New Zealand & design: 61:38 – 65:08
• All 8 musical choices: Spread from 09:53 – 77:06
• Luxuries & philosophical close: 69:22 – 77:55

---

The Episode’s Tone

The atmosphere is relaxed, irreverent, teasing, and deeply personal—two brothers bantering, recalling shared memories, and reflecting on music’s power to mark time and identity. James is self-deprecating, insightful, and open, while Luke gently steers and occasionally mocks with affection, ensuring the episode is entertaining for listeners and illuminating for language learners.

---

A Rich, Engaging Listen For…

• English learners who want authentic, idiomatic British English and cultural references.
• Music enthusiasts interested in personal stories behind songs from ska, punk, hip hop to ambient electronica.
• Anyone who enjoys warm, witty, real-life interviews drifting seamlessly between nostalgia, philosophy, and playful sibling rivalry.

---

For more: Luke’s English Podcast

Transcript

[Luke Thompson]

Thank you for choosing Luke's English Podcast for more episodes with specific vocabulary and pronunciation teaching plus ad free listening access to the Premium community and to show your support for the podcast, sign up to LEP [e-mail] premium

[Warby Parker Advertiser]

taking care of your eyes shouldn't be a hassle. That's why Warby Parker is a one stop shop for all your vision needs. Our prescription glasses and sunglasses are expertly crafted and unexpectedly affordable. Stop by a nearby store or use our app to virtually try on frames and get personalized recommendations. Did we mention we offer eye exams and take vision insurance too? For everything you need to see, head to your nearest Warby Parker store or visit warbyparker.com today. That's warbyparker.com a password manager should be

[Luke Thompson]

the first security purchase you make for your team. Why? Because compromised passwords are the number one way bad actors attack companies, and small businesses are their favorite targets. But unlike a lot of security challenges, passwords actually have a pretty simple solution. 1Password lets you manage all your business's credentials so you can feel confident that your data stays secure as your company grows. Find out [e-mail] specialoffer and start securing every login you're listening to Luke's English Podcast. For more information, visit teacherluke.co.uk. Hello and welcome to Luke's English Podcast and this special series called Marooned. With my Music, my castaway today is my brother, James Thompson. Since being born in the mid-1970s in the south of England, it's hard to say really what James has been doing for the past 39 years of his existence on Earth. Nevertheless, he is a man of taste, a man of music, and a man of experience. In the 1990s, he studied a combined degree in English and design at a university in Cambridge before becoming something of an expert in wine tasting, wine selling, and indeed, wine drinking. Quietly entrepreneurial, James set up a successful T shirt company in the late 1990s and now works as a freelance designer and artist, with perhaps the pinnacle of his career so far being the logo he designed for Luke's English podcast. I'm joking, of course. James has contributed design work for various companies and organizations over the years, and as well as being an artist, a designer, a wine enjoyer, a T shirt maker and skateboarder, James has always been a keen lover of music, both as a drummer and producer and as a collector of vinyl records, and I imagine that having to choose eight records to take to his desert island has been something of a challenge for him. So let's find out.

[James Thompson]

So.

[Luke Thompson]

Hello, James. Welcome to this program which is called Marooned With My Music. Are you aware of the concept of the show?

[James Thompson]

Yep. It's similar to very popular Radio 4 program, isn't it?

[Luke Thompson]

That's right. It's basically the same thing with a few slight changes and.

[James Thompson]

But any similarities are complete coincidence.

[Luke Thompson]

That's right. The changes really have been made in order to avoid any potential copyright or

[James Thompson]

legal issues which we've just completely voided by discussing what it was stolen from.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay, well, anyway, welcome to Marooned with My Music. James, have you found it difficult to choose eight songs, eight of your favorite pieces of music which will accompany you onto this remote island for the rest of your life?

[James Thompson]

Very difficult. I mean, these kind of lists are normally 10 things and I think I'm missing those two extra ones badly.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay, well, let's see.

[James Thompson]

I mean, can I just ask quickly, have you got the music from that series from.

[Luke Thompson]

From that series? No, I'm not using that music.

[James Thompson]

Not. Oh, shame.

[Luke Thompson]

Why do you want. Do you need that music?

[James Thompson]

It kind of sets the tone, doesn't it? You can write something that sounds very, very similar to it.

[Luke Thompson]

That's pretty much the same thing. Maybe you need to hear the music to get you into the right mindset. But anyway, imagine that you're going to be marooned on a. On a remote island in the ocean somewhere and somehow you've managed to extract

[James Thompson]

from the shipwreck Pacific Ocean. Hopefully the Atlantic, because otherwise it'd be freezing.

[Luke Thompson]

It could be the Caribbean.

[James Thompson]

Caribbean? Oh, could be.

[Luke Thompson]

We don't really know.

[James Thompson]

It traditionally is more Caribbean, isn't it? If anything, it's Polynesian.

[Luke Thompson]

Could be. We don't really know where it is, but it's a remote desert island where you've. You've washed up on the shore. You've managed to rescue eight. I suppose they're pieces of seven inch vinyl. I suppose.

[James Thompson]

One sided seven inch, yeah.

[Luke Thompson]

Eight records that you have managed to save. I don't know why you were on.

[James Thompson]

A lot of these weren't available as singles. I mean, is that being too pedantic?

[Luke Thompson]

It is being too pedantic.

[James Thompson]

And wouldn't it be more likely I'd have an ipod, but the salt water sort of deleted. Yeah, most of them.

[Luke Thompson]

The salt water has got into your.

[James Thompson]

No, I don't want an ipod. I want the vinyl, please.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay. You've managed to rescue eight pieces of vinyl from your collection. I don't know why you were transporting all of your favorite pieces of music. Across the sea. But you were. And somehow the. The boat sank and you've washed up on the island.

[James Thompson]

Am I the only survivor?

[Luke Thompson]

You're the only survivor.

[James Thompson]

Jesus, what a tragedy. I think it's.

[Luke Thompson]

It's.

[James Thompson]

Ouch. Who was I traveling with? I mean, assuming. Who. You know, if I was traveling with someone, they're dead as well.

[Luke Thompson]

You were just a lone traveler, maybe.

[James Thompson]

A lone traveler.

[Luke Thompson]

Maybe on a freight boat. You know, it was a cheap trip, package deal. That's right. And let's not dwell on any of the negative details of this. Basically, it's a concept.

[James Thompson]

Okay, I'm being a bit too literal.

[Luke Thompson]

It's an interview program. So it was difficult to choose eight songs, was it?

[James Thompson]

Yeah, I still don't think I've chosen the eight. They might change as we're talking about it.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay, now you know that the. Basically, this is a contrived concept which allows us to just explore your personality, your life. The whole eight musical choices thing is really just a way, a framework for us to talk about, to just have a deep, insightful look at your life. Are you ready for that?

[James Thompson]

Oh, God. So you tricked me into this.

[Luke Thompson]

It's been a huge trick. I lured you into this interview with the premise that you would talk about music.

[James Thompson]

So these interviews are normally done with famous, successful people. I haven't done anything.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah, it's true. I think I'm going to mention. I think I will have mentioned that in the. In the introduction to this. Normally there's a sort of. My castaway today is, you know, Burt Reynolds. You know, and then there's something, you know, Burt Reynolds has. Was one of Hollywood's leading men from the 19. During the 1970s and 1980s, 80s, who've starred in films such as the Cannonball Run, The Cannonball Run 2, and other films. Maybe something with Clint Eastwood. I don't know. It was Sudden Impact. He starred in a film with Clint Eastwood. Anyway, with you, I think I'm gonna have to say James Thompson in one

[James Thompson]

of the Bond movies.

[Luke Thompson]

Burt Reynolds.

[James Thompson]

No, no, I'm thinking of that one ways in the Midwest, the Deep south, whatever.

[Luke Thompson]

There's a cowboy character.

[James Thompson]

Cowboy, like boss hog type character.

[Luke Thompson]

There's a co. Let's not talk about Burt Reynolds. We're here to talk about you, James Thompson. And this is supposed to be an assessment of your life, but you're right, you're not a famous celebrity. I mean, in a way you are because you're famous for being in episodes of Luke's English podcast. That's a kind of fame anyway, so I should normally begin with. Begin at the beginning. You were born in the glamorous settings of Reading in South England, and Ricky

[James Thompson]

Gervais is also from Reading.

[Luke Thompson]

Ricky Gervais is from there. That's right.

[James Thompson]

That's about it.

[Luke Thompson]

That's the only connection to anything noteworthy about the place. But really, you grew up in West London in Ealing. What was your childhood like?

[James Thompson]

I'd say it was really nice, you know, great. Any sort of idyllic, more idyllic version of Grange Hill, I'd probably describe it as, or the Bash Street Kids.

[Luke Thompson]

Grange Hill being a popular young person

[James Thompson]

soap opera, a cross between the Famous Five and Grange Hill, both of which

[Luke Thompson]

none of my listeners will. Will understand. But basically it was like a sort of pretty standard, idyllic, like, pleasant version of childhood in West London. Okay. And so let's. Let's start with your first musical choice. I don't know if this relates to your childhood at all. Let's see, what's your first record?

