Groovemelikeout

- Good morning, good afternoon, all good evening, depending on where you are on the planet. This is Bill Nye, welcoming you to ill advised by Bill Nye, the podcast for people who don't get out much and can't handle it when they do.

It's a refuge for the clumsy and the awkward. If you are socially adept and enjoy healthy relationships, there's nothing for you here. I will attempt to answer your questions without actually making things worse.

I was very moved and touched, that so many people sent so many questions in. It'll take me probably longer than I'm gonna live to answer them all, but we're gonna start right now. So let's hear one.

(upbeat music) - Hello there, Bill. My name is Will, I am based in East London. I have a question for you and that is related to my marriage next year in Tuscany.

I am very much looking forward to it. The venue is fantastic. I very much love my fiance. So so far so good, but I am unfortunately, but a pasty Englishman and very ill-suited to high temperatures

and by that I mean anything above 25 degrees. I'm afraid to say, my question is how can I ensure that I exude the sophisticated and relaxed and demure vibe or that I intend to have it my wedding? Well battling this fiendishly high heat.

My fiance is very lucky she does not have that problem. Any advice on this would be greatly received. Thank you, Bill, you are my only hope.

“- Well, Will, I feel you as I think generation,”

why used to say, I feel you. I also being largely my wish have a problem with anything above 25 degrees.

I'm not built for that and I've never had a sun tan

in my life. I once went septic in the sun. I fell asleep on a beach and I had open sores over my body for the whole of the holiday and my friends in inverted commas at night in the barn where we were living.

They would wait till I'd got into the sleeping bag very tentatively, you can imagine. And then they would roll me around the barn floor for a laugh while I screamed in pain. That's as near as I ever got to any kind of sun,

sun, whatever you call it, sun tan. It was more a kind of pink, it's like the surface of the moon. I mean, my back was like, it was just horrendous. So I understand where you're coming from. This is not going to happen to you, Will, Connor.

The wedding's gonna go fine.

The thing about weddings is they always work out.

And the big news is,

“the important factor in your question is the fact”

that you love your feel, say, very, very much. That's all she wrote, everything's gonna work out fine. And she must already love you, even though you are vulnerable in that regard. If she wanted a guy who was easy and relaxed in the sun,

she would have found one, but she found you. And also, with all due respect, you can't have everything. You don't know me. I mean, those guys that are easy in the sun, you know, I've never really felt relaxed around them.

I don't know how that happens. They're the kind of people that were, you know, loafers and no socks. And they have tanned ankles.

I mean, never trust a man who's got tanned ankles.

We're crying, I don't know, that's real. But I guess you buy a hat. You don't go out. You never ever, ever, I never walk in the sun. I always walk in the shade.

I walk a lot. And I often, I navigate by shadow. And I would take a long way around, so that I can walk on that side of the street. I will walk around a block and unnecessarily long,

block in order to stay in the shadow. And you need a decent hat. You need a decent Panama or something like that kind. And also, don't let anyone persuade you into linen. Often when decent straightforward,

right-thinking, English people go into hot places, they are persuaded into wearing linen, which is obviously, you know, wrong. Women can wear linen, but men forget about it. I've made TV series.

I've made whole films in very, very hot countries. And no linen has ever had contact with my flesh. I went to India and made two films in India. No linen was harmed during the making of those two films. Hello, Bill.

My name is Ernesto from Chicago. And I was wondering, how do you bounce back from having to be social and engaged with people? I find it takes me several days to kind of get my energy back and to not feel so drained.

“What advice do you have to maybe help with that process?”

Thank you.

In earlier times, I used to find, like you,

“and I think you sound like somebody considerably younger than me.”

And I also used to have a kind of a literal hangover, but a real kind of physical hangover from social events and social occasions because I would get so tense and so wired, usually because I drank too much coffee.

I used to drink an enormous amount of coffee. I would drink a double expresso prior to meeting someone in order to make myself more interesting. And I don't know if I consciously thought that every time it became a reflex.

And I would drink a count of Coca-Cola, which I thankfully don't do anymore, which is of course preposterous, like I get any more interesting because of a stimulant. But anyway, the answer to your question is hard to find.

I'm now easier in public situations in social situations. I tend to try and ask questions and just inquire after people's health and let them do the talking. The danger for someone like myself who does not come easily

“to these affairs is that when you do start talking”

to talk too much and I would open up unnecessarily and find myself confiding in people

that I probably never gonna meet again.

I try now to let other people do the talking really. And I get there early and I leave early. So I don't unless it's offensive to somebody. If it's somebody's birthday or something, I'll be the first to arrive.