[James Thompson]

Well, Luke, my first record, which would be on 7 inch vinyl, because this did come out as a single, is by my first musical love, the first band. When I was a kid, that really grabbed my attention and that I really enjoyed listening to. You're Adjusting My Mic. Enjoyed listening to a lot. When they came on Top of the Pops, they just, you know, power immediately. I like them and they stood out, you know, from everything else that was around at the time. And they were the first band that I genuinely said, okay, I'm a fan of this band, which as a kid, I suppose is a first, you know.

[Luke Thompson]

Which band was that?

[James Thompson]

The band?

[Luke Thompson]

You need to tell us. The name of the band was Madness

[James Thompson]

and the song is My Girl.

[Music Excerpts / Song Vocals]

My Girl's Mad At Me.

[James Thompson]

I didn't want to see the film tonight.

[Music Excerpts / Song Vocals]

I found it hard to say. She thought I'd had enough of her.

[James Thompson]

What she say?

[Music Excerpts / Song Vocals]

She's lovely to me,

[James Thompson]

but I like

[Music Excerpts / Song Vocals]

to stay here and watch TV on my own every now and then. My girl's mad at me Been on the telephone.

[Luke Thompson]

So that was My Girl by Madness, an extract. I don't think I can play the whole thing legally, illegally either, but that was an extract from My Girl. Why that particular track? Because obviously they. They released lots of hit singles, madness in the 80s, when you and I were both growing up. Why that one in particular? Are the lyrics particularly poignant, particularly good

[James Thompson]

song and it's just perfect in every way? No, I don't know. I don't know. Just like. I mean, I Wish we could listen to it. We don't actually have the accent. Well, we do, but we don't have time.

[Luke Thompson]

I'm going to be adding the tracks in later in post production.

[James Thompson]

Yeah, you're adding them later.

[Luke Thompson]

So Marco kind of feel like. Yeah, argued just the other night. If you imagine them all in a pub.

[James Thompson]

Just reminds me of being 11 years old in London and thinking, you know, this is someone talking directly to me about what life is probably going to be like as a grown up.

[Luke Thompson]

Madness Also did a track called Baggy Trousers which was all about sort of school days and stuff like that.

[James Thompson]

That might have been a better choice considering what I was just talking about, but I chose my girl.

[Luke Thompson]

How were your school days? You went to North Ealing School originally And how were your early school days? Do you remember anything about them?

[James Thompson]

They were pretty fun. I had some good mates. We used to sort of spend a lot of time roller skating, BMXing, skateboarding, running around, throwing berries at garage doors.

[Luke Thompson]

Did you actually do any studying?

[James Thompson]

Oh, at school, yeah. I didn't mind school at that age. It was quite nice. It was quite a nice school. I had some good friends there. It was no real nastiness to be honest. It was generally all round pretty nice place to go to school, I think. I don't really remember it very well, to be honest.

[Luke Thompson]

It was up until. I probably remember more about your life than you do. That was up until the age of about 11. And then because our dad got a job in Birmingham working at BBC Pebble Mill in Birmingham, we moved, didn't we? We moved from the built up area, the hustle and bustle of west London. We moved to sort of middle of nowhere in Warwickshire. So what was it like for you, moving to a new school?

[James Thompson]

So this is a real rags to riches story, as you can tell.

[Luke Thompson]

It's more of a town to countryside story.

[James Thompson]

It was great. I mean it was great. It was cool. We had lots of, you know, new friends and we'd play in lane, which was more of a lane, less of a street or a road. Like we've been used to country lane, grass verges and we did the same kind of things. Great fun. I seem to remember it was just summer all the time for quite a long time, but was it. Which is good. I had a paper round, you know, I used to ride around village on my paper round and started going to another school which wasn't quite so idyllic as the first one but it was still quite a good laug.

[Luke Thompson]

What was difficult about moving to the new school.

[James Thompson]

Probably having a slight London accent when all the other kids in school were Brummies, sort of standing. And also starting a year in, rather than starting with everyone else at the start, meant that you kind of stuck out a bit. So I was the new boy for quite a while. You kind of get picked on a bit or you get a bit of undue attendant. But I made friends pretty quickly, so I. I did all right. It was. It was fine.

[Luke Thompson]

Do you have. Do you have any. Have any fights at school?

[James Thompson]

A couple of minor ones, maybe.

[Luke Thompson]

Did you win those fights?

[James Thompson]

Yep. No, not always. It was not serious. Just the odd, you know, little scrap.

[Luke Thompson]

It's quite normal for boys to have a few fights at school, isn't it? I suppose.

[James Thompson]

Yeah. I think I had a pretty good average.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay.

[James Thompson]

All right, then.

[Luke Thompson]

Now let's move on to song choice number two. What's this? What's your second record?

[James Thompson]

This one is. Definitely reminds me of the bedroom I had in our house in Solihull. Just, you know, in a certain song reminds you of a certain place.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[James Thompson]

And just tell me about the Happy Mondays, which were again, the second band. I really kind of thought, okay, this is the band.

[Luke Thompson]

This is me.

[James Thompson]

All the way. All through. All the way through.

[Luke Thompson]

They're like representing you or they speak

[James Thompson]

dumb Similar way that Madness had sort of caught my attention. And this was the first track on the second side of the tape LP that I actually bought in Woolworths.

[Luke Thompson]

You bought it on cassette?

[James Thompson]

Yeah, I bought it on cassette. And I went to see them live as well. It was the first gig I actually ever went to at the nec, which is a huge stadium almost, isn't it?

[Luke Thompson]

Do you remember how old you were?

[James Thompson]

I think I was 15 or maybe 14.

[Luke Thompson]

I was quite surprised that you were allowed to go to that gig at such an early age.

[James Thompson]

It was at the nec, it wasn't at some sweat box, you know. It was a sort of a reputable venue. Yeah. And I was going with a few mates. It was amazing. And Donovan supported the old 60s sing. Singer songwriter Donovan.

[Luke Thompson]

Which group are you talking about here?

[James Thompson]

The Happy Mondays. Okay, shall I shut up and.

[Luke Thompson]

No, no. I want to know more about why you like the Happy Monday so.

[James Thompson]

Well, we went to see them live. They were brilliant. Brilliantly shambolic, I should say. They weren't exactly professional, but they were brilliantly entertaining. And the tune sounded really good, as loud as they did. And the bass really, you know, rips through you. And that was when you were allowed to play gigs loud. They've turned it down a bit these days and it was just great fun, just really good fun. Out with my mates and, you know, my first can of beer on the train. Well, not first, but, you know.

[Luke Thompson]

Did you have beer on the train?

[James Thompson]

Yeah, Stole a couple of dad's beers, I think. Did you really there? Yeah.

[Luke Thompson]

So you were what, 14 or 15?

[James Thompson]

No, I wasn't. I was 15 or 16.

[Luke Thompson]

Oh, okay.

[James Thompson]

All right. And so I must have had all of two beers that night. You know, crazy. We weren't buying beers in the venue because we were too young. But anyway, it was a brilliant gig and it's. They're a brilliant band. Brilliant album. Bob's your uncle.

[Luke Thompson]

When was this?

[James Thompson]

1988, maybe 89.

[Luke Thompson]

No, it's 1992, isn't it?

[James Thompson]

Oh, no, no, you're right. 88 is the first album. 90. 1990.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay, so 1990, Happy Mondays, the album is Pills and Thrills and Belly Aches. Yeah, I think it was released in 1991, I'll be honest with you.

[James Thompson]

Nah, it's 90.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay, could be 90. Could be 91. But you went to see them live maybe 1991.

[James Thompson]

I saw them live in 90.

[Luke Thompson]

I think you saw them live in 1990.

[James Thompson]

It was the year the album came out as the tour for Pills and Thrills.

[Luke Thompson]

So you would have been 15? Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, let's listen to this track. What's it called?

[James Thompson]

It's called Dennis and Lewis. And actually this is the song that Tony Wilson, Google him. Had played at his funeral. Wow. And Tony Wilson signed the Happy Mondays. He. He owned Factory Records, which is the sort of the. The label that signed the Mondays.

[Luke Thompson]

Which city do we associate with Happy Mondays?

[James Thompson]

Manchester.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay, so let's listen to Dennis and Lewis by the Happy Mondays, who are from Man.

[Music Excerpts / Song Vocals]

Sam, Magic Love, where it once we love. And it's so much of good. It's good to see you. To see you. Nice. If you do it works well. We do it twice. We're twice as light, we're twice as bright. You say it's wrong but we know it's right. Right, right on, right on, Right, right on.

[Luke Thompson]

So that was Dennis and Lewis by the Happy Mondays, which is your second musical choice there. Do you think that sort of. Do you think that that record or that that band sort of represents something in particular about your generation? Like compared to our parents generation, they had like the Beatles in the 60s and all that stuff. And then there was like the sort of punk rock generation and then for us it was the things like Acid house And bands like the Happy Mondays. Do you think it represents something about our generation for you?

[James Thompson]

We just want to have a good time. Want to have a party. Hey baby, let's go.

[Luke Thompson]

It's party music. We just wanted to have a party. Is that it?

[James Thompson]

I suppose so. Without the 80s was a little bit pretentious, possibly, or a little bit what we'd like new romantic, Glossy, very glossy and very style oriented. And the 90s kind of was more fun oriented, if that makes any sense. Or more getting back to basics and dropping some of the padded shoulder, shoulder pads and stuff like that.

[Luke Thompson]

So there was more substance to was.

[James Thompson]

It was more down to earth but more fun and yeah, maybe a bit more real than some of the 80s music.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay, going back to school. This is secondary school now in heart of England, School in the West Midlands. And what do you remember about your secondary school experience? So after having moved to the countryside and starting at a new school, and you dealt with that fairly well, what were you like as a secondary school student as a teenager?

[James Thompson]

Probably pretty average academically. Not certainly not bottom of the class, but not really making an effort enough to be top of the class either. Probably just. I enjoyed some lessons. I enjoyed. I generally enjoyed the experience, I think. Didn't really like sport that much.

[Luke Thompson]

Was there a particular subject that you found that you were better at than others?

[James Thompson]

Quite like history. Quite like English literature and language. Quite like art? Well, I didn't really understand a lot of the. I thought all art had to have some deep meaning behind it. I didn't realize you could just paint anything you like and work out the meaning later. I thought everything had to be conceptual in some way. And I just thought everything had to have a deeper meaning than it needed.

[Luke Thompson]

So it doesn't have to have a deeper meaning? Not really.

[James Thompson]

I think it's better just to do something really good and big and bold and just do something rather than fretting about why you're doing it.

[Luke Thompson]

Do you have any artists that you particularly like nowadays?

[James Thompson]

I'm not really too up on it, to be honest.

[Luke Thompson]

But you don't have to be up on it. I mean, you just need to know what you like, don't you put me

[James Thompson]

on the spot there a bit, Luke.

[Luke Thompson]

Well, if you had to say an artist or some work that you really appreciate, what would it be? I mean, you don't get to save a piece of art on this desert island, but if you could, what would it be? Little hypothetical.

[James Thompson]

There's a paint. Well, not a painting, a collage. My friend Al Herring made from me. His name is. Well, he didn't make it for me. He had. It's part of a show and he gave it to me. It's. He's a artist illustrator known as Mysterious Owl. You can look him up on the Internet. Graffiti, you know, Addict or whatever they call graffiti. Graph heads. Might have heard of him.

[Luke Thompson]

Mysterious Owl.

[James Thompson]

Mysterious Owl. So I've got one of his collages on the wall and I like that because it's handmade and it's called mixed. Mixed media collage mixed with bits of paint splatters and different. All sorts of media in there and it's frame framed really nicely.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay.

[James Thompson]

But he's not really traditionally. He's more. I don't know. It's nice anyway.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay. All right, Very good. Now let's move on to your third musical choice. We've had the Happy Mondays. The first one, of course being. What do we have first?

[James Thompson]

We had Madness first and we had Happy Mondays.

[Luke Thompson]

Both British bands. What's your third musical choice?

[James Thompson]

This is where it gets difficult. Am I allowed to say what I've got, you know, as backed up?

[Luke Thompson]

No, no, you just choose one.

[James Thompson]

Just have to choose one. God, it's hard. Well, I was gonna choose the Beatles because growing up the Beatles was like a member of the family to us and they were just around pre birth. I'm sure we were listening to the Beatles in the womb. So I really wanted to choose a Beatles track. But everybody chooses the Beatles and just to be different, I'm not going to because I can't think of one that really nails it either. They're such a wide ranging band and I like them as an albums band and I like bits of their albums. Like I like the second half of Abbey Road and I like bits of sergeant Pepper, but I don't like other bits of sergeant I don't know. They're a band that I'd like to make a best of and take that with me. Yeah, the Best of the Beatles, my version, which would be all the weird ones, but I Am the Walrus and Most of Magical Mystery Tour. I prefer to almost anything else they've done. I like the weirder stuff they did the most, the psychedelic. The more psychedelic, the better with for the Beatles, I think. But I'm not going to choose it. I'm sorry, I'm not. I'm going to go with Black Sabbath, Hole in the Sky.

[Luke Thompson]

All right, now just tell me a little bit about Black Sabbath before we play this track, would you please?

[James Thompson]

They're another band that kind of. You know, when you first hear them, you think, wow. And they really make an impact on you. Well, they did for me, anyway. They're just incredible. There's no one else like them. They're not heavy metal, despite what a lot of people think. They're heavy rock based in blues rock, but then sort of pitched down a bit into sort of the Devil's key, whatever that is.

[Luke Thompson]

I think it's D minor.

[James Thompson]

D minor.

[Luke Thompson]

Augmented D minor 7th or something. Minor 9th.

[James Thompson]

Satan's Own. And they're a unique entity, I think, almost they kind of prove the existence of channeling, where people say that, you know, it's almost like a force flowing through them when they create something. Is that what it's called, channeling? When. What's the word for it?

[Luke Thompson]

I don't know.

[James Thompson]

It's almost like you're the medium and they're flowing through you. Because a lot of them, They've said many times that when they were knocking these songs out, they just came out of them, I think, without trying.

[Luke Thompson]

That's what all music musicians say. They say that they. When they're really on the.

[James Thompson]

On the money.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah. When they're really in the zone, they're creating music that they're not authoring it. They're just allowing the music to come through.

[James Thompson]

Yeah. So Sabbath, I like that very primal band. And a lot of people probably sneer at them, but I think they're immensely powerful, more than you could ever imagine.

[Luke Thompson]

And this track is called Hole in the Sky?

[James Thompson]

Yeah, it's not an obvious choice. It's just one I like at the moment. I might change my mind about this tomorrow, but right now I would choose this one.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay, so here it is. Black Sabbath, Hole in the sky from Birmingham. Nonetheless.

[James Thompson]

Aston in Birmingham. Ozzy Osbourne on lead vocals, Tony Iommi, guitar.

[Luke Thompson]

Geezer Butler on drums. And another bloke.

[James Thompson]

No, Geezer Butler on bass.

[Luke Thompson]

Oh, really?

[James Thompson]

Bill Ward on drums.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay. All right, here they are, then.

[James Thompson]

Black Sabbath.

[Music Excerpts / Song Vocals]

It. In the sky I'm seeing nowhere through the eyes of my life I'm getting closer to the end of the line Living easy Where the sun doesn't shine.

[Luke Thompson]

So pretty heavy stuff there from Black Sabbath.

[James Thompson]

I just imagining, you know, it's going to be on a desert island. It's bound to be some kind of stormy conditions from time to time.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[James Thompson]

Just imagine in the middle of a thunderstorm, blasting that out on my island and just generally being at one with nature. That's right.

[Luke Thompson]

So it's a good chance to just celebrate The. The. The.

[James Thompson]

The latent power in nature.

[Luke Thompson]

Right, okay. Just going back to your teenage years.

[James Thompson]

Do we have to?

[Luke Thompson]

Yes, we do. That's the whole idea of this show. It's a candid exploration in.

[James Thompson]

Candid. Candid.

[Luke Thompson]

Candid exploration through the. The bowels of your. Your. Your life. And so what were you like as a teenager, James? I mean, listening to things like Black Sabbath and stuff like that, it seems quite heavy and a bit dark. Was there a. Do you ever have dark moments? Do you have dark thoughts as a teenager? What was it like going through all those changes that one does at that age?

[James Thompson]

Probably pretty much like it was for everyone else.

[Luke Thompson]

Which means,

[James Thompson]

you know, slightly awkward at times, but generally all right.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah. Were you sort of. Were you a difficult teenager or.

[James Thompson]

Yeah, I think I probably was.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay.

[James Thompson]

You know, you'd know more about that than I.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay. Everyone listening to this. He was. He was. It was. He was a bloody nightmare. Okay. Moody, you know, he used to answer back. He'd hide in his room playing loud music. He was antisocial. It was. It was awful, basically. So what was it? What was running through your troubled mind at that point during that period? Was any. I mean, was it troubled or was it basically all right for you? Was it. Were you just like, I'm having a great time. Just leave me alone. What was going on?

[James Thompson]

Jesus, I don't know. I don't know. Bloody hell, I'm gonna storm off in a huff now.

[Luke Thompson]

That's what he would have done at that time.

[Music Excerpts / Song Vocals]

Just leave me alone.

[James Thompson]

Leave me alone. So unfair. Anyway, that's the Kevin the Teenager from. Yeah. If you want to know what I was like, look up Harry Anfield's Kevin the teenager on YouTube and you'll see Harry. Me as 18.