I'll be the first to arrive. I will honor whoever I'm required to honor. I will stay for a reasonable amount of time, but I can hour. And then I will leave without saying goodbye.

I would just drift out the door. So I do as little of it as possible. And then I try and time it so I can go for dinner. So I will leave the party or the book launch or whatever it is you're going to.

And then I always take a book, well,

I always take a book every way, but so always carry the book

and then I take the book to dinner. But I would never be there longer than an hour and a half. So unless it's a dinner party, it was a dinner party. Well, you know, you're trapped. There's only two people whose houses I go to

for dinner apart from family. And I'm fortunate that no one invites me to dinner parties. I don't quite why that is. I'm not complaining, I'm rejoicing, but you'll have to wait a few years for that to happen.

But yeah, get there early and leave early that would be my major contribution. And just let them do the talking. Just ask questions and watch it like TV. Just watch it like TV.

And don't take responsibility for people's bad. And I used to go to dinner parties, and somebody would obviously be having trouble difficulty in their marriage or something. There'd be sniping at one.

And I would take, I would sort of feel like there was some phone call I hadn't made. Like it was my responsibility or something, which is obviously insane. I'm not necessarily insane, just neurotic.

But I don't take responsibility for other people's difficulties or if they have views that I find unpleasant. I let them, they're over there and I'm over here and it's fine and they don't, I'm not going to catch anything.

I'm basically a medieval peasant who believes that if I stand too close

to somebody who's appalling, I might catch it. But I'm trying to give that up. (upbeat music) Bill, good morning, good evening, or good afternoon from the Netherlands.

Do you think that being bored is a bad thing? I just want to know your opinion. Let's love from Holland. I don't think there's anything wrong with being bored. It's not a moral issue.

It doesn't make you a bad person or anything like that. I'm quite good at doing nothing and quite good at wasting time.

“When I was young, I remember the luxury of being young”

was that you felt that you had lots and lots and lots probably endless time and it was kind of thrilling to waste it and to squander it. And this podcast was kind of build as an invitation

to squander time. And we attempt here to be entirely what you might call inconsequential. It's just really the length of a decent cup of coffee. And so we could help.

You don't have to be bored unless of course you find me boring. And that's also not a moral issue and I don't take it personally, he lied. My voice has been used. I've mentioned this in audio podcast.

As a sleep aid on lots of occasions. So you could go from being bored to being a sleep. And there's nothing wrong with being a sleep because apparently I'm very handy for insomnia acts. Hi Bill, it's Jonathan from Deal.

What sort of exercise were it's the size of the student?

Thank you. I'm very flattered by your question.

“Most people, when I say that I exercise and this is a real thing.”

In fact, people, as I speak in this room are doing it now, they're holding their hands over their face because they're laughing. Just the idea, if you put my name and the word exercise in the same sentence, I promise you, everyone who knows me and some people that don't actually know me at all

burst out laughing. And then the next thing they do is they say, what do you wear? Like I'm going to exercise in a two-piece navy suit or something. And I have to explain that I wear a pair of training trousers.

And somebody said, you mean jogging pants? I said, no, I don't mean jogging pants. I don't own jogging pants. I don't even know what they are. And I wear a series of navy blue t-shirts

and a pair of pomegranate, puma reaching out for sponsorship. Puma trainers. I used to be philosophically opposed to physical exercise of any kind, and I thought it was vulgar of people because it seemed to suggest that they wanted

to prolong their life, which I thought was embarrassing and sort of bad manners.

“And people would always say, but you know,”

it'll make you feel better. It's good for your mind, you know, all this stuff. I thought I was going to smoke until I died.

And also I did have a problem because I was never--

I don't-- I have no history of casual clothing, I don't know after I was 40. And I certainly not, you know, the kind of stuff you're supposed to wear when you train. I mean, it was a consideration I have to admit.

But then I found, you know, funky alternatives to the usual appalling stuff, and it's worked out. But it has actually, you know, it's one of the greatest things, another great thing that's happened to me. And the bit after I've trained on the way to the coffee shop,

which is about, you know, I don't know, 14 minutes, is as good as I probably ever going to feel because you get that thing that everybody used to talk about. It took me months of lying in bed with my phone trying to think of new reasons why I could text my trainer

and say, I can't come. Like I've been up on night, and I can't, oh no, I've just been given a job, you know, just lies.

“And then my trainer said something very simple,”

but turned out to be kind of profound.

He said, why don't you turn up whatever the weather, which was got up, you know? And then that's exactly what I did. Whatever the weather literally and figuratively, I turned up.

And then about, I don't know, a few months further on. I was having breakfast, and I got this hum that went through my body, and I thought, oh, I see. This is what they're talking about. So now I can't get enough of it.

And I don't actually even drag my feet. I used to drag my feet quite a long time. But now I don't even, I don't even do it reluctantly. I did it this morning, actually. And I was in the room getting changed.

And I thought to myself, I'm not in any way resistant to this. I don't mind at all. In fact, you know, I'm happy that it's happening. I'm not looking forward to, you know, the bit when it's over. Although the bit when it's over, as I say,

is sensational. And you get a cup of tea, my trainer gives you a cup of tea. And he knows how to make a cup of tea. It's like, you know, it's deep orange. So yeah, so I've come to the point where I actually,

you know, I take it in my stride. If you want me to be specific about witch exercises, I have no idea. The reason I'm thin is because my father was thin. I mean, in fact, if you look at me, you're looking at my father.

You're looking at my father only, my father. It was very satisfyingly, slightly shorter than I am. But other than that, I'm playing a part at the moment, which is set in 1975. So I'm playing somebody of my age in 1975,

which would have been about the same as my dad. And I'm dressed as my, I mean, by accident, really. But I looked at myself yesterday morning in the trailer mirror. And I was wearing a knitted green waistcoat,

pair of big, pleated gray, heavy trousers, and a marks and spents as shirt and tie. With my hair slipped back in a pair of 1940s glasses. And you're looking at my father. And I sent it to my sister, and she knew me fell off the phone.

She was like, oh my God. 'Cause I didn't put anything under it. She thought her father would come back to life or something. And I sent it to my brother. And they were both like, oh my God, you know.

Anyway, the trainer tells me what to do. My exemplary trainer, Matt Bamford, reaching out for sponsorship, no chance from Matt. He is an exemplary trainer. And the reason that I stayed, you know,

people have given me free membership to, you know, posh gyms where a smoothy costs you 14 quid. The last time I did that, a young man inducted me. And the next day I couldn't get out of bed. And I sent him a bunch of flowers.

And I said, I'm sorry. But this is not for me. I have to go to work. I can't walk, you know. And then the only time it's ever made any sense to me

is when I met Matt, 'cause he doesn't kill me.

he's not, and there's no shouting or anything on. And there's a total absence of mechismo,

“which is essential, 'cause I can't be around that stuff.”

He just tells me what to do. I mean, you know, I don't know what you call it. I do a bit on the floor. I do push-ups, I do a plank now and again. I do squats, pardon the expression.

I do pulling stuff, and I do, I go on a treadmill for a while. But I'm not winning prizes. You know, it's not cosmetic, he lied. But it is, you know, gonna keep me upright.

I'm gonna saunter into my very old age. That's the plan. That's all I want is to be able to swing in and saunter rather than crawl or bend if you're pardon the expression.

(upbeat music) It's time now to turn to the band word list. Words that our listeners want to remove

“from the English language and indeed any other language”

on earth. Uni, I agree, what's wrong with university? University is a very good word.

I always kind of shudder when somebody says uni.

Only a little bit, but I do. Copper, yeah, I agree, what's wrong with cup? Hubby, yeah, for crying out loud. I'm surprised somebody didn't come out with that suit. Quite what's wrong with nozzle as a word, I've no idea.

(sighs) My team who are in thrall to innuendo, which the thing about innuendo is that innuendo itself is an innuendo, which always amuses me. But the word nozzle has reduced my team

to a bunch of giggling messes. I'm refused to ban nozzle, because it's that nozzle is what happens at the end of a hose. (laughs)

Yeah, we're not doing well here with the word nozzle. It's flawed the rum. (upbeat music) And don't forget, if you have a word that you wish to banish from the English language,

please let us know. (upbeat music) This episode's playlist is called, forgive me, groove me like out. That's groove me like out one word.

And it's called groove me like out, because my friend Brendan Thomas Elliott, and I, when we were young, would sometimes sign off with the postmodern ironic ancient GIVE talk reference, groove me like out,

which amused us at the time, and I have to admit still amuses me now. The use of ancient GIVE talk and dragging it into the modern world

has always given me enormous pleasure.

And groove or groove me or groovy were words that, if anyone spoke the word groovy in 1973, you left the room. You didn't wanna breathe the same air as anybody who said groovy.

“I remember the first time anybody ever said to me,”

"Digue later." And at the time I was appalled, but then you see, with time, irony is introduced to the whole affair, and digue later becomes kind of fun. So I have on occasion said to people, "A digue later."

But I always put the T in later, sorry, forgive me, because it takes guts to put the T in later. The first song is from one of my favorite artists, Johnny Gitar Watson. Gitar is in inverted commas, obviously.

And as you may know, I'm a fool for inverted commas and for parenthesis in song title terms.