[Luke Thompson]

Harry Enfield was a comedian on TV, and he used to do a character called Kevin the Teenager, who was like the very typical, unreasonable, moody young teenager.

[James Thompson]

But then again, around about the same time, I really started getting into skateboarding quite a lot. So that got me out the house, probably burnt off, a bit of aggression and saved my life.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay, shall we hear your next musical choice?

[James Thompson]

Okay, tell us about it. This is by the Beastie Boys, who are a great band. I mean, it sounds a bit ridiculous, but they're a bit like our Beatles of our generation, you could say, because they were certainly the sort of. All right, that's a slight exaggeration, but they always seem to be, well, close. That. I don't know. Can we delete that?

[Luke Thompson]

No, you can't delete it.

[James Thompson]

No, I'M just.

[Luke Thompson]

What I think you're saying is that the Beast as the Beatles were sort of cultural ambassadors. Cultural ambassadors. And they sort of leaders, innovators, they

[James Thompson]

sort of led, but they also reflected what was going on at the time, really more than any other band, I

[Luke Thompson]

could think, a kind of alternative to culture and yet sort of leading culture at the same time.

[James Thompson]

Yeah, but also it felt like they were part of you. Whatever you. You were doing, you kind of thought you get them and they get. They probably get you. They probably think you were all right. Or you. Yeah, you know, you're on the same wavelength.

[Luke Thompson]

Just that same feeling that you got from madness and from the happy. Got it from the Beastie Boys, but they were from the US Originally from New York. They lived in Los Angeles, though.

[James Thompson]

Very male, aren't they, these choices?

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah, they're all male musicians, but they played sort of like hip hop and they played punk rock and all the

[James Thompson]

best things in life.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah. Okay, so which track are you gonna play to us?

[James Thompson]

Hello, it's. Am I thinking of the right one? So what you want?

[Luke Thompson]

So what you want?

[James Thompson]

Which is awesome.

[Luke Thompson]

That one?

[Music Excerpts / Song Vocals]

Yeah, what you want?

[Luke Thompson]

That one?

[James Thompson]

Yeah, that one. It's, you know, I'm sure everyone knows it, but it's off there. Probably their best album, Check your head. Check your head, which is closely followed by Ill Communication as the best two albums.

[Luke Thompson]

Check Your Head, released in 1992, is a sort of landmark kind of crossover album between punk rock and hip hop. There were white guys doing hip hop with a rock, sort of punk rock aesthetic.

[James Thompson]

And also they had double bass and slow, slow, slightly slower caller funky stuff,

[Luke Thompson]

jazzy funky sort of stuff as well.

[James Thompson]

And also that album just sounds amazing because it was all recorded on old analog gear and recorded onto tape. So it's got that old school funk slightly distorted in the studio sound, which you just cannot fake. And a lot of it was taken from live takes and then chopped up later. Like I found Adrock did a lot of that. They'd have these long jams and then he'd cut them up later and make the riffs out of the jams.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay.

[James Thompson]

Base the track around that, then add, you know, put a beat over the top, whatever, put some scratching and guitars and whatever else. And you've got a. An amazing, you know, head checking mixture.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay, so this is so what you want by the beastie Boys from 1992.

[Music Excerpts / Song Vocals]

I'm a greater or why Tell me who are you missing? Maybe I'm missing the reason that you t in the world and to listen in my head I just want to take them down Imagination set loose and I'm going to shake them down Let it flow like a mud slide or when I get on I like a Friday. You want. Politician.

[Luke Thompson]

So that was the Beastie Boys, of course. So what you want? 1992. Check your head.

[James Thompson]

I said, where'd you get your information from, huh?

[Luke Thompson]

You think that you confront when revelation comes.

[James Thompson]

Yeah.

[Luke Thompson]

You can't front on that. So what you watch anyway, the drum

[James Thompson]

and bass sound on that. So. A couple of my tunes, actually, really to weak effect, but it's definitely one of my favorite sounds. All right, then, that sound of that album.

[Luke Thompson]

So you managed to get into university, didn't you?

[James Thompson]

I did, unbelievably. I think I did all right at the exams. I was okay. I mean, I did quite, quite well on my GCSEs. Then I got about. How many A levels did I get?

[Luke Thompson]

We got. I think you got two or three.

[James Thompson]

I got pretty good A levels, I think.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[James Thompson]

Average, medium. I think I got one a C and a D or something like that.

[Luke Thompson]

So. So what level of university did you end up in?

[James Thompson]

I didn't have a clue what to look for in a university. I really felt completely clueless. I was encouraged to apply for somewhere, you know, sort of posh and prestigious, like Oxford or Cambridge. And I probably should have done because you never know. I might have got in, you know, might have had a chance.

[Luke Thompson]

What are you doing? Just moving the microphone. Told me to touch my chin. I'm moving the microphone so that.

[James Thompson]

You told me to hold it there.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah, but. But, yeah, that's right. Just speak right into the end of it then.

[James Thompson]

Right, like that.

[Luke Thompson]

That's it exactly. Brilliant.

[James Thompson]

So is this suddenly much louder now?

[Luke Thompson]

I'm sure everyone likes you more now.

[James Thompson]

What was I saying? You're saying, yeah, so I should have applied for a really prestigious university, but the whole idea just sort of really put me off and I didn't. It felt completely alien to me to go to somewhat of these amazing universities and I just wasn't that focused on that kind of thing. So I ended up going around a few places and I just picked one. I like the feel of. I like the look of, I like the town. Because obviously at college you've got to have been a good student friendly town.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[James Thompson]

So I chose Cambridge and I went to Anglia Polytechnic University.

[Luke Thompson]

So wait a minute, you went.

[James Thompson]

It's actually quite a good college, I'll have you know.

[Luke Thompson]

So you didn't go to Cambridge University? No, you went to university in Cambridge.

[James Thompson]

But I didn't actually try to get into Cambridge, so for all I know, they would have welcomed me with open arms.

[Luke Thompson]

Well, to be honest, you couldn't have got in because you didn't. You didn't have the grades.

[James Thompson]

Didn't I?

[Luke Thompson]

No, you needed like three A's. Three A level.

[James Thompson]

I didn't think it was quite that straight. I thought they let the odd chancer in, you know, to keep the place interesting.

[Luke Thompson]

No, no, they, they need like top level grades to qualify for their courses. That's why you didn't go to Cambridge.

[James Thompson]

Well, all right, I don't think that's strictly true. I don't think you need all A's.

[Luke Thompson]

I think you do.

[James Thompson]

Can we, can we check?

[Luke Thompson]

Can you check?

[James Thompson]

Can someone check that, please?

[Luke Thompson]

Wait a minute, I'm gonna pause it and then. Oh, I can't be bothered.

[James Thompson]

We'll come back to that.

[Luke Thompson]

I'm pretty sure that to get into Cambridge University you need like all A's across the board in all your subjects.

[James Thompson]

And I say you don't. Okay, it's. It's a help, but I don't think. Anyway, let's move on.

[Luke Thompson]

So you got into university and how about your university time? It was living away from home in Cambridge.

[James Thompson]

Yeah, I mean, I did live in a really grim part of Cambridge, actually for the first year, North Arbury, which you can look up on Google Street View if you want. Arbury in Cambridge. And you'll see it's not quite the dreaming spires that Cambridge is known for. It was extremely grim and depressing and we were living. This guy had never met before. We're living in lodgings, which means you're living with a family. And I was living with this old couple and another student called Neil, who was another midlander, as it turned out. He was from the other side of Birmingham and we got on great, but didn't really encourage each other's work rate very well. And I did have a very good time at university. Too good a time. So much, in fact, that I got an incredibly crap grade at the end of it. But, you know, what can you do? You can't go back, can you? But you can. I could go back. That would be a bit weird. I'd be a mature student. One of those creepy mature students. Should suit me perfectly.

[Luke Thompson]

So, all right. So.

[James Thompson]

No, it was fine. I did all right. I got my degree. Just a really, really bad one.

[Luke Thompson]

What did you study?

[James Thompson]

Weirdly, a combination of English and graphic arts, a split degree, which is Unusual but not impossible.

[Luke Thompson]

English Literature. Literature and Graphic arts.

[James Thompson]

And you can do modules from both subjects to build up your degree.

[Luke Thompson]

What do you remember doing on the English side of things? What do you remember reading?

[James Thompson]

We did the usual stuff like media studies. That's always quite interesting.

[Luke Thompson]

Didn't you read any particular texts?

[James Thompson]

Oh, yeah. I read quite a lot of the Romantic poets and I read like, John Donne and he's quite good. And I think who I particularly like is William Blake. He's very good. Check him out.

[Luke Thompson]

William Blake.

[James Thompson]

But overall, I was far more focused on having a good time all of the time.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay.

[James Thompson]

As it's. That's a Spinal Tap reference.

[Luke Thompson]

Spinal Tap. It's a comedy film which I will tell everyone on Luke's English podcast about at some point. Let's have another musical choice. This is what, number five now, is it?