I get excited, always did as a child, as a young man.

Anyway, Johnny Gitar Watson is someone I want to bring into the modern world, he's not forgotten, but he's not remembered or known by enough people in my view. He's a beautiful guitar player, and there may be more of him coming up in the future.

Anyway, this one is called "Hook Me Up." I think we know where he stands. And the next track is from the incredible Marvin Gaye, and it's an early tune when he was still a Tamil artist. It's called Ain't That Perculia, and people my age will be familiar with it.

It was one of the tunes that we played when I tried to start, what would now be called a pop-up club, above the co-op in the high street in the town where I was born, and we called the club, and it was my idea. We called the club "Stop Making Love,"

which was supposed to suggest that you stop making love between half past seven and half past ten, which is when we had to close, because you were so busy making so much love,

had ever made love or anything approaching that,

we just kept that to ourselves.

“But it was those were the times, you know, "What can I tell you?"”

Anyway, it's ain't that peculiar. Put the kettle on, dance around the kitchen. The next track is from one of the greatest artists of all time, which I'm amazed hasn't been included on any playlists up until now. It's Stevie Wonder, with a song called "I Love Every Little Thing About You,"

and it reminds me of a great Lou Reed lyric, where from a song called "Down at the Arcade," and the lyric is, "The President Called To Give Me The News," I've been awarded the Nobel Prize for rhythm and blues, and Stevie Wonder wants to record one of my songs,

which has always made me feel like, you know, the whole thing might just work.

And the next tune is by Orgon, or Orgon, O-R-G-O-N-E, and it's from an album called "Raw and Direct," and this is a version, a cover of one of my favorite songs called "Be thankful for what you've got." I like this song so much that I actually have a playlist, which consists only of versions of this song,

“and there are, I think, something like a dozen versions,”

but I hadn't come across this version until relatively recently. The final song on this playlist is from "Farrell Williams," the great "Farrell Williams," and it's called "Cristall Clear," and on my phone, it has the poster of the movie "Hidden Figures," I don't know whether it was written specifically for the movie,

but there you are, it's a song I've always liked,

and I did get to meet Mr. Williams on one occasion, but it was one of those occasions where I was just rendered lemon-like, in other words, I just went into Starsis and couldn't think of anything to say, and I left it at that. So anyway, that's the list, so I hope you like it.

Remember, you don't have to make a note of these things because they're all in a show notes, and there's a link to Spotify. This episode's book, or Book of the Week, is by Joan Didion, I've read everything I think by Joan Didion, and this one is called "Where I Was From," and she's from Sacramento in California.

She's a wonderful writer, I struggled with the decision about which of her books I should choose, and I've chosen this because it might persuade you into reading other of her books because she writes so beautifully, but also it's a very singular book,

“and it's a very, it's kind of what you need to know about America before you start.”

And this is a short passage from it, 100 years ago, our great, great grandparents were pushing America's frontier, westward to California, that's a quote. "So began the speech I wrote to deliver at my eighth grade graduation from the Arden School outside Sacramento.

The subject was our California heritage. Developing a theme encouraged by my mother and grandfather, I continued, made rather more confident than I should have been, by the fact that I was wearing a new dress, pale green organ de, and my mother's crystal necklace.

It was in June 1948, the pale green of the organ de dress was a colour that existed in local landscape, only for the few spring days when the rice verse showed. The crystal necklace was considered by my mother, an effective way to counter the valley heat. Such was the blinkering effect of the local dream time that it would be some years

before I recognised that certain aspects of our California heritage did not add up. Starting with, but by no means limited to, the fact that I had delivered it to an audience of children and parents who had for the most part arrived in California during the 1930s. Refugees from the dust bowl.

It was after this realization that I began trying to find the "point" of California to locate some message in its history. I picked up a book of revisionist studies on the subject, but abandoned it on discovering that I was myself quoted twice. You will have perhaps realised by now a good deal earlier than I myself realised

that this book represents an exploration into my own confusions about the place, and the way in which I grew up, confusions as much about America as about California, misapprehensions and misunderstandings so much a part of who I became that I can still to this day confront them only or bleakly. That's the snippet and I just see how you feel,

but persevere it's a significant book.

and haven't made things worse. So I'll see you next time.

I'm in the meantime. Stay loose.

“Illetized by Bill Nye is produced by Alice Williams and Kierre Greggody,”

and the associate producer is Angelic Soma, pronounced Soma,

and it's an iPod Studio production and Bill Nyeji,

“and that's the correct way to pronounce his name. I have been”

confidently assured, is the next decade of producer.

Copy-Fi can be a real help.

“Start your test today for a new year of your promotion.”

On Copy-Fi.de/record.