[James Thompson]

Yep. I'm running out of options and I've got too many left. In the few that we have left, I'm gonna have to ditch some.

[Luke Thompson]

It's gonna be hard. You've only got time to rescue another four records. So what's number five, then?

[James Thompson]

Well, I'm just going to take them as they come. Number five is a Tribe Called Quest with clap your hands. I think that's what it's called. Can we check?

[Luke Thompson]

Okay, let's check.

[Music Excerpts / Song Vocals]

Brothers know the flames when the quest gets loose Crazier than Tupac in the flick ball Juke cock is longer than the hat one by Dr. Su love a girl and Daisy Dukes like them kids who all do Gets made to sex the hoochie like my main man Luke Control the mic like Danzell on the girls whack Ems he's beyond the nuts like Rocket J Sprill the worst thing in this world is the sucker MC Favorite rap group in the world is EPMD can't forget the daylight due to originality and if I ever when solo my favorite MC would be me if I talk up in the house I give a shout out to Snoopy Peace to all the best to hell with the groupies like Rafa to Foxy, Brooklyn to Dodger, Clifford, Shirley Reruns to Roger Rentals to Stimpy Gull Road to Hardy Q Tips and Piper they mash up the party Kick the rhymes and more rhymes Kick the beats and more beats we'll have you scratching in your head like shine on Techniques for those who want to oppose then they can stand but for now, now just shut your and clap your hands.

[James Thompson]

You just want to dance, man and

[Music Excerpts / Song Vocals]

clap your hands if you Venture up the wrong road Then the circumstance will be crucial I got hundreds of rounds that'll suit you. So listen, the abstract intuition is very, very worthy. I could fill you out from Russia to Jersey.

[Luke Thompson]

So that was A Tribe Called Quest with Clap your hands.

[James Thompson]

What a gem.

[Luke Thompson]

So why that one?

[James Thompson]

Just a brilliant album. Brilliant tune. The, you know, the lyrical flow of fife being this, like, cheeky, sort of, like character. And then Q Tip being really smooth and slow and they just had a lot of personality. Some amazingly good beats that I think Q Tip made, and they're just sick, man.

[Luke Thompson]

Sick meaning good.

[James Thompson]

Yes.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah. Okay. That's a bit of London slang, but

[James Thompson]

wouldn't you agree that's one of the best albums of all time?

[Luke Thompson]

Oh, yeah, that. The album is called Midnight Marauders by A Tribe Called Quest, released in 1993.

[James Thompson]

We're going chronologically. That's a blue mirror. We are vaguely going Sabbath.

[Luke Thompson]

We're going in vague chronological order here. And also vague chronological order in. In your life as well.

[James Thompson]

Yeah, that's the way we've tried to do it.

[Luke Thompson]

You. So you did your university thing. You had a very good time all of the time. You emerged from college with a. You kind of.

[James Thompson]

You managed to brush over that. I got a degree. You got a degree like that.

[Luke Thompson]

Let's say that. And so what was the next move? You stayed in Cambridge for a while. You launched a T shirt company.

[James Thompson]

I believe that was later. In between that. I worked in a wine shop in Cambridge. Odd bins.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay.

[James Thompson]

And I learned about wine. I did some wine courses. Did a lot of wine tasting.

[Luke Thompson]

A lot of wine drinking.

[James Thompson]

Yep. I did my WSET exams, which is Wine and spirit education. Trust.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay.

[James Thompson]

To be honest, I didn't really know what else to do with my life, but it was really good fun learning about wine and drinking it. So I did that for a couple.

[Luke Thompson]

Where did you work then?

[James Thompson]

In the workshop bins. In a few of them. Ordered pretty much all the odd bins in Cambridge. There was about three or four of them. And I worked in Kings Parade, Parker's Peace. What the hell was that one called? That? I can't remember.

[Luke Thompson]

Anyway, different wine shops.

[James Thompson]

There was two on one street and one somewhere else.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay.

[James Thompson]

And it was mainly just selling students booze all day and drinking wine. So it wasn't a hard job. And we had a really good stereo in the shop.

[Luke Thompson]

I can see where your priorities are. Oh, yeah, but they had a really good stereo. The pay was terrible, but the stereo was brilliant.

[James Thompson]

Pretty transparent, aren't I? But the Stereo was from Richer Sounds, which anyone who lives in the UK will know is the best place to get your stereo from. They're an independent stereo hi fi specialist that sell a lot of Cambridge Audio. Cambridge Audio, Absolutely.

[Luke Thompson]

Cambridge Audio, a British manufacturer of amps, amplifiers and stuff.

[James Thompson]

And I think I had Wharfedale diamond speakers. Wharfedales are really nice speakers. So what all you need for a good sound system is a Cambridge Audio amp. Your Wharfedale speakers. And they're quite cheap. They're not that much. And then your CD player or whatever add on of choice if you want to be a complete full, plug your ipod into it. But it won't sound as good.

[Luke Thompson]

No, no. You've got to go with a bit of vinyl that you've rescued from the ocean.

[James Thompson]

Well, yeah, but in the shop we didn't have vinyl, we just had a CD player. But we'd play albums all day, just drink wine and talk. It was great.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay, all right. Weren't you concerned about what you were going to do with your life or were you happy to just sit around selling and drinking wine?

[James Thompson]

That really.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay then, let's have your next musical choice then, James. And let's imagine you playing this on

[James Thompson]

those Wharfedale speakers, which would have happened a lot actually. This would have been opening up music because I was a key holder, so. Which meant I had to lock up and open up in the morning. Yeah. Normally bit late. And then make myself a brew.

[Luke Thompson]

What's that?

[James Thompson]

A cup of tea. And put the speakers on, whack them up a bit. And put on this, which is Aphex Twin from Selected Ambient Works, Volume one. And the track is called Xtal.

[Luke Thompson]

So what, just before we listen to it. What does this mean to you?

[James Thompson]

It's just a great tune, isn't it? I mean it's. It's some of the best bit of electronic music ever made. I think it's good. Got a very cool sound. It's very analogy sounding. Lots of drenched in analog reverb. He was about 14 or 15 when he wrote this. Probably in his. In his early teens, probably. It's just great tune. What more can you say?

[Luke Thompson]

When. When. I mean, when.

[James Thompson]

Or actually maybe I should go for a different. Any. Any Apex Twin track. But I'll say exter.

[Luke Thompson]

We're gonna go with Xtar, which is the first track on the album.

[James Thompson]

Yeah. Which would have been that track I played on the stereo in the shop.

[Luke Thompson]

It's the first one that comes on when you play the cd.

[James Thompson]

Yeah. And it's.

[Luke Thompson]

It's it's probably immensely popular.

[James Thompson]

I bet this has been downloaded a million billion times.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah, but you know, I know that lots of my listeners know about Aphex Twin. They probably know this track. A lot of them won't.

[James Thompson]

I bet this is his most well known track.

[Luke Thompson]

No, no, his most well known track will be something like. What's that famous one with the music video? Window Licker.

[James Thompson]

No, I bet this is more famous than Window Looker because even our mum and dad have got a copy of this in the house.

[Luke Thompson]

Only because you bought it for them. You're like, you've got to listen to. This is really important.

[James Thompson]

The point is they like it.

[Luke Thompson]

You were like, mom and dad, you got it. You've got to listen to this album. It's really important. They were like, what about your career? No, this album. Okay, well, let's listen to X Tal by FX Twin just to give the listeners an idea of what it was like. Probably in around 1998 or something.

[James Thompson]

When you skipped out the college years.

[Luke Thompson]

No, we did the university years. You had a good time all of the time. Yeah. And you didn't do that much work, but you got a degree and then you ended up working in a wine shop, selling wine and drinking wine as well. And you would arrive a bit late in the morning in the shop and you'd open the door with the key. The key master. And then you'd put this on the CD with a cup of tea, turn

[James Thompson]

off the burglar alarm.

[Luke Thompson]

And turn off the burglar alarm. And then these are the sounds that would be emanating from your Wharfedale speakers in the shop as customers drifted in, students wanting to buy some cheap wine. And they would be listening to this in the shop. And this is it. Aphex Twin X Tales.

[Music Excerpts / Song Vocals]

Sam.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay, so that was xtal.

[James Thompson]

Positively ethereal.

[Luke Thompson]

Ethereal, mood enhancing, uplifting, ambient trance music.

[James Thompson]

I wouldn't say trance music. I'd say edm.

[Luke Thompson]

What's that?

[James Thompson]

No, I wouldn't really. Idm.

[Luke Thompson]

Idm? What's that mean?

[James Thompson]

Intelligent dance music.

[Luke Thompson]

Intelligent dance music. Oh, it's intelligent. What was so intelligent about that?

[James Thompson]

I'm only joking. That's what people call it. I didn't make that term up.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay. It's just.

[James Thompson]

I'd say it's ambient house.

[Luke Thompson]

How?

[James Thompson]

Ambient techno? No, it's ambient techno.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay.

[James Thompson]

UK ambient techno, sort of thing you can dance to.

[Luke Thompson]

But it also has a sort of ambient atmospheric quality that you can help you relax if. If it's. If that's necessary. Like, for example, if it's an early morning and you, you've. You just arrived at the shop to sell wine to students.

[James Thompson]

Let's not dwell on that. It wasn't a long period in my life.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay. What did you do after working in the wine shop then?

[James Thompson]

I hung around Cambridge for a while, not doing very much. And then I moved back home, which is always a mistake.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[James Thompson]

Moving to mum and dad, moving back

[Luke Thompson]

in with the parents.

[James Thompson]

Bad move.

[Luke Thompson]

How old were you? 20, 22, 23?

[James Thompson]

20 something. It's a. I don't really remember.

[Luke Thompson]

It's a painful experience.

[James Thompson]

It's not. Not a good time. I think you did the same thing for a while, didn't you?

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah, I did. After university I moved back in with the parents.

[James Thompson]

You kind of run out of money and you need to restart and rethink what you're doing and it's just. It's never a nice experience. It's. It's a backwards move.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah. And also you end up like living under your parents roof when you've been. You've spent four or five years away from home being your own boss and then suddenly you're back to where you were as a kid again.

[James Thompson]

Yeah. In the local pub, which was fun. There were fun times to be had with the local mates that we had around there. But it was. That definitely felt like a backwards move.

[Luke Thompson]

Can you tell me about the T shirt company which you set up?

[James Thompson]

Yes. A friend of mine from college were chatting one night and I said, let's start a T shirt company. And he just went, yeah, all right. And so we went about doing that and I moved up to Sheffield and we were quite successful for a while. Yeah, we were sold in a few local places. A place called Burrow, which is a cool Sheffield shop. We were sold in Harvey Nichols eventually.

[Luke Thompson]

Department store.

[James Thompson]

The department store. Can't remember which one.

[Luke Thompson]

Your T shirts were available in some shops in London and stuff?

[James Thompson]

Oh yeah, they were available in London.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah. Okay.

[James Thompson]

They were available all over the place.

[Luke Thompson]

A few sort of notable musicians and rock stars were seen wearing your T shirts. They were actually filmed, for example, at the Glastonbury Festival.

[James Thompson]

I remember watching the coolest band in

[Luke Thompson]

the world, Travis, which no one really knows about anymore.

[James Thompson]

They just came and went, didn't they?

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah, they were sort of like the Coldplay of their day.

[James Thompson]

Yeah, they really were.

[Luke Thompson]

Managed to make it to the international levels of.

[James Thompson]

They never made it to the next plateau, did they?

[Luke Thompson]

That's true. But Glastonbury 2000.

[James Thompson]

Was it 2000?

[Luke Thompson]

It was 2000. I remember we were both watching it on TV at mum and Dad's house. Yeah, it was one of those days when we were holed up in your bedroom watching Glastonbury on a black and white television. And we were watching it and the headline act of the whole festival, I mean, bearing in mind that these days the festival is headlined by the Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen and stuff. The headline act of the festival, they came on, it was Travis. They were singing their big hit, why Does It Always Rain on Me? And what was he wearing? He was wearing one of your T shirts.

[James Thompson]

That's probably on YouTube. I've never looked that up, actually.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah, Travis.

[James Thompson]

And he'd adapted it. I mean, it was very weak, to be honest, but the T shirt was one of those home taping is killing music T shirts. What's that? There's a logo that used to be on the back of record labels and it's common now. You see them all over the shop. But at the time I don't think anyone had really done it. I hadn't seen it on a T shirt anyway, so it's no big deal. But the T shirts were really high quality, so it was almost like a slightly trashy slogan on a really high quality, well made, sort of made in UK as well. They were made in Sheffield. They weren't imported from China or whatever. It's really good stuff, quite expensive to buy anyway, blah, blah, blah. He was wearing one of these T shirts, but he changed it to freeing. Home taping is freeing music.

[Luke Thompson]

Did he really?

[James Thompson]

Yeah. Like how ironically unironic.

[Luke Thompson]

I bet he's. He regrets writing that now. It looks so retarded now that Spotify and Bit Torrenting is. Has taken away all of his earnings from those records. But he doesn't think the home taping is freeing music now. Maybe he does maybe just done it

[James Thompson]

by crossing out taping and writing freeing in his own badly done marker pen. But anyway, let's not detract from that. Travis were very successful and they wore your T shirt. It's quite weird seeing on tv.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[James Thompson]

But the whole T shirt thing, I don't want to go into great detail. It went slightly tits up, as these things often do.

[Luke Thompson]

It went pear shaped.

[James Thompson]

It went pear shaped. I won't go into the reasons why, but just so you know, sometimes when you get into business with a friend, it's not always the best thing. And also, I wasn't particularly business minded, so it got to a stage where I wasn't. I was in the dark, basically, as to what was going on with the business, even though I was in charge of design and my friend was in charge of sales, essentially is how we broke it down. He did do quite a lot of work. He did a lot of. He had a car. He did a lot of legwork. So I can see he might have felt a bit unfair that I wasn't doing my fair share. But there was never really the proper discussion, even though I tried.

[Luke Thompson]

Artistic differences.

[James Thompson]

Artistic differences are also. Financial differences, you could say, financial irregularities.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay, right, what's your next musical choice? This is number six now, isn't it? So let's. Let's move it along. Number six.

[James Thompson]

All right, I'm gonna go with Goldie and Saints angel because drummer bass is another brilliant force of music. A musical force, rather, that I've been really into for a long time, since I first heard it. I first heard it in about 93 or something on tape. My friend lent me a Groove Rider tape, which.

[Luke Thompson]

Groove Riders a DJ and all we knew about it.

[James Thompson]

Well, I wasn't really up on rave or hardcore music, but it was just this name and this incredible music, which I have never heard the likes of before. And it was just when hardcore, which is kind of like. Think the prodigy rave music, was evolving into jungle and drum and bass, which is a lot darker, a lot more kind of dub inspired. So a lot more minimal, sparse, scary. A lot of it is very dark and really, really, really atmospheric, like nothing you've ever heard. And it's really stood the test of time, I think. A lot of drum and bass and jungle compared to house and techno and a lot of other stuff from that time sounds really cheesy now.

[Luke Thompson]

You could even say it's. It's timeless, which, ironically, is the name of the album.

[James Thompson]

Hugh Goldie, and this is Saint angel.

[Music Excerpts / Song Vocals]

Sa. It.

[Luke Thompson]

Frankly, James, I think that a lot of my listeners, some of them will agree with you that that's incredible stuff. But some of them will think that's just scary and weird and dull.

[James Thompson]

People like horror films. You can have horror music as well.

[Luke Thompson]

Really?

[James Thompson]

Is that incredibly funky? It's. It's dark and funky.

[Luke Thompson]

There is. It may seem at the beginning to be brutal and cold and scary, but in fact, it sort of resolves itself

[James Thompson]

in the last third.

[Luke Thompson]

There's a lot of soul and a lot of sort of yearning. It's like jazz. It's like Miles Davis kind of jazz, really.

[James Thompson]

Okay, then it's just brutally hardcore played through a loud sound system. You know, it's like a physical experience.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah, it is.

[James Thompson]

A physical experience.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay, so after the T shirt business and all that stuff, you, you did move to London ultimately and you were.

[James Thompson]

God, I actually. Probably with the help of my mum and dad, who probably said, come on, sort yourself out, go back to college

[Luke Thompson]

or something, sort your life out. Stop listening to this weird music.

[James Thompson]

Yeah, for God's sake, what's that strange music coming out of your bedroom? So I went back to college and I did a quick one year course at the London College of Printing, which is an elephant and castle, which is a kind of hipster hub now. But those days it was a little bit more grimy. Still pretty hipster though, and did a design course like everyone else. But I'd always been into design. I'd done this T shirt thing. Sorry, I just dropped my pen.

[Luke Thompson]

Sorry. You can pick up the pen if you. It's really important to you. James just dropped a pen and it suddenly became the most important.

[James Thompson]

Well, I kind of forgot I had to talk into the mic. Anyway, so I went to college and I did a graphic design course. I'd already been doing graphics for the T shirt business anyway and I was self taught so I had a head start on everyone else. I did some quite good stuff and you know, kind of one of the. Definitely one of the best students in there from some of the other stuff people came up with. Met a cool guy called Moto, Japanese guy who Luke is mates with now as well. Went to visit him in Tokyo a couple of years later and you know, it led to lots of, you know, good times and I actually off the back of that course. Hang on, have we missed out New

[Luke Thompson]

Zealand when we haven't got to that yet. Look, I know your life better than you do.

[James Thompson]

You do.

[Luke Thompson]

So after doing the design course, you then sort of still living in.

[James Thompson]

I was living in London and guess where I was working Odd bins.

[Luke Thompson]

The wine shop.

[James Thompson]

Yeah, a different one. One in Chiswick.

[Luke Thompson]

So you worked at the wine shop again after you did the design course and you sort of tried to set yourself up?

[James Thompson]

I started doing the odd few little jobs from home, freelance jobs. I learned website design, taught myself, learned flash, which is sadly kind of redundant now, but started getting a few bits of work to supplement my odd bins work. While I was in odd bins, I met a girl called Anna who was a Kiwi chick from New Zealand. And after we'd been going out for a while. I want to condense that after.

[Luke Thompson]

I can condense it. After she. You'd been going out for a while. Her visa ran out so she had to go back to New Zealand. And you went, all right, I'll come with you. Instead of breaking up, I might as well see the world. I'll go to New Zealand. And so you went to New Zealand. You spent two years living in. Living down under in the Antipodes in New Zealand. So what was it like living on the other side of the world in the southern hemisphere for a change?

[James Thompson]

It was brilliant living in Wellington, which is a really cool city. Well, they call it a city city. It's very small. It was great. It was brilliant. Lovely place, lovely people. Can't fault it, really.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah, okay.

[James Thompson]

Got back into skating again. There was quite a good skate scene there. So I had people to skate with. I had some cool flatmates who were really good. Laugh. One of them was a chef. So he was always cooking these amazing roasts. Lived in an amazing house called Number one Thompson street in Wellington.

[Luke Thompson]

Perfect.

[James Thompson]

Check it out. If you live there, if you live near there, have a look. Thompson Street. Number 1 Thompson street in Wellington.

[Luke Thompson]

It was just made for you, wasn't it?

[James Thompson]

And there was a deck, a dick, as they say in New Zealand.

[Luke Thompson]

Dick.

[James Thompson]

Should we all sit on the dick?

[Luke Thompson]

A deck.

[James Thompson]

A deck which is like a kind

[Luke Thompson]

of veranda about a sort of a place outside.

[James Thompson]

So we'd have big barbecues and this chef guy would cook big joints of meat.

[Luke Thompson]

Lots of joints of meat.

[James Thompson]

Lots of joints. It was good fun, good time. I would joined a band while I was there called Cop Car.

[Luke Thompson]

Sort of punk band.

[James Thompson]

A pop punk band or poppy, not too pop punk band that I actually quite like now. At the time, they were never really sort of heavy enough for me. I always thought they could have a bit more distortion in there and be a bit wilder. But listening back to it now, I actually like it quite a lot.

[Luke Thompson]

You also did some design work as well.

[James Thompson]

Yeah, that's a good thing. In the second year, my flatmate left and basically passed me on to her job, which was in house designer at a group of restaurants and other businesses. So I was really jammy. I basically said, get me an interview, go on, go on, go on, go on. Even though I hadn't really had enough experience at that stage. And she said, oh, okay, I don't think you've had enough experience though, James. And I went, yeah, but just get me an interview, go on. So she did and I got the job and did that for the next year. And that really set me up as a new job as a designer and artworker. Artworking is getting stuff ready for Print, not just digital. So it's a slightly different set of skills.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay then, very good. So what's your next musical choice then? At this stage, this is number seven, penultimate.

[James Thompson]

Going right back to the start because this was kind of on a par with the same kind of time. I discovered the Mondays probably at school because Richard Sexty first played me this album. He was a good friend of mine. I used to skateboard with him, Richard Sexty. And he had a cool older brother who had lots of punk and post punk albums. So he introduced me to a lot of 70s, late 70s music. And it was at his that I first heard the Sex Pistols on vinyl. With no feelings.

[Music Excerpts / Song Vocals]

I got no belong to for anybody else you better understand I mean that with myself, myself my beautiful. I don't feel, I don't feel, I don't feeling for anybody else. I don't.

[Luke Thompson]

So what's the appeal of that stuff then?

[James Thompson]

Oh, it's just brilliant, isn't it? Anthemic, you could say. And like doesn't give a toss what you think of it. It's just like going energetic, full of

[Luke Thompson]

like spirit and full of spunk.

[James Thompson]

Spunk and vigor. Okay then, so you can hear, you can hear Steve Jones, he's the guitarist. You could just hear his soul just out through that guitar sound.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[James Thompson]

As far as I'm concerned and going, I exist, you fuckers.

[Luke Thompson]

What was it about the sort of punk music movement that really got you?

[James Thompson]

Well, I don't like the whole movement. I think a lot of it was crap.

[Luke Thompson]

A lot of it was a bit.

[James Thompson]

Especially when people start talking about the punk movement. That's when you know you're in trouble. Okay, well individually I do like a lot of bands. Like you've got to admit it came from America. The Ramones, the Stooges are all both brilliant. The New York Dolls, brilliant, if you like that kind of thing. Johnny Thunders basically inspired Steve Jones to play the way he does on the Pistols records. But Johnny Rotten is just an individual, there's no one else.

[Luke Thompson]

Like the lead singer of the Six Pistols, John Lydon.

[James Thompson]

Yeah, and he's just got so. I mean he's not a traditional singer, but he's got incredible lyrics, incredible delivery and just something new, something completely unique.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay, alright then. So after New Zealand, it didn't work out with the girl, you moved back but you, you came back with another. With another girl.

[James Thompson]

Yeah, we probably shouldn't go into that.

[Luke Thompson]

I'm not going to go into it in lots of detail. But you did come back to London and then you continued working in design and freelance stuff?

[James Thompson]

Yeah, thankfully I was off the off license floor and stopped working at the shop. Stopped working at the shop and went straight to an agency, a few agencies, one of which immediately kind of seemed to say, okay, you're going to be an artworker. Because of my print experience, I've done lots of billboards and stuff for these restaurants and lots of print ads and stuff and lots of work with print. So she was like, right, you're, you're going to be an artworker. You get good money doing this. I'm going to recommend you to someone. You should start next week.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay.

[James Thompson]

And it was like, bish, bash, bosh. Bob's your uncle, Bob's your uncle. You're in. And I was in. I don't, I won't say the name of the company, but it's a big London agency where I'm a freelancer. I freelance around London and a few different places and that's. I always can end up coming back to the same one because they always get me work.

[Luke Thompson]

So it basically set you up from that point. Set me up as it was freelance kind of artist and designer.

[James Thompson]

Key second chance at a career basically based on going back, back to college that second time.

[Luke Thompson]

And then a career defining moment when you designed the logo for the award winning Luke's English podcast.

[James Thompson]

Very true. And did I get paid for that?

[Luke Thompson]

You got. Well, you got paid in a sort of payment. I gave you beer.

[James Thompson]

All the best jobs are done for free. There's a good web page I saw recently. Famous logos and how much they cost

[Luke Thompson]

to design famous logos and how much they cost.

[James Thompson]

Cost to design something like that. Dot com, something like that. You'll find it. And some of them are ridiculous. Like some of the rebranding of Pepsi was like a million dollars to rebrand Pepsi, which.

[Luke Thompson]

Or more.

[James Thompson]

Something ludicrous like way more, I don't know, like $10 million. I can't remember. Something just insane.

[Luke Thompson]

He's suggesting that I should have paid you a million dollars.

[James Thompson]

Yeah, yeah. But some of them, some of them were designed free. The, the Nike logo. The Nike, like Swoosh was cost about $22 or something off a freelancer. It's just amazing the disparity between, you know, prices.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay, let's have your last musical choice then, James.

[James Thompson]

Well, since I'm going to be on this desert island, are we going to get into the luxuries yet? Because we kind of discussed earlier after the music. So what kind of flora and fauna do we have on this island, everything, all of.

[Luke Thompson]

All of the different sort of plants and weeds and things, they all grow on the island.

[James Thompson]

So hemp might be growing on the island.

[Luke Thompson]

Hemp is a natural product that grows freely on this island. Yeah.

[James Thompson]

One use for hemp, you can make rope from it. So I'd want to make a fisherman's net, a fishing net out of coarse hemp rope, hemp fiber. And spend my evenings while away listening to my. My seven records, eight records over and over and over again. And making a fishing net. And then I would go fishing during the day. I'd wade out into the shallows like they do in, I don't know, the Caribbean, I suppose, and just catch fish freehand.

[Luke Thompson]

Right.

[James Thompson]

So to inspire me on my task, I'd like, because it's desert island, the Congos, which is Lee Scratch Perry's band and fisherman.

[Music Excerpts / Song Vocals]

Living in a bamboo hut in a little.

[Luke Thompson]

That was the Fisherman by the Congos produced by Lee Scratch Perry. In Jamaica, you would be living in a bamboo hut, probably.

[James Thompson]

And then there's that really deep voice that comes in at the end, the best Carly. And she bought Don.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay. All right. So how are you going to do on this remote island on your own? You going to be able to handle it?

[James Thompson]

I love it. When do we leave?

[Luke Thompson]

When do I leave?

[James Thompson]

When do I leave?

[Luke Thompson]

You leave imminently, James.

[James Thompson]

I don't know, I. I kind of think I'd quite enjoy it, but I think the, the not knowing would get to me, you know, Am I ever going to be rescued? Am I going to be here forever?

[Luke Thompson]

No one cares. No one's going to rescue you. In fact, everyone's glad. No, I'm joking.

[James Thompson]

I'd start building a raft pretty much straight away or thinking about it. But I don't know if I'd go out and it would just be something to do. I might be quite comfortable, might be quite happy there, but who knows? Maybe after few weeks I'd just crack.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[James Thompson]

But I like to think I could handle it as just with the survival aspect. Getting enough calories a day, that'd be the hard bit.

[Luke Thompson]

Finding food and all that stuff.

[James Thompson]

But if there was plentiful food and fish and hemp to work with, I think I'd probably be. I'd probably be all right.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay. So you also get to choose one luxury item. You get. You get a couple of books. I'm going to give you the Oxford English Dictionary and also the complete works of William Shakespeare.

[James Thompson]

Why not the Bible? That's traditional.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay. In the other, in the BBC show they give you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare. You can have that if you prefer.

[James Thompson]

I think I'd prefer the Bible to the, to the dictionary. Not because I'm religious, but because it's got more of a story.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay.

[James Thompson]

You know, you're going to be pretty bored out there. You need all the entertainment you can get.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay then.

[James Thompson]

And you know what? You never know. I might turn. Might become a God botherer maybe.

[Luke Thompson]

Alright, so you can have the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare and

[James Thompson]

another book, Shakespeare would be great. I would be happy with the complete works of Shakespeare. That would keep you going for a while. One of the book. I thought about this before and it's really, really hard because once you've read a book you kind of want to read another one. It's not like music that you can keep coming back to like a hundred times. You don't even want to read a book. Maybe three times max. But I'll just choose my favorite book of the moment which is over the last few years, which is Jake Arnott's the Long Firm. And Jake Arnott is a London based writer who writes about sort of historical events mainly based in London and Britain. But he writes his own spin on it. He writes about fact as fictional characters. So a lot of his stories are based on real people. But he'll write his fiction around the true events.

[Luke Thompson]

And it's sort of the world of organized crime and politics.

[James Thompson]

Well, it's. Yeah, organized crime, politics, the establishment, there's all sorts of things that touch on things that have been on the news recently. Like dodgy rings of people in power doing dodgy things. And it touches on lots of the whole range of society from lowest society to the high society. It also includes the shadowy underworld of what goes on. And it's quite pulp fiction. It's quite pulpy, but it's actually got hidden depths I think.

[Luke Thompson]

Like crime stories which have like extreme significance in terms of like actual events and things.

[James Thompson]

Yeah. And he does people really well. He writes stories from each chapter is from a different person's perspective and you really feel they are real people and they have real emotions. And he just writes people really well.

[Luke Thompson]

So you could be some good company there on the. On the desert island.

[James Thompson]

Yeah. And there's a good character called Jack the Hat. Have you read the book?

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah, I have, yeah.

[James Thompson]

The Chicka Chicka.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah, he's.

[James Thompson]

He's a sort of a speed dealing old school gangster that drives around in a Ford Zodiac and listens to a

[Luke Thompson]

lot of Reggae music.

[James Thompson]

Well, he ends up in reggae clubs where he meets his clients and he's like quite starts to kind of get into the scar music of the time.

[Luke Thompson]

Right. Okay, so you're gonna have Jake Arnott, the Long Firm. And you also have a luxury item which you can rescue. Which one would you like?

[James Thompson]

Oh my God. I hadn't thought about this.

[Luke Thompson]

Rizzler,

[James Thompson]

maybe my skateboard, please.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay.

[James Thompson]

And I can think about trying to build a mini ramp out of hemp. There's nothing. Well, okay. Out of ply that I find washed up on shore.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay.

[James Thompson]

Because there's a lot of pollution out there in the ocean, so who knows what might wash up, right?

[Luke Thompson]

You can have your skateboard. Just be careful of your shoulder, okay. Don't dislocate it again because there are no hospitals on this island. Unless you make one out of bark or something. I don't know. Alright, so there you go. You've had your luxury item. You've chosen your book. Now, unfortunately, there's been a freak storm, which means that all of your records are being washed away and you only have a chance to save one. One record that you would like to have. Only one. Which one's it going to be?

[James Thompson]

Oh God. You could only choose one. Don't do this to me. Well, it doesn't matter because it's not really going to happen, is it? But I still find it really hard to choose.

[Luke Thompson]

I'm gonna have to hurry you, I'm afraid.

[James Thompson]

I'll go for the Congos and fishermen. Because it would fit.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay.

[James Thompson]

It'd fit the environment. It's. It's just a really. It's got a bit of everything. It's got a bit of soul, it's got a bit of disco, quite a bit of rock and roll.

[Luke Thompson]

I can imagine you with dreadlocks. And I would grow dread.

[James Thompson]

Well, I'd grow one dreadlock at the back maybe. I don't think I'd have so many on the top, but I'd probably be in good physical shape because I wouldn't have any fat on me at all. No, I probably look great actually. Compared to how I do now.

[Luke Thompson]

Working hard with your hemp neck.

[James Thompson]

I'd have a good tan.

[Luke Thompson]

And this track.

[James Thompson]

I'd have these. I'd sort of probably affected a sort of raster style internal monologue. So I'd probably just be like someone crazy. A crazy man.

[Luke Thompson]

A raster style internal monologue. When we gonna go down?

[James Thompson]

We gonna go down.

[Luke Thompson]

We're gonna get some more fish.

[James Thompson]

Now that's a bit racist, Luke doing that accent.

[Luke Thompson]

I don't think it is. I think it's all right.

[James Thompson]

If it was Italian, it wouldn't be racist, would it?

[Luke Thompson]

I think it's fine. There's nothing.

[James Thompson]

Hey, I'm gonna go down the beach and get to some pasta.

[Luke Thompson]

Just to delete this. Just to let you know, there are lots of Italians that listen to this. I'm not sure if there are many Jamaicans. Anyway, thanks very much for being a guest on this show, which is called Marooned, with my music.

[James Thompson]

Thanks a lot. It was kind of weird. Don't really feel like I'm. I deserve this great honor, but thank you very much.

[Luke Thompson]

You're welcome.

[James Thompson]

And when do I get to do yours? Can I interview you?

[Luke Thompson]

Yes, of course you can. Yeah. Okay.

[James Thompson]

Look forward to that. Readers, listeners, you can look forward to that.

[Luke Thompson]

Listen, listeners, if we ever get round to interviewing me.

[James Thompson]

Okay, well, thanks, Luke. Thanks for having me on your show. And let's go. I mean, when do I leave?

[Luke Thompson]

Any minute now.

[James Thompson]

Okay, bye.

[Luke Thompson]

Bye, then. Thanks. Thanks very much, everyone for listening. Speak to you again very soon. But for this episode of Maroon with my music, it's time to say goodbye.

[James Thompson]

Bye.

[Luke Thompson]

Thanks again for listening to Luke's English podcast. For more information, visit visit teacherluke.co.uk.

[Music Excerpts / Song Vocals]

It. Foreign.

[Warby Parker Advertiser]

Hey, this is Paige Desorbo from Giggly Squad, and today I want to talk to you about Boost Mobile. Quick question. Why are we letting our phone bills bully us? Here's a money tip. Stop paying a carrier tax when you bring your own phone and switch to boost mobile's $25 unlimited forever plan. You can unlock up to $600 in savings. That's real life money, not money trapped in a pricey phone bill. $600 is a trip, a shopping spree, or paying something off. Your money belongs in your life. You get unlimited data, talk and text for $25 a month with no contracts and no minimum line requirement. Your phone, your rules. Head to boostmobile.com to switch today and unlock the savings you actually deserve. After 30 gigabytes, customers may experience lower speed. Customers pay $25 per month while active on Boost Mobile Unlimited plan savings claim, based on a January 2026 Boost Mobile survey comparing average annual payments of major carrier customers to 12 months on the Boost Mobile Unlimited plan. Visit boost mobile.com for details.

[Luke Thompson]

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

[James Thompson]

And we are currently deep diving Brandon

[Luke Thompson]

Sanderson's fantasy epic Mistborn.

[James Thompson]

But here's the catch. Steven here has not read Mistborn before.

[Luke Thompson]

That's right. Hey hey. So each week you'll get my unfiltered raw reactions to every single chapter. And along the way we'll do character

[James Thompson]

deep dives, magic explainers, and Steven will even try to guess what's next. Spoiler alert. He'll be wrong.

[Luke Thompson]

Newsflash. I'm never wrong. Episodes come out every Wednesday, and you can find fantasy fanfellas wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode of Luke's English Podcast, consider signing up for Luke's English Podcast Premium. You'll get regular Premium episodes with stories, vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation teaching from me, and the usual moments of humor and fun. Plus, with your subscription, you will be directly supporting my work and making this whole podcast project possible. For more information about Luke's English Podcast Premium, go to teacherluke.co.uk premiuminfo